medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (16. January) is the feast day of:
1) Honoratus of Arles (d. 430). H. (also H. of Lérins; in French, Honorat or Honoré) came from a Gallo-Roman family of consular distinction, locality unknown. At some point near the beginning of fifth century he chose an ascetic lifestyle, much to the dislike of his father and of most of his family. He and his similarly inclined older brother St. Venantius ("of Lérins"; 30. May) traveled by sea for reasons unknown to Achaia, where V. died of an illness shortly after their arrival at the port of Modon on the Peloponnese and where H. too was gravely ill. Having returned through Italy to southern Gaul, H. spent some time as an hermit in the vicinity of Fréjus, whose bishop later ordained him priest. One may visit a cave on Cap Roux (Var) called the Sainte-Baume that is said to have been H.'s hermitage:
http://tinyurl.com/2f2zl9
In about 410 H. and his hermit friend St. Caprasius of Lérins (1. June) settled on the island of Lerina (today's Saint-Honorat in the Iles de Lérins) between Cannes and Antibes. There he attracted disciples and together they formed what became the famous monastery of Lérins. H.'s correspondents included his contemporary monastic founders Sts. John Cassian and Paulinus of Nola. In about 420 H. visited his family and brought back with him to Lérins his younger relation, St. Hilarius of Arles (5. May). In 427 H. was made bishop of Arles. When he died a few years later Hilarius succeeded him at Arles and wrote a _laudatio_ of him (BHL 3975) that is our chief source for details of H.'s life. H. was buried in Arles' ancient cemetery, the Alyscamps; in 1391 his remains were translated to Lérins.
In the eleventh century the Victorines of Marseille expanded a church dedicated to H. in the Alyscamps of Arles. This structure was rebuilt in the twelfth and perhaps early thirteenth century when the place had become an abbey. A French-language page on the site (one view) is here:
http://www.memo.fr/LieuAVisiter.asp?ID=VIS_FRA_ARL_001
Some single views of the exterior (showing later additions):
http://tinyurl.com/36pyhf
http://galenfrysinger.us/1/france/arles51.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2z2vew
http://tinyurl.com/ypx6gj
A ground plan and several views (mostly of the interior) are here:
http://www.romanes.com/Arles/StHonorat/
More views of the interior:
http://tinyurl.com/34xz37
http://galenfrysinger.us/1/france/arles53.jpg
http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3978795
http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3974898
http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3978773
http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=4063623
The monastery at Lérins became Benedictine in 660. It suffered from attacks by Muslim raiders in the early Middle Ages and by Genoese pirates in the later Middle Ages. A fortified monastery was built from the eleventh century through the fourteenth and underwent various later modifications down through the nineteenth century when Violet the Duck (as he has come to be called on this list) took it in hand. Here's a distance view:
http://tinyurl.com/ywer7z
A somewhat closer view:
http://tinyurl.com/2urww8
Two views of the upper cloister:
http://www.voyagevirtuel.info/galerie/displayimage-2106.html
http://www.voyagevirtuel.info/galerie/displayimage-173-302.html
2) Fursey (d. 649). The Irishman F. (also Fursa, Fursy; in Latin, Furseus) was a monastic founder in his homeland, in England, and in France. According to his later seventh-century Vita (different versions: BHL 3209-3210; known to Bede in some form), he experienced two visions while still in Ireland at his first foundation; in the second of these he had an out-of-body experience in which angels took him to a place where he saw souls of the damned undergoing punition. In about 639 he traveled to East Anglia and founded a monastery at a place identified with today's Burgh Castle (Norfolk), left it in charge of his brother St. Foillan (31. October), spent some time as hermit, and fled to Francia during an invasion of East Anglia by the pagan king Penda of Mercia.
In Francia F. was welcomed by the Austrasian mayor of the palace, Grimoald, and founded another monastery at today's Lagny-sur-Marne (Seine-et-Marne) where he soon died. His cult was immediate. Grimoald had him interred not at Lagny but at a monastery at Péronne (Somme) whose foundation he was then completing. F. is Péronne's patron saint.
Two scenes of F. from later medieval illuminated manuscripts:
A. Fursey and a monk, from a fourteenth-century Vie des Saints (Paris, BNF, Ms. Français 185, fol. 218):
http://saints.bestlatin.net/gallery/fursey_bnfms.htm
B. Fursey on his deathbed, his soul received by two angels, from a late thirteenth-century Legenda Aurea (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, Ms. HM 3027, fol. 133), expandable image:
http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/ds/huntington/images//000902A.jpg
3) Giovanna of Bagno di Romagna (d. ca. 1105). G., who has been claimed by the Camaldolese as one of their own, was a pious laywoman who spent many years as a _conversa_ in the monastery of Santa Lucia di Bagno high in the Appennines of the Romagna near the latter's border with Tuscany. She is said to have been a companion of St. Agnes of Bagno di Romagna (29. January) and to have been buried in a stone coffin in her monastery. In 1287 she was translated in a marble sarcophagus to the parish church of the BVM at today's Bagno di Romagna (FC); the latter became Camaldolese in 1298. In G.'s her remains were placed in a new container and translated to a newly created chapel in the same church. Her cult was confirmed in 1823.
Herewith a few exterior views of Bagno di Romagna's basilica di Santa Maria Assunta (as that church is now called):
http://tinyurl.com/3xz5mj
http://tinyurl.com/2535kw
http://tinyurl.com/35a5qz
http://tinyurl.com/yq9c5e
G. is the town's patron saint.
Best,
John Dillon
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