medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (12. December) is the feast day of:
1) Epimachus and Alexander (d. 250 or 251). We know about E. and A. from St. Dionysius of Alexandria's report on the martyrs of his city as quoted by Eusebius (_Historia ecclesiastica_, 6. 41-42; these two at 6. 41. 15). They were held in prison for a considerable period of time, during which they were tortured in a variety of ways. Their end came when they were doused with quicklime. E. and A. entered the historical martyrologies with Florus of Lyon, who gave all the Alexandrian martyrs of this persecution a single, lengthy entry under 20. February. St. Ado of Vienne broke that elogium up, entering individuals and small groups under different days. It is down to Ado that this pair is commemorated today. Their feast day in the synaxary of Constantinople is 6. July.
2) Spyridon the Wonderworker (d. 4th cent.). S. was bishop of Trimithous on Cyprus. He is reported as having signed, perhaps three years after its conclusion, the acts of the Council of Serdica (342/43). Late in the same century it was already believed that he had been a shepherd and that he continued in that role even after assuming his episcopate (hence his frequent depiction in a shepherd's hat). S. seems to have fathered a daughter before entering religion. Rufinus of Aquileia (d. 410) records two miracles attributed to him (one involving sheep of the actual rather than the metaphorical kind). S. has two seventh-century Bioi, one by Theodore of Paphos (BHG 1647; completed by 665) and the other possibly by Leontios of Neapolis (BHG 1648a). Both are said to draw on a lost poem by S.'s pupil Triphyllios. Known for his miracles, S. is a patron of shepherds and of seafarers.
By the ninth century S.'s cult had reached the West, where he is listed for 14. December in the Marble Calendar of Naples and in the martyrologies of Florus of Lyon, Ado, and Usuard.
In BHG 1647 S.'s remains are said to be still on Cyprus. But an incorrupt body believed to be his is also said to have been brought to Constantinople at some point in the seventh century (Stephen of Novgorod saw it there in the church of the Holy Apostles in 1348 or 1349) and to have been taken to Corfu in the later fifteenth century. Corfu's late sixteenth-century cathedral is dedicated to S., who as that island's patron saint has in the early modern period saved his people from pestilence, famine, and Turkish conquest.
In his cathedral on Corfu C. ordinarily reposes in the nineteenth-century reliquary shown here:
http://tinyurl.com/ywmlo9
But four times a year (today not being one of them) he is carried in public procession as the island's protector. On those occasions he travels in this modified sedan chair:
http://tinyurl.com/33syph
Views of S. being carried in procession:
http://tinyurl.com/yefr7t5
http://tinyurl.com/ypywtl
Rear view:
http://www.travelinfo.gr/corfu/vaion.jpg
Some views of the originally thirteenth-century fortified church of Ag. Spyridon in the village of Kardamyli in Lefktra (Messenia prefecture) in the southern Peloponnese (in the first view, it's at right in the middle distance):
http://tinyurl.com/5luldl
http://www.marengowalks.com/marengo_images/skb01.jpg
http://travel.webshots.com/photo/1375423299046209414EOJKZa
http://travel.webshots.com/photo/1375423043046209414CfoQQW
http://eleftheria.aminus3.com/image/2008-12-02.html
http://www.pbase.com/candron/image/51006776
S. as depicted in the Protaton church on Mount Athos (ca. 1300; attributed to Manuel Panselinos):
http://tinyurl.com/y95od95
http://tinyurl.com/yf3jc4c
S. as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century (ca. 1313-1320) frescoes in the King's Church (dedicated to Sts. Joachim and Anne) in the Studenica monastery near Kraljevo (Raška dist.) in southern Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/ybogebl
S. as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century (1330s) frescoes in the church of the Hodegetria in the Patriarchate of Peć :
http://tinyurl.com/y8bbv4w
S. as depicted at far right in the earlier fourteenth-century (1335-1350) frescoes in the altar area 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/yafmkm8
Detail (S.):
http://tinyurl.com/y86gkmp
S. as depicted in the fourteenth-century frescoes of the monastery of Sv. Ioan Bogoslov (St. John the Theologian) at Zemen in western Bulgaria:
http://tinyurl.com/5kc2eq
While we're here, an illustrated page on the monastery itself:
http://www.bulgarianmonastery.com/zemen_monastery.html
and one, with English-language text commencing a little more than halfway down the page, on its frescoes:
http://www.pravoslavieto.com/manastiri/zemenski/index.htm
S. as depicted in 1502 by Dionisy and sons in the Virgin Nativity cathedral of the St. Ferapont Belozero (Ferapontov Belozersky) Monastery at Ferapontovo in Russia's Vologda oblast:
http://www.dionisy.com/img/266/frag_lg.jpg
3) Corentin of Quimper (d. 5th cent.). C. (in some places also Cury) is a Celtic saint honored in Brittany as the founding bishop of the see of Corisopitum (later, Cornouaille; now the see of Quimper-et-Léon) and in Cornwall as the patron saint of Cury on the Lizard peninsula. He has an unreliable, probably thirteenth-century Vita (different versions; BHL 1953z, 1954). Legendarily, as an hermit before becoming bishop he sustained himself on a fish from which he could cut a portion daily with no diminution of the fish's size. In 1890 a wall painting was found at the church of Breage in Cornwall (Cury's mother church) depicting C. as a bishop and with a fish beside him.
Quimper's mostly thirteenth-/fifteenth-century cathedral (the tower spires are nineteenth-century) is dedicated to C. Herewith some views:
Multiple (all expandable):
http://www.bagadoo.tm.fr/kemper/DIAPO/cathed.html
http://tinyurl.com/2zernp
http://tinyurl.com/29cp6n
Interior:
http://tinyurl.com/yupqde
http://tinyurl.com/2h7np3
Chapels of medieval and early modern origin dedicated to C. occur at places in Brittany adjacent to holy springs identified with locales from his Vita. Herewith two illustrated pages on the one at Trénivel (Finistère), seemingly from the mid-sixteenth century and recently restored:
http://tinyurl.com/ybp5g53
http://tinyurl.com/y8m37oy
A page of views on St Corentin, Cury (some images expandable, including those with the broken thumbnails):
http://tinyurl.com/56z2ks
4) Israel of Le Dorat (d. 1014). We know about canon regular I. from his closely contemporary Vita (BHL 4496). He was singing master at the abbey of Le Dorat (Haute-Vienne) in the Limousin and for a while also taught in the cathedral school of Limoges, where he was ordained priest. I. was remembered for his great charity in caring for fellow canons stricken with a serious illness that ravaged the abbey in 989 and 990. In the year 1000 Pope Sylvester II (Gerbert of Aurillac) made him prior of the newly re-organized canons at Saint-Junien (Haute-Vienne). In 1013 I. returned to Le Dorat following a disastrous fire there. When he died in the following year he was buried in the abbey's cemetery.
In the early twelfth century miracles were reported at I.'s grave and at that of the somewhat later Theodore of Le Dorat (d. 1070). The remains of both were translated to the crypt of the abbey church of St. Peter in 1130 but appear not to have been venerated liturgically until the seventeenth century, when their joint tomb was moved to one of the chapels in the choir. Here's a not awfully good view of it:
http://tinyurl.com/5c782d
The building housing that tomb, though, is certainly worth a look. Herewith some views of the originally twelfth-century collégiale Saint-Pierre at Le Dorat, fortified in the fifteenth century and especially notable for its gigantic, Mozarabic-influenced west portal:
Exterior:
http://i49.servimg.com/u/f49/11/59/78/39/la_col10.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/6fvym4
http://flickr.com/photos/yoggibat/2348349154/sizes/l/
http://tinyurl.com/69cy8b
http://tinyurl.com/6542eg
http://tinyurl.com/5983ly
Exterior and interior:
http://flickr.com/photos/jahovil/sets/72157601912794296/
Interior:
http://www.chamina.com/art-roman/pages/galerie/photo_80.asp
Crypt:
http://i49.servimg.com/u/f49/11/59/78/39/la_cry10.jpg
Finally, a few views of the originally late eleventh- to fourteenth-century collégiale Saint-Junien at Saint-Junien, replacing an earlier church that I. is said to have in part rebuilt:
http://tinyurl.com/582nav
http://tinyurl.com/6lynk8
A French-language description of this edifice is here:
http://tinyurl.com/62jsvp
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post lightly revised)
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