medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (2. May) is the feast day of:
1) Hesper(i)us, Zoe, Cyriac, and Theodulus (d. early 2d cent., supposedly). Byzantine synaxaries, followed by the RM (the latter until recently calling H. Exuperius), commemorate this group of martyrs today. According to their legendary Passio (two versions: BHG 746 and 746b), they were Christian slaves of Italian origin in the household of a wealthy pagan living at Attalia in Pamphylia (today's Antalya in Turkey). At the birthday of the master's son, C. and T. refused gifts of food that they feared had previously been offered in sacrifice to the goddess Fortuna, much venerated in that household. Their enraged master, who had previously spared them when they had told him that they were Christian, had C. and T. savagely tortured before their parents H. and Z. The latter were then tortured too and all four ended their lives in a fiery furnace. When their bodies were removed they were said to show no physical sign of their torment. Thus far the Passio.
2) Felix of Seville (d. ca. 304, supposedly). This martyred F. is recorded in Iberian calendars from the sixth century onward. The legendary Passio of St. Eulalia of Barcelona (BHL 2693, etc.; first witnesses from the tenth century) makes him a martyr under the well-traveled persecutor Datianus. Relics said to be his are displayed in the cathedral of Seville:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25727578@N04/3007776404/
3) Athanasius of Alexandria (d. 373). The theologian A. (also A. the Great), a Doctor of the Church, had been secretary to the previous archbishop of Alexandria and had been part of his entourage at the Council of Nicaea before he himself ascended to that see in 328. Arian influence in the imperial court caused him to be deposed and exiled five times during his lengthy episcopate. His Bios of St. Anthony of Egypt (Anthony Abbot) is a hagiographic classic. A page with links to texts of A.'s writings (some in Greek, some in English translation) and with expandable views of various icons of him (mostly later than 1550) is here:
http://tinyurl.com/3y7ub8
A. as depicted in the twelfth-century mosaics of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo:
http://tinyurl.com/2eknhf5
A. as depicted (at right; at left, St. Basil the Great; at center, St. Nicholas of Myra) in a poorly preserved later twelfth-century fresco (ca. 1160-1180) in the church of the Holy Apostles at Pera Chorio (Nicosia prefecture) in the Republic of Cyprus:
http://tinyurl.com/35nrxcq
Detail (Nicholas and A.):
http://tinyurl.com/3yohyoq
A.'s late twelfth-century portrait (1192) in the restored apse paintings at Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi (near Nabk in Syria):
http://tinyurl.com/2656lf9
That image comes from this page of views of the apse program:
http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/MarMusaapsePaintings.html
A. as depicted (at left; at right, St. Cyril of Alexandria) in a thirteenth-century menaion from Cyprus (Paris, BnF, ms. Grec 1561, fol. 77r):
http://tinyurl.com/275pgqf
A. as depicted ca. 1300 in a fresco attributed to Manuel Panselinos in the Protaton church on Mt. Athos:
http://tinyurl.com/2czzrc7
A. as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (ca. 1313-ca. 1320) in the altar area of the King's Church (dedicated to Sts. Joachim and Anne) in the Studenica monastery near Kraljevo (Ra¹ka dist.) in southern Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/yeb9sut
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/ycxhrv2
A. as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century (1330s) frescoes in the altar area of the church of the Hodegetria in the Patriarchate of Peæ at Peæ 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/2445xqn
A. as depicted (at left; at right, St. Gregory of Nyssa) in the fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335-1350) of the altar area in the church of the Pantocrator at the Visoki Deèani monastery near Peæ in, depending on one's view of recent events, the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's Kosovo province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/28altj7
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/27ndxmt
A. as depicted (at left, writing a letter that is then delivered to pope St. Julius I) in an early fifteenth-century copy (ca. 1410-1412) of Marco Polo's _Devisement du monde_ (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 2810, fol. 178r):
http://tinyurl.com/yag7luq
Some views of the originally fourteenth(?)-century abandoned church of Sv. Atanasie at Varo¹ near Prilep in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://www.prilepsko.com/Sv.Atanasie-Varos.html
http://tinyurl.com/2a48b9k
http://tinyurl.com/2djl8s5
4) Walbert (d. ca. 668). According to his somewhat legendary tenth-century Vita (BHL 8775) by abbot Adso of Montier-en-Der, who had been oblated at Luxeuil and knew its traditions, the nobly born W. (also Waldebert, Gaubert) was born in the vicinity of today's Meaux (Seine-et-Marne) and had been a successful military man before entering the abbey of Luxeuil, to which latter in the time of abbot St. Eustasius (St. Columban's immediate successor) he dedicated his armor (still preserved in Adso's time) and all of his possessions. After a while W. withdrew to a cave a few kilometers away, where he lived as a hermit and whence he was recalled by the brethren to succeed Eustasius.
W.'s ca. forty-year rule was marked by the introduction of the Benedictine Rule, by pope John IV's declaration of Luxeuil to be an exempt abbey, by a considerable increase in the abbey's landed wealth, and by the continued development of its famous seventh-century scriptorium. Adso ascribes to W. several lifetime miracles. Today is W.'s _dies natalis_. Miracles occurred at his grave in the abbey church; in the ninth century he was viewed as Luxeuil's protector and his remains, then preserved in a châsse, were carried in procession.
An expandable view of a page from a late seventh-century lectionary from Luxueil (Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 9427, fol. 144r), written within a few decades after W.'s death and showing the abbey's distinctive script. The text (after TEMPORE ILLO) is Acts 5:17ff.
http://tinyurl.com/3wze2b
5) Wiborada (d. 926). W. was a Swabian of noble birth who became a recluse at Sankt Gallen. She has a late tenth- or eleventh-century Vita by the monk Hartmann (BHL 8866) and an eleventh-century Vita et Miracula by the monk Herimann (BHL 8867, 8868). W. was killed by Hungarian raiders. Pope Clement II canonized her in 1047 in the presence of the emperor Henry III. W. is the first woman saint to have been formally canonized for the Roman Church as a whole.
In art, W. is shown with a book, representing the precious books of Sankt Gallen that were transported to safety at Reichenau at her insistence, and with a halbard, representing the axe that is said to have killed her. Here's an example from ca. 1430-1436: the title miniature of a German-language Vita of W. (St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 586, p. 230):
http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/csg/0586/230/medium
And here's the only slightly later depiction (ca. 1451-1460) of W.'s suffering at p. 345 (fol. 163r) of St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 602:
http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/csg/0602/345/medium
6) Nicholas Hermansson (Bl.; d. 1391). We know about the reforming bishop N. (Nicolaus, Nils, etc.) chiefly from his early fifteenth-century Vitae, from the records of his canonization inquiry authorized at the Council of Konstanz, and from his surviving charters and literary texts. A native of Östergötland, who is said to have studied at Paris and at Orléans, he became a canon of Linköping and Uppsala in 1358 and became archdeacon of Linköping in 1361. In 1374 N. was elected bishop of Linköping; opposition from the Crown prevented him taking possession until the following year. Energetic both in defending the rights and property of his church and in preaching and making visitations throughout his diocese, he was remembered as a person of upright character who sought to improve the moral standing of his clergy.
Early in his career N. had tutored the sons of St. Bridget of Sweden. He supported her monastery at Vadstena, vigorously promoted her canonization cause, and wrote new Office for her. A text of that with a parallel translation into Swedish is here:
http://paradox.provocation.net/medeltid/helgon/rrvesper.htm
Its antiphon _Rosa rorans bonitatem_ is available as a ringtone:
http://www.lyricstime.com/vox-nova-rosa-rorans-lyrics.html
N.'s cult was immediate. Though his canonization process seems never to have been concluded, his cult was recognized by Alexander VI in 1497 and again in 1499, a translation of his relics at Linköping took place in 1515, and a Mass and Office for his feast there were printed in 1523. Formerly celebrated on 24. July (principal feast) and 4. February (translation feast), N. entered the RM in 2001 as a _Beatus_ and under today's date (his _dies natalis_).
Most of Linköping's cathedral was already built in N.'s time. Herewith illustrated pages on it in English and in Swedish:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link%C3%B6ping_Cathedral
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link%C3%B6pings_domkyrka
7) Antoninus of Florence (d. 1459). A. (also Antonino Pierozzi) was born in Florence and christened Antonius; the diminutive name-form by which he is known reflects his small physical stature. His father was a notary. At the age of fifteen A. entered the Order of Friars Preacher at Florence's Santa Maria Novella, where he is said to have impressed Bl. Giovanni Dominici with his precocious legal knowledge (supposedly, he had memorized Gratian's _Decretum_). He was sent to Cortona to complete his novitiate and was ordained priest there in about 1413. W. rapidly became subprior and then prior at Cortona and thereafter served in a number of important administrative roles within his order. In 1446 A. became bishop of Florence, where he had already founded a charitable society attending to needs of the poor.
A. distinguished himself by his preaching and by a corpus of legally oriented pastoral and theological writing. His major work is a _Summa moralis_. A. was canonized in 1523. His remains repose in a display reliquary in the altar of the chapel dedicated to him in Florence's basilica di San Marco:
http://tinyurl.com/2bjsyx3
Herewith a couple of illustrated, English-language pages on Florence's basilica di Santa Maria Novella:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Maria_Novella
http://tinyurl.com/6ou7sh
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised)
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