medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (29. June) is the feast day of:
1a) Peter, apostle (d. 64?). P. was a Jew of Galilee who became a Roman martyr of the Vatican cemetery. He is listed in the _Depositio martyrum_ of the Chronographer of 354 and in the earliest sources for the Roman liturgy. The seventh-century guidebooks for pilgrims to Rome all mention P.'s memorial basilica on the Vatican hill. That building did not long survive the Middle Ages, but twentieth-century excavation beneath it successor revealed a small monument attributed to the second century and thought to have been P.'s memorial. He comes first in the early lists of the bishops of Rome.
1b) Paul, apostle (d. 67?). P. was a Jew of Tarsus in Cilicia who became a Roman martyr at an unknown location (traditionally, Aquae Salviae = modern Tre Fontane) not far from the Via Ostiensis. The _Depositio martyrum_ of the Chronographer of 354 locates his burial site in that vicinity. He is entered for today in the earliest sources for the Roman liturgy. The seventh-century guidebooks for pilgrims to Rome all mention the memorial basilica over his grave, now generally known as San Paolo fuori le Mura.
2) Syrus of Genoa (?). A saint named S. has been venerated at Genoa since at least the sixth century, when pope St. Gregory the Great (_Dial._ 4. 55) mentions a church there dedicated to S. the martyr. By the middle of the tenth century it was believed at Genoa that the city had had an early bishop of this name, who according to his Vita (BHL 7973) had been born not far from Genoa in a place called Imiliana, where he later served as a priest and also cured the demonically possessed daughter of an official, and that this S. succeeded St. Felix as bishop, rid the city of a noxious basilisk, died a confessor on the day of Sts. Peter and Paul, and was laid to rest in the basilica of the Apostles. Bl. Jacopo da Varazze, who in the thirteenth century wrote a second Vita of S. (BHL 7974) and who was also one of Genoa's historians, says that he could find no information about S. that was older than the tenth century.
S.'s historicity is questionable. That he died in 381, as is frequently said, is conjecture. The Syrus venerated at Genoa in the sixth century could very well have been S. of Pavia (in the same late antique province of Liguria); conversely, he may have been a local saint who in Gregory's time was thought of as having been a martyr. The since rebuilt church of San Siro in modern central Genoa, whence S.'s relics were translated to the cathedral in about 1019, dates from a little after 1007. Its predecessor was evidently still the church of the Apostles when BHL 7973 was written.
The church of San Siro at Struppa (GE) dates from shortly before 1025; after many alterations it has been restored to an early "romanesque" appearance. Here's an illustrated, Italian-language account:
http://www.vegiazena.it/leggende/sansiro/s-siro03.htm
Some views:
http://tinyurl.com/6gk747
http://www.flickr.com/photos/libertyplace/1541700040/
http://tinyurl.com/66yena
http://tinyurl.com/6lh23b
http://tinyurl.com/6ghutq
http://tinyurl.com/5zcdcw
Also dedicated to S. is the originally thirteenth-century co-cathedral of San Siro in San Remo (GE). An illustrated, Italian-language account:
http://tinyurl.com/42yj7r
Some views:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattepise/1418706814/
http://tinyurl.com/5n5rhf
http://tinyurl.com/6p99sf
http://tinyurl.com/5t7h7r
The occurrence of his _dies natalis_ on the day of Sts. Peter and Paul caused S.'s feast to be postponed. In the later Middle Ages and in the Early Modern period Genoa celebrated him on 6. July (the octave of his death). More recently the archdiocese of Genoa has celebrated S. on 7. July. Today is his day of commemoration in the RM.
3) Cassius of Narni (d. 558). We know about this bishop of Narni in Umbria from his inscription (_CIL_, X. 2, no. 4164) on his and his wife Fausta's grave slab in Narni's cathedral of San Giovenale as well as from passages in the _Dialogues_ of pope St. Gregory the Great and in one of G.'s sermons. C. separated from Fausta in order to enter Holy Orders. He was consecrated bishop of Narni on 9. October 536. C.'s time in office coincided with Justinian's Gothic War, a dangerous period for Italian cities. According to Gregory, he carried out his ministry with zeal and prudence and on one occasion cured of demonic possession a swordbearer of the Gothic king Totila.
Here's a view of C.'s and Fausta's later sixth-century grave slab (along with some cosmatesque pavement, all taken from what had been the floor of the sanctuary) mounted in the fifteenth-century wall before the cathedral's rebuilt sacello di San Giovenale:
http://members.tripod.com/romeartlover/Narni14.jpg
A couple of views from further back:
http://tinyurl.com/57xzbj
http://tinyurl.com/6ddqmc
Those last two images come from the Italia nell'Arte Medievale page on the cathedral:
http://tinyurl.com/6fokye
An illustrated, English-language account of the cathedral's sacello di San Cassio:
http://www.ktucitywalks.co.uk/131.html
4) Gero of Köln (d. 976). The son of a margrave of Thüringen, G. was a court chaplain under Otto I. He was elected archbishop of Köln in 969 and in that year had made for him at Reichenau the sumptuously illustrated Gospel manuscript that bears his name. An illustrated, English-language account of the Gero-Kodex (Darmstadt, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, Hs. 1948), with expandable views of two portraits of G., is here:
http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2007/03/gero-codex.html
In 971 G. was sent to Constantinople to escort the future empress Theophanu to Rome, where in 972 she married the future Otto II. G. returned to Köln with the relics of St. Pantaleon that T. had brought with her and deposited them in the church of the Benedictine monastery founded by Otto I's brother St. Bruno, archbishop of Köln. Both the church and the monastery soon became known by the name of St. Pantaleon.
St. Pantaleon underwent major transformations in the eighteenth century and was heavily damaged in World War II. Most of what one sees today is restoration work. Herewith an illustrated, German-language account:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Pantaleon_%28K%C3%B6ln%29
Another:
http://www.romanische-kirchen-koeln.de/pantaleon.html
A virtual panorama of the interior:
http://www.romanische-kirchen-koeln.de/750.html
For Köln's cathedral G. had made the ornamental crucifix now known as the Gerokreuz. An illustrated, German-language account of that is here:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerokreuz
According to the early eleventh-century chronicler Thomas of Merseburg, G. miraculously caused a crack in the crucifix' head of Christ to close without trace by inserting in it a consecrated host and a splinter from a relic and by then successfully praying for the repair to work (apparently, ordinary filler and paint simply would not do). A mid-fourrteenth-century depiction of this miracle (heavily overpainted at the end of the nineteenth century) can be seen in altarpiece of the cathedral's Stephanuskapelle:
http://tinyurl.com/ytdh59
Here's a view of G.'s tomb (after 1260) in the cathedral's Stephanuskapelle:
http://www.koelner-dom.de/uploads/pics/v090000.jpg
And a German-language account of it:
http://www.koelner-dom.de/index.php?id=16689
G. has never graced the pages of the RM.
5) Emma of Gurk (d. 1045). E. (in Latin, Hemma) founded the short-lived Benedictine double monastery of Gurk in Kärnten (Carinthia) whose assets were used in the late eleventh century for the erection of the diocese of Gurk. According to the early thirteenth-century Elogium (BHL 3803; shortly after 1227) for her Office at Gurk, she was the very wealthy widow of a landgrave of Friesach who had earlier lost both her sons (supposedly murdered in an insurrection).
A German-language page on E. with a view of a fifteenth-century stature of her is here:
http://www.kath-kirche-kaernten.at/pages/bericht.asp?id=405
E.'s legend as depicted (early sixteenth-century) in the cathedral of Gurk:
http://www.gurktal.or.at/dom-1.htm
Two illustrated, German-language pages on Gurk cathedral:
http://tinyurl.com/2892qr
http://tinyurl.com/2dj53x
6) Salome and Judith of Niederaltaich (Bl.; d. late 11th cent., supposedly). According to their legendary late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century Vita (BHL 7465), the virgin S., a relative of a king of England, lost her sight in the vicinity of Regensburg while returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. She then fell into the Danube, was rescued with difficulty, contracted leprosy, stayed in the area to recover and a few years later immured herself as a recluse in the choir of the convent church of today's Niederaltaich (Kr. Deggendorf). Her cousin Judith, a young widow, went looking for her, found her by accident, and immured herself as a recluse in the atrium of the same church. The directory of saints on the website of the diocese of Münster recognizes both S. and J., whereas the similar service hosted by the archdiocese of Köln (http://www.heilige.de/) recognizes only J. Neither has ever graced the pages of the RM.
Best,
John Dillon
(Peter and Paul, Cassius of Narni, Gero of Köln, Emma of Gurk, and Salome and Judith of Niederaltaich lightly revised from older posts)
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