medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
15. November is also the feast day of, among others, two saints thought to be of insular Celtic origin but whose cults originated in what is now France:
1) Maclovius of Alet(h) (d. earlier 7th cent.?). A. (Machutes, Machutus, Maclovius; in French, Maclou, Malo; in Breton, Malou) is the eponym of today's Saint-Malo in Brittany. He has three legendary Vitae of the later ninth century, one by a deacon Bili writing for a bishop of St. Malo (i.e. of the diocese of Alet) who ruled in the years 866-72 (BHL 5116, 5116a, 5116b) and two anonymous ones of different length (shorter: BHL 5117; longer: BHL 5118, 5118a, 5118b). These make M. a Welshman from Gwent who received a monastic education, who made sea journeys with St. Brendan and by himself, and who established a monastery on an island near Alet that came to be named for him, evangelized in the vicinity, and served as the local bishop (the anonymous Vitae have him consecrated while still in Britain). According to this tradition, dissension later caused M. to move to Saintes in Aquitaine.
The locale of M.'s death varies. Translations of relics believed to be his were important both in establishing the cult as we know it at Saint-Malo and in spreading it in northwestern France, England, and the Low Countries. Herewith views, etc. of some of M.'s later cult sites.
The originally eleventh-century église St-Maclou in Conflans Ste-Honorine (Yvelines):
http://www.romanes.com/Conflans/
http://www.peniche.com/2idf_conflans3.htm
The largely twelfth-century église St-Malo at Mouen in Tilly-sur-Seulles (Calvados):
Illustrated, French-language account:
http://tinyurl.com/36skby
Views:
http://tinyurl.com/333k35
The cathédrale St-Maclou at Pontoise in today's agglomération Cergy-Pontoise (Val-d'Oise) is originally of the twelfth century. Enlarged in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it became a cathedral with the erection of the diocese of Pontoise in 1966.
View of the facade:
http://tinyurl.com/24j6yk
View of the chevet:
http://fr.structurae.de/photos/index.cfm?JS=56447
Eglise St-Maclou in Rouen (1437-1521; tower over the crossing, 1868):
http://www.rouen-histoire.com/Saint-Maclou/Eglise_Saint-Maclou.htm
http://tinyurl.com/39z9qo
http://www.dejourcommedenuit.net/?showimage=53
http://tinyurl.com/32wwaa
http://www.dboc.net/rouen/oc_rouen_maclou_en.php
Aerial view (segment enlargeable):
http://wikimapia.org/5899668/fr/%C3%89glise_Saint_Maclou
Details:
http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/maclou/maclou.html
http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/maclou/maclou2.html
Windows:
http://www.rouen-histoire.com/Saint-Maclou/index.html
A relatively recent English-language book on this church:
http://www.psupress.psu.edu/books/titles/0-271-01716-3.html
The originally fourteenth-/fifteenth-century église St-Malo at Valognes (Manche), whose nave is a reconstruction following American bombing in World War II:
http://tinyurl.com/yvzxf4
http://tinyurl.com/ysm5dx
View of the old nave at the foot of this page:
http://paroisse-valognes50.cef.fr/eglise_sm.html
The originally late fifteenth-century église St-Malo at Dinan (Côtes-d'Armor):
http://www.linternaute.com/sortir/dinan/image/29785.jpg
http://www.uquebec.ca/musique/orgues/france/dinansm1.html
http://tinyurl.com/ytf4vl
http://tinyurl.com/2lz2m4
The Falkland Islands, first settled by seamen from Saint-Malo, take their name in French and in Spanish (Les Malouines; Las Malvinas) indirectly from M.
2) Sidonius of Normandy (d. ca. 689). S. (in French, Sidoine, Saëns) is the eponym of today's Saint-Saëns (Seine-Maritime) in Normandy. Ninth-century Vitae of other saints refer to him as of Irish origin, a view maintained in his own tenth(?)- and twelfth-century Vitae (BHL 7700, 7701) and consistent with medieval latinizations of the Irish personal name Setna. S. is said to have arrived at the monastery of Jumièges, where he became a disciple of its founder St. Philibert. Later he founded a monastery, still in the diocese of Rouen, that took his name. Destroyed by the Northmen, it seems not to have occupied the site of the later priory of St-Saëns that was a dependency of Fontenelle.
A thirteenth-century arm reliquary of S. from the later priory named for him is shown and discussed here (view expandable):
http://tinyurl.com/2ppk4p
Best,
John Dillon
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