medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (29. November) is the feast day of:
1) Demetrius and Blasius (d. 1st cent., supposedly). In 1193 the bodies of these previously unknown saints were discovered beneath the crypt of the cathedral at Veroli in today's Lazio, then in the papal state just north of its border with the kingdom of Sicily. Whereas it might at that that time have been possible to think of D. and B. as late antique Christians venerated as saints, their true identity was revealed in 1209, when the body of the disciple St. Mary Salome (24. April) was miraculously discovered in or near the same town. Clearly, D. and B. were this saint's companions who had accompanied her to Italy shortly before her death. In some versions of the story they are said to have been martyrs. Their relics are kept in the crypt of Veroli's Basilica di Santa Salome, an early fifteenth-century replacement (with significant early modern additions) for a church dedicated to S. that had been badly damaged in the earthquake of 1350.
About two kilometers outside of Veroli is the chiesetta della Madonna degli Angeli, built on the spot where according to tradition Salome (accompanied of course by D. and B.) met the first pagan she was to convert to Christianity, a young man named Maurus who afterwards buried her. This church has frescoes attributed to Antoniazzo Romano (1430-ca. 1508) depicting the principal figures of the legend. On the right wall are Maurus and D. (depicted as a pilgrim):
http://tinyurl.com/yjjgb6
and on the left are B. (similarly depicted) and Salome:
http://tinyurl.com/ykhybm
Some spoilsports wish us to believe that the loculi in which D. and B. were said to have been found originally contained relics believed to have been those of identically named well-known Eastern saints.
2) Radbod of Utrecht (d. 917). The Frankish noble R. (In Dutch, Radboud) was descended on his mother's side from Radbod (d. 719), a pagan king of the Frisians. He was educated at the cathedral school at Köln, where a maternal uncle was archbishop, and later at the court of Charles the Bald. In 899 he became bishop of Utrecht; incursions by Northmen soon caused him to remove his seat to Deventer. As bishop he lived very austerely, succored the poor, and wrote at least some of the prose and verse literary works (saint's lives, sermons, hymns, etc.) ascribed to him. R.'s immediate successor erected an altar over his grave at Deventer; his Vita by a canon of Utrecht followed within the same century.
This sarcophagus discovered in 1960 or 1961 during excavations at the Lebuinuskerk (Grote Kerk) at Deventer is said to have contained fragments of three crania, one of which has been pronounced as R.'s:
http://home.wanadoo.nl/lebuinus/mainframe/subframe/sarcof.jpg
A view of this church's crypt:
http://www.nieuwsbronnen.com/veronakapel/deventer.jpg
Above ground, the church was rebuilt in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Some views:
http://www.vbmk.nl/lebuinuskerk/lebuinuskerk.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/3bg6u3
http://www.aantven.nl/images/photos/devleb.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2s4dly
A page on the church's building history:
http://tinyurl.com/2qzegp
Here's a black-and-white view of R. as represented in fresco in the originally fifteenth-century Broerenkerk at Zwolle (Ov) in The Netherlands:
http://tinyurl.com/yojp4s
While we're here, a page of views of that church:
http://overijsselchurches.tripod.com/zwollebroerenkerk.html
Best,
John Dillon
(Demetrius and Blasius very lightly revised from last year's post)
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