medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (21. December) is the feast day of:
1) Micah (d. 8th cent. BC/BCE). This M. (in Latin, Micheas), the sixth of the Twelve Minor Prophets, is the traditional author of the Book of Micah and, in modern scholarship, the probable author of its first three chapters. To differentiate him from the earlier prophet Micaiah son of Imlah he sometimes called M. of Moresheth after the town in which he received divine revelation. M.'s commemoration in the Roman church on this date recalls the prophecy in Micah 5:2, alluded to in Matthew 2:1-6, that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. His Orthodox commemoration on 5. January, just before the feast of the Epiphany, has the same effect. M.'s major commemoration in Orthodox churches occurs on 14. August.
M. as depicted in a seventh-century Bible in Syriac (Paris, BnF, ms. Syriaque 341, fol. 179r):
http://tinyurl.com/y8s9avr
M. as depicted in a later eleventh-century Bible (ca. 1076-1100) from Jumièges (Rouen, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 8, fol. 142v):
http://tinyurl.com/2ddjb49
M. as depicted in an eleventh- or twelfth-century menologion of unknown origin (Paris, BnF, ms. Grec 1528, fol. 221r):
http://tinyurl.com/ygk3d4p
M. as depicted in quite a few manuscript illuminations, mostly of French origin (views expandable), from the twelfth century to the fifteenth (plus the eleventh-century one from Jumièges signaled above):
http://tinyurl.com/ydst4mh
M. (at right) as depicted in the mid-twelfth-century Tree of Jesse window in the cathedral of Chartres (photograph by Gordon Plumb):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/4140592668/
M. (lower right, with Nahum) as depicted in a probably later twelfth-century mosaic of the cathedral of Cefalù:
http://tinyurl.com/yd6dbpd
M. (upper left) as depicted in an originally late twelfth-century window in the choir of the basilique Saint-Remi in Reims:
http://tinyurl.com/ygz69jd
M. as depicted in an earlier thirteenth-century fresco (ca. 1246) in the capella di San Silvestro in Rome's basilica dei Santi Quattro Coronati:
http://tinyurl.com/24msbhj
M. as depicted in the later thirteenth-century Marquette Bible (ca. 1270) of Franco-Flemish origin (Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, Ms. Ludwig I 8, vol. 2, fol. 183r):
http://tinyurl.com/2fhgft9
M. as depicted in a later thirteenth-century Bible from Paris (BnF, ms. Latin, 17947, fol. 297r):
http://tinyurl.com/ygeth5w
M. as depicted in a thirteenth-/fourteenth-century Bible of southern French origin (Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 37 (3), fol. 237v):
http://tinyurl.com/y9qbm58
M. as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century dome frescoes (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321) of the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, either Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/yabr8g9
M. as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century _Bible historiale_ (ca. 1320-1330) with illuminations by the Fauvel Master and collaborators (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 8, fol. 343r):
http://tinyurl.com/26lx57u
M. (at left; Joel at right) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century dome frescoes (1330s) of the church of the Hodegetria in the Patriarchate of Peć at 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/yeeekul
M. as depicted in another earlier fourteenth-century _Bible historiale_ (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 157, fol. 122r):
http://tinyurl.com/yfz8r67
M. as depicted in a later fourteenth-century (1372) _Bible historiale_ (Den Haag, Museum Meermanno, cod. 10 B 23, fol. 434r):
http://tinyurl.com/yh85zxy
M. as depicted in a late fourteenth-century stained glass panel (ca. 1393) in the west window of Thurbern's (also Thurburn's) Chantry, Winchester College Chapel (photographs by Gordon Plumb):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/2907039429/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/2907036293/
M. (second from right) as depicted in the July calendar illumination in the very late fourteenth- or earlier fifteenth-century Breviary of Martin of Aragon (Paris, BnF, ms. Rothschild, fol. 8v):
http://tinyurl.com/3xzdprh
M. as depicted in an early fifteenth-century _Bible historiale_ (Paris, BnF ms. Français 10, fol. 453v):
http://tinyurl.com/yc7bk6p
M. as depicted (ca. 1420-1424) by Lorenzo Monaco in the chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal in Florence's basilica di San Miniato al Monte:
http://tinyurl.com/yzozlck
M. as depicted by Jan van Eyck in a lunette on a wing of his G(h)ent Altarpiece (1432; image expandable):
http://tinyurl.com/yezc3nb
The entire composition:
http://tinyurl.com/yhwbp6m
M. as depicted in a fifteenth- or sixteenth-century Novgorod School icon in the Gostinopole monastery's church of St. Nicholas:
http://tinyurl.com/2cgavvy
M. as depicted in an earlier sixteenth-century window (betw. 1500 and 1515; very recently restored) in the nave of the Church of St Mary, Fairford (Glocs; photographs by Gordon Plumb):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/4604409840/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/4603799655/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/4603803909/
M. as depicted in an earlier sixteenth-century window panel (ca. 1522-1526) formerly at the abbey of Mariawald in today's Heimbach (Lkr. Düren) in the Eifel and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London:
http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O65279/panel-prophet-micah/
M. as depicted in a panel of the earlier sixteenth-century south window (1536-1537) of Withcote Chapel, Withcote (Leics; photographs by Gordon Plumb):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/4014058224/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/4013293971/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/4014061584/
2) Themistocles (d. 250 or 251). According to Byzantine synaxary notices (which appear to be based on a lost Passio but which for this saint is all we have), T. was a shepherd in Lycia who during the Decian persecution declined to disclose the hiding place of St. Dioscorides, was arrested, promptly confessed his Christianity, was just as promptly condemned, and suffered a lengthy martyrdom of many tortures before being beheaded on 21. December.
3) Hoger (d. ca. 916). H. was the seventh bishop of Bremen. Adam of Bremen, whose _Gesta Hammanburgensis ecclesiae pontificum_ (written in the years 1072-1076) is our chief source for H., preserves a mnemonic verse to that effect from what to Adam was a rather old book of that church: _Sanctus et electus fuit Hoger septimus heros_ ("Holy and elect was Hoger, the seventh hero"). He was also the third archbishop of the combined see of Hamburg-Bremen. Like his predecessors Sts. Rimbert and Adalgar, he was a monk at Corvey; like Adalgar (d. 909), he had been coadjutor to his immediate predecessor before that worthy's death. H. received the pallium from pope Sergius III and the pastoral staff from Louis the Child (both d. 911). As bishop he regularly visited monasteries in his jurisdiction, was eager to see that matins were celebrated properly, himself practiced vigils, and imposed the same on his household.
In Adam's time today was already celebrated as H.'s _dies natalis_ (A., who had very little information about H., is careful not to say that this was the actual day of H.'s passing). H. was laid to rest next to Adalgar in Bremen's church of St. Michael. In about 1036 relics said to be his were translated to Bremen's then cathedral. What relics these were is an interesting question: Adam of Bremen says that on this occasion, when his tomb was opened, all that could be found were crosses from his pallium and his bishop's collar and adds piously that H. must have been taken bodily into heaven, as others say of David and of John the Evangelist. H. has yet to grace the pages of the RM. He is commemorated today in German dioceses.
4) Domenico Spadafora (Bl.; d. 1521). D. was born around 1450 at today's Randazzo (CT) in northeastern Sicily and entered the Dominican order at the convent of Santa Zita in Palermo, founded in 1428. After earning his doctorate at Padua he returned to Sicily but was soon called to Rome. In 1491 he was sent to found a house at today's Montecerignone (PU; also spelled Monte Cerignone) in the Marche. Selecting a site at the locality of Fontebuona, D. erected there a small convent and church and settled in on the premises. Lifetime and postmortem miracles caused him to be honored as a saint. When in 1545 he was translated to the convent's church his body was found to be incorrupt. D. was formally beatified in 1921.
D.'s convent at Fontebuona was suppressed by Innocent X (1644-55). Since 1677 he has lain at Montecerignone's church of Santa Maria in Reclauso. In the diocesan calendar of San Marino - Montefeltro D. is commemorated on the second Sunday in September; the Dominican friars of northern Italy celebrate him on 3. October. Here's a view of his resting place:
http://www.incastro.marche.it/incastro/montecerignone/foto08.gif
Randazzo's initially thirteenth-century basilica di Santa Maria has been greatly rebuilt (the facade and tower are neo-gothic) but retains its original apses and a good deal of fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century Catalan Gothic work (the building stone is chiefly porphyritic lava; in the first view, that's Etna in the background):
http://tinyurl.com/25ex8bv
http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/16227055.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/283kux8
http://tinyurl.com/26b5gjc
http://sicilyweb.com/foto/1141/1141-09-14-29-5287.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2atz2bv
http://sicilyweb.com/foto/ct/randazzo/g9.jpg
http://sicilyweb.com/foto/965/965-01-20-50-7617.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/91828644@N00/2621443152
http://tinyurl.com/28e2jxq
and, inside, this re-mounted Byzantinizing fresco of the BVM and Christ Child (the Madonna del Pilieri):
http://tinyurl.com/yceuks9
Two views of Randazzo's via degli Archi:
http://tinyurl.com/vxmrk
http://tinyurl.com/24ndqcn
The arch in via Umberto I, a survivor from Randazzo's originally twelfth-century Palazzo Reale:
http://sicilyweb.com/foto/1141/1141-08-59-09-1590.jpg
Another medieval street (via Fisauli) in Randazzo:
http://tinyurl.com/sjeu9
http://sicilyweb.com/foto/ct/randazzo/g12.jpg
Detail of one of those doorways:
http://sicilyweb.com/foto/ct/randazzo/g15.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised)
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