medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (27. May) is the feast day of:
1) Julius of Durostorum (?). The (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology lists J. for today, with no indication of his place of martyrdom, and again for 4. June, where he is stated to have died at Durostorum (today's Silistra in Bulgaria), then an important army base on the Danube in Moesia. He has a very brief and seemingly early Passio (BHL 4556) in which he is presented as a serving soldier on the point of leaving active service who during a persecution is informed against as Christian, is encouraged by his commandant to just go ahead and make the obligatory sacrifice, declines, and is executed. J. is sometimes referred to as Julius the Veteran, perhaps on the theory that he is enjoying his retirement in Heaven (the likelihood that the Romans would have gone ahead and mustered J. out, diploma and all, before executing him seems less plausible to me than, apparently, it does to others).
J.'s Passio links him to two other poorly dated military martyrs of Durostorum, Sts. Pasicrates and Valentio. It formed the basis for his laterculi in the historical martyrologies, where from at least Florus onward he is entered for today.
An illustrated, English-language account of Roman Durostorum is here (don't miss the hotlink to the late Roman tomb):
http://www.athenapub.com/durost1.htm
2) Restituta of Sora (or of Rome; d. 272, supposedly). According to both the ninth-/tenth-century version of her Passio (BHL 7192) and its early twelfth-century revision ascribed to Gregory of Terracina (BHL 7193), today's less well known saint of Regno was a Roman girl of Christian faith, fearful for her future because of ongoing persecution in what is said to have been the reign of Aurelian. She was commanded by Jesus Christ to proceed from Rome to Sora, a town now in southern Lazio but formerly in Campania. Once she had overcome her reluctance to travel alone to a destination she knew not how to find and was about to set forth, her faith was rewarded in the form of angelic transport to her destination.
At Sora R. stayed with a woman whose son Cyril, hopelessly afflicted with a painful and disfiguring disease of the skin, was soon completely cured through her prayers. Cyril converted to Christianity, others followed suit, official persecution ensued, and R. (according to these accounts, the evangelist of Sora), Cyril, and thirty-seven others were executed by decapitation outside the city walls.
R.'s veneration seems to have extended from Sora eastwards and northwards into today's Abruzzo as well as south along the Liri to San Germano at the foot of Montecassino. Little churches in this area have surviving medieval representations of a Restituta now celebrated as the R. of 17. May but in origin probably the R. of today. The fresco of R. in the arcosolium under the church of Santa Restituta of Rosce di San Vincenzo Valle Roveto (AQ), also referred to as Santa Restituta di Morrea Inferiore, is said to be of the ninth century. A thumbnail view of that is here:
http://www.sezione8.terremarsicane.it/miniature7/nuovo-54.JPG
R.'s fresco in the church of Santa Restituta at Oricola (AQ) is as recent as the thirteenth century. A view of it lurks in the thumbnails here:
http://tinyurl.com/6n86cy
For some reason, the Terre Marsicane site has not been able to fulfil its intention of offering larger versions of these views.
The primary locus of R.'s cult remains the church of Santa Restituta at Sora (FR), rebuilt after Frederick II destroyed the town in 1229.
exterior views, front:
http://tinyurl.com/3p4po7
http://www.sistemi.it/sora/tur/galleriasorana/pages/santarestituta1.htm
main portal:
http://tinyurl.com/49ph4t
exterior view, front and side (from above):
http://www.comune.sora.fr.it/img_home/b.jpg
exterior view, rear:
http://faculty.ccri.edu/mmansella/Photo_album/6.html
belltower:
http://www.menteantica.it/soranatale/scorciosrestituta.jpg
R. has relics at Sora that were discovered during a rebuilding of her church in 1683 and others at Avigliano Umbro (TR) in Umbria. In the "new" RM of 2001 R. is omitted, presumably in the belief that she is in origin the Restituta of 17. May.
3) Restitutus of Rome (d. ca. 304, supposedly). The earliest ms. of the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology says of R. simply _Romae Restituti_ ("At Rome, Restitutus"); the seventh-century itineraries for Rome pilgrims are silent about him. Later witnesses and the historical martyrologies specify a burial site along one or another major Roman road (Via Aurelia, Via Nomentana, Via Salaria) while R.'s sober but legendary ninth-century Passio (BHL 7197) has him martyred near the Capitol, with his corpse first exposed to dogs near an arch of triumph (thought to be that of Septimius Severus), then buried at his rural property on the Via Nomentana, and finally translated under pope Hadrian I to to an otherwise unrecorded church in Rome (S. Andreas in Aurisaurio) whose name, misread, may underlie the Via Aurelia and Via Salaria data noted above.
Prior to its revision of 2001 R. was entered in the RM under 29. May, his _dies natalis_ in most mss. of the (ps.-)HM. His move to today accords with R.'s day of commemoration in that martyrology's earliest witness. At the same time the RM, following R.'s Passio, changed his location from the Via Aurelia to the Via Nomentana at the sixteenth milestone from Rome.
4) Augustine of Canterbury (d. 604). A. was a monk at Rome whom pope St. Gregory the Great chose in 596 to lead the first official mission to the Anglo-Saxons. After a slow progress through Gaul they arrived in 597 in Kent, where king Æthelberht (whose wife was a Christian from Francia) settled them at Canterbury. Either en route or on a quick subsequent trip to the Continent, A., who had previously been styled abbot, was consecrated bishop. There were already Christian churches in Kent and within a few years the mission had prospered to the degree that A. as archbishop was able to appoint bishops of Rochester and of London (Sts. Justus and Mellitus, respectively).
A. had a reputation for thaumaturgy. This doubtless helped him in his work, though Gregory the Great felt he had to remind A. not to glory in his miracles. Yesterday was A.'s _dies natalis_.
Here are two views (the second expandable) of pages from the Gospel Book of Saint Augustine (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 286), thought to have been brought from Italy during A.'s time:
http://www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/oldmembers/news.php?newid=38
http://tinyurl.com/3e377x
And here's an illustrated fact sheet on the much transformed but originally late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century church of St. Augustine of Canterbury at Dodderhill (Worcestershire):
http://www.crsbi.ac.uk/ed/wo/dodll/index.htm
Another view is here:
http://www.wdcra.org.uk/dodder.htm
5) Bruno of Würzburg (d. 1045). The very highly born B. had been head of the German imperial chancery in Italy for about eight years when in 1034 his cousin Conrad II named him bishop of Würzburg. The author of commentaries on the Psalms and on the Lord's Prayer, among other writings, he was also a highly influential counselor of Henry III, whom in 1044/45 he accompanied on his second invasion of Hungary. While Henry, B., and others were dining at a castle on the Danube, the floor of their chamber collapsed and B. was so badly injured that he survived for only a week. Today is his _dies natalis_.
B. was interred in the crypt of Würzburg's cathedral of St. Kilian, which latter he had consecrated only a few years later. Miracles attributed to him began to be reported ca. 1200 and in 1257 he was accorded a translation to a tomb still visible in the crypt:
http://tinyurl.com/44v3zs
By the late fifteenth century B. was a recognized local saint with a feast on 26. May. Bl. Cesare Baronio entered him in the RM under today's date. B. seems never to have been papally canonized. In the diocese of Würzburg his feast is celebrated on 17. May. Small pieces of a purple cope that was once his survive in the Diözesanmuseum in Bamberg and in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Best,
John Dillon
(Julius of Durostorum, Restituta of Sora, and Augustine of Canterbury 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
|