medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (1. April) is the feast day of:
1) Agape and Chionia (Chione) (d. ca. 304). A. and C.are said to have been martyrs of Thessaloniki. In their surviving acta they are presented as sisters who had converted to Christianity. Their faith was discovered during the Great Persecution when they refused to partake of food that had been offered in sacrifice to the gods. Hauled before a governor of Macedonia named Dulcetius or Dulcitius, they denounced idolatry and refused to offer sacrifice. A. and C. were executed by being burnt alive.
These saints' Passio (BHL 118; includes their sister Irene, now commemorated separately on 5. April) is incorporated in the greatly synthetic one of Anastasia of Sirmium/Rome. The latter brings together in a single fiction a number of cults from the upper Adriatic and, in the case of these sisters, excites suspicion both by making them residents of Aquileia sent by Diocletian himself all the way to Thessaloniki for trial and by having it be Anastasia who is responsible for their sepulture.
Aldhelm's recounting of these martyrs' Passio in his verse _De virginitate_ is BHL 119. Did this version circulate separately? The parallel account in Aldhelm's earlier prose _De virginitate_ doesn't seem to have a BHL number. BHL 120 is Hrotsvit of Gandersheim's play _Dulcitius_, whose formal title is _Passio sanctarum virginum Agapes Chioniae et Hirenae_ ('The Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins Agape, Chionia, and Irene').
2) Mary of Egypt (d. 5th cent.?). M.'s story is probably too well known to require summation. For those who would like a refresher, an English-language translation of her Bios (BHG 1042) is here:
http://tinyurl.com/23zedz
Some visuals might be nice, though. We could start with M.'s former church in Rome. Dedicated in 872 and deconsecrated in the 1920s, this is now better known as the Temple of Portunus or the Temple of Fortuna Virilis. Picky classicists, the sort who like to refer to the Colosseum as the Flavian Amphitheatre (in Rome), recognize the iffiness of such identifications and prefer to call this building "the oblong temple in the Foro Boario" ("oblong" because there's a circular one there as well). Here are two views of the church of Santa Maria Egiziaca as it will have appeared in the eighteenth century (the second, at least, is from an engraving by Piranesi):
http://www.robertfrew.com/images/F26261.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/3ysx6u
Some more recent views (note the walled-up windows and the parklike surround):
http://tinyurl.com/fjhan
http://www.romeartlover.it/Vasi94f2.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/28od9c
Some representations of M.:
Miniature, Hours of Jean Dunois (between 1436 and 1450):
http://tinyurl.com/38jejw
Wall painting (fifteenth-century) in the Cappella di Santa Maria at the abbey of Novalesa:
http://tinyurl.com/2evzhz
Same, showing location in the chapel (center: St. Mary Magdalene):
http://tinyurl.com/3b4742
Panel painting by Hans Memling (Triptych of Adriaan Reins, 1480):
http://tinyurl.com/2c3l8m
Polychromed statue, Burgos Cathedral, Chapel of the Constable of Castile, Altarpiece of St. Anne (very late fifteenth-century):
http://tinyurl.com/344ued
3) Walaricus (d. ca. 620). According to his closely posthumous Vita (BHL 8762) W. (also Gualaricus, Walric, Valery, and many more) was a native of Auvergne. In about 611 he settled as a hermit on the headland of Leuconay in the Somme estuary. W. attracted disciples and these founded a monastery in whose primitive church W. was buried. In 627 Chlothar II funded new buildings on the site, which became a popular pilgrimage destination and survived several raids by Northmen. Known by the name of its saint, its town is now Saint-Valery-sur-Somme (Somme). In 1066 a duke of Normandy who had assembled a fleet in the immediate vicinity is said to have had G.'s remains publicly exposed in order to obtain a fair wind for his nautical enterprise.
The first view in this set of expandable thumbnails is of Saint-Valery-sur-Somme's mostly sixteenth-century église saint-Martin, said to have twelfth- and thirteenth-century construction in older sections:
http://www.noscotes.com/pagefr/saint-valery-sur-somme.php
Another view:
http://taillefer.ouvaton.org/valery/valery4.html
That porch has some interesting gargoyles. Here's a detail:
http://photosdecindy.unblog.fr/files/2007/11/p1020555.jpg
Better views of the church are here (in the menu at left, select Picardy; when the new matter loads, in the box at upper right select Photos, then in Somme select Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme):
http://www.france-voyage.com/en/
4) Hugh of Grenoble (d. 1132). H. was a canon of Valence of reforming temperament who when still a young man was elected bishop of Grenoble. Disdaining as a simoniac the then archbishop of Vienne, H. chose instead to be consecrated at Rome by pope St. Gregory VII. Intermittently successful at reforming his diocese, he twice tried monastic life instead, first as a Cluniac at La Chaise-Dieu and later with St. Bruno at the Grand Chartreuse, in whose foundation H. had assisted as the local bishop. On the first occasion he was recalled by Gregory and on the second Bruno told him that he really should return to his diocese. At least, that's how prior Guigo I of the Grand Chartreuse relates these events in his Vita of H. (BHL 4016), an important document for early Carthusian history.
Grenoble's église de Saint-Hugues is an essentially thirteenth-century church on a twelfth-century base, adjacent to the cathedral of Notre-Dame. In this view, Saint-Hugues is at left and the church with the belltower over the porch is the cathedral:
http://en.structurae.de/photos/index.cfm?JS=46039
In this view, they are both at center left:
http://tinyurl.com/2dub75
Further views of the cathedral:
http://tinyurl.com/2nw7w4
http://en.structurae.de/photos/index.cfm?JS=46041
http://en.structurae.de/photos/index.cfm?JS=46040
These churches were renovated relatively recently. Here's a page of expandable pre-renovation views of the cathedral (curiously called "Saint-Jean" here), showing the lamentable and now vanished facade added in the nineteenth century:
http://tinyurl.com/38m8k7
In 1101 H. gave Benedictines permission to found in his diocese the monastery of Chalais, near Chartreuse. A three-page site on this now Dominican institution, with some views of medieval features, begins here:
http://tinyurl.com/3dm9to
Many more views of the church (esp. sculptural details) can be accessed from this page:
http://www.chalais.fr/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=5
Best,
John Dillon
(Agape and Chionia, Mary of Egypt, and Hugh of Grenoble lightly revised from last year's post)
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|