medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Today (22. August) is the feast day of:

1)  Symphorianus of Autun (?).  S. is a martyr of Autun with a legendary Passio presumed to have come into being shortly after the erection of his martyrial basilica there in about 450 (BHL 7967-7969).  This has him suffer under emperor Aurelian, who as emperor issued no persecutorial edicts but who in 257 had a command in Gaul when the Valerianic persecution was under way.  An alternative hypothesis is that -- despite the opening words  _Sub Aureliano principe_ -- the emperor in question is meant to be Marcus Aurelius, who did persecute.  In Usuard, whose elogium of S. follows the Passio, the emperor _is_ Aurelius.  Perhaps the most memorable aspect of the Passio is S.'s mother atop the city wall encouraging S., as he is led out to be executed, to be faithful to the end.

S.'s cult spread in late antiquity to other places in Gaul, e.g. Tours (where his cult was already established in St. Gregory of Tours' day), Bourges (where in the sixth century there was a basilica dedicated to him), and in Burgundy (the very early eighth-century _Missale Gothicum_ [Vat. reg. lat. 317], of Burgundian origin, has a Mass for him).  The monastery serving his church at Autun lasted until the French Revolution; its church survived until 1806.  Some relics said to be of S. are kept in the originally thirteenth-century église Saint-Symphorien at Nuits-Saint-Georges (Côte-d'Or) in Bourgogne:
http://tinyurl.com/6yen46 
Other expandable views occur a little less than halfway down the page here:
http://lieuxsacres.canalblog.com/archives/p30-10.html 
Others are kept in an originally twelfth-century châsse in the église Saint-Symphorien at Saint-Symphorien (now part of the city of Mons) in Belgium:
http://tinyurl.com/6kue26
http://tinyurl.com/5f7t2k
http://tinyurl.com/5m6low

S. as depicted in an earlier twelfth-century Vitae sanctorum (Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 641, fol. 10v):
http://tinyurl.com/54rxcu

In his martyrology Usuard entered Timothy of Rome (no. 2, below) before S.  An expandable view of T.'s martyrdom and of S.'s as depicted in the upper and lower portions, respectively, of the same column in a late thirteenth-century copy of French origin of the _Legenda aurea_ (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 108r): 
http://tinyurl.com/2csect5
In later medieval liturgical books the two are sometimes paired, e.g. in the breviary for the Use of Paris of ca. 1414 in which this illumination occurs (Châteauroux, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 2, fol. 294r):
http://tinyurl.com/6lx2wh

Some other dedications to S.: 

a)  The much rebuilt, originally eleventh-century église Saint-Symphorien at Azay-le-Rideau (Indre-et-Loire), incorporating bits from one or more predecessors on the site:
http://tinyurl.com/6cayop
http://flickr.com/photos/33686579@N00/1519731846
http://tinyurl.com/5olxee
http://tinyurl.com/5v8sy5

b)  The originally twelfth-century église Saint-Symphorien at Biozat (Allier):
http://tinyurl.com/6z2s2m
http://www.art-roman.net/biozat/biozat.htm

c)  The originally twelfth-century église Saint-Symphorien at Sanvignes-les-Mines (Saône-et-Loire), dedicated at first to St. Helen and restored ca. 1950:
http://tinyurl.com/2a322h2
http://www.mairie-sanvigneslesmines.fr/com_tourisme.html

d)  The originally twelfth- and thirteenth-century église Saint-Symphorien at La Gripperie-Saint-Symphorien (Charente-Maritime), rebuilt in the fifteenth-century:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/STSY6.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/28qqtzp
http://tinyurl.com/2efjb72
http://tinyurl.com/36rrpnn
http://chapiteaux.free.fr/TXT_saint-symphorien.html
http://chapiteaux.free.fr/Diapo_St-Symphorien.html

e)  The former priory of S. at Saint-Symphorien-en-Saosnois (Sarthe), attested in the twelfth century as an oratory and from 1229 the church of a priory there:
http://www.saosnois.com/st-symphorien.htm
http://prieure-de-saint-symphorien.e-monsite.com/album.html

f)  The originally thirteenth-century église Saint-Symphorien at Touches in Mercurey (Saône-et-Loire):
http://saintsymphorien.net/Saint-Symphorien-de-Touches.html
http://pastourisme71.com/pages/touches_mercurey.htm
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thioboy/3639252496/
http://tinyurl.com/23xbfat

g)  The early fifteenth-century église collégiale Saint-Symphorien at Saint-Symphorien-sur-Coise (Rhône):
http://tinyurl.com/5j7294

h)  The originally fifteenth-/earlier sixteenth-century église Saint-Symphorien at Neuville aux Bois (Loiret):
http://tinyurl.com/5gsb3f


2)  Timothy of Rome (303?).  T. is a Roman martyr of the Via Ostiensis recorded for this day in the _Depositio martyrum_ of the Chronographer of 354, the early sixth-century Calendar of Carthage, the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology, and the Gelasian and Gregorian sacramentaries.  The _Fasti Vindobonenses priores_ and _Fasti Vindobonenses posteriores_ (both probably compiled after the middle of the sixth century and giving dates of death for some martyrs) have him dying on 23. May 306 or on 23. August 303, respectively.  Assuming -- and this is a big assumption -- that these years are close to accurate, 303 is the more likely.  Seventh-century itineraries for pilgrims to Rome record his resting place near San Paolo fuori le Mura.

The _Acta_ of pope St. Sylvester have a brief account of a Roman martyr T. who had come from Antioch during the Great Persecution, who after lengthy imprisonment and severe torture had been decapitated, and whose body Sylvester recovered in the pontificate of St. Miltiades/Melchiades (311-314).  This account informed Usuard's elogium of today's T. and served as the basis for two relatively quite late Passiones of T. (BHL 8302b, 8302h).

Some medieval depictions of T. are linked to in today's notice of Symphorianus of Autun (no. 1, above).


3)  Augusta of Serravalle (?).  The cult of this poorly documented saint is attested from 1234 onward at Serravalle, one of the municipalities in the Trevisan Alps that after Italian unification in the nineteenth century were joined together to form what is now Vittorio Veneto (TV).  Her putative relics were discovered in 1450 during the rebuilding of Serravalle's little church dedicated to her.

Our sole detailed source for A.'s life and passion (for she is said to be a martyr) is her early modern Passio penned by Minuccio Minucci (1551-1604), a native of Serravalle who became secretary to Clement VIII and finally archbishop of Zadar (Zara; 1596-1604).  This legendary account makes her the daughter of a pagan Germanic chieftain ruling from a palace on a height in the vicinity of Serravalle; when he discovers that she has converted to Christianity, she refuses to apostasize and he has her decapitated.  Some years later, A.'s body is found on that very height and, Serravalle now being Christian, a church is erected there in her honor.  At the time of the Passio's telling that early structure has left no visible remains.  Minuccio's aition provides a cachet of antiquity for the saint of the historically attested church that was rebuilt in the early 1450s and that sits near the top of a hill at Serravalle above the east bank of the Meschio.

A.'s church, consecrated on 12. April 1452 and restructured in the 1630s, preserves a fifteenth-century portion (now a chapel) housing an altar containing her tomb and supporting a fifteenth-century altarpiece with sculptures attributed to Giovanni Antonio da Marcador:
http://tinyurl.com/2c2p5h
Here's a not very good view of A.'s fifteenth-century tomb (attributed to the same artist):
http://www.anaconegliano.it/images/luoghi/vv_saugusta02.jpg
and an only slightly better view of her representation on it:
http://tinyurl.com/2u6eet
Figure 4 here (near the bottom of the page) has views of other sculptures on the tomb:
http://www.tragol.it/flaminio/flaminio-13/75-80.htm
Figures 12 through 16 here (again near the bottom of the page) show details of this chapel's fifteenth-century frescoing (attributed to Giovanni Antonio da Meschio):
http://www.tragol.it/Flaminio/flaminio-5/39-62.htm

Exterior views of the church:
http://tinyurl.com/ysb5uk
http://tinyurl.com/38mclt
More views of the Santuario di Santa Augusta are here:
http://tinyurl.com/2x6lp9
The pathway leading up to the Santuario is number 5 on this map:
http://tinyurl.com/3dvhs3
Here's a distance view of that pathway with its seven seventeenth-century chapels:
http://tinyurl.com/2pvfly

A.'s cult was confirmed in 1754.  She was dropped from the RM in its revision of 2001.  At Serravalle her feast is kept today (her traditional _dies natalis_).


4)  Sigfrid of Wearmouth (d. 688 or 689).  We know about S. from St. Bede the Venerable's _Historia abbatum_ of Wearmouth and Jarrow and from the anonymous _Historia abbatum_ that follows it in editions of Bede.  In about 686, when abbot St. Benedict Biscop was away on his final trip to Rome a pestilence struck St. Peter's in Wearmouth, carrying off among many others Benedict's co-abbot there, St. Eosterwine.  On the recommendation of Jarrow's abbot St. Ceolfrith the deacon S., who was learned in Scripture, was elected to succeed Eosterwine.  When the elderly Benedict returned he confirmed this election, appointing S. to run the monastery at Wearmouth while he, Benedict, retired into contemplation and prayer.

S. soon became fatally ill.  He and the also dying Benedict resigned their offices in favor of Ceolfrith who while retaining Jarrow succeed as abbot at Wearmouth.  Today is S.'s _dies natalis_.  After Benedict's death S.'s body and that of Eosterwine were laid together with his in the same grave.  In 716 St. Acca of Hexham, a former student of S.'s, transferred the latter's remains and Eosterwine's to a single reliquary.  S. has yet to grace the pages of the RM.

The monasteries of Wearmouth (now Monkwearmouth in the city of Sunderland) and Jarrow fell victim to Viking raids in the late eighth century and to the Danes less than a century later.  They were re-founded in the later eleventh century, becoming cells of Durham Priory in 1083.  Saint Peter's, Monkwearmouth, has been much rebuilt.  Restored in 1875, this church retains Saxon construction in its tower and in part of its west wall.  Some views:
http://www.bollington.eu/Monkwearmouth.html
A number of expandable views start towards the bottom here and continue on the next page:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tudorbarlow/page18/
A distance view:
http://tinyurl.com/9dvon4
But the surround was not always so parklike:
http://tinyurl.com/9oq5w8


5)  Filippo Benizi (d. 1285).  We know about the Servite prior general F. chiefly from a probably later fourteenth-century Vita et Translatio (BHL 6822, 6822a; F.'s so-called _Legenda vulgata_) that is thought to have been based, with significant differences in dating, upon his now lost Vita announced at the end of the earlier thirteenth-century Servite _Legenda de origine Ordinis_ as we now have it.  He came from a noble family of Florence's Oltrarno, entered the relatively new order in 1254, was ordained priest four years later, and was elected prior general in 1267.  After Innocent V, executing a decision of the Second Lateran Council, had suppressed the not yet papally approved Servites, F. convinced John XXI to authorize them as a mendicant order.  He died at the Servite convent of San Marco in Todi and was buried there.

Seemingly a genuinely holy and modest person who devoted himself strenuously to the propagation of his order and to the care of souls, F. was remembered within thirty years of his death not only for his virtues but also for a gift of prophecy and for lifetime miracles.  His cult was probably immediate or nearly so.  In 1317 his remains were translated to Todi's likewise Servite church of Santa Maria delle Grazie.  F. was canonized in 1671, the first Servite to be so honored.

An English-language translation of P.'s _Legenda vulgata_ begins on p. 263 here:
http://tinyurl.com/27vr3ww

P. (at left, praying; at right, St. Pellegrino Laziosi) as depicted by Filippo Lippi in a panel painting of the Presentation of Jesus in The Temple (ca. 1460-1465), in the chiesa di Santo Sprito in Prato:
http://tinyurl.com/2fwhb3m

P.'s display reliquary in Todi's Santa Maria delle Grazie (a.k.a. Santuario di San Filippo Benizi):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/healinglight/3495527768/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/healinglight/3495529494/


6)  Timothy of Monticchio (Bl.; d. 1504).  Today's less well known holy person of the Regno, the Franciscan mystic and visionary T. (in Italian, Timoteo) was born in the Abruzzese town of Monticchio, now a _frazione_ of L'Aquila (AQ).  He is presumed to have studied and to have made his profession at his order's nearby convent of San Giuliano.  Ordained priest, he was sent to the convent of San Bernardino at Campli (TE), where he served for many years as novice master, where he spent much time in prayer and fasting, and where he is said to have been visited in visions by the BVM and by St. Francis of Assisi.  At least two books copied for his use in teaching survive at the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples (St. Bonaventure's _Legenda maior_ of St. Francis and _Summa confessorum_).

In his youth T. will probably have seen fairly often the wonderful processional cross of Monticchio fashioned by Nicola da Guardiagrele in 1436 and now a treasure of the archdiocese of L'Aquila.  Herewith three views of the cross itself and one of its ornate base:
http://tinyurl.com/l9pome
For other views of this piece and for much more by and on this Abruzzese master, see now the very large exhibition catalog edited by Sante Guido, _Nicola da Guardiagrele. Orafo tra Medioevo e Rinascimento: le opere, i restauri_ (Todi: Tau, 2008; xxv, 638 p.).

The convento di San Bernardino outside of inhabited Campli was founded by St. John of Capestrano in 1449 and was named for its most famous resident, St. Bernardino of Siena.  It is now abandoned.  An illustrated, Italian-language account of it is here:
http://tinyurl.com/kvr34u
Three pages of views (left-click to expand) begin here:
http://tinyurl.com/mktbgh

T. will also have known the originally early fourteenth-century chiesa di San Francesco in Campli proper:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pacotvideo/2189424781/sizes/o/
http://tinyurl.com/nw7rxq
What's left of adjacent ex-convent now houses Campli's Museo archeologico.  Herewith two views of the windows of the former chapter room:
http://www.hotelscalasanta.it/images/posizione/ch_sfran_sala.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/maggor

T. finished his life as a contemplative at his order's convent of Sant'Angelo d'Ocre at Ocre (AQ).  His cult was immediate.  Beatification came in 1870.  He now reposes in the convent church's cappella di San Michele Arcangelo.  Here's a view of the chapel (my guess is that T.'s remains are either in the altar or beneath it -- does anyone on the list know for sure?):
http://tinyurl.com/nyk28t
Ocre (AQ) was almost at the epicenter of the devastating earthquake in the Aquilano on 6. April 2009.  Herewith some pre-earthquake views of the convento:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24410506@N03/3360215985/sizes/l/
http://tinyurl.com/mnla25 
The three post-earthquake views that begin here perhaps convey a better impression of the site:
http://tinyurl.com/ncxfu3

Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised and with the additions of Sigfrid of Wearmouth and Filippo Benizi)

**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html