medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Today (9. December) is the feast day of:

1)  Leocadia (?).  L. is the traditional patron saint of Toledo, where her cult is first attested from the seventh century in the form of references to her basilica there and to her veneration by St. Ildefonsus (d. 607) as recorded in the latter's later seventh-century Vita by St. Julian of Toledo.  Whereas the basilica is recorded as dedicated to L. the confessor, she is usually considered a martyr.  Her legendary Passio (BHL 4848, etc.; first witness is of the tenth century) makes her a slave arrested during the Great Persecution who while in prison hears of the suffering of St. Eulalia and who then resolves to undergo martyrdom.  The sadistic persecutor Decianus accommodates her wish.  Thus far L.'s Passio.

St. Ildefonsus of Toledo (d. 667) reports in his _De virginitate Beatae Mariae_ that while he was praying before L.'s tomb the saint arose before him and offered words of praise for his devotion to the BVM (whom I. credited with the operation of this miracle).  This text, which was widely copied in Spain and in southern France from the tenth to thirteenth centuries, was used at for liturgical readings on the feast of the Annunciation and facilitated L.'s association with the Virgin.  The French poet Gautier de Coinci, who had a relic of L. that he believed had formerly belonged to St. Ildefonsus, devoted considerable attention to her in his earlier thirteenth-century _Miracles de Nostre Dame_.  Herewith two illuminations depicting L. in an earlier fourteenth-century copy (ca. 1330-1340) of that text (Paris, BnF, ms. Nouvelle acquisition française 24541, fols. 21r and 111v):
http://tinyurl.com/ya7guu4
http://tinyurl.com/yap2s4s 
For those with access to JSTOR, David Raizman's article "A Rediscovered Illuminated Manuscript of St. Ildefonsus's _De Virginitate Beatae Mariae_ in the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid", _Gesta_ 26 (1987), 37-46, has on p. 41 a black-and-white image of that manuscript's illumination of I. cutting a piece of L.'s veil while the saint sits upright in her open tomb (the ms., which Raizman assigns to the early thirteenth century, is Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, MS 21546).

In the ninth century relics believed to be L.'s were translated from Toledo to Oviedo, where Alfonso II of Asturias (A. the Chaste) built a church to house them and, in its upper portion, the precious Sudarium of Oviedo.  The structure, now known as the Cámara Santa, is annexed to Oviedo's cathedral.  Two exterior views:
http://tinyurl.com/yzovjqb
http://tinyurl.com/6s6ma7
The Cripta de Santa Leocadia:
http://tinyurl.com/5a67lu
http://tinyurl.com/5z3xd8
L.'s relics were later taken out of Spain and were not returned until the later sixteenth century.  She is in the ninth-century historical martyrologies and was venerated medievally in France as well as in Iberia.

Some views of the originally twelfth-century église Sainte-Léocadie at Vic-la-Gardiole (Hérault):
Exterior:
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/4145178.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/yb5xwb6
http://tinyurl.com/yeeevz6
http://tinyurl.com/y86wmch
http://tinyurl.com/yhr6w5a
http://tinyurl.com/yergauw
http://tinyurl.com/y88986q
http://tinyurl.com/y9gwfaf
Interior:
http://tinyurl.com/yd2j5ag
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/4BGOoSA5_qHQZJpUS_Yg_w

Some views of the originally twelfth-century iglesia de Santa Leocadia at Frixe, a locality of Muxía (Galicia):
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/11022397.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/ya9jlv7
http://tinyurl.com/y8mp8t5

A view of the apse of the iglesia (ermita) del Cristo de la Vega at Toledo, a survivor of a twelfth-century rebuilding (1166) of L.'s Visigothic-period basilica there:
http://tinyurl.com/6lvno6

Views, etc. of the originally thirteenth-century iglesia de Santa Leocadia at Toledo:
http://tinyurl.com/6ygh34
http://tinyurl.com/66hffk
http://www.artehistoria.jcyl.es/ciudades/obras/28412.htm
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/7590723.jpg
http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2648976070052458863blGeNa
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/19381132.jpg
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/211/472884029_498a01f0eb_o.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/yc24sh2
http://tinyurl.com/yjpg4t4


2)  Syrus of Pavia (d. later 4th cent.).  By all accounts, none of which is either very early or particularly credible, S. was the first bishop of Pavia.  The traditional third bishop, St. Inventius/Eventius, is attested from the end of the fourth century.  If I./E. really was the third bishop, then his predecessor but one was presumably in office sometime earlier in the second half of that century.  A tomb in Pavia's chiesa dei Santi Gervasio e Protasio, where remains believed to have been those of S. are known to have reposed for centuries prior to their translation to the cathedral, is inscribed SVRVS EPC, i.e. Syrus episcopus:
http://tinyurl.com/5t8ool
It is thought that S. was laid to rest in this since much rebuilt church and that the inscription (whose EPC portion seems to be a later addition) goes back to a time when he was not yet considered considered a saint.

The first we hear of _saint_ S. is in a Vita (BHL 7976) dated to the eighth or the ninth century, whose purpose is pretty clearly to claim apostolic foundation for the diocese of Pavia and to establish that the latter was really the original bishopric for the large swath of northern Italy that historically belonged to the archdiocese of Milan.  This is done by making S. a disciple of St. Hermagoras of Aquileia (supposedly consecrated by St. Mark the apostle) and the apostle not only of Pavia but also of Verona, Brescia, Lodi, and Milan itself, the legendary foundation of whose church by the apostle Barnabas seems to be a response to such posturing.  A later medieval Vita and a separate translation account provide other, sometimes contradictory details but reaffirm the antiquity of Pavia's diocese vis-a-vis that of Milan (of which Pavia was a suffragan from at least the early eighth century onward).

Milan adopted S. as a saint of the archdiocese and spread his cult throughout its territory.  Further afield, the S. venerated at Padua as an early bishop seems in origin to have been today's S., the protobishop of Pavia.  Opinions differ on whether that is also the case with the supposedly fourth-century St. Syrus of Genoa.

Here's a not awfully good view of a relief of S. preserved from the twelfth-century facade of Pavia's chiesa dei Santi Gervasio e Protasio that preceded its present eighteenth-century one:
http://tinyurl.com/5m7x94

Vincenzo Foppa's portrait of S. (Pavia; ca. 1455), now in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts:
http://www.artsmia.org/viewer/larger-image.php?id=1610&v=12

Some dedications to S.:

The originally eleventh-/twelfth-century pieve di San Siro at Cemmo (BS) in Lombardy's Vallecamonica, largely rebuilt in 1912:
Exterior:
http://tinyurl.com/5hx5g4
http://www.chiesadimilano.it/or/ADMI/esy/objects/images/75845.jpeg
http://tinyurl.com/6yslmy
http://tinyurl.com/6le7cj
Interior:
http://www.chiesadimilano.it/or/ADMI/esy/objects/images/75841.jpeg
http://tinyurl.com/5zqlsd
http://tinyurl.com/5s8gly
http://www.thais.it/scultura/image/sch00462.htm
Fifteenth-century frescoes:
http://tinyurl.com/57b8gw
http://tinyurl.com/6prt8g
http://tinyurl.com/6j57fr
Various:
http://tinyurl.com/694he5

The originally eleventh-century but much rebuilt church of Santi Siro e Libera at Verona, overlooking that city's Roman Theatre:
http://tinyurl.com/ydfazv
http://www.verona.com/data/foto/lowres/20040404/DSC_0252.JPG
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/FmuJgVO2rsKCp402ZsrzlQ

The originally twelfth(?)-century chiesetta di San Siro at Capriate San Gervasio (BG; entry repositioned in 1722) in Lombardy, a contender for the "saints of the day" Ugliest Church Award, small church division:
http://tinyurl.com/27tekd
http://tinyurl.com/yrdfn6
http://tinyurl.com/2hd3zw
http://tinyurl.com/ys9lj7
http://tinyurl.com/yvcplr

An Italian-language page on, and some views of, the fourteenth- or late fifteenth-century (opinions differ) frescoes of the "romanesque" apse and triumphal arch of the mostly seventeenth-century chiesetta di San Siro at Lasino (TN) in Trentino-Alto Adige (the belltower is central medieval below and late medieval above):
http://tinyurl.com/yez697b
http://tinyurl.com/yf8d6qt
http://tinyurl.com/yajld2x
http://tinyurl.com/yf4f8wn
http://tinyurl.com/yh8l9zo
http://tinyurl.com/y8ou78k
The chiesetta's facade and belltower:
http://www.comune.lasino.tn.it/public/lasino_ssiro_02.jpg

On S.'s early Vita, see Nicholas Everett, "The earliest recension of the Life of S. Sirus of Pavia (Vat. Lat. 5771)", _Studi Medievali__ 3a serie, 43 (2002), 857-958.

Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post lightly revised)

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