medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (2. October) is the feast day of:
Modestus, (once) venerated at Benevento (d. 303, supposedly). This
less well known saint from the Regno has a brief but fulsome Passio
(BHL 5983d) by the eleventh-century rhetorician Alberic of Montecassino
that makes him a deacon of Sardinian birth and of noble parentage
and ancestry, possessed of many virtues, and martyred (somewhere)
under Diocletian. It is apparent that Alberic knew either nothing or next
to nothing about M. Assuming for the nonce that tradition rather than
Alberic made our saint a deacon, a Sardinian, and a martyr, we have no
means of verifying that tradition's age or accuracy.
M.'s Passio was written for the Beneventan monastery of San Modesto,
founded under Arichis II between 758 and 774. Early modern
ecclesiastical historians purveyed a legendary translation account
whereby the future pope St. Gregory I persuaded Pelagius II to send M.'s
remains to a Beneventan monastery of Santa Maria ad Olivolam where
subsequently an altar was erected to him; for the sources of this one,
see Franco Bartoloni, ed., _Le pił antiche carte dell'abbazia di S.
Modesto in Benevento (secoli VIII - XIII)_ (Roma: Istituto storico
italiano per il Medio Evo, 1950; Regesta Chartarum Italiae, v. 33), pp.
vii-xii. The monastery of San Modesto lasted in practice until 1820 (in
1926 the title of abbot was granted to the pastor of the successor
parish of the same name). Its church was destroyed in the aerial
bombardment of Benevento in 1943. After the war, a new church of San
Modesto was erected south of the old city. At some point, it was
decided that the M. of this parish was the saint of this name from the
legends of St. Vitus (15. June). When that M.'s cult was suppressed in
1969, the church retained its historic name. But it no longer
celebrates any St. M. The diocese of Benevento does not include M.
among its numerous saints profiled on its website:
http://tinyurl.com/mpavn
(where such worthies as St. Arthellais and St. Cassian of Benevento are
also among the missing).
But the monastery had many holdings and was otherwise influential over
a broad area. Consequently, M.'s cult was disseminated fairly widely. In
some of these places (e.g., Morrone del Sannio [CB] in Molise, where he
is the principal patron saint), M. is still commemorated today. The church
of Santa Maria Maggiore at Mirabella Eclano (AV) in Campania is said to
hold a relic of him. In 1480, remains said to be those of M. were
discovered at the abbey of Montevergine (near Mercogliano [AV]) along
with those of Januarius and other Beneventan saints. Whereas Januarius
was subsequently translated back to Naples (where his presumed remains
had lain prior to his early ninth-century "repatriation" by prince Sico of
Benevento), Montevergine managed to hold onto M., who has an altar
and a display reliquary in the crypt of that abbey's "new" basilica (opened
to the public in 1961).
Alberic's _Passio sancti Modesti levitae et martyris_ is at _Analecta
Bollandiana_ 51 (1933), 369-74.
In the absence of any decent visuals for M., herewith some views, etc. of
the restored thirteenth- or fourteenth-century church of the former
monastery of Santa Maria di Casalpiano, located on a ridge outside of the
aforementioned Morrone del Sannio in Molise:
Front:
http://tinyurl.com/2elly6
http://tinyurl.com/2ran9q
Rear:
http://tinyurl.com/2waoja
Interior:
http://tinyurl.com/2fp3kw
Plan of the church:
http://tinyurl.com/2vaubd
Plans of the monastery:
http://tinyurl.com/2r4amx
Next to this church is the apse of what seems to have been an
eleventh-century structure identified by some as one or the other of
the two churches documented as having existed in this locale in 1017:
http://tinyurl.com/22avtn
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised)
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