medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (10. December) is the feast day of:
1) Maurus of Rome (?). A Roman saint of the cemetery of Thraso on
the Via Salaria Nova, the young M. has a verse memorial by pope St.
Damasus I (_Epigrammata Damasiana_, ed. Ferrua, no. 44). Legend made
him a son of Chrysanthus and Daria (25. October in today's RM; medievally,
29. November or 1. December) and gave him a brother named Jason. Prior
to its revision of 2001, the RM commemorated M. and Jason on 3. December
as the martyred sons of the tribune Claudius and his wife Hilaria.
2) Eulalia of Mérida (d. 304, supposedly). According to Prudentius, whose
very stylized and probably largely fictional hymn celebrating her
(_Peristephanon_, 3) is our earliest documentation of her cult, E. was a girl
of twelve whose savage martyrdom culminated in her being burned to death.
The late ninth-century _Cantilène de sainte Eulalie_ has her burned and then
decapitated, with her soul flying to heaven in the form of a dove.
A text of Prudentius' poem is here:
http://meta.montclair.edu/latintexts/prudentius/crowns3.html
and an English-language translation is here:
http://tinyurl.com/y54jl6
E. in the heavily restored sixth-century procession of the virgins in
Ravenna's Basilica di Sant'Apollinare Nuovo:
http://tinyurl.com/2fjaat
A text of the _Cantilène de sainte Eulalie_ ("Buona pulcella fut Eulalia"),
with a facsimile of the original manuscript text (Bibliothèque de Valenciennes,
ms. 150, fol.141v) and a translation into modern French, is here:
http://www.restena.lu/cul/BABEL/T_CANTILENE.html
Another text, accompanied by notes on grammar and vocabulary:
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/ofrol-4-X.html
Some views of E.'s church at Mérida (1230, with remains of fifth- and
ninth-century predecessors and over a fourth-century necropolis) in
Spain's Badajoz province:
http://64.251.21.117/pueblos/fotos/00157339.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/turq8
http://www.arteguias.com/imagenes/staeulaliamerida.jpg
The fourteenth-century Eulalia altarpiece belonging to the cathedral of
Palma de Mallorca:
http://tinyurl.com/y2qahx
3) Luke of Melicuccà, bp. of Isola [di] Capo Rizzuto (d. 1114). L. was
born at today's Melicuccà (RC) around the middle of the eleventh
century, when southern Calabria, populated by people of Greek language
and culture, had just ceased to be part of the (Eastern) Roman Empire.
He became a monk, was raised to the priesthood for his merits, and by
1092 was bishop of today's Isola [di] Capo Rizzuto (KR). His Bios,
thought to have been written shortly after his death, makes him out to
have been a peripatetic preacher of note among the Greek communities of
southern Calabria; charter evidence puts him in Sicily as well, preaching
and also ordaining Greek-rite priests. L. also founded a monastery
dedicated to St. Nicholas at Viotorito near Rossano, retired there toward
the end of his life, and died surrounded by his region's bishops and abbots
and by other monks and priests. Miracles both lifetime and immediately
posthumous soon led to his acclamation as a saint and he has been so
considered by the Greek-rite church in Italy ever since. In the latter he is
also sometimes known as Luke the Grammarian. The Latin-rite church in
the dioceses of Oppido-Palmi and Crotone-Santa Severina considers
9. December to be his _dies natalis_ and celebrates him on that day.
L.'s Bios -- also an interesting document for what it says about the
uneasy relations between the Greek church in southern Italy and its new
Frankish overlords -- survives thanks to its inclusion in the great
menologion written for Santissimo Salvatore at Messina in the early
fourteenth century. It has been edited, annotated, and translated into
Italian by Giuseppe Schirò as _Vita di s. Luca, vescovo di Isola Capo
Rizzuto_ (Palermo: Istituto siciliano di studi bizantini e neogreci,
1954). Another annotated Italian translation will be found on the Web at:
http://digilander.libero.it/ortodossia/Luca%20il%20grammatico.htm
L.'s Melicuccà (not to be confused with coastal Melicuccà di Dinami in the
province of Vibo Valentia) has a few very late medieval survivals. But the
only medieval visual I could quickly find from it is this view of the upper town
showing the remains of the originally tenth-century Byzantine castle below
the modern clocktower:
http://tinyurl.com/y3h3ma
Best,
John Dillon
(older posts lightly revised)
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