medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (26. June) is the feast day of:
1) John and Paul (?). J. and P. are martyrs of the Caelian Hill in Rome, where a paleochristian church in their memory was succeeded in the early twelfth century by today's Santi Giovanni e Paolo. They have a legendary Passio that exists both as part of that of St. Gallicanus and as an independent narrative (BHL 3236-2237b and 3238-3242e, respectively). This makes them first household officials of Constantine's daughter Constantina, then military officers under Gallicanus, and finally private citizens living in retirement who are martyred under the emperor Julian (for Western saints, at least, this last is a good indication that the account is fictional) and, in an attempt to keep the deed secret, are buried in their house.
Excavations under the the present basilica in the twentieth century revealed 1) fragments of an inscription, similar to those put up by pope St. Damasus, that almost certainly honored J. and P. and 2) a chamber, dated to the fourth century, frescoed with scenes of martyrdom and containing a trench divided into two parts. The presumption is that this area functioned as a confessio and that the trench had served as, or at least was shown as, the martyrs' original burial site.
J. and P. are named in the Roman and the Ambrosian Canons of the Mass. They are entered under today in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology and in the early medieval Roman sacramentaries.
Differently sized views of the martyrdom of J. and P. as depicted in a late thirteenth-century _Legenda aurea_ (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 65r) are accessible from near the top of this page:
http://tinyurl.com/l97wfz
The martyrdom of J. and P. as depicted in the late thirteenth-century Livre d'images de Madame Marie (Paris, BnF, ms. Nouvelle acquisition française 16251, fol. 80v):
http://tinyurl.com/25nt5vd
J. and P. with Constantina (a.k.a. St. Constantia of Rome) as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century copy (1348) of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 241, fol. 144v):
http://tinyurl.com/24h3jvx
An Italian-language account, without illustrations, on medieval aspects of Rome's Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo is here (scroll down to "Ss. Giovanni e Paolo" or use the menu at left):
http://tinyurl.com/3dx28v
And a companion account of the basilica's twelfth-/thirteenth-century belltower is here (scroll down to "Ss. Giovanni e Paolo" or use menu at left):
http://tinyurl.com/3st9nw
An English-language page on this church:
http://www.romeartlover.it/Vasi53.htm
Some expandable views are here:
http://tinyurl.com/ow9fy
The saints' tomb:
http://tinyurl.com/38m2shs
Two of those expandable views are of frescoes in the remains of ancient Roman houses underneath the basilica (the Case Romane). A brief discussion of that site is here:
http://www.caseromane.it/en/history.html
A few more illustrations of the frescoes, including a medieval one of the crucified Christ, are here:
http://www.caseromane.it/en/pic.html
Marjorie Greene's views of the Case Romane at medrelart are here:
http://medrelart.shutterfly.com/59
Rome's basilica of J. and P. is a basilica architecturally as well as ecclesiastically. Venice's (San Zanipolo to the locals) is only the latter. The medieval city's Dominican church, in its present form it is mostly of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. An English-language account with expandable views (and with a plan that one can click on to see, inter alia, smallish views of funerary monuments of medieval doges) is here:
http://www.savevenice.org/site/pp.asp?c=9eIHKWMHF&b=67636
Other illustrated, English-language accounts:
http://www.answers.com/topic/basilica-di-san-zanipolo
http://www.wga.hu/database/churches/zanipolo.html
This church's south transept has a noteworthy late fifteenth-/early sixteenth-century glass window (colored glass and grisaille). A brief, English-language account is here (NB: this can be slow to load):
http://tinyurl.com/m8w9al
An overview is here:
http://www.icvbc.cnr.it/bivi/schede/veneto/venezia/1zanipolo1.htm
And a detailed, Italian-language account with hotlinks to some detail views is here:
http://www.icvbc.cnr.it/bivi/schede/veneto/venezia/1zanipolo.htm
2) Vigilius of Trent (d. 400). V. (In Italian, Vigilio and -- for short -- Vili) was the bishop of Trent who in two surviving letters reported the late fourth-century martyrdom of Sts. Sisinnius, Martyrius, and Alexander (the Martyrs of the Val di Non) to the bishops of Milan and of Constantinople (Sts. Simplician and John Chrysostom, respectively). He has a legendary Passio (BHL no. 8602), whose basic text seems to have been written at some point during the seventh, eighth, or ninth century and which served as the base for his elogium in the mid-ninth-century matryrology of Florus of Lyon. Evidence that V. really was a martyr and reasons for even supposing it likely that he was are nonexistent.
Trent's originally thirteenth-/fourteenth-century cathedral is dedicated to V. A brief, English-language account is here:
http://floc99.itc.it/turism/trento/duomo.htm
The Italia nell'Arte Medievale pages:
http://tinyurl.com/3psesq
http://tinyurl.com/4bd98f
Various views:
http://tinyurl.com/2b23zqe
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Trento_Duomo.jpg
http://www.girovagandointrentino.it/puntate/2003/estate/trento/trento.htm
(scroll about a quarter of the way down the page)
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/60anto/Monumenti/grifoni.htm
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/60anto/Monumenti/Monum.htm
Other dedications to V.
a) The chiesa di San Vigilio in the _rione_ of Pez in Cles (TN) in Trentino - Alto Adige is first recorded from 911. The oldest portion of the present structure is its "romanesque" apse:
http://tinyurl.com/24l6f6m
Expandable views of the apse and of the church's later medieval frescoes after their restoration in 2009 are in the second row here:
http://www.jeanart.it/attivita.html
Other views (also expandable) of this now mostly late medieval church and of its frescoes (the latter prior to their recent restoration):
http://tinyurl.com/24l6f6m
b) Views of the originally thirteenth-century chiesetta di San Vigilio in Monte San Vigilio (TN) in Trentino - Alto Adige:
http://tinyurl.com/mnk5am
http://tinyurl.com/njtf6a
http://tinyurl.com/lxbxhl
c) A view of, and two differently illustrated English-language account of, the originally thirteenth- and earlier sixteenth-century chiesa di San Vigilio at Molveno (TN) in Trentino - Alto Adige, restored in the early 1990s:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/azzalimatteo/3340796051/sizes/l/
http://tinyurl.com/27folcr
http://tinyurl.com/2fk37ch
Most of this brief video is devoted to this church (NB: the interior views are pre-restoration):
http://tinyurl.com/2brbr3r
d) Two illustrated, Italian-language pages on the originally late fifteenth-century chiesa di San Vigilio at Tassullo (TN) in Trentino - Alto Adige:
http://tinyurl.com/klbml7
http://tinyurl.com/27f42m4
Many views here:
http://tinyurl.com/34tffqs
e) Italian-language accounts of the originally fifteenth-century chiesa di San Vigilio in Pinzolo (TN) in Trentino - Alto Adige, expanded,incl. the polygonal apse, in 1515 and bearing a Dance of Death mural executed between 1519 and 1539 (at the second page, click on "Chiesa di San Vigilio"):
http://pinzolo.ies.tn.it/pagine/dettaglio/41/70.html
http://pinzolo.ies.tn.it/pagine/dettaglio/41/67.html
Views:
http://tinyurl.com/34dxwg8
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/C9c1j1cutyOMTcDrxt2d2g
http://tinyurl.com/2b4vyo3
http://tinyurl.com/23fej3k
http://www.flickr.com/photos/querin/sets/72157612111338968/
The Italia nell'Arte Medievale page on this church, with views of the interior frescoing (the apse was painted by Simone II Baschenis in 1539):
http://tinyurl.com/ybexwla
More views of the apse frescoes:
http://tinyurl.com/27vj5rh
http://tinyurl.com/25hous2
Detail (V.):
http://tinyurl.com/29l9d8e
Lower down, these frescoes include a cycle of scenes of V. Two views, the second showing V. removing the cult statue of Saturn before which St. Sisinnius and companions had been slain:
http://tinyurl.com/2cww4py
http://tinyurl.com/22rexuy
3) Deodatus of Nola (d. 5th or 6th cent.). Today's less well known saint of the Regno, also known as Adeodatus, was once thought on the basis of his brief Vita (BHL no. 2135) to have succeeded St. Paulinus (d. 431) as bishop of the Campanian town of Nola and to have died in 473. But it is now believed at Nola that Paulinus' immediate successor was a younger relative also named Paulinus. And 1974 it was shown that the bishop of Nola from 442 to 480 was one Aurelian, whose funerary inscription (_CIL_ X, 1366) had previously been misread as furnishing a sixth- or seventh-century date. D.'s sarcophagus, carved out of a single block of marble, survives at nearby Cimitile (the site of Paulinus' basilica honoring St. Felix); this gives him the title of archpriest.
The diocese of Nola no longer considers D. to have been one of its bishops. The RM, its editors perhaps unpersuaded of the episcopacy of the younger Paulinus, still treats D. as Paulinus' immediate successor in the see of Nola.
4) Pelagius of Córdoba (d. 945). According to his tenth-century Passio of Iberian origin (BHL 6617), P. (Pelayo, Paio, Pelaio) was the sister's son of Hermoigius, (arch)bishop of Tuy. The latter, captured in battle by forces of the Muslim king Habdarraman (the caliph Abd-ar-Rahman III), left the approximately ten-year-old P. as a hostage, hoping to redeem him later. P., held as a prisoner at Córdoba, was according to fellow prisoners a model young man who retained his Christian faith. When P. reached the age of thirteen and a half, the king, contrasting the delights of the court to P.'s confinement, attempted to seduce him into apostasy and, it is suggested, into a sexual relationship as well. P.'s refusal earned him torture and a grisly execution: he was gradually dismembered by sword strokes. His body was thrown into a river whence it was later recovered by Christians. Thus far the Passio.
P.'s cult seems to have been almost immediate. His putative relics were in León by 967; later they were translated to Oviedo. P.'s legend spread well beyond Iberia. The tenth-century poet Hrotswitha of Gandersheim wrote a verse Passio of P. (BHL 6618).
The colegiata de San Isidoro at León still has an eleventh-century reliquary created to house relics of P. and of St. John the Baptist:
http://tinyurl.com/2v3pvd3
Along with St. Isidore, P. (at right) is one of the flanking figures on that church's twelfth-century portada del Cordero:
http://tinyurl.com/6gs4as
Click on P.'s outline here for better views:
http://www.sanisidoro.de/englisch/cordero/index.html
Some dedications to P.:
a) The ermita de San Pelayo at Perazancas de Ojeda (Palencia), consecrated in 1076:
http://geo.ya.com/froilan1958/PueblosBoedoPerazancas.html
http://geo.ya.com/froilan1958/susfotos34.html
http://tinyurl.com/6owelr
b) The much rebuilt but originally earlier twelfth-century iglesia de San Pelayo at Arenillas de San Pelayo, a locality of Buenavista de Valdavia (Palencia) preserves a twelfth-century monumental portal and other medieval features (NB: in the second set of views, the enlargements are much clearer than the thumbnails):
http://tinyurl.com/2wf95sh
http://www.vegavaldavia.com/paginas.asp?num=14
http://tinyurl.com/38obcms
http://tinyurl.com/349yfvd
c) The rupestrian ermita de San Pelayo at Villacibio (Palencia), documented from 1155:
http://tinyurl.com/6rlhot
http://www.valentinv.com/romanico/Sampelayoermita.jpg
http://www.valentinv.com/romanico/Sampelayoermita1.jpg
d) Two illustrated, Spanish-language pages on the originally later twelfth-century church of San Pelayo at Diomondi (Galicia):
http://www.arquivoltas.com/11-Galicia/01-Diomondi.htm
http://www.arteguias.com/monasterio/sanpelayodiomondi.htm
e) The originally late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century ermita de San Pelayo at Bakio (Vizcaya):
http://tinyurl.com/4633mm
http://tinyurl.com/kpdwby
f) Views of the tower and other remains of the fourteenth-/fifteenth-century church of San Pelayo at Villavicencio de los Caballeros (Valladolid) are shown in the second set here:
http://tinyurl.com/mwfc7e
Two more views of the tower:
http://tinyurl.com/3l9gzp
http://tinyurl.com/ndsguo
g) The originally fifteenth-century church of San Pelayo at Olivares de Duero (Valladolid):
http://tinyurl.com/2e3cw85
http://tinyurl.com/5w6nn3
h) The originally sixteenth-century church of San Pelayo Mártir at Baños de Rio Tobía (La Rioja):
http://tinyurl.com/35hf7xt
http://tinyurl.com/46or6p
http://tinyurl.com/52ljb2
http://tinyurl.com/36gvgs8
5) Anthelme of Belley (d. 1178). The Savoyard A. (also A. of Chignin) was a priest at today's Belley (Ain) who at the age of thirty became a Carthusian at the order's house at Portes-en-Bugey. Two years later, in 1139, he was named prior of the then dilapidated Grande Chartreuse. He made remarkable progress over the next twelve years both in improving conditions at this house and in elevating the order's profile more generally. In 1152 A. resigned his office to become a hermit. Two years later he was recalled to active service and was briefly prior at Portes-en-Bugey.
In 1163 Alexander III made A. bishop of Belley. A few years later A. excommunicated the count of Maurienne who had imprisoned one of his priests and had another who was attempting free the first put to death. When Alexander annulled the excommunication A. resigned his office and retired to the Grande Chartreuse until persuaded by the pope to stay on. Only when A. was _in articulo mortis_ did the repentant count seek his forgiveness. A.'s contemporary Vita (BHL 560) adds that he was good to the lepers of Belley and to its poor. His relics are said to be in Belley's ex-cathedral of Saint-Jean-Baptiste. As the latter lost its relic of the Baptist during the Revolution and now displays a _former_ châsse of A., one wonders if that's really true. Here's a view of the empty châsse:
http://tinyurl.com/m3kj5y
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised)
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