medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (30. December) is the feast day of:
1) Felix I, pope (d. 274). F. succeeded the recently celebrated pope St. Dionysius (26. December) on 3. January 269. The _Liber Pontificalis_ says that he was a native of Rome and that his father was named Constantius. Like his predecessor, he will have dealt with the heresy of Paul of Samosata concerning the nature of Christ. Apart from that, nothing is known of F.'s pontificate. His presence in the _Depositio episcoporum_ of the Chronographer of 354 and not in the corresponding _Depositio martyrum_ renders implausible the assertion of the _Liber Pontificalis_ that F. died a martyr. The so-called Liberian Catalogue (compiled shortly after 352) says that F. was buried in the cemetery of Callistus.
Expandable views of depictions of F. in a later fourteenth-century (1377) lectionary and in two earlier fifteenth-century (ca. 1414; ca. 1430) breviaries are here:
http://tinyurl.com/y87bg6p
2) Jucundus of Aosta (d. earlier 6th cent.). J. (also Jocundus, Jocondus; in French, Joconde; in Italian, Giocondo) is historically attested as the bishop of Aosta who participated in synods at Rome in 501 and 502. From 529 to 546 that city's bishop was one Gallus (attested by his surviving epitaph). J. appears in the extremely unreliable late thirteenth-century Vita of bishop St. Gratus of Aosta as the latter's early ninth-century companion both on pilgrimage and later in retirement at an hermitage. To judge from the extracts that have been published, his own seemingly late medieval Vita (no BHL number? the eighteenth-century Bollandist Joannes Stiltingh thought it recent) preserved in a legendary now in the Bibliothèque royale de Belgique (cod. 18947-52, fols. 117-30) is based chiefly upon that of G. Remains believed to be J.'s repose in Aosta's cathedral.
Herewith a view and a description of J.'s late fifteenth-century window in the cathedral of Aosta:
http://tinyurl.com/yacqw2n
http://tinyurl.com/ya7tehs
3) Ecgwine (d. 717?). E. (also Egwine, Egwin; in Latin, Ecgwinus and Egwinus) is recorded as bishop of Worcester from the years 692 to 717 in rewritten charters whose degree of fidelity to their lost originals is hard to gauge, in a largely fictional, early eleventh-century Vita by Byrhtferth, a monk of Ramsey (BHL 2432; the ancestor a varied hagiographic progeny over the next several centuries), and in the twelfth-century chronicle of John of Worcester. E. is considered the founder of the abbey at today's Evesham (Worcs), where his miracle-working remains were housed in a shrine completed in the later twelfth century by Adam of Evesham (Adam de Senlis). Liturgical calendars from the eleventh century onward give today as that of his laying to rest.
The Victoria County History account of the abbey of St Mary the Virgin and St Egwin at Evesham is here:
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=36469
There's not much left of the abbey other than its earlier sixteenth-century belltower:
http://tinyurl.com/ylm74d6
A view of the originally early fifteenth-century home of the abbey's almoner:
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/41098
The mostly nineteenth-century St Egwins Church at Norton (Worcs) preserves a lectern said to have been unearthed in 1813 in the churchyard of Evesham Abbey:
http://www.richardiiiworcs.co.uk/images/lectern.jpg
http://www.crsbi.ac.uk/search/county/site/ed-wo-norto.html
A view of the Crucifixion illumination in the mid-thirteenth-century Evesham Psalter (London, British Library, MS Addit. 44874, fol. 6r):
http://www.artfund.org/artwork/1070/the-evesham-psalter
This statue of a bishop on the early sixteenth-century (1502-1504) Prince Arthur’s chantry chapel in Worcester cathedral is thought to represent E. (standing above the swine of Evesham's legendary etymon, the swineherd Eof or Eoves):
http://www.richardiiiworcs.co.uk/images/worcester/1003202.jpg
4) Rayner of Forcona (d. 1077). Today's first less well known saint of the Regno, R. (in Italian: Raniero or Ranieri) was from 1059 bishop of Forcona in what is now Abruzzo; he is credited with completing its cathedral dedicated to St. Maximus of Aveia. In 1225, prompted by the then bishop of Forcona, Honorius III asked the bishop of Penne to verfiy miracles that had been attributed to R. We are not informed about the outcome of this inquiry.
In 1257 the see of Forcona was transferred to L'Aquila; Forcona itself, probably already in decline, became just a rural outlier of the latter. But its cathedral remained in local use until 1703, when it fell victim to an earthquake. In 1413 the relics of St. Maximus and of R. were translated to the cathedral of L'Aquila. Whereas the ancient martyr Maximus stayed on as L'Aquila's patron saint, the more recent R. was soon returned to Forcona. He continued to be celebrated there, just as he is in Forcona's present-day successor, Civita di Bagno (AQ), a _frazione_ of L'Aquila. Herewith some expandable views of the remains of R.'s cathedral (left-click only):
http://tinyurl.com/a5h3m7
Those remains were further damaged by last year's terrible earthquake in the Aquilano. Compare with the foregoing the views here (most of which, despite some variation in captioning, are of the same ex-cathedral):
http://tinyurl.com/yazqg3x
5) Roger of Canne (d. 1129?). This less well known saint of the Regno appears to have been a bishop of what now is Canne della Battaglia (BT) in Apulia. We know practically nothing about him as a person. But the transfer of his remains in the thirteenth century from Canne to Barletta, where R. is still venerated, is not without interest. The primary evidence comes from a letter of Innocent V on 17 April 1276 in which he orders an investigation into a complaint of Theobald, bishop of Canne to the effect that clerics and lay persons from Barletta had violated his cathedral, removed relics from the main altar, and taken away the body of saint Roger which had been buried next to it. Although the investigation verified the occurrence of these _furta sacra_, and although some relics were restored to Canne, Roger remained at Barletta, where he wound up in the convent church of Santo Stefano (today's San Ruggero).
In the Apulian economy of inland towns and their associated ports, Barletta is the port of Canne; during the kingdom's first two centuries it grew while Canne rapidly declined. By the time of R.'s translation Canne, though still an episcopal seat, had been largely abandoned and the bulk of the population with historic ties to the place probably lived in and about Barletta. So there would seem to have been good practical justification for not restoring this saint to his former hill town. In the fourteenth century, after the bishops of Canne had transferred their residence to Barletta, R. became one of that city's patron saints. Whereas today is his proper feast, his patrocinio at Barletta is celebrated in the second week of July (better weather; more tourists).
Surviving toponomastic evidence suggests that R. had been venerated at Canne since at least the late twelfth century. But when did he live and who was he? Though his name suggests Norman parentage, it hardly proves it (in the wake of the eleventh-century Norman-led conquest of Byzantine southern Italy "Roger" became a popular name in this region). In the absence of pertinent diocesan records, historians have settled on the Roger documented from other cities as bishop of Canne in the first two decades of the twelfth century. Given our limited information, this seems a very reasonable guess.
There is a fourteenth-century Office for R. from Canne (BHL 7284t) and a sixteenth-century one from Barletta (BHL 7285); the latter is the one published in the _Acta Sanctorum_ (Oct. tom. 7.). A very late and obviously unreliable Vita places him in the sixth century.
Some views of the remains of two adjoining late antique basilicas at Canne, later remodeled into the tenth-/eleventh-century cathedral that R. would have known (a sarcophagus thought to have been his has been found in this complex's crypt):
http://tinyurl.com/2wwtq9d
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/14370616.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/24epfy
http://www.itineraweb.com/foto/grandtour/canne4.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/34qbaur
http://tinyurl.com/39c5y3e
The sarcophagus said to have been R.'s:
http://tinyurl.com/3xqr2j2
An illustrated, Italian-language page on Barletta's originally twelfth-/fourteenth-century cathedral of Santa Maria Maggiore, now a co-cathedral of the archdiocese of Trani-Barletta-Bisceglie:
http://tinyurl.com/3a9za5j
Other exterior views:
http://tinyurl.com/2czbbqv
http://tinyurl.com/34vayvv
http://tinyurl.com/235tevr
http://tinyurl.com/2aqna35
http://tinyurl.com/28cpdor
Views of remains of the late antique basilica underneath Barletta's present cathedral:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22350215@N04/4046780284/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/giovy/152092071/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/giovy/152093140/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/giovy/152090866/
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/26207450.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/giovy/152094614/
6) Lawrence of Frazzanò (d. 1162). Like Nicholas Politi (17. August), Sylvester of Troina (2. January), and Conus or Cono of Naso (Conon or Cono of Nesi; 28. March), L. is a poorly documented Greek saint from insular Sicily during its period of Norman and Swabian rule. The account that follows is derived from his very legendary late medieval Acta.
L. was born at Acri, a Greek designation for today's Frazzanò (ME) in northern Sicily. He entered religion at the monastery of St. Michael the Archangel at Troina but at about age 29 left with his abbot's blessing to become an hermit on the slopes of Mt. Etna. L. remained there for six years, growing in spiritual virtue and successfully resisting diabolic temptation. L. then returned to his monastery at Troina. Later he moved on to the monastery of St. Philip at Agira and finally, in about 1155, to that of St. Philip at Fragalà. Called in 1158 to preach in Calabria, L. performed various miracles there, especially at Reggio, where he healed people afflicted with the "plague" and where upon his departure he was acclaimed by notables and by a great crowd of ordinary folk.
A later trip to the mainland allowed L. to preach at Stilo in extreme southern Calabria. Returning to Frazzanò, he oversaw the construction of a new church and died shortly afterwards. His relics repose in Frazzanò's early modern church dedicated to him. Today is L.'s _dies natalis_ and the day of his commemoration in the RM (to whose august company he was only recently admitted). In the diocese of Patti L. is celebrated liturgically on 22. October.
Some views of San Filippo di Fragalà are here (those in the first set are expandable):
http://tinyurl.com/3seh3
http://www.capri-leone.it/files/arte/perusini.htm
http://members.fortunecity.it/terradisicilia/insolitofrazzano.htm
Some views of the also restored eleventh-century cattolica (as its name implies, once the katholikon of a Greek monastery) at Stilo (RC) in Calabria. Together with other Greek churches in its vicinity it has been designated by UNESCO a World Heritage Site:
http://tinyurl.com/89cjuz
http://tinyurl.com/88vxgy
http://tinyurl.com/99vf8o
http://www.calabriaintour.it/images/stilo07.jpg
http://www.umdiewelt.de/photos/336/2489/12/157965.jpg
http://www.umdiewelt.de/photos/336/2489/12/157966.jpg
http://www.locride.altervista.org/stilo_interno_cattolica.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/39tsq6a
http://tinyurl.com/23p4a3w
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised)
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