medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (11. November) is the feast day of the following two less well known saints of the Regno:
1) Mennas of Samnium (also Menas; d. ca. 583).
Gregory the Great (_Dial_. 3. 26) tells us that M. was a poor hermit in the province of Samnium (essentially, the area around Benevento) who raised bees for the sustenance their honey would provide. With but a slight wand, he was able to drive off bears who would come from a nearby wood to steal the honey. A Lombard who had the same inent was less fortunate: reprehended by M., he fell victim straight away to diabolic possession. The report of this incident caused others to supply M. with charitable gifts, for which M. repaid them by rebuking them when they had been seriously sinful. One such sinner, who had carried off a nun and compelled her to marry him against her will, feared to visit M. in person. Instead, he sent a gift that was put before M. together with those from others. But M. rejected this one gift, rebuking the absent donor in language that caused others to believe that he had perceived his sin and thus greatly to fear the power of this holy man.
In a comment that follows, Gregory includes M. in a category of martyrs who though not having been killed for their faith nonetheless suffered secretly. That certification of M.'s sanctity, together with the cult that developed in the eleventh century, may be what underlies his designation as a saint in the latest version (2001) of the RM. Previously, the RM had called him blessed, though at today's Caiazzo (CE) and Sant'Agata dei Goti (BN) in Campania M. has been a saint from the late eleventh century onward.
In the 1090s the count of Caiazzo (also in the Beneventan area) wished to have the body of an important saint for a church he was erecting there. The abbot of Santa Sofia in Benevento and the abbot of the monastery at San Lupo, who were in town to negotiate the count's protection of their properties, were made aware of his need for such a relic. Lo and behold, a body said to be that of M. was discovered on Monte Taburno in a ruined chapel near today's Vitulano (BN) and in a series of translations was brought first to Caiazzo and then, some years later, to Sant'Agata dei Goti. Whereas M.'s presumed remains now repose in a chapel in the cathedral of Sant'Agata dei Goti, his chief monument is the little church dedicated to him in the same town.
This church, San Menna, began in the late eleventh century as a chapel serving the town's castle. It was consecrated by Paschal II in 1110. Badly damaged in the Conza earthquake of 1980, it was restored in stages, served for a while as an exhibition hall, and was returned to Christian worship two years ago. It boasts an impressive mosaic floor variously said to be of the late eleventh century or of the twelfth. A view of the upper part of its portal is here:
http://tinyurl.com/swuk2
And various views of its interior are here (some from its recent period of secular use):
http://www.oldcalabria.it/adotta/adotta.php?comune=7&adotta=200
http://web.tiscali.it/sanniofilmfest/mostrefoto2.jpg
http://web.tiscali.it/sanniofilmfest/mostrefoto3.jpg
http://web.tiscali.it/sanniofilmfest/mostrecolodxmddl.jpg
Leo Marsicanus' (Leo of Ostia's) Translations and Miracles of M. (BHL 5927, 5929) are edited by Hartmut Hoffmann, "Die _Translationes et Miracula s. Mennatis_ des Leo Marsicanus", _Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters_ 60 (2004), 441-81.
2) Bartholomew of Grottaferrata (B. of Rossano; B. the Younger; d. 1055).
B. was a member of Nilus of Rossano's community both at Serapo near Gaeta and at the new foundation near Rome that became the famous Greek abbey of Grottaferrata. He was the abbey's fourth abbot and the first of its series of important eleventh- and early twelfth-century hymnographers. He has also been credited -- not very convincingly -- with the Bios of Nilus of Rossano (BHG 1370), a truly great saint's life written in a period of major Lives. His own Bios is BHG 233. One of B.'s hymns is for the dedication in 1024 of the abbey church (which he had erected). A brief English-language history of the abbey of Grottaferrata is here:
http://www.abbaziagreca.it/en/origini.htm
and a better Italian-language one is here:
http://www.hurricane.it/castelliromani/grottaferrata/snilo.html
together with pages on the abbey's museum:
http://www.hurricane.it/castelliromani/grottaferrata/museo.html
and on its architecture:
http://www.hurricane.it/castelliromani/grottaferrata/snilo_archi.html
and on its decor:
http://www.hurricane.it/castelliromani/grottaferrata/snilo_decos.html
The abbey's church has recently been restored on the outside to an approximation of its original appearance; so also its late twelfth-century belltower. A lot of work has been going on the inside as well. A recent publication outlining much of this is Luigi Devoti, _L'Abbazia di Santa Maria di Grottaferrata nel millenario della
fondazione_ (Frascati: Il Minotauro, 2004), a copy of which is described here:
http://www.artbooks.com/titles/042/Item42415.htm
Two front views of the church are here:
http://www.949.it/foto/grottaferrata/5.jpg
http://www.949.it/foto/grottaferrata/6.jpg
The wooden panels of this portal are said to be of the eleventh century:
http://www.949.it/foto/grottaferrata/4.jpg
Grottaferrata was built in and over what had originally been the cryptoporticus of a Roman villa. Two views showing this adaptation are here:
http://www.abbaziagreca.it/images/arte/crypta/crypta.jpg
and here:
http://www.arbitalia.it/speciali/san_nilo_millenario/0407j11a.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post lightly revised)
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