medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (24. May) is the feast day of:
1) Manahen (d. 1st cent.) M. (also Manaen), foster brother of Herod the tetrarch (H. Antipas), is named in Acts 13:1 as an associate of Sts. Barnabas and Paul at Antioch. He enters the martyrologies in the ninth century with Ado and Usuard, who in the identical _laterculus_ maintain that he finished his days in that city. The basis, if any, for that assertion is unknown.
2) Zoellus (?). Z. (also Zoelus) is the lone representative in the "new" RM (2001, rev. 2004) of Zoellus, Servulus (also Servilius), Felix, Silvanus, and Diocles, a group of martyrs of Lystra in Lycaonia (in today's south-central Turkey) entered under this day in the fourth-century Syriac Martyrology. Thanks to a false reading in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology, Ado and Usuard entered the group in their martyrologies, also for today and with some variations from the names as given above, as martyrs of Istria.
3) Servulus of Trieste (d. 283 or 284, supposedly). S. is a co-patron of Trieste, where he has been celebrated on this day since at least the late eleventh century, where he was the titular of a basilica whose dedication was celebrated liturgically on 23. November, and where he and St. Justus flank Christ in the mosaic in the right apse of the cathedral of San Giusto (which latter also houses relics believed to be his):
http://tinyurl.com/yovuqz
http://tinyurl.com/p8s2cp
The Italia nell'Arte Medievale's page on Trieste's San Giusto:
http://tinyurl.com/yptush
S. has a legendary Passio (BHL 7642) of uncertain origin whose earliest witness is of the later twelfth century. This makes him a youthful thaumaturge martyred under Numerian (r. 283-284; active primarily in today's Iraq, Syria, and Turkey). In view both of that Eastern connection and of Trieste's proximity to Istria, it has been thought that S. is in origin perhaps the "Istrian" Servilius/Servulus of Zoellus et socc., also celebrated on this day (see no. 2, above). His cult would seem to be at least early medieval, as the former abbey dedicated to him that gave its name to Venice's island of San Servolo is thought to have been an early ninth-century foundation (the island's psychiatric hospital is the lineal descendant of a more general hospital operated by the abbey).
4) Donatian and Rogatian (d. 3d or early 4th cent.). D. and R. are martyrs of today's Nantes (Loire-Atlantique). According to their fifth(?)-century Passio (BHL 2275), they were young brothers. In French they are the _enfants nantais_. D. had been baptized and was preaching the Christian faith when he came to the attention of the authorities during a persecution and was jailed. The unbaptized R. was quickly apprehended and ordered to sacrifice to the idols. When he refused, he too was jailed. Both underwent torture before being executed. After the promulgation of the edict of Milan their bodies were placed in a little martyrium. They are Nantes' patron saints.
D. and R. are entered for today in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology. Their cult seems to have been continuous at Nantes. It spread widely in Brittany and elsewhere in West France.
The baptistère Saint-Jean at Le Puy-en-Velay is said to preserve on its north wall a thirteenth-century mural painting of D. and R. confessing their faith. I could find no images of that on the Web. But the site is well visited, so perhaps some subscriber to the list has one to share. For the painting's existence, see this notice from Patrimoine de France:
http://tinyurl.com/5nwffu
These two interior views of the baptistery aren't very promising:
http://tinyurl.com/6lqcbc
http://tinyurl.com/5j6ved
Nor are these views from the Structurae site:
http://tinyurl.com/6fv28q
Nantes' present cathédrale St-Pierre et St-Paul was begun in the fifteenth century and completed in the nineteenth. The lower portions of the west front were the first to be built (the cathedral replaced an eleventh-/twelfth-century predecessor and incorporated the latter's crypt). The west front has five portals: the three clearly visible here
http://tinyurl.com/5lq8o4
plus one each on the south side of the south tower and on the north side of the north tower. The latter is known as the porte St Donatien et St Rogatien; its sculptures, now dated to 1455-1465, include these statues of D.:
http://tinyurl.com/6gxdc9
and of R.:
http://tinyurl.com/56q4sj
NB: The facade has recently been cleaned:
http://tinyurl.com/rccs2j
While we're here, a page of views of the cathedral's crypts:
http://nantescathedrale.free.fr/crypte.htm
and another with a somewhat different view of the eleventh-century crypt:
http://tinyurl.com/6fo9fj
More views of the cathedral:
http://tinyurl.com/6y9seu
http://tinyurl.com/5n84fy
The Musée Dobrée at Nantes preserves this late fifteenth-/early sixteenth-century carved corner post with statues of D. and R.:
http://tinyurl.com/on22nq
http://tinyurl.com/247yaa
Today's basilique Saint-Donatien at Nantes is a nineteenth-century rebuilding of what originally had been a late fifteenth-century church. A view of the martyrs' resting place in its crypt is here:
http://tinyurl.com/34a3nn
5) Thirty-eight Martyrs of Philipopolis (d. 304, supposedly). The very little we know about this group of martyrs of Thrace comes from the Synaxary of Constantinople, from other synaxaries, and from a brief Martyrion of Sts. Severus and Memnon (BHG 2399). Nine of the thirty-eight are said to have come from Byzantium; the remainder are said to have been of Philipopolis (today's Plovdiv). We have their names, the name of the Roman proconsul under whom they are said to have suffered, their place of martyrdom. and -- if their connection with Severus and Memnon is historically accurate -- dubious testimony to their having been victims of the Great Persecution at its outset.
Herewith some views of the second-century Roman theatre at Plovdiv (the largest Roman building in today's Bulgaria), including its reconstructed _scaenae frons_:
http://tinyurl.com/ow873q
http://static.flickr.com/121/294929663_b2d1adbbff.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/6h29pt
http://tinyurl.com/5nalm7
http://static.flickr.com/105/295417120_129a016470.jpg
6) Vincent of Lérins (d. between 434 and 450). The theologian V., author of the _Commonitorium_ ('Remembrancer'), an anti-Augustinian treatise on distinguishing heresy from true doctrine, was buried at his abbey in the isles of Lérins (in today's Alpes-Maritimes). Although his grave was revered, he appears not to have had a medieval cult. Cardinal Baronio entered V. in the RM. His liturgical celebration at Lérins dates from the very end of the sixteenth century.
7) Simeon the Younger (d. late 6th or early 7th cent.). Like his fifth-century namesake, S. was a stylite. He spent most of his life in self-denial atop one pillar after another. The last, on a mountain near Antioch on the Orontes, became the site of a monastery named for him. He has an interesting Bios, edited by P. Van den Ven as _La vie ancienne de S. Syméon Stylite le jeune (521–92)_, Subsidia Hagiographica, 32 (Bruxelles, 1962–70).
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised)
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