medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (27. October) is the feast day of:
1) Evaristus, pope (d. ca. 109). E. appears in the early succession lists of the bishops of Rome as the fourth bishop (after Linus, Anacletus [actually, Anencletus], and Clement I, the latter two of whom are sometimes presented in reverse order). The so-called Liberian Catalogue gives his name as Aristus. A. will have become bishop in about the year 100. Nothing certain is known about him. The _Liber Pontificalis_ provides various details, all suspect. Later tradition, maintained in the RM until its revision of 2001 (when E. was moved to today from 26. October) considered him a martyr under Hadrian.
Expandable views of E. as depicted in a late fifteenth-century (after 1482) Roman Breviary of French origin are here (Clermont-Ferrand, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 69, fol. 590r):
http://tinyurl.com/634mrf
2) Thraseas (d. later 2d cent.). We know about T., a bishop of Eumenia in Phrygia, chiefly from a list of prominent Quartodecimans furnished by Polycrates of Ephesus and quoted by Eusebius (_Historia ecclesiastica_, 5. 24) and by St. Jerome (_De viris illustribus_, 45). According to Polycrates, T. of Eumenia was a bishop and martyr who reposed at Smyrna. He is generally assumed to be the martyr T. mentioned by the anti-Montanist writer Apollonius in another passage quoted by Eusebius (_Hist. eccl._, 5. 18). In the later fourth-century Syriac Martyrology and in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Matryrology T. is recorded under today along with Polycarp, Gaius, and eight others. St. Ado of Vienne, followed by Usuard, entered T. under 5. October. That is also where he was in the RM until its revision of 2001.
3) Nestor of Thessaloniki (d. 304 or 305, supposedly). This quasi-companion of yesterday's St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki is first heard of in the earliest (ninth-century) accounts of the latter: an account in Photius' _Bibliotheca_ (cod. 255), the anonymous Passio BHG 496, and its translation into Latin by the later ninth-century Anastasius Bibliothecarius (BHL 2122). In these he is a young man of Thessaloniki whose slaying in gladiatorial combat of the vociferously anti-Christian Lyaeus, a favorite of the emperor Maximian, enrages that potentate and leads him to order the murder of Demetrius (who in these versions merely happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time). Later versions of D.'s Passio (BHG 497, 498) make him a friend of D. who receives his blessing before the combat, who publicly calls upon D.'s god for assistance, and who after his success in the arena is decapitated on Maximian's orders.
Byzantine synaxaries commemorate N. today (still his feast day in Orthodox churches and in Eastern-rite churches in communion with Rome). In his martyrology Florus of Lyon (earlier ninth-century) entered N. after D. under 8. October (D.'s usual feast day in the medieval Latin West); St. Ado of Vienne and Usuard chose not to include him in their martyrologies. N. has yet to grace the pages of the RM.
N. as depicted (above St. Demetrius) in an earlier eleventh-century mosaic (restored between 1953 and 1962) in the katholikon of the monastery of Hosios Loukas near Distomo in Phokis:
http://tinyurl.com/25ykouk
N. as depicted in an eleventh-century fresco in the monastery church of St. John the Theologian (Sv. Ioan Bogoslov) at Zemen in western Bulgaria:
http://tinyurl.com/2ewlt3w
N. as depicted in the later twelfth-century frescoes (betw. 1160 and 1190) in the church of St. Nicholas Kasnitzes in Kastoria in the homonymous prefecture in northwestern Greece:
http://tinyurl.com/379btnk
http://tinyurl.com/22vx2fl
N. as depicted in the earlier thirteenth-century frescoes (1230s) in narthex of the church of the Ascension in the Mileševa monastery near Prijepolje (Zlatibor dist.) in southern Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/yb9jjmz
http://tinyurl.com/2f9d2uv
N. (at left; at right, D.) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) under the dome in the nave of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć 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/y9sefdn
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/yhd3raw
N. as depicted elsewhere in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the nave of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć 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/2a8sh62
N. slaying the gladiator Lyaeus and N.'s martyrdom as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) of the parecclesion of St. Demetrius in the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć 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/28x28mr
http://tinyurl.com/2b6xbfo
N. as depicted in the late fourteenth-century frescoes (later 1380s?) in the nave of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Ravanica monastery near Ćuprija in central Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/355lkew
http://tinyurl.com/36s7ytq
N. (detail of a full-length portrait) as depicted in an earlier sixteenth-century fresco (1545-1546) by Theofanis Strelitzas-Bathas (a.k.a. Theophanes the Cretan) in the katholikon of the Stavronikita monastery on Mt. Athos:
http://ocafs.oca.org/Icons/october/1027nestor.jpg
4) Namatius of Clermont (d. 462?). According to St. Gregory of Tours (_Historia Francorum_, 2. 16-17), N. succeeded St. Rusticus of Clermont as bishop of that city and over a period of twelve years built an intramural cathedral in which he deposited relics of Sts. Vitalis and Agricola that he had received from Bologna. Gregory (loc. cit.) also tells us that N. was married at the time of his election as bishop, that his wife constructed an extramural basilica dedicated to St. Stephen, and that N. was buried in that church. Invocations of N. as a saint begin to be recorded from about the year 950.
5) Gaudiosus, bp. of Abitina, venerated at Naples (d. 5th cent. ?). The sepulchral inscription (_CIL_ X. 1538) in the Neapolitan catacombs that bear his name informs us that Septimus Caelius Gaudiosus was a bishop of Abitina in Africa (Africa Proconsularis, probably) who died in exile at the age of seventy. Not securely dated, this less well known saint of the Regno was laid to rest in an arcosolium close to the first resting place of the Neapolitan bishop St. Nostrianus (d. 454). The usual conjecture (at least as old as Peter the Subdeacon in the tenth century) is that G., like the better attested St. Quodvultdeus of Carthage, was an exile from Arian persecution in Vandal Africa.
G. has long been one of Naples' major saints. At some point between 767 and 780, bishop Stephen II of Naples erected on the site of the former monastery of St. Agnellus (also held to have been an African exile) at the city's acropolis -- now Caponapoli -- a men's monastery dedicated to G.; this is the complex in which the same bishop erected the women's monastery to which he translated the presumed remains of St. Fortunata venerated at Patria. G.'s monastery, which lay just within the city walls, helped to preserve his cult during the years that followed, when extremely unsettled conditions led to the cessation of liturgies at the of course extramural catacombs.
Possibly also under Stephen II, and certainly by 1132, G.'s remains (along with those of Agnellus) were translated to the aforesaid monastery; in 1799 they were removed to the cathedral, where they remain today. G. was included along with various sainted bishops of Naples in the litany of the Neapolitan _Ordo ad unguendum infirmum_ attested from the tenth and eleventh centuries.
The earlier ninth-century Marble Calendar of Naples gives 27. October as the date of G.'s laying to rest. In editing the early RM, Cardinal Baronio used 27. October for the feast of St. Gaudiosus of Salerno (now usually held to be a doublet of our G.) and set G.'s feast day as 28. October. In the latest revision (2001) of the RM, G. of Salerno has disappeared and G. of Abitina has been restored to today.
After centuries of neglect, Naples' Catacombe di San Gaudioso began to be visited occasionally in the sixteenth century. In the seventeenth century they were re-opened for cult purposes and were in places remodeled. A few views:
http://tinyurl.com/ypv763
http://tinyurl.com/2hn6qv
http://tinyurl.com/y2m43x
G.'s arcosolium:
http://tinyurl.com/26sphr
http://tinyurl.com/2d686gb
6) Otteran (d. later 6th cent.). This O. (also Od[h]ran, Oran) is said to have been a monk of Iona in the time of its founder St. Columba. In a story first recorded in a Middle Irish sermon from the twelfth century he volunteers to consecrate the newly settled island with his own body, dies, and is the first monk to be buried there (St. Adomnán, Columba's late seventh-century biographer, calls the first monk to have been buried there 'Brito'). In the earlier sixteenth century Columba's biographer in Early Modern Irish, Manus O'Donnell, expanded the story to include Columba's authorization to the still living O. of his future cult and calls the place where he was buried _Reilig Od[h]rain_ ("Odran's Grave").
O.'s cult is attested by his entry for today in the Kalendar of the twelfth-century Drummond Missal (NB: other saints named Od[h]ran also occur in Old Irish ecclesiastical calendars on 26. or 27. October). On Iona the oldest church, variously said to be of ninth-/tenth- or of twelfth-century origin, is named for O., as is also the adjacent graveyard. Here are three English-language pages on it, the first giving dimensions of the building but not illustrated, and the second and the third illustrated (the third with expandable views):
http://tinyurl.com/yjn45qm
http://tinyurl.com/ykjayrm
http://www.explore-isle-of-iona.co.uk/st-orans-chapel.htm
7) Bartholomew of Breganze (Bl.; d. 1270). After study at Padua B. (also B. of Vicenza) entered the Order for Friars Preacher at what is said to have been a very young age. He preached in Emilia and in Lombardy. Gregory IX brought him Rome, where he became Master of the Sacred Palace. In 1253 Innocent IV made B. bishop of Limassol. Two years later Alexander IV translated him to Vicenza. When Vicenza's lord, Ezzelino da Romano, drove him out, B. was instead made papal legate to England. On his return voyage he was received by St. Louis IX, who gave him a thorn from the Crown of Thorns. In 1260 or 1261 B., now restored to the see of Vicenza, erected in that city its chiesa di Santa Corona.
B. was a prolific writer of sermons and of works of mystical spirituality. He is buried in Santa Corona. His cult was confirmed in 1793. An Italian-language account of Vicenza's chiesa di Sacra Corona is here:
http://tinyurl.com/648erz
A larger version of the exterior view shown on that page:
http://www.bed-breakfast-italy.com/photos/santa-corona.jpg
An even larger view:
http://www.vicenza.hu/gallery/36.jpg
Main portal:
http://tinyurl.com/6e5vps
Interior:
http://tinyurl.com/5rkd2a
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post lightly revised and with the addition of Nestor of Thessaloniki)
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