medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Today (20. July) is the feast day of:

1) Apollinaris of Ravenna (?). A. is the semi-legendary protobishop of Ravenna. We first hear of him in the earlier fifth century in a sermon of St. Peter Chrysologus (no. 128) where he is said to have been Ravenna's first bishop, to have been its only martyr, and to have been buried among the faithful of that city. In the early sixth century A.'s cult had reached Rome, where pope St. Symmachus erected an altar to him in his chapel of St. Andrew. A legendary Vita (BHL 623) of sixth- or seventh-century origin makes A. an Antiochene sent by St. Peter himself to evangelize Ravenna. The ninth-century martyrologies of Florus of Lyon and St. Ado of Vienne have fairly lengthy abstracts of this Vita, reflecting the then general importance of A.'s cult (which had benefited from Ravenna's position as the Byzantine capital in the West). Medievally, A. was celebrated on 23. July.

A.'s major monument is Ravenna's early sixth-century basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe:
http://tinyurl.com/nn66dz
http://tinyurl.com/3c2v9y
http://tinyurl.com/nn4c7k
http://tinyurl.com/knllgk
A detail view of A. in the apse mosaic:
http://tinyurl.com/mh8ek8


2) Marina of Antioch (?). The megalomartyr M. (in the Latin West usually Margaret) is known through her very legendary Greek Passio (BHG 1165, etc.; extant in some form by 494), its Latin translations (BHL 5303, etc.; witnesses from the eighth century onward, some earlier ones still calling her Marina), and later texts in various languages. Said to have been the daughter of a pagan priest at Pisidian Antioch and to have been raised as a Christian by her nurse after the early death of her mother, she was according to this legend tending her nurse's sheep outside of the city when during the Great Persecution she was observed by the Roman prefect Olybrius. The latter promptly fell in lust with her and attempted to make her his wife or at least his concubine; when M. resolutely rebuffed his advances he put her to torture in various ways and finally had her decapitated.

In the Passio the devil participates in M.'s torments in the form of a large serpent that threatens to devour her; M. rids herself of this peril by making the sign of the cross. In later versions of the legend the serpent becomes Leviathan and does swallow her, whereupon M. makes the sign of the cross (or a cross that she is carrying grows greater), her monstrous tormentor is rent asunder, and she emerges from the belly of the beast. In the later Middle Ages this episode became the foundation of her widespread construction as a helper of pregnant women.

Like the also very legendary (and also very popular) St. Christopher, M. remains in the RM despite suspicions that her existence has always been fictional. When denominated Marina she has often, especially in the Latin West, been confused with St. Marina/Marinos the Monk (a.k.a. Marina of Alexandria, Maria of Bithynia).

A few depictions of M.:
a) A twelfth-century altar frontal with scenes from M.'s Passio, in the Museo Episcopal at Vic (NB: As M. is here identified in the panel at upper right as Margarita, we can be sure that the saint in question is today's M. and not Marina of Orense, venerated elsewhere in Iberia and possessing a legend based on that of M. of Antioch):
http://tinyurl.com/5zmwq3
Detail (M. being swallowed by the dragon):
http://www.romanicoaragones.com/Colaboraciones/Draco%2007.jpg
b) Some thirteenth- and fourteenth-century mural paintings of M. in English churches:
http://tinyurl.com/5kx5qq
http://www.paintedchurch.org/owestcat.htm
http://www.paintedchurch.org/snewtmar.htm
c) M. emerging from the dragon in an earlier fourteenth-century (ca. 1320) boss in the choir of the parish church at Marchegg in Niederösterreich:
http://www.burgenseite.com/skulptur/marchegg_sst_10.jpg
d) A scene (center panel) from M.'s Passio in the earlier (second quarter) fourteenth-century frescoes of the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/n75pgd
e) An earlier (second quarter) fourteenth-century ivory figure of M. emerging from the dragon (French; 14.5 cm; now in the British Museum, object reg. no.: PY 1858,0428.1 ):
http://www.bmimages.com/Pix/PRS/00035018_006.JPG
f) A later fourteenth-century predella panel from the workshop of Agnolo Gaddi showing M. with crucifix being swallowed by the dragon:
http://tinyurl.com/5gtjmn
g) M. at right (St. Petka at left) in the late fourteenth-century frescoes of the narthex in the church of the Theotokos at the Gračanica monastery near Priština in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/nykgdg
Detail (M.):
http://tinyurl.com/lq9dpr
h) M. depicted with crown and Tau cross in a fifteenth-century fresco in the rupestrian cripta di Santa Marina at Miggiano (LE) on Apulia's Salentine Peninsula (M. is Miggiano's patron saint, celebrated there on 17. July [her usual feast day in the Greek church]):
http://tinyurl.com/lpazsj
i) M.'s emergence from the dragon as depicted in the fifteenth-century Burnet Psalter (for a larger view, click on "Detail of the illumination" towards the bottom of the page):
http://tinyurl.com/6gak9l
j) M. emerging from the dragon in a mid-fifteenth-century panel painting now in Barcelona's Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya and variously attributed to Jacomart or to Joan Reixach:
http://tinyurl.com/kotc8s
k) A later fifteenth-century alabaster figure of M. emerging from the dragon (French; now in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art):
http://tinyurl.com/5oads2
l) M. atop the dragon in a later (third quarter) fifteenth-century miniature in a Flemish Book of Hours for the Use of Sarum (Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department, Ms. Widener 003, fol. 35v):
http://tinyurl.com/mydkxy
m) A later fifteenth-century reliquary bust of M. (Netherlandic; now in the Art Institute of Chicago):
http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/48715
n) M. (bottom row, at right in center panel) in the late fifteenth-century retable by Vicente Macip in the Capilla de San Dionisio y Santa Margarita at the cathedral of Valencia:
http://tinyurl.com/6fknph

A few dedications to M. (smaller churches):
a) The originally eleventh-century, much re-worked church of St Margaret at Somerby by Bigby (Lincs), restored in 1884/85:
http://tinyurl.com/n67x9c
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lincolnian/2229118474/sizes/o/
http://tinyurl.com/koxoky
b) The originally twelfth(?)-century cripta di Santa Marina accessible from a cemetery church of the same dedication at Miggiano (LE) in Apulia:
Illustrated, Italian-language account (plan and section at bottom):
http://tinyurl.com/ml2c8o
Views:
http://siba2.unile.it/fir/details_imm.php?nome_file=LE47A01
http://siba2.unile.it/fir/details_imm.php?nome_file=LE47A02
http://siba2.unile.it/fir/details_imm.php?nome_file=LE47A03
http://siba2.unile.it/fir/details_imm.php?nome_file=LE47A04
http://siba2.unile.it/fir/details_imm.php?nome_file=LE47A05
http://siba2.unile.it/fir/details_imm.php?nome_file=LE47A06
c) The mostly thirteenth-century parish church of St Margaret of Antioch (consecrated, 1215; south aisle added in the fifteenth century) in Wellow (Hamps):
http://tinyurl.com/latqbo
d) The originally thirteenth- or early fourteenth-century Margarethenkapelle in the Klein-Barop section of Dortmund (first documented from 1348; restored in 2004):
http://tinyurl.com/lxl69x
http://tinyurl.com/nk2n5g
http://tinyurl.com/nvfc8x
http://tinyurl.com/nhqupw
e) The rebuilt, originally fourteenth(?)-century rural church of Ag. Marina, probably initially a chapel on an estate, at the archeological site of Kazarma near Agios Dimitrios (Lygourio) in Greece's Argolid prefecture:
http://tinyurl.com/l5hwvf
http://www.argolis.de/Bilder%20net/ag_marina1.jpg
http://www.argolis.de/Bilder%20net/ag_marina_fassade.jpg
http://www.argolis.de/Bilder%20net/ag_marina_innen.jpg

Sherry Reames' introduction to her edition of the Middle English _Stanzaic Life of Margaret_ is here:
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/21sr.htm
And her text is here:
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/22sr.htm


3) Lucan of Säben/Sabiona (?). The so-called Apostle of the Dolomites, L. (also Lugano) is a very poorly documented saint of the diocese of Belluno-Feltre in the Veneto. His legend, first found in Filippo Ferrari's early seventeenth-century _Catalogus Sanctorum Italiae_, makes him an early fifth-century bishop of Brixen/Bressanone in the South Tirol (whose seat was then at Säben/Sabiona, today's Klausen/Chiusa [BZ]). According to this story, L. was driven out in his old age and spent his remaining years in the Valle Agordina above Belluno, dying on this day. Probably in 1307 L.'s presumed relics were translated from his traditional resting place at today's Taibon Agordino (BL) to Belluno's cathedral of St. Martin, where they received a formal Recognition in 1400.

L.'s cult seems to have to have been especially popular in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, when new churches were dedicated to him at Passo di San Lugano, at Belluno, and at today's Villapiccola in Auronzo di Cadore (this last a replacement for a predecessor of the same dedication already in existence in 1352). Never admitted to pages of the RM, L. is celebrated liturgically on this day (or on another close to it) at Taibon Agordino and at other Dolomitic locales.

A view of L.'s statue (a modern copy; the original is Belluno's Museo Civico) on his early fifteenth-century fountain in Piazza Mercato at Belluno:
http://tinyurl.com/62dxwt


4) Frumentius of Ethiopia (d. after ca. 357). We know about F. from Rufinus of Aquileia's continuation of Eusebius' _Historia ecclesiastica_ and from St. Athanasius of Alexandria's _Apologia ad Constantium_. According to Rufinus, F. and Edesius (R.'s source) were boys from Tyre who while traveling with their tutor on the Red Sea had landed on the eastern coast of Ethiopia and were there enslaved. They were brought to the royal court at Axum where they performed scribal and secretarial duties. When a new king (Ezana, Aeizanas, etc.) succeeded to the throne at an early age they were allowed to leave.

Edesius returned to Tyre, while F., who had already been proselytizing among the Axumites, went to Alexandria, reported on his activities to bishop Athanasius, was consecrated bishop by the latter, and returned to Axum. We last hear of him in a letter from Constantius II to the rulers of Axum, preserved by Athanasius and asking that F. be sent to Alexandria (whence Athansius had recently been driven into exile) to be coached in Arian doctrine which he would then impart to his flock. Later coins of king Ezana's reign display the cross and are thus thought to testify to F.'s missionary success.


5) Aurelius of Carthage (d. in the years 427-30). We know about A. chiefly from the writings of St. Augustine of Hippo. In 388 he was a deacon at Carthage; by 391/92 he had become its bishop. A. was a tireless opponent of the Donatists and of Pelagius and his adherents. The early sixth-century Calendar of Carthage gives today as the feast of his laying to rest.


6) Vulmar of Samer (d. late 7th or early 8th cent.). V. (also Wulmar, Wilmar, Ulmar, Wulmer, Vulmer, Vilmer, Vulmaire, etc.). V. was the founder of the men's monastery at today's Samer (Pas-de-Calais) and of the women's house about a mile distant at at Wierre-aux-Bois. According to his Vita (BHL 8749), he was born in Boulogne, had married a woman promised to someone else, and was forced to give her up. He then entered religion at the monastery of Haumont in Hainaut and later lived as a hermit in Flanders before founding the double monastery that afterwards was named for him. V.'s post-mortem cult was immediate. Dropped from the RM in its revision of 2001, he continues to be venerated in the the diocese of Arras.


7) Bernhard of Hildesheim (Bl.; d. 1154). A scion of Lower Saxon nobility, B. had been master of Hildesheim's cathedral school and prior of its cathedral before becoming bishop there in 1130. He is credited with persuading Innocent II to canonize St. Godehard of Hildesheim and starting in 1133 he built Hildesheim's basilica dedicated to that saint. B. became blind some ten years before his death but continued for the first nine of these to fulfil his episcopal duties.

Some views of Hildesheim's Basilika Sankt Godehard.
Multiple:
http://tinyurl.com/yvnao3
More here (expandable):
http://tinyurl.com/2t94hv
Single views:
http://tinyurl.com/2err9d
http://tinyurl.com/2935zn
http://tinyurl.com/2z3dtr
Portal, with G. at right in the tympanum (expandable):
http://tinyurl.com/yp4aaa

Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post lightly revised and with some additional images of Marina/Margaret)

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