medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (19. February) is the feast day of:
1) Quodvultdeus of Carthage (d. ca. 450). Today's first saint of the Regno was a disciple of St. Augustine of Hippo who at some point in the 430s became bishop of Carthage. When, after the Vandal seizure of that city in 439, he had declined to renounce Catholicism, he and many of his clergy were ejected and sent abroad in what Victor of Vita says were unseaworthy vessels. Arriving safely at Naples, Q. settled in as an exile in Campania, writing sermons and other works and warning all of the barbarian peril. If he is the author, as people now tend think, of the _Liber promissionum et praedictorum Dei_, he was living in Naples during the papacy of St. Leo I (440-51). Q.'s date of death and place of burial are unknown.
Most of Q.'s writings were until relatively recently ascribed to Augustine or to Prosper of Aquitaine. Here, ascribed to the former, is the beginning of his _De quattuor virtutibus caritatis_ in an eleventh-century manuscript in in the collections of the Free Library of Philadelphia (ms. Lewis E 20):
http://tinyurl.com/33ap99
2) Barbatus of Benevento (d. 682?). Today's second saint of the Regno is the legendary apostle of the Lombards of the duchy of Benevento, whose warrior class is presented in his ninth-century Vita not as Arian but but rather as pagan. After a brief mention of B.'s miracles, this Vita (BHL 973; later re-workings) focuses on his saving of the city of Benevento, of which he is said to have been bishop, from assault by Constans II (this would have been in 663) and on his subsequent suppression of a snake cult favored by Lombard nobles. The date of B.'s death is guesswork based on data from the Vita. Tenth-century frescoes depicting scenes from B.'s episcopacy survive in his former chapel (now part of the pseudo-crypt housing the diocesan museum) in Benevento's cathedral.
In 1124, during a rebuilding of the cathedral, relics said to be B.'s were found under the main altar. Later in the same century, king William I (1154-66) gave B.'s relics along with those of many other saints to the abbey of Montevergine near today's Mercogliano (AV) in Campania. The diocese of Benevento also claims to have relics of B. Montevergine's set is kept in the abbey church's cripta di San Guglielmo (of Vercelli).
In 1015 a now-vanished monastery dedicated to B. was founded at today's Pollutri (CH) in southern Abruzzo. Shown here is one of its original possessions, the church of Santa Lucia at Pollutri's _frazione_ of Civita:
http://www.parsifalcoop.it/images/presenze/s.%20barbato.jpg
First mentioned from 1074 is a church dedicated to B. at today's Roccaravindola, a _frazione_ of Montaquila (IS) in Molise, now a ruin. Here's a view:
http://tinyurl.com/25rf73
A plan and an Italian-language discussion are at no. 3 on this page:
http://www.sanvincenzoalvolturno.it/pg/sez7_l_0.htm
In 1115 a monastery of Benedictine nuns was established in Oria (BR) in southern Puglia and dedicated to B. One of its former possessions is today's masseria di San Barbato near Francavilla Fontana (BR) in the upper Salento.
A church dedicated to B. is attested at today's Casalattico (FR) in southern Lazio from 1305. Hiding behind this more recent facade is its successor of 1517, Casalattico's present parish church:
http://tinyurl.com/2cb6df
B. is Casalattico's patron saint. He is also the patron saint of Cicciano (NA) in Campania, where his early sixteenth-century church was rebuilt in the eighteenth century and is now the chiesa dell'Immacolata Concezione.
3) Proclus of Bisignano (d. ca. 970). Today's third saint of the Regno was a disciple of his fellow Greek-speaking Calabrian, St. Nilus of Rossano. According to the latter's eleventh-century Bios (BHG 1370), Nilus chose the learned and very holy P. to be the second hegumen of the little monastery dedicated to St. Hadrian that he had founded on one of his properties. P. was buried at monastery and became the object of a public cult both there and in his native Bisignano.
Though P.'s remains were lost when the monastery was sacked by Muslim raiders in 978/79, the monastery itself was later rebuilt and prospered. Its twelfth-century church of Sant'Adriano survives at today's San Demetrio Corone (CS) in Calabria. An illustrated, Italian-language site on that monument is here:
http://www.arbitalia.it/speciali/sant.adriano/mazziotti_indice.htm
and the Italia nell'Arte Medievale's page on it is here:
http://tinyurl.com/f7j7v
4) Conrad of Noto (or of Piacenza; d. 1351). C. (in Italian, Corrado; in modern Sicilian, Currau [a trisyllable]) was young nobleman from northern Italy who in order to facilitate a hunt started a fire that spread and burned several villages. After someone else had been convicted for this offense and sentenced to die, C. confessed and spent much of his own money in reparations. Parting from his family, C. became a wandering hermit who after spending some time in Malta ultimately settled down at Noto in southeastern Sicily. Here he at first lived in the city proper, where for a while he was joined by Bl. William of Scicli. In the last few years of his life he withdrew to a grotto outside of town. C.'s sanctity was apparent to the Netinese even before his death and an early Vita (in Sicilian, so no BHL number) appeared very shortly afterward.
Inferring from the Vita of 1351 that C. had been a Franciscan tertiary, Sicilian Franciscans claimed him as one of their own. He is so presented in the seemingly later fifteenth-century _Vita di lo beato Corrado_ of Andriotta Rapi, a poem in 410 four-line stanzas that fleshes out the earlier account with details that have since found their way into standard notices of C.
C.'s remains were given a formal recognition in 1485, at which time they were declared to be incorrupt. He was beatified in 1515 with a cult limited to the diocese of Syracuse (extended in 1544, with the title of saint, to all Sicily) and including permission for the formal exhibition of his remains in a silver coffin. Views of the latter are here:
http://www.notobarocca.com/sancorrado/book/pages/f6_jpg.htm
http://www.notobarocca.com/sancorrado/book/pages/f4_jpg.htm
http://www.notobarocca.com/sancorrado/book/pages/f5_jpg.htm
In 1625 Urban VIII confirmed C.'s cult for the Franciscans with a Mass and Office. In the seventeenth century C. was identified as a member of the Piacenzan noble family of the Confalonieri (whence he is now often called Corrado Confalonieri). The patron saint of the city of Noto and of the diocese of the same name, C. is celebrated liturgically today in the ecclesiastical region of Sicily and in the dioceses of Benevento (where he trumps Barbatus) and of Piacenza-Bobbio.
In 1990 the remains traditionally identified as C.'s were publicly exhibited during the septicentenary celebration of his birth. An illustrated account is here:
http://www.notobarocca.com/sancorrado/testi_ostensione.htm
In early modern Maltese hagiography and folklore C. is known as San Kerrew. He is thought to have lived on Gozo, in a cave at today's Qala. In 1937 a skeleton alleged to be his was unearthed there and placed in the crypt of the local church. There's an English-language summary of some of C.'s Maltese exploits towards the bottom of the page here:
http://www.qala.gov.mt/page.jsp?id=22&siteid=1
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post lightly revised and somewhat expanded)
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