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 an earlier fourteenth-century French miniature illustrating C.'s martyrdom (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 183, fol. 74r):
http://tinyurl.com/ylal2j2
That illumination doesn't show C. weighted down at all. This one, from the very early fifteenth-century Breviary of Martin of Aragon (Paris, BnF, ms. Rothschild 2529, fol. 409v), shows him weighted down with a mill wheel:
http://saints.sqpn.com/saintc14.jpg
Here's a fourteenth-century French miniature (St John's College, Cambridge, MS B.9, fol.133v) illustrating the recovery of C.'s anchor-weighted remains:
http://www.bnf.fr/enluminures/images/jpeg/i8_0078.jpg
Some other portrayals of C.:
a) C. comes second (after Martin) in the mid-sixth-century procession of male saints in the nave of Ravenna's Sant'Apollinare Nuovo:
http://www.ravennamosaici.it/apollinare_interna_06.htm
http://tinyurl.com/y9tsl7d
b) C. in an eleventh-century fresco in what is now the lower church of Rome's San Clemente:
http://tinyurl.com/yanut4b
c) C. at left (St. Meletius at right) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (ca. 1312-1321) of the Paraclis of the Theotokos in the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/yekmrox
Detail (C.):
http://tinyurl.com/ycupajb
d) C. at left (St. Peter of Alexandria at right) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century (1335-1350) frescoes in the narthex of the church of the Holy Ascension at 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/yjvkroz
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 there 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 archived Italian-language site Abruzzo Romanico and at the happily back on line Italia nell'Arte Medievale sites have expandable views of major features:
http://tinyurl.com/6xuy7f
http://tinyurl.com/wppyl
http://tinyurl.com/yhjeyk
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:
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 portrayed 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://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 at left below 'Abbazia'):
http://www.sanclementeacasauria.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/8/opere
This church did not escape unscathed from last April's terrible earthquake centered in the Aquilano:
http://tinyurl.com/yhvy3l2
Another attractive dedication to C. in the same region is the ex-abbey church of San Clemente al Vomano in Notaresco (TE)'s _frazione_ of Guardia Vomano, an originally twelfth-century (the portal bears a date variously read as 1108 and 1158) re-building of a ninth-century predecessor. Restored in the last century, it too possesses a noteworthy ciborium. The monastery, first securely documented from 1121, is said to have been founded by Louis II (the founder of San Clemente a Casauria) as a gift for his daughter Ermengarda, queen of Provence. Four illustrated, Italian-language pages on the site:
http://pensieriteramani.splinder.com/tag/guardia+vomano
http://tinyurl.com/y8f2sd9
http://tinyurl.com/y9rj45b
http://tinyurl.com/ye2b3b2
Other views:
http://tinyurl.com/yghdjtd
http://tinyurl.com/yhrzsf2
http://tinyurl.com/ygonald
http://tinyurl.com/ygjhj9r
http://tinyurl.com/yabxlna
http://tinyurl.com/yenj9hp
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/yze8neu
http://tinyurl.com/yvcvvr
http://www.emmauscollege.nl/images/tekenen/clement2.jpg
http://i44.tinypic.com/jk86fm.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/j849l
http://www.op.org/curia/sanclem/mosaic.html
http://www.op.org/curia/sanclem/frescaps.html
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://tinyurl.com/ye3qfhx
The Sacred Destinations pages on Rome's San Clemente include some good views of the lower church:
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/italy/rome-san-clemente
http://tinyurl.com/yfbbfh6
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
Other dedications to C.:
a) Some views of the originally eleventh-/twelfth-century church of St. Clement (kostel sv. Klimenta) in Stará Boleslav (Central Bohemia):
http://kostelyunas.net/kostely/stara_boleslav_1_3.jpg
http://kostelyunas.net/kostely/stara_boleslav_1_5.jpg
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/22808431
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Klimentsb.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/ya2ubrf
b) The mostly twelfth-century église Saint-Clément at Saint-Clément sur Guye (Saône-et-Loire), last restored from 1992 to 1995:
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/1925845.jpg
http://www.lrmh.fr/images/images.png/dir227/ABC19955538.png
http://www.lrmh.fr/images/images.png/dir205/ABC19955536.png
http://www.st-clement.com/Eglise_auberge_07.1.02.jpg
c) A lightly illustrated, German-language page on the originally twelfth-century (and formerly collegiate) church of St. Clemens in the Wissel section of Kalkar (Lkr. 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
d) Two illustrated, German-language pages on the originally twelfth- or thirteenth-century St. Clemens-Romanus Kirche in Marklohe (Lkr. Nienburg/Weser) in Niedersachsen:
http://tinyurl.com/399z2s
http://www.clemenskirche.de/
A better view:
http://angler-verein-nienburg.dawid-login.de/gewaesser.php
e) 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
f) 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
g) Views of the main portal of the originally thirteenth-century but since almost entirely rebuilt igreja de São Clemente in the homonymous _freguesia_ of Loulé (Distrito de Faro) in Algarve and of its adjacent, originally earlier tower, thought to have served as a minaret before the Reconquista:
http://tinyurl.com/yg5uhep
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vitor107/4095594057/
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3305/3597575739_89e252441d_b.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/yb64fep
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/19929604.jpg
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/18881622.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/y9ysnjr
h) 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
i) 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
j) Two pages on the late fourteenth-(?)/early fifteenth-century St Clement Colegate in Norwich:
http://tinyurl.com/2rsudy
http://tinyurl.com/2r3cst
k) Some very differently illustrated pages on the thirteenth-/fifteenth-century St Clement's in West Thurrock (Essex):
http://tinyurl.com/yc8yptw
http://www.essexchurches.info/church.asp?p=West%20Thurrock
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 revised)
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