medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Today (24. June) is the feast day of:

1)  The Nativity of John the Baptist (d. 1st cent.).

A selection of baptisteries dedicated to J. follows in a separate post.

2)  Rumold (d. ca. 775).  According to his probably late eleventh-century Passio (BHL 7381) by Theodoric of St-Trond, R. (also Rombout) was an Irishman who was ordained priest at Rome and whom divine providence then sent to the vicinity of Mechelen/Malines, where he performed miracles, converted many to Christianity, and founded a monastery before being captured by barbarians and slain at St-Trond (where, says Theodoric, his relics truly are).  Later legend made him the son of a Scottish king and an Irish archbishop before his arrival in Flanders.  Modern opinion is divided between R.'s having been an insular missionary or simply a local hermit.  When in 1775 the skull said to be his was examined it was found to have sustained what was considered a lethal blow to the cranium.

R.'s putative relics were translated at some point in the central Middle Ages to Mechelen/Malines, where they were preserved at a collegiate church dedicated to him.  This building, begun in the thirteenth century, became the city's cathedral in 1559. Herewith a few views:
http://tinyurl.com/2t5saw
http://www.belgiumview.com/belgiumview/tl2/view0001646.php4
And here's an expandable view of a panel painting from the 1490s depicting R. baptizing his successor, St. Libertus:
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/c/coter/baptism.html

2)  Theodulf of Lobbes (d. 776).  In about the year 750 T. became the fifth abbot-bishop of Lobbes in today's Belgian Hainaut.  During his roughly a quarter century in office he greatly increased the abbey's possessions.  It was at his behest that Anso of Lobbes (who succeeded him as abbot) wrote his Vitae of his recent predecessors the sainted abbots Ursmar and Ermin.  T. was the last abbot of Lobbes to have been _chorepiscopus_ as well.

According to Folcwin's tenth-century _Gesta abbatum Laubiensium_, when at some later date the abbey was importuned to transfer to Laon its relics of St. Ermin it elected to send instead the body of abbot-bishop T., who was not yet recognized as a saint.  At Laon T. was venerated as St. Ermin but when after a while the pseudo-Ermin had produced few or no miracles he was returned to Lobbes.  On the return trip T. performed miracles at Valenciennes and so was finally recognized as a saint under his own name.

Today is T.'s _dies natalis_.  Though he is entered for this date in some medieval martyrologies, competition from St. John the Baptist caused late medieval Lobbes to celebrate him on 25. June.     

3)  Bartholomew of Farne (d. 1193).  B. was a north Yorkshire lad of apparent Scandinavian descent whose parents lived in the vicinity of Whitby.  Slow to grasp the onomastic implications of the Norman Conquest (or perhaps unreconciled to the changes that were under way), they named their son Tostig.  Prompted by not entirely friendly animadversions from members of his peer group, they took to calling him William.  W. seems still to have thought of himself as at least partly Scandinavian, for later, after repeated visions in which Christ, the BVM, St. Peter, and St. John the Evangelist urged him as a young man to reform his dissolute life, he moved to Norway where over the course of three years he was ordained deacon and then priest.  When William became Bartholomew is not clear from B.'s near-contemporary Vita (BHL 1015) by G., a monk of Durham.

Returning to England, B. served very briefly (_aliquot diebus_) as a priest in Northumbria before becoming a monk of Durham.  He been there less than a year when in a vision St. Cuthbert brought him to Inner Farne, showed him his oratory there, and told him that this was his destined abode.  B. was allowed to take up residence on the island as an hermit and, with the exception of a brief period when a retired prior also dwelt there, spent the remainder of his life in that place.  B. lived very ascetically, fought with demons, experienced visions, fed a small bird from his table, and protected the eiders that nested on the island and whose kind had also been dear to St. Cuthbert.

B. was buried at the oratory in the sarcophagus he himself had carved.  Miracles were reported at his grave.  Like his contemporary Godric of Finchale, he is an uncanonized saint whose memory was preserved initially by Durham Priory. 

Best,
John Dillon

**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html