medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Monday, October 4, 2010, at 2:40 pm, John Wickstrom wrote:
> Quite astonishing that Francis and his major biographer should share a
> death day. Is this likely a historical date or a pious fiction?
One should not assume that the day under which someone appears in these 'saints of the day' notices is always that person's (or those persons') _dies natalis_.
Ordinarily, these notices follow the calendrical sequence of the latest edition of the Roman Martyrology. The latter, though it now has a clear preference for entering someone under his/her/their _dies natalis_, departs from that practice when the _dies natalis_ is trumped by the saint's (or saints') feast falling on some other day in the general Roman Calendar. As Gordon Plumb has already observed, Francis of Assisi died on 3. October. But his feast day in the Roman Calendar is today (also his usual feast day in the later Middle Ages).
But these notices also include not a few saints and blesseds who either have yet to grace the pages of the Roman Martyrology or else, though once present, have since been removed from that repertory. Thomas of Celano is one of the former (usually I now say so, but in this instance I simply copied an older notice without observing that it was silent on this point). I chose to enter him, as I often do in similar cases, under his reported day of commemoration in the Benedictine Martyrology. Both the day and the year of Thomas of Celano's death are unknown.
Best again,
John Dillon
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