medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (23. November) is the feast day of:
Clement I, pope (d. ca. 100). The author of an extant letter to the church of Corinth and the suppositious author of the pseudo-Clementine _Recognitions_ and _Homilies_, C. occupies either third or fourth place in early lists of the bishops of Rome. Although he seems not to have been martyred, he has a late antique Passio (BHL 1848) in which he is sent to work in the mines of Crimea and then is thrown into the sea weighted down with an anchor. In response to the prayers of his disciples Cornelius and Phoebus, the waters parted and C.'s body was miraculously revealed in a chapel where the faithful could venerate him annually for a week beginning on his _dies natalis_. Here's a fourteenth-century French miniature illustrating the recovery of C.'s remains:
http://tinyurl.com/2hendw
Thanks to the presence of his supposed relics in the abbey church at Casauria (today's Castiglione a Casauria [PE]) in Abruzzo, C. was long a saint of the Regno. When the abbey was established by Louis II in 873 it was dedicated to the Holy Trinity. But the power of the relics (traditionally said to have been brought here right after the founding) seems to have overcome this fairly swiftly. For most of its history the abbey was known popularly as that of San Clemente a Casauria and its property was _terra sancti Clementis_ in the same way that Montecassino's was _terra sancti Benedicti_. Here's a view of its reliquary in which C.'s relics are thought to have been housed:
http://tinyurl.com/5k7rs4
Today's abbey church of San Clemente a Casauria, one of the region's "romanesque" monuments, is essentially a twelfth-century structure with later modifications. The pages devoted to it at the Italian-language site Abruzzo Romanico and Italia nell'Arte Medievale sites have expandable views of major features (but Italia nell'Arte Medievale appears to be offline again):
http://tinyurl.com/6xuy7f
http://tinyurl.com/wppyl
http://tinyurl.com/yhjeyk
Here's a view of the lunette over the principal entrance with C. in the center giving his blessing and with abbot Leonas at right offering the church (shown with an obviously oversized rose window and with four arches in the facade rather than actual three):
http://tinyurl.com/62ehf5
In the scene just below, depicting the translation of C.'s remains, three arches are shown. They can be best seen in this view (if it's available):
http://tinyurl.com/yk2g4t
also here:
http://tinyurl.com/6jyhhv
and in some of the views here:
http://tinyurl.com/6afdjs
A porch was added in the later twelfth century. After fourteenth- and fifteenth-century earthquakes, the front of the building now looks like this:
http://tinyurl.com/2opu2z
Despite the prevailing tendency to refer to the abbey as that of St. Clement, its original dedication to the Trinity persevered in official usage. This illustration from the abbey's twelfth-century cartulary chronicle by John Berard calls it the "Monasterium Sanctae Trinitatis & Sancti Clementis":
http://tinyurl.com/5o6ssw
The four kings (from left to right in this drawing: Hugh, his predecessor Lambert, Lothar II, and Berengar II) are the ones represented on the jambs of the main entrance:
http://flickr.com/photos/54576605@N00/829147402/sizes/o/
Inside, the ciborium is of the fourteenth century, replacing an earthquake-damaged predecessor:
http://tinyurl.com/5uk67n
Note the inscription on the base: ... TVMBA SACRA CLEMENTIS HIC PAULI DECVS ET PETRI.
When that was carved, C.'s supposed remains were presumably in that late antique sarcophagus serving as an altar.
Distance views from the nave to the ciborium, showing the candelabrum and the ambo:
http://www.mollik.org/2008/08/09/da-che-pulpito/
http://tinyurl.com/6lvvzg
http://tinyurl.com/5sytaz
And a view looking back towards the entrance:
http://flickr.com/photos/54576605@N00/829148494/sizes/o/
Italian-language accounts of these and other of the church's works of art are here (use the menu below 'Abbazia'):
http://www.sanclementeacasauria.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/8/opere
Another attractive dedication to C. in the same region is the early twelfth-century abbey church of San Clemente al Vomano at Notaresco (TE):
http://tinyurl.com/9s3tw
http://tinyurl.com/2q7aow
http://tinyurl.com/dbx85
A brief, Italian-language description of it is here:
http://www.morronedelsannio.com/abruzzo/notaresco.htm
And, while we are still in the twelfth century, not to forget San Clemente at Rome (which has relics of C. said to have been brought from Constantinople). Herewith some brief accounts in English:
http://www.rome.info/basilicas/st-clement/
http://romanchurches.wikia.com/wiki/San_Clemente
and in Italian:
http://tinyurl.com/ynupmx
http://www.romecity.it/Sanclemente.htm
A longer, illustrated, English-language account in Herbert L. Kessler and Johanna Zacharias, _Rome 1300: On the Path of the Pilgrim_ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000) begins here:
http://tinyurl.com/2646qp
Exterior views (protyry):
http://www.marcantonioarchitects.com/San_Clem_Figure1.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2tqsfy
Interior views of the originally early twelfth-century upper church:
http://tinyurl.com/29v3j5
http://tinyurl.com/yvcvvr
http://www.emmauscollege.nl/images/tekenen/clement2.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/j849l
http://www.op.org/curia/sanclem/mosaic.html
http://www.classicalmosaics.com/images/sanclem1.jpg
http://www.op.org/curia/sanclem/frescaps.html
Three pages of detail views (good for the pavement and for the early sixth-century transennae in the chancel screen) start here:
http://tinyurl.com/263c2c
This church is built over a late antique predecessor of the same dedication that did not outlast the eleventh century. Parts of that were excavated during rebuilding work on its successor in the mid-nineteenth century. One part of the Tour at this site:
http://www.basilicasanclemente.com/
has a plan of the fourth-century basilica underneath the twelfth-century church, as well as pop-up views of structures (incl. nineteenth-century piers and vaults) and frescoes here. Three better views of early medieval frescoes on this level are Frescoes no. 10-12 on this page:
http://www.hp.uab.edu/image_archive/cr-03/cr-01/index.html
An English-language discussion, with other fresco views, is here:
http://www.op.org/curia/sanclem/50ct05.html
http://www.op.org/curia/sanclem/50ct06.html
http://www.op.org/curia/sanclem/50ct07.html
http://www.op.org/curia/sanclem/50ct08.html
For those not afraid of Danish, there's a detailed discussion (and a plan showing the locations of all the frescoes) here:
http://tinyurl.com/ykrvps
Also from the twelfth century, with restorations in the last two centuries, is the Doppelkirche (double church) Schwarzrheindorf in Bonn, with its lower church dedicated to C. and its slightly later upper church (built for a community of Benedictine nuns) dedicated to the BVM. Situated towards the northern end of Bonn-Beuel (across the Rhine from the city centre), it's worth the little extra effort that it takes to get to it. An illustrated, English-language account is here:
http://tinyurl.com/64eo92
An illustrated, German-language account (views expandable):
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Clemens_(Schwarzrheindorf)
Further views:
http://tinyurl.com/5zpu85
http://tinyurl.com/5gv98m
Also dedicated to C. is the cathedral of Århus, begun in the later twelfth century but with most of the present fabric being of the later fifteenth century. An English-language page on its history is here:
http://www.aarhus-domkirke.dk/History-54.aspx
An illustrated, English-language page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aarhus_Cathedral
An illustrated, Danish-language tour begins here:
http://www.aarhus-domkirke.dk/Bygningen-41.aspx
Other views:
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/12c202/
http://flickr.com/photos/v_koeditz/1804933492/
http://www.aarhus-domkirke.dk/Billeder-32.aspx
http://www.gingerelli.com/Cruise/Arhus/Arhus.htm
Some other dedications to C.:
A. The mostly twelfth-century église Saint-Clément at Saint-Clément sur Guye (Saône-et-Loire), last restored from 1992 to 1995:
http://www.geocities.com/cybermoulin/eglise1_535.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/cybermoulin/eglise2_535.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/5858p8
http://tinyurl.com/6lu2xw
B. A lightly illustrated, German-language page on the originally twelfth-century (and formerly collegiate) church of St. Clemens in the Wissel section of Kalkar (Kr. Kleve) in Nordrhein-Westfalen:
http://www.heimat-kleve.de/geschichte/chronik/05_04.htm
Other views (choir is from the fifteenth century):
http://tinyurl.com/67myj4
http://tinyurl.com/5cn9gq
http://www.stclemens-wissel.de/backoffice/ellert/index.html
Baptismal font (twelfth-century?):
http://tinyurl.com/64x7ll
C. Two illustrated, German-language pages on the originally twelfth- or thirteenth-century St. Clemens-Romanus Kirche in Marklohe (Kr. Nienburg/Weser) in Niedersachsen:
http://tinyurl.com/399z2s
http://www.clemenskirche.de/
D. A page on C.'s originally twelfth-century church at Ashampstead (Berks):
http://www.berkshirehistory.com/churches/ashampstead.html
And a page on that church's wall paintings:
http://tinyurl.com/2l5ubx
E. The ruined thirteenth-century Sankt Klemens kyrka in Visby (Gotland):
http://www.bringsarve.com/ruiner/stnickolais.jpg
http://www.guteinfo.com/scripts/utskrift.asp?id=1722&ant=0
http://tinyurl.com/6dls7g
http://tinyurl.com/69sxqm
F. The originally fourteenth(?)-century nave and twelfth-century tower of the église Saint-Clément at Saint-Clément (Meurthe-et-Moselle):
http://tinyurl.com/674szs
http://tinyurl.com/5ahd3b
G. A page of views of C.'s church at Terrington St Clement (Norfolk), originally built in the fourteenth century for the Gonville who founded Gonville Hall at the University of Cambridge (since 1557 Gonville and Caius College):
http://tinyurl.com/yruj2m
H. Two pages on the late fourteenth-(?)/early fifteenth-century St Clement Colegate in Norwich:
http://tinyurl.com/2rsudy
http://tinyurl.com/2r3cst
I. A page on the thirteenth-/fifteenth-century St Clement's in West Thurrock (Essex):
http://tinyurl.com/3ao2hd
Views of that church's fifteenth-century tower:
http://tinyurl.com/2w6sxy
http://www.flickr.com/photos/barryslemmings/315915867/
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/12330
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post lightly revised)
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