medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (23. December) is the feast day of:
1) Servulus of Rome (d. ca. 591). Our sole source for S. is Gregory the Great (_Hom._ 1. 15; _Dial._ 4. 15). S. was a poor paralytic who begged for alms in the portico of the church of St. Clement and who, being tended by his brother and his mother, regularly gave away to other poor what he himself had received. An illiterate, he knew the Bible practically by heart, thanks to his practice of buying manuscripts (Gregory's word is _codices_) of the Bible and of having people read these to him. Despite his sufferings, S. spent his days and nights singing the Psalms and praising God. Singing for the last time as he was dying, he could hear the sound of the celestial choir.
Gregory adds that S. at his burial omitted a pleasing odor of sanctity. Ado read some somewhere, or perhaps merely inferred, that S. had been buried in the church before which he begged. In the later middle ages there was on the grounds of Rome's basilica di San Clemente a separate oratory dedicated to S. This structure was demolished under Sixtus V (1585-90). For what's known about it, see Joan E. Barclay Lloyd, "The Building History of the Medieval Church of S. Clemente in Rome", _The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians_ 45 (1986), 197-223 , esp. pp. 218-20 and (marked as 'D') fig. 8 on p. 208. S.'s presumed relics are now said to repose in San Clemente proper.
The late antique basilica dedicated to St. Clement did not outlast the eleventh century. Parts of it were excavated during rebuilding work on its successor in the mid-nineteenth century. One part of the Tour at this site:
http://www.basilicasanclemente.com/
has a plan of the fourth-century basilica underneath the twelfth-century church, as well as pop-up views of structures (incl. nineteenth-century piers and vaults) and frescoes here. Three better views of early medieval frescoes on this level are Frescoes no. 10-12 on this page:
http://www.hp.uab.edu/image_archive/cr-03/cr-01/index.html
An English-language discussion, with other fresco views, is here:
http://www.op.org/curia/sanclem/50ct05.html
http://www.op.org/curia/sanclem/50ct06.html
http://www.op.org/curia/sanclem/50ct07.html
http://www.op.org/curia/sanclem/50ct08.html
For those not afraid of Danish, there's a detailed discussion (and a plan showing the locations of all the frescoes) here:
http://tinyurl.com/ykrvps
2) Ivo of Chartres (d. 1115). The origins and early years of the canonist I. (Yvo, Yves) are obscure. He did some study at Bec. His appointment to the see of Chartres was confirmed in 1090; before that he had been a canon regular and, from 1078, provost/abbot of the then newly founded canonry of St-Quentin at Beauvais. In 1192 he was briefly imprisoned for his unwillingness to accede to Philip I's intended divorce and remarriage. In addition to sermons and to his formal writings on canon law I. left a very large correspondence on whose manuscript tradition Christof Rolker (Historisches Seminar, Universität Konstanz) is now working. One of I.'s letters, to Adela of Blois, is given here in English translation and in a Latin that one may doubt is entirely his (e.g. 'ecclasire' for 'ecclesiae'; 'consi1io' for 'consilio' [an obvious scanno]):
http://epistolae.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/letter/85.html
Some illuminated manuscript pages of I.'s writings are shown here:
http://tinyurl.com/2gsfq6
as are also some pages from a commentary on the Psalms by a slightly later magister Ivo Carnotensis (on whom see Beryl Smalley, "Master Ivo of Chartres", _English Historical Review_ 50 [1935], 680-86).
Today is I.'s _dies natalis_. His cult is said to have been nearly immediate. The date of his canonization is unknown.
3) Thorlac (d. 1193). T. (Thorlak; Ţorlákur Ţórhallsson) is Iceland's patron saint. Before being consecrated bishop of Skálholt in 1178 he had been abbot of the Augustinian canonry at Thykkvibaer. He opposed simony and lay patronage, was celibate when many Icelandic clerics were not, and left an interesting Penitential discussed here:
http://tinyurl.com/29j56k
Numerous postmortem miracles were ascribed to T. In 1198 the Althing declared him a saint and his relics were enshrined in his cathedral. The shrine was destroyed during the Reformation. T. was papally canonized in 1984.
Best (and happy Holidays!),
John Dillon
(Servulus of Rome very lightly revised from last year's post)
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