medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Today (24. November) is the feast day of:

1)  Chrysogonus (d. ca. 304, supposedly).  Thought to have been an early martyr, C. follows St. Lawrence in the prayer _Communicantes_ of the Roman Canon of the Mass.  In the Ambrosian Canon of the Mass he follows Clement.  C. appears under 24. November in the early sixth century Calendar of Carthage and in the later sixth-century prayers of the so-called Leonine Sacramentary.  His cult was established at Rome by the end of the sixth century, where it was localized at the _titulus Chrysogoni_  (so designated since 499, its name originally may have had nothing to do with the saint).  C.'s legendary Passio (BHL 1795, etc.), part of the Passio of the St. Anastasia of 25. December, makes him a soldier, links him in Rome with Anastasia, and, as do also most of his entries in different versions of the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology, has him martyred at Aquileia.

About twelve miles from Aquileia is today's San Canzian d'Isonzo (GO) in Friuli - Venezia Giulia.  Anciently the place was called Aquae Gradatae and its local saints were the martyrs Cantius, Cantianus, and Cantianilla.  In their Acta (BHL 1543, etc.) C., who is associated with them, is said to have been martyred at Aquae Gradatae.  He was venerated there in late antiquity along with St. Protus of Aquileia (14. June).  San Canzian d'Isonzo's fifteenth-century chiesa/cappella di San Proto, which replaced a late antique structure belonging to this cult, holds an empty sarcophagus excavated at the site and inscribed with the name of the blessed martyr C.  Here's an Italian-language page on this church:
http://www.isonzo.com/sancanzian/PAGE7.HTM
C. appears in sixth-century mosaics at Ravenna, both in the chapel of Sant'Andrea and, shown here (at far right), in Sant'Apollinare Nuovo:
http://tinyurl.com/473c7j

C.'s church at Rome, San Crisogono, is now an early seventeenth-century building with a twelfth-century belltower:
http://tinyurl.com/2z5jl4
http://tinyurl.com/ya55tph
Inside, it utilizes ancient columns and preserves a cosmatesque pavement from its early twelfth-century predecessor:
http://tinyurl.com/2amg8b
http://tinyurl.com/25rxdm
http://tinyurl.com/2x52vt
http://www.arte-argomenti.org/schede/marmorari/pavimento.jpg
Ornamental details in the pavement (eagle; dragon):
http://www.romaspqr.it/roma/Foto/s_crisogono2.htm

The twelfth-century church replaced a rebuilt late antique predecessor.  Substantial remains of the latter, some twenty feet below the floor level of the present church and largely to its left, were discovered early in the last century.  Here's a plan of the late antique and twelfth-century churches:
http://www.sanrufopostino.it/pagine/SanRufo/img/basilica.gif
Various views (keep clicking on "Next Picture" at bottom):
http://tinyurl.com/yd2hskb
Marjorie Greene's medrelart album in San Crisogono has many views of the crypt:
http://medrelart.shutterfly.com/activityfeed/31
One of the frescoes in the crypt (dated to the late seventh or early eighth century) is of the legendarily associated St. Anastasia:
http://s.anastasia.wedge.ru/Pix/Photo/image_large_114.jpg

In Croatia C. (Sv. Krševan) is the principal patron saint of Zadar, whose cathedral is dedicated to Anastasia (Sv. Stošija).  Herewith some views of his twelfth-century ex-abbey church there (consecrated, 1175):
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2320/2233626534_4fc6b34068_b.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2a8wjbh
http://tinyurl.com/2594d2x
http://tinyurl.com/2uwa5m
http://tinyurl.com/2keb2k
http://tinyurl.com/37z4jz
http://tinyurl.com/27gjvq
http://tinyurl.com/2fn4heo
This church replaced an early medieval one of the same dedication built to house C.'s putative remains, translated from Aquileia in 649.  In 1202 C. was unable to prevent Zadar's capture and sack by soldiers of the Fourth Crusade; this is variously said to have occurred on either 23. or 24. November. 
More views (expandable) of the church are at the bottom of this Croatian-language page:
http://www.tzzadar.hr/events.php?id=12&el_id=2080
Two views of C.'s reliquary of 1326 at Zadar, now housed in the cathedral:
http://tinyurl.com/3yf2oo
http://tinyurl.com/2wdw4mq

Views of the late eleventh- or early twelfth-century crkvica Sv. Krševana, often said touristically to be of the fifth or sixth century, near Glavotok on the Croatian island of Krk:
http://tinyurl.com/yh7vncy
http://tinyurl.com/ygjkpte
http://tinyurl.com/yenobxj
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/1862728.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2672/3985158199_377d357ec6_b.jpg
In at least the middle of the twelfth century the island of Krk belonged to C.'s abbey in Zadar.

A view of C.'s originally twelfth-century church in the Croatian city of Šibenik:
http://tinyurl.com/23hpyl
The bell in the photograph is said to date to 1266 and to be the oldest in Croatia.

C. as depicted 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/ydmeg5l

C.'s martyrdom as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century collection of French-language saint's lives (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 183, fol. 79v):
http://tinyurl.com/yj3m7dr

Michele Giambono's painting of C. (ca. 1450) housed in the chiesa di San Trovaso in Venice:
http://www.wga.hu/art/g/giambono/stchryso.jpg

C.'s martyrdom (center; the imprisoned Anastasia at left) as depicted in a later fifteenth-century copy (1463) of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 51, fol. 62v):
http://tinyurl.com/yknrzzh

C. refusing to sacrifice to idols and C.'s martyrdom as depicted in a later fifteenth-century copy (ca. 1470) of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Mâcon, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 3, fol. 69v):
http://tinyurl.com/2dt2x9c

C. in prison as depicted in a late fifteenth-century (after 1482) Roman Breviary of French origin is here (Clermont-Ferrand, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 69, fol. 610v):
http://tinyurl.com/2787dzc


2)  Firmina of Amelia (d. ca. 304, supposedly).  F. (also Fermina) is the very poorly documented patron saint of Amelia (TR) in Umbria, whose cathedral, a co-cathedral of the diocese of Terni – Narni – Amelia, is dedicated to her and holds her putative remains (minus some transferred to Civitavecchia in 1647).  Although there is some reason to think that she may be identical with the Umbrian saint Felicissima recorded under today in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology, the first record of her cult comes in the form of her seemingly somewhat later legendary Passio (BHL 3001b, 3001d).  This makes F. a martyr under Diocletian at a place some eight miles outside the Roman town.  A Translatio (BHL 3001f) whose earliest manuscript witnesses are of the fourteenth century has her remains discovered at Amelia towards the end of the ninth century after half a millennium of oblivion.  


3)  Romanus of Blaye (d. 4th cent.).  According to St. Gregory of Tours (_In gloria confessorum_, cap. 5), R. was a holy priest who lived along the Gironde and who was buried by St. Martin of Tours.  His legendary Vitae (BHL 7306-7308) give him an African origin, narrate his wanderings through cathedral towns of Aquitania and his arrival at today's Blaye (Gironde), and have him ordained priest by St. Martin himself.  A church at Blaye dedicated to R. (in French, Romain) was reputed medievally to hold the tomb of Roland.  Here's a view of what's left of that edifice:
http://tinyurl.com/6nqh5e


4)  Flora and Maria (d. 851).  F. and M. are martyrs of Córdoba, recorded in a Passio (BHL 3026) by St. Eulogius of Córdoba, who had known them in prison.  According to E., F. was the pious daughter of a Muslim father and a Christian mother who after the father's death was raised as a Christian.  In about 845 one of F.'s brothers, a convinced Muslim, denounced her to the authorities as an apostate.  Severely beaten but allowed to live, F. withdrew from Córdoba for about six years, after which, desirous of martyrdom, she returned.

In Córdoba F. now met M., a former resident of the convent of the BVM at Cuteclara who also wished to become a martyr.  Jointly professing to the magistrates the rightness of their faith (and so by implication denigrating the Prophet), they were interrogated several times, persevered, and were executed by decapitation on this day.  F.'s headless corpse was cast into the Guadalquivir but M.'s was recovered by Christians and was buried in the monastery at Cuteclara.  Both heads were also recovered and were kept in the church of St. Acisclus, where they are said to be among the relics of martyrs of Córdoba displayed in the rebuilt, early modern church of San Acisclo y Santa Victoria:
http://www.silencioblanco.org/2005/2005%20Martires%2001.jpg
http://www.silencioblanco.org/MARTIRES%20URNA.JPG


5)  Albert of Louvain (d. ca. 1192).  We know about A. from his immediately posthumous Vita (BHL 223) and from entries in various chronicles.  A younger brother of Henry I, duke of Brabant, he was educated for the church and at the age of twenty-five was elected bishop of Liège by its chapter.  There were other candidates, one of whom was nominated and installed by the emperor Henry VI.  A. persevered and after an appeal to Celestine III went to Reims where he was consecrated by the bishop and assassinated shortly thereafter on this day.  His cult was approved papally for Louvain/Leuven, Malines/Mechelen, and Liège/Luik in 1613, with his feast set at 21. November (still his day in Belgium).  In 1919 A.'s remains were discovered in Reims' cathedral and were then returned to Brussels, whence parts thereof were later distributed both within Belgium and back to Reims.

Here's a view of what is said to be a partly preserved portrait of F. (at right, with St. Roch at left) in a late fifteenth-century wall painting in the Sint-Leonarduskerk at Zoutleeuw (Flemish Brabant):
http://tinyurl.com/ya9dl24


6)  Balsam of Cava (Bl.; d. 1232).  This less well known holy person of the Regno was the tenth abbot of the Benedictine abbey of the Most Holy Trinity at Cava de' Tirreni near Salerno.  He enjoyed exceptionally good relations with his king, the emperor Frederick II and was remembered both for greatly expanding the abbey's holdings and for maintaining high standards of austerity, scholarship, and doctrinal purity within his community.  In 1295 the abbey's scribe John of Capua called B. _gemma sacerdotum prelatorumque monile_ ("jewel of priests and neck ornament of prelates").  B., who died on 24. November, was beatified in 1928.

The abbey's unique copy of Benedict of Bari's _De septem sigillis_ ("On the Seven Seals"), written under B.'s rule, contains both a metrical dedication to him and the presentation illumination reproduced here:
http://tinyurl.com/b432t
http://tinyurl.com/29274zp

Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised)

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