medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (24. January) is the feast day of:
1) Babylas (d. 250 or 251). B. was bishop of Antioch on the Orontes (today's Antakya in southwestern Turkey). Said to have died of mistreatment in prison during the Decian persecution, he was venerated as a martyr. The Syriac Martyrology and the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology list him for today and give him as companions in martyrdom three children. B. et socc. have legendary Passiones in conflicting versions and in several languages (BHG 205ff.; BHO 126ff.; BHL 889ff.); one version is in the _Suda_. Aldhelm includes a section on them in his early eighth-century verse _De virginitate_. In the Mozarabic Rite they were celebrated on 25. January. Here's their Mozarabic hymn:
http://tinyurl.com/339lxf
According to St. John Chrysostom, B. was translated shortly after his death to a martyrion in the Antiochian suburb of Daphne, home to a renowned temple of Apollo. The emperor Julian, consulting the latter's oracle and receiving no answer, concluded that the area had been polluted by B.'s presence and had the latter's remains returned to their original burial site. Shortly thereafter the great temple was destroyed by fire. Here's a fifteenth-century miniature illustrating these events as well as the martyrdom of St. Theodosius (Paris, BNF, Ms. Français 51, fol. 141v; Vincent of Beauvais, _Speculum Historiale_ in the translation of Jean de Vignay):
http://tinyurl.com/2et8ed
An English-language translation of one of Chrysostom's sermons on this matter is here:
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1906.htm
In 381 Bishop Meletius of Antioch built a martyrium honoring B. at today's Kaoussie near Antioch, to which he had B.'s remains translated. In default of a view, here's a ground plan:
http://tinyurl.com/35e43j
B.'s much rebuilt church of San Babila in Milan is first attested from the late eleventh century.
Exterior views:
http://tinyurl.com/34jpdg
http://www.sff.net/people/sanders/it6.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/ugpini/image/36936415
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/5151002.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/cznxu5
Interior:
http://tinyurl.com/b8d6tl
http://tinyurl.com/br683y
At Milan B. is celebrated with a Memorial (moved to 23. January to accommodate St. Francis de Sales today).
Two pages with views of the thirteenth-century church of San Babil at Puente de la Reina in Navarra, where B. is venerated as an archbishop of Pamplona martyred in the Moorish conquest (not that Pamplona had archbishops then):
http://tinyurl.com/26x86q
http://tinyurl.com/2g5qal
Scenes from B.'s Passio occur on the late fifteenth-century retable from Quintanilla del Olmo (Zamora) now in the cathedral of León:
http://tinyurl.com/2fnqxh
2) Felician of Foligno (d. ca. 250, supposedly). F. (also Felicianus of Forum Flaminii) is the legendary protobishop of the Umbrian city of Foligno (PG). According to his Passio (in Lanzoni's view, late sixth- or seventh-century), he was born at Forum Flaminii, now the Foligno suburb of San Giovanni Profiamma (PG), and from there exercised from the time of pope St. Victor I (189-99) onward the only archiepiscopal authority that then existed in Italy in north of Rome. F. is said to have preached widely in Umbria, to have consecrated the first bishop of Terni (PG), and as a very old man to have died a martyr at Foligno during the Decian persecution.
Foligno's frequently reworked cathedral of San Feliciano is built over that part of an early Christian cemetery where, it is claimed, F. was buried. This structure has two facades: an earlier "primary" one facing the piazza Duomo and a later "secondary" one on the left transept, facing the piazza della Repubblica. Here's a distance view, showing both facades and the palaces between them:
http://www.bellaumbria.net/Foligno/piazza-foligno.jpg
An aerial view:
http://www.hotelilcastello.it/images/foligno2.jpg
Primary facade (piazza Duomo; earlier twelfth-century):
http://www.italiaincampagna.it/Umbria/GRATO/foligno/piazza2.htm
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/45082
Secondary facade (piazza della Repubblica; 1201, with fourteenth-century modifications; restored, 1904):
http://tinyurl.com/2nxbjs
F. seems to have had two transalpine translations: one in 965 to Minden an der Weser and one in 969 to Metz, the latter as part of the well known collecting activity of bishop Theoderich I. A bit from F.'s remains at Metz was returned to Foligno in 1673. Presumably, the F. of today's Felicianus-Kirche in Weyhe (Landkr. Diepholz), Niedersachsen, whose thirteenth-century tower now fronts a nineteenth-century neo-gothic nave:
http://www.evlka.de/extern/syke/kk/kgweyhebildgr.htm
, is today's F. whose cult had traveled down the Weser from Minden.
A portrait of F. in glass from 1488 now at Assisi in the Museo-Tesoro del Sacro convento della cattedrale di Foligno:
http://tinyurl.com/24c2m6
3) Sabinianus of Troyes (d. ca. 273, supposedly). S. (also S. of Samos; in French, usually Savinien) is a very poorly attested martyr of the diocese of Troyes. His first mention in any source comes in the probably early eighth-century legendary Passio of his supposed sister St. Sabina (Savine) of Troyes (BHL 7408), in contradistinction to Sabina he is not recorded in any martyrology prior to that of Usuard in the later ninth century, and his own legendary Passio (BHL 7438), whose earliest witnesses are of the tenth century, is calqued on that of St. Sidronius of Sens (BHL 7702). According to this text, S. was young pagan nobleman on Samos when the truth of Christ was revealed to him by an angel. He traveled to Gaul, was there baptized, and through his miracle-accompanied preaching made many converts.
Still according to his Passio, S. was brought before the emperor Aurelian (270-75) at Troyes, refused to abjure his faith, was sentenced to death by fire but emerged unscathed, and was then shot at with arrows, none of which struck him but one of which injured Aurelian in an eye. S. escaped briefly, crossing the Seine on dry feet, but was recaptured and was then decapitated on this day at a place called Rilliacum. Carrying his head, he then walked forty paces to the place where he was buried. At his recommendation, a cloth soaked in his blood was used to heal Aurelian. Later, the blind Syra (Sainte Syre) with God's help found S.'s grave, miraculously recovered her sight, and erected a church over his tomb. Thus far the Passio, to whose dating of S.'s _dies natalis_ (presumably reflecting his feast day at the time of its writing) the RM returned in 2001. Usuard, followed by cardinal Baronio, had entered him under 29. January.
Rilliacum is traditionally identified with today's Rilly-Sainte-Syre (Aube) in Champagne, the oldest part of whose église paroissiale Saint-Savinien is said to date only from the eleventh century. Two expandable views of that structure are here:
http://tinyurl.com/btb2jg
S.'s putative remains are said to now repose in the cathedral of Troyes, where he is figured in one of the thirteenth-century upper windows of the choir (no. 209):
http://tinyurl.com/d345wv
Considerably further afield, the originally later eleventh- and early twelfth-century église paroissiale Saint-Savinien at Melle (Deux-Sèvres) in Poitou-Charentes has sometimes been thought to honor today's S. Herewith some views of this structure, which served as a jail from 1801 to 1927, underwent several twentieth-century restorations, and now is used as an art gallery and as a venue for musical performances:
http://tinyurl.com/bawkxf
http://en.structurae.de/structures/data/photos.cfm?id=s0021866
http://www.route-romane.net/default_fr.php?gzev=st_bk_355
http://tinyurl.com/cwnvmw
A plan of the church is here:
http://www.melle-villedart.fr/romanes99/saintsavinien/index.html
A pilaster capital within depicts the martyrdom of a saint Savinianus, sometimes said to be today's saint (though the S. of Sens is probably a better bet):
capital of S.'s martyrdom:
http://tinyurl.com/co2zhf
Views of other capitals in this church are here:
http://tinyurl.com/btx538
4) Exuperantius of Cingoli (d. 5th cent., supposedly). A late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century Vita (BHL 2808) makes E. a monk from Africa who sailed to Italy, arrived at Numana (near Ancona), and made his way to Rome, where he was consecrated bishop by pope Paschasius and put in charge of the diocese of Cingoli (today's self-proclaimed Balcony of the Marche), succeeding the latter's deceased bishop Theodosius, encountering various martyrs venerated at Osimo and other nearby towns, and dying of natural causes some fifteen years later. He was succeeded by his faithful disciple Formarius and is credited with having cured a paralytic.
Bishops Theodosius, Exuperantius, and Formarius are no better attested than is pope Paschasius. Exuperantius is one of a group of Umbrian martyrs (Savinus, Exuperantius, and Marcellus), whose cult had spread in Gregory the Great's time to various places in central Italy including what is now the Marche. By 1139 monks of Fonte Avellana were operating a church outside Cingoli dedicated to E. alone and in 1218 they erected another inside the city dedicated to E. and to Nicholas and containing relics of both saints. Probably by this time the late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century copper plaque identifying E.'s relics was already in existence. Found in 1628 during an examination of the relics, it identifies E. as a bishop and confessor and is clearly to be associated with the legendary Vita noted above.
Some views of the thirteenth-century collegiate church of Sant'Esuperanzio at Cingoli (MC), starting with an illustrated, Italian-language guide to this church:
http://antiqui.it/doc/monumenti/chiese/sesuperanzio.htm
Interior views (note the huge ogival arches in this single-aisled church):
http://tinyurl.com/3dzhsy
The frescoes along the side once adorned Renaissance chapels. Here's an early sixteenth-century one with E. at left:
http://antiqui.it/doc/monumenti/chiese/sesuperanzio5.htm
And here's a fifteenth-century fresco of the Holy Face of the Sudarium:
http://antiqui.it/doc/monumenti/chiese/sesuperanzio6.htm
A page, partly in Italian and partly in English, on the apses and their decor:
http://spazioinwind.libero.it/iconografia/Agnelloabside.htm
Sant'Esuperanzio has two medieval crucifixes:
http://www.guanciarossa.it/leviedellafede/crocefisso_cingoli.htm
http://www.cadnet.org/giubileo/cingoli.htm
A drawing of E. as he appears on the late twelfth-/early thirteenth-century copper gilt one is here:
http://antiqui.it/doc/personaggi/sesuperanzio.htm
Best,
John Dillon
(Babylas, Felician of Foligno, and Exuperantius of Cingoli lightly revised from last year's post)
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