medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Yesterday (29. September) was the feast day of:
Lutwin (d. ca. 713). L. (Liutwinus, Leodowinus, etc.) was the founding abbot, in about 690, of the former abbey at today's Mettlach (Kr. Merzig-Wadern) in the Saarland. His first Vita (BHL 4955), by a monk of Mettlach, tells us that he was a Frank of royal descent who after the death of his wife became a priest and who had endowed churches and founded other monasteries in the diocese of Trier before coming to Mettlach, where he fought heresy and ruled with exemplary virtue. Later L. succeeded an uncle as archbishop of Trier and later still became in addition bishop of Reims and Laon. He died on this day at Reims and was at first buried there. When, some time later, his body was being brought by boat to Trier for interment there the vessel turned miraculously from the Mosel into the Saar and of L.'s own volition went instead to Mettlach, where further miracles proclaimed him a saint. Thus far this Vita.
The Alter Turm (Old Tower) at Mettlach was built in the late tenth century as L.'s burial chapel. Herewith a couple of views of this structure, which was expanded in the fourteenth century and restored in the nineteenth:
http://tinyurl.com/2sumuh
http://tinyurl.com/2qnonv
The abbey was secularized in 1802. L.'s relics, which in the later Middle ages had been translated to a chapel in the abbey church, now repose in the nineteenth-century parish church at Mettlach dedicated to him. The same church also houses this restored late fifteenth-century statue of L.:
http://www.skoczowski.de/html/kirchen_3.html
A German-language account of the statue's history is here:
http://www.lutwinuswerk.de/pageID_615271.html
Best,
John Dillon
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