medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (29. December) is the feast day of:
1) Trophimus of Arles (d. 3d cent.). T. (in French, Trophime) is the protobishop of Arles. According to the recently celebrated pope St. Zosimus (27. December), he had been sent to Gaul as a missionary and was the first to spread the faith at Arles. St. Gregory of Tours calls him Arles' first bishop and says that he was one of the missionary companions of St. Dionysius of Paris in middle of the third century. That date, at least, is likely to be reasonably correct.
Herewith some views of Arles' originally late eleventh-century basilique (ancienne primatiale) Saint-Trophime, a cathedral until 1822:
http://tinyurl.com/9gnu6c
http://www.galenfrysinger.com/saint_trophime_arles.htm
http://tinyurl.com/8tnsqe
http://romanes.com/Arles/StTrophime/Eglise/
http://www.archart.it/archart/europa/France/Arles-cattedrale/
Views of T. as he appears on this church's later twelfth-century facade:
http://tinyurl.com/982kpw
http://tinyurl.com/8nox9x
2) Ebrulf (d. later 6th cent., supposedly). According to his Vitae (BHL 2374, etc.), which begin in the earlier twelfth century, E. (in French, Evroul, Evroult, Evrols) was a pious courtier under Childebert I who separated from his wife and became a monk of Bayeux. He is said later to have retreated as a hermit to the woods of Normandy's Pays d'Ouche and to have created at today's Saint-Evroult-de-Montfort (Orne) an hermitage that the originally eleventh-century abbey of Saint-Evroul-sur-Ouche at today's Saint-Evroult Notre-Dame-du-Bois (Orne) claimed was its royally founded predecessor (with E. as its first abbot). The foundation of many other houses was ascribed to E. was well. The Norman Conquest brought his cult to England.
An illustrated, French-language page on, and other views of, what's left of the abbey of Saint-Evroul-sur-Ouche (the monastic home of Orderic Vitalis, who in the earlier twelfth century wrote a history of this house):
http://photos.piganl.net/2009/evroult/evroult.html
Other views:
http://www.st-evroult-nd-du-bois.fr/images/accueil1.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/36vb32v
http://www.flickr.com/photos/biron-philippe/4542323495/
http://tinyurl.com/7ttolz
http://www.flickr.com/photos/biron-philippe/4542955980/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/biron-philippe/4542956476/
http://tinyurl.com/8nsmfw
http://tinyurl.com/924n6k
http://www.flickr.com/photos/biron-philippe/4542456345/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/biron-philippe/4542955598/
Some views of the much rebuilt, originally eleventh-century
église Saint-Evroult in Saint-Evroult-de-Montfort (Orne):
http://jeanalain.monfort.free.fr/61/Montfort(egliseSud).jpg
http://jeanalain.monfort.free.fr/61/Montfort%28egliseOuest%29.jpg
This church preserves a twelfth-century baptismal font made of lead. An English-language description:
http://tinyurl.com/3yyl5pv
A detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/33ohvav
The very similar font in the Church of St Augustine, Brookland (Kent):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lizfantastic/3248037348/
An illustrated, French-language page on the mostly originally thirteenth-century (betw. ca. 1215-1220 and ca. 1260) collégiale Saint-Evroult in Mortain (Manche), replacing an originally late eleventh-century predecessor of the same dedication:
http://photos.piganl.net/2009/mortain/collegiale.html
Other exterior views:
http://tinyurl.com/2g34dxh
http://tinyurl.com/298x2hh
http://tinyurl.com/2gyhyoq
http://tinyurl.com/2vzhy99
The south portal (ca. 1140) is a survivor from the earlier church:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/declanod/4387511843/
http://tinyurl.com/38eubba
http://tinyurl.com/342hbms
Other interior views:
http://tinyurl.com/3xa65o7
http://tinyurl.com/3xho39v
The church houses a small beechwood box, the so-called Mortain casket, covered in gilded leather and bearing an Anglo-Saxon runic inscription as well as, on another surface, brief inscriptions in Latin identifying its portraits of St. Michael and St. Gabriel. Thought to be of the late seventh century, it has been conjectured to have originally served as a carrying case for hosts and later, once a rectangular hole had been cut into it, as a reliquary. How and when it reached Mortain are unknown. Some views:
http://tinyurl.com/34abd59
http://www.jemolo.com/alta/VE%20177.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2e4mw94
http://www.jemolo.com/alta/VE%20178.jpg
Some views of the originally earlier sixteenth-century église Saint-Evroult in Damville (Eure):
http://tinyurl.com/2uzxw32
http://tinyurl.com/36hzjss
http://tinyurl.com/35y8uau
http://tinyurl.com/2uvfk9c
http://tinyurl.com/2ujr7v3
http://tinyurl.com/2ub6osz
3) Thomas of Canterbury (Thomas Becket; d. 1170). A Londoner, T. was successively archdeacon of Canterbury, chancellor of England under Henry II, and (from 1162) archbishop of Canterbury. In the latter post, his defence of ecclesiastical rights soon led to a falling out with Henry and to T.'s withdrawal to France, where he remained until 1170. His return to Canterbury in that year had papal backing but only grudging acceptance from the king. The two were still quite unreconciled when T. was assassinated in his cathedral on 29. December 1170 by knights who thought that they were doing Henry a favor. T.'s life of penitence and self-mortification while archbishop contributed to his image as a saintly martyr. He was canonized in 1173 and Vitae (with miracle accounts) soon followed.
Kay Brainerd Slocum's _Liturgies in Honour of Thomas Becket_ (University of Toronto Press, 2004) has a useful chapter (pp. 98-126) on the spread of T.'s cult.
The chiesa di San Giorgio in Como has a reliquary case housing what is said to be part of T.'s chin and some bones said to be those of St. Eutichius of Como. Three views follow:
http://tinyurl.com/623ecv
http://tinyurl.com/64acjh
http://tinyurl.com/5vf2gv
The certificate of T.'s recognition at Como from 1777:
http://www.iubilantes.it/archivio/index.php?sel=7&idfoto=256
Some other visuals:
a) Christ Church cathedral, Canterbury (Kent):
Site of T.'s murder:
http://www.rozspringer.com/images/CanterburyCathedral.jpg
Becket window 4 (ca. 1215-1220):
http://tinyurl.com/y99wacy
b) The originally late twelfth-century église Saint-Thomas de Cantorbéry at Mont-Saint-Aignan (Seine-Maritime) in Normandy, commissioned by Henry II in 1173. English-language and French-language accounts are here:
http://tinyurl.com/ycw8c3
http://tinyurl.com/ydsevd
Some expandable views:
http://tinyurl.com/ylcfe5
c) T. (center) in the late twelfth-century apse mosaics of the cathedral of Santa Maria la Nuova, Monreale:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3164/2575093180_0101779142_b.jpg
d) T.'s murder as depicted in a late twelfth-century wall painting in the iglesia de San Nicolás in Soria (Castilla y León). The painting, exceptional in that its shows T. being stabbed in the back rather than struck in the head, was in the news last year. Linked to here are two news reports with different views of it:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8029320.stm
http://iconosmedievales.blogspot.com/2009/11/csi-soria.html
and a brief BBC film clip showing more of the painting:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8192655.stm
Just as T.'s early depiction in the apse mosaics at Monreale has been ascribed to the influence of one of Henry II's daughters (Joanna/Giovanna, queen of Sicily), so this painting has been ascribed to the influence of another daughter (Eleanor/Leonor, queen of Castille).
e) Reliefs on the late twelfth-century (1190-1200) baptismal font in the church at Lyngsjö (Skåne län) showing Henry, the murderers, and the murder:
http://tinyurl.com/9scjdf
http://tinyurl.com/73a7qb
More views of this font are here (scroll down to Døbefont):
http://tinyurl.com/93aqa6
f) A late twelfth-century reliquary casket (châsse) with scenes of T.'s martyrdom, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York:
http://tinyurl.com/27s42cx
g) Some of the numerous Becket reliquary châsses made at Limoges in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries:
1) Ornamental reliquary châsse (ca. 1180) with scenes of the martyrdom, now in the British Museum:
http://tinyurl.com/3ykvus6
2) Another (ca. 1180-1190) now in the Victoria and Albert Museum:
http://www.vam.ac.uk/images/image/60908-popup.html
http://tinyurl.com/33d57cc
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Becket_casket.jpg
3) Two more (ca. 1190-1200), now in the Musée national du Moyen Âge (Musée de Cluny), Paris:
http://www.musee-moyenage.fr/ang/pages/page_id18020_u1l2.htm
http://tinyurl.com/3xmjq6b
AND
http://tinyurl.com/2uvzkvj
Other views of these are on the page linked to at 9) below.
4) Another (ca. 1200), now at Limoges, Musée municipal de l'Évêché:
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/emolimo/thomas1.htm
5) Another (ca. 1200), now in the Museum Schnütgen (St. Cäcilien), Köln:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2354/2127843870_2dcb1823bb_o.jpg
6) Another (ca. 1205-1215), now at Guéret (Creuse), musée des Beaux-Arts:
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/emolimo/thomas2.htm
7) Another (ca. 1210), now in the Musée des beaux-arts in Lyon:
http://tinyurl.com/35c4jgs
8) Another (earlier thirteenth-century), now at Lucca, in the Museo della Cattedrale di Lucca (Museo diocesano), in the third view seen through tinted glass:
http://www.toscanaoggi.it/musei/foto/grandi/13-4.gif
http://www.museocattedralelucca.it/visita/item.aspx?id=21
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3522/3837386490_88c39bba7c_o.jpg
Rear and side views of this object are shown towards the bottom of the page linked to in 9) below.
9) Other Becket reliquary châsses are shown here (images begin about a fifth of the way down the page):
http://tinyurl.com/9jz8ll
10) A plaque from such a reliquary châsse (late twelfth-century), now in the Musée du Louvre in Paris:
http://tinyurl.com/3a362o7
11) Yet another such plaque (ca. 1220-1222), now in the Cleveland Museum of Art (the second photograph is by Genevra Kornbluth):
http://www.oberlin.edu/images/Art336/cant-0017.JPG
http://www.kornbluthphoto.com/images/CMAThos.jpg
h) T.'s late originally twelfth-/early thirteenth-century church (an Augustinian foundation; portal dated 1202) at Caramanico Terme (PE) in Abruzzo:
Italian-language accounts with multiple views:
http://www.abruzzovacanze.net/vr.php/it/24
http://www.abruzzoverdeblu.it/?id=36
Single views:
http://tinyurl.com/928sxh
http://tecweb.unich.it/prog2004-11/particolare_san_tommaso.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2ondr4
i) The originally late twelfth-century chiesa di San Tomaso (consecrated, 1194) in Riva del Garda (TN) in Trentino-Alto Adige:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/caschmitz/186364993/
http://tinyurl.com/2d5femh
http://tinyurl.com/28wov5z
j) T.'s originally late twelfth-/thirteenth-century church at Cabriolo di Fidenza (PR) in Emilia, once a Templar chapel and now in private ownership:
http://www.templarioggi.it/Templari_oggi_le_commanderie_21.htm
http://tinyurl.com/yd3j9n
k) The originally late twelfth- and early thirteenth-century église Saint-Thomas-de-Canterbury, Mur-de-Barrez (Aveyron), destroyed up to the transept by Calvinists in ca. 1539:
http://tinyurl.com/y9mb9gy
l) An early thirteenth-century liturgical comb from England with Becket scenes, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York:
http://tinyurl.com/2c83czx
m) The early thirteenth-century Becket window in the cathédrale Notre-Dame, Chartres:
http://tinyurl.com/ye4j2u4
n) This recent issue of _Vidimus_ offers an English-language discussion and some expandable views of earlier thirteenth-century Beckett windows at Sens and elsewhere:
http://tinyurl.com/9trmlk
o) The heavily restored seemingly earlier thirteenth-century Becket window at Sens:
http://medievalart.org.uk/Sens/23_Pages/Sens_Bay23_key.htm
p) The Becket Leaves (a thirteenth-century illustrated rhymed Passio of T. in French):
http://www.angelfire.com/pa4/becketleaves/
q) T.'s murder as depicted in a thirteenth-century fresco in Pavia's chiesa di San Lanfranco:
http://tinyurl.com/2fpwrmp
r) T.'s murder as depicted in a fresco of ca. 1260 formerly in the episcopal place at Treviso (TV) in the Veneto and now in that see's diocesan museum:
http://tinyurl.com/ya3xpbo
http://tinyurl.com/yc5pc8b
In that first view, note the domes in the representation of Canterbury cathedral. It's thought that the artist was familiar with San Marco in Venice.
s) T.'s murder as depicted in the late thirteenth-century (ca. 1285-1290) Livre d'images de Madame Marie (Paris, BnF, ms. Nouvelle acquisition française 16251, fol. 81r):
http://tinyurl.com/ybuwf3e
t) An expandable view of T.'s murder as depicted in a late thirteenth-century copy of French origin of the _Legenda aurea_ (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 12v):
http://tinyurl.com/387oxxd
u) T.'s murder as depicted an early fourteenth-century panel in a window in the Lucy chapel, Christ Church cathedral, Oxford (photographs by Gordon Plumb):
http://tinyurl.com/ydg6fxn
Context:
http://tinyurl.com/yba2k4q
v) T.'s murder as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century wall painting (ca. 1330-1340) in the Church of St Peter ad Vincula, South Newington (Oxon):
http://www.paintedchurch.org/snewtbec.htm
http://tinyurl.com/yesjzpy
w) T.'s murder as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century (1st or 2d quarter; attrib. to the Maître de Fauvel) copy of a French-language collection of saint's lives (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 183, fol. 195v):
http://tinyurl.com/yjwgs9y
x) T.'s murder as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century (2d quarter) copy of a French-language collection of saint's lives (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 185, fol. 87r):
http://tinyurl.com/ye8n7nu
y) T.'s murder as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century (1348) copy of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 241, fol 26v):
http://tinyurl.com/ybd8l4g
z) T.'s murder as depicted in a fourteenth-century roof boss in the Cathedral Church of St Peter, Exeter:
http://tinyurl.com/ybwmumk
aa) T. in one of twenty-six window panels (ca. 1400) from the Marienkirche in Wismar (Land Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) re-mounted in the same city's Kirche Heiligen Geist:
http://tinyurl.com/yhuc6jl
bb) Two scenes from Meister Francke's earlier fifteenth-century Altarpiece of St. Thomas Becket (mid-1430s), now in the Kunsthalle in Hamburg:
T.'s entry into Canterbury:
http://tinyurl.com/yb3q3o
The assassination:
http://tinyurl.com/yarm7y
cc) T. as depicted in a mid-fifteenth-century glass window panel (early 1450s) in the Beauchamp Chapel, St Mary, Warwick (photographs by Gordon Plumb):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/4898144814/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/4898181727/
dd) T. (at upper left) as depicted in a later fifteenth-century glass window in Holy Trinity Church, Long Melford (Suffolk; photograph by Gordon Plumb):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/2230905801/
ee) T.'s murder as depicted in a later fifteenth-century (ca. 1450-1500) alabaster panel now in the British Museum, London:
http://tinyurl.com/ykujtkj
ff) Two later fifteenth-century alabaster panels from a dismantled altarpiece with Becket scenes, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London:
http://tinyurl.com/ydr3uze
http://tinyurl.com/333fg4b
AND
http://tinyurl.com/33w34bv
http://tinyurl.com/ybpu7yv
gg) T.'s consecration as depicted on another later fifteenth-century alabaster panel in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London:
http://tinyurl.com/33cc33j
http://tinyurl.com/yaq6kgr
hh) T.'s murder as depicted in a later fifteenth-century (ca. 1480-1490) copy of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 244, fol. 29bisv):
http://tinyurl.com/ycv83qp
ii) Only tangentially medieval: the parish church of Avrieux (Savoie) in the Maurienne dedicated to T. This dedication is somewhat dubiously reported to have occurred in 1214 at the behest of a lord of Avrieux named Anthelme and of his sons who were said to be "of England". The present church took shape in the seventeenth century. According to this website from the local commune, it is an expansion of its medieval predecessor, not a completely new building:
http://www.avrieux.com/patrimoine/eglise01.htm
(Perhaps more obviously medieval: Avrieux is one of two places -- the other being Brides-les-Bains -- where Charles the Bald is said to have died on his way back from Italy in 877.)
Some views of the church:
http://www.avrieux.com/phototheque/eglise3.jpg
http://www.avrieux.com/phototheque/eglise2.jpg
And views of a piece of its seventeenth-century decor, a retable with scenes from T.'s Life (details linked to below are of the assassination and of the flight of the assassins):
http://www.avrieux.com/images/dyptique.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/y3th7b
http://tinyurl.com/y9a7sd
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised)
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