medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (7. June) is the feast day of:
1) Paul I, bp. of Constantinople (d. in or shortly after 351). P. had the misfortune of being the Orthodox bishop of Constantinople during a period of Arian ascendancy among the imperial family. Exiled twice and restored both times, he was exiled again in 350 after the death of his latest protector, the emperor Constans I. P. died a few years later in Armenia, supposedly strangled by Arians.
2) Deochar (d. before 829). D. (also Deokar, Dietger) was a hermit in today's Herrrieden (Kr. Ansbach) in Mittelfranken, where he established a Benedictine monastery, served as its abbot, and became an imperial counselor and emissary (_missus_). In 819 he took part in the translation of of the remains of yesterday's St. Boniface to Mainz. In 829 D. participated in the Synod of Mainz. D. was laid to rest in the monastery church, whose originally eleventh-century successor dedicated to St. Vitus and to D. is now a parish church. Views (not awfully good) of this structure are at top left here:
http://www.pfarrverbandherrieden.de/images/4kirchenkreuz8c.gif
and at upper right here:
http://www.wandern-und-geschichte.de/herrieden/kirchen.htm
The church can also be made out behind and to the right of the gate shown here:
http://tinyurl.com/3czb6x
Here's a view of D.'s shrine there (1482):
http://tinyurl.com/2ohtoz
Within a century of D.'s death his monastery passed into the possession of the bishop of Eichstätt. It was converted into a canonry in 888. In the later eleventh century D. was listed as a saint of the diocese. In 1316 some of his relics went to Nürnberg, where they were displayed in a chapel dedicated to him in the church of St. Lawrence (Lorenzkirche). Since the nineteenth century those relics have been in Eichstätt, but the Lorenzkirche in Nürnberg retains its early fifteenth-century Deocarusraltar. Here's what's said to be a panel of it showing D. leading the visually impaired in prayer at St. Boniface's shrine:
http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Deochar.jpg
And here's a view of the altar as a whole:
http://tinyurl.com/2dts37
That's D. in his sarcophagus at bottom center. There's a German-language description of this piece here:
http://www.lorenzkirche.de/kunstwerke/index.html#
D. is a patron saint of the blind and of those with diseases of the eye. He is also Herrieden's patron saint and the third patron of Nürnberg (after Sts. Sebaldus and Lawrence).
3) Herkumbert (d. 830). H. (also Erkanbert) is thought to have come from Mainfranken near Würzburg. He was one of Charlemagne's missionaries among the Saxons. Primarily active along the middle Weser, H. was Minden's first bishop. Here he is at far right on the Golden Altarpiece (Goldene Tafel) of the cathedral of Minden (1220; recently restored):
http://www.amtage.de/Goldene_Tafel_im_Dom/jakobi02_web.jpg
That view is from this German-language page on the altarpiece:
http://tinyurl.com/2ngjk2
Here's another such page:
http://tinyurl.com/2ngjk2
4) Robert of Newminster (d. 1159). The Paris-educated R. is said to have been born at Craven in today's North Yorkshire. In the early 1130s he joined the group of Cistercians who were soon to establish Fountains Abbey and in 1137 he was chosen to head the latter's daughter house, Newminster, founded the following year at today's Morpeth in Northumberland. Reginald of Durham tells us that R. was on good terms with St. Godric of Finchale. Like Godric, R. was never formally canonized. Said in his two Vitae to have been otherworldly and austere, he nonetheless managed to found three Cistercian houses from Newminster. Miracles were reported at his tomb. His cult has been kept alive by the Cistercian order and by the Roman Catholic diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, whose parishes at Morpeth and at Fenham in Newcastle are named for him.
Newminster Abbey is now a ruin. Here's a view:
http://ww2.durham.gov.uk/nd/nsmr/m/N11070b.jpg
And here's the English-language page that's taken from:
http://tinyurl.com/2743p9
And here's another page on Newminster, with an expandable view of the remains of the chapter house door:
http://cistercians.shef.ac.uk/abbeys/newminster.php
Best,
John Dillon
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