medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (4. December) is the feast day of:
1) Barbara (?). The megalomartyr B., an originally Eastern saint absent from the late antique martyrologies and calendars, East and West, has no readily identifiable late antique cult site. She was localized in several places, most notably Nicomedia in Bithynia, Antioch on the Orontes, and a Heliopolis said to have been in Paphlagonia but possibly the one in Egypt, as it was from Egypt that the emperor Justin was said to have translated her relics to Constantinople. Her legendary Passio exists in many versions in several languages.
B.'s first appearance in a Western martyrology comes in the ninth century. St. Ado of Vienne, followed by Usuard, enters her under 16. December and purveys a version of her Passio that makes her a martyr of Tuscany. B. is entered under today in the earlier ninth-century Marble Calendar of Naples. In the same century chapels were dedicated to her in Rome. In the later Middle Ages B. became one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. In the 1960s she was removed from the general Roman Calendar. She still has an entry in the RM, albeit a grudging one: "It seems she was a virgin martyred at Nicomedia."
In widely known versions of her Passio, B. is a virgin shut up in a tower by an aggressively pagan father who discovers that she has turned Christian (in some texts, the three windows representing the Trinity that B. had inserted in the tower were a dead giveaway) and who either turns her over to officialdom for torment or else kills her himself. In some of these accounts he is then said to be killed by a lightning bolt. B. is the patron saint of miners, of artillerymen, and of people struck by lightning (or who must go out in lightning-rich weather conditions). Herewith some visuals:
a) B. as depicted in the earlier eleventh-century mosaics (restored between 1953 and 1962) in the katholikon of the monastery of Hosios Loukas near Distomo in Phokis:
http://tinyurl.com/386gcjo
b) B. as depicted in an eleventh-century fresco in the chiesa di Santa Maria della Croce at Casaranello, a _frazione_ of Casarano (LE) in Apulia:
http://www.lytos.altervista.org/italiano/barbara.jpg
In illustrated, Italian-language introduction to the mosaics and frescoes in this church:
http://www.lytos.altervista.org/italiano/Casaranello.htm
c) B.'s originally eleventh-century church in Cairo (a rebuilding of a late antique predecessor dedicated to someone else), itself much rebuilt:
An illustrated, English-language account:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Barbara_Church_in_Coptic_Cairo
Other views, etc.:
http://touregypt.net/featurestories/cairovision9.htm
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/barbara.htm
http://www.ask-aladdin.com/barbara.html
d) The seemingly eleventh-century rupestrian church at Göreme in Turkey's Nevşehir province that bears B.'s name (Barbara Kilise) because there is an image of her within (most of the church's decor avoids depiction of the human form; the relatively few exceptions are later):
http://tinyurl.com/2bk8b2t
http://www.pbase.com/dosseman/image/41540646
http://www.pbase.com/happypoppeye/image/95434296
http://www.photocompetition.it/reportages/reportage_36_16.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/yc8s7ph
http://tinyurl.com/yjrpkoe
http://tinyurl.com/ybcjkfk
http://tinyurl.com/y98mnq9
http://www.pbase.com/dosseman/image/41540645
http://www.pbase.com/dosseman/image/41540644
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/40b73e/
e) B.'s originally late eleventh- or twelfth-century church (Ag. Varvara) at Palaeochora/Paliohora on Cythera, a town abandoned after its sack by the pirate Barbarossa in 1537:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/88/239166231_c0449d8344.jpg?v=0
http://media.lonelyplanet.com/lpimg/27395/27395-58/preview.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2dkknpc
http://www.flickr.com/photos/43611928@N00/312429200/
http://tinyurl.com/27z4qag
f) B.'s originally twelfth-century church at Erimos on the Mani peninsula in Greece's Laconia prefecture, no. 5 here with expandable exterior view:
http://www.mani.org.gr/en/villages/oitilo/drand/drand.htm
Several expandable views of this church begin here:
http://tinyurl.com/22uw4b2
g) B. as depicted in a panel of the later thirteenth-century east window of the clerestory in the choir of Exeter Cathedral (photograph by Gordon Plumb):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/2885208187/
Two views of the window as a whole (the second by Gordon Plumb):
http://tinyurl.com/337guae
http://tinyurl.com/36e222m
h) B. (at right; at left, St. Agnes) as depicted in the late thirteenth-century (ca. 1284-1290) Livre d'images de Madame Marie (Paris, BnF, ms. Nouvelle acquisition française 16251, fol. 96r):
http://tinyurl.com/y9wmsx6
i) B. (lower register) as depicted in an early fourteenth-century fresco (betw. 1307 and 1313) in the church of the Theotokos of Ljeviš in Prizren in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://www.coe.int/t/DG4/Expos/expoprizren/en/epic2019.htm
j) B. as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century fresco (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322) in the nave of the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/yfygq52
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/ybne3kq
k) B. (at right) as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century glass window (ca. 1340) in the entrance hall -- an enclosed porch -- of the cathedral at Gurk (Kärnten):
http://www.burgenseite.com/glas/gurk_glas_4.jpg
l) The originally earlier fourteenth-century palatine chapel dedicated to B. in the Castel Nuovo at Naples (entrance and upper portions rebuilt after the earthquake of 1456):
Illustrated, Italian-language account:
http://tinyurl.com/yo933d
Single views:
http://tinyurl.com/25sm6xk
http://tinyurl.com/2ata67j
http://tinyurl.com/2a4pgag
http://tinyurl.com/2bxptqm
http://tinyurl.com/34l8at8
http://www.flickr.com/photos/goldenpixel/3644081572/
http://www.napoletanita.it/foto/napoli106.jpg
http://www.napoletanita.it/foto/napoli107.jpg
m) Fourteenth-century paintings of scenes from B.'s Passio in arcades of the apse of the église Notre-Dame at Savigny (Manche) in Normandy, once a dependency of the abbey of Sainte-Barbe-en-Auge (you'll probably have to go through several menus to reach these):
http://www.impens.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?P1=105&P2=L&L=FR&X=1,16,50,873
Expandable views of some of the paintings are here:
http://www.asesavigny.fr/
http://www.asesavigny.fr/Album_photo.htm
More views:
http://www.belissor.net/spip.php?article109
n) B. (at center) as depicted in a late fourteenth-century Pskov School icon now in the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow:
http://www.icon-art.info/masterpiece.php?lng=en&mst_id=515
o) B. as depicted in a late fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century stained glass panel in the south window of Thurburn's Chantry, Winchester College Chapel (photograph by Gordon Plumb):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3456891488/
p) B. as depicted in the very late fourteenth-/early fifteenth-century Breviary of Martin of Aragon (Paris, BnF, ms. Rothschild 2529, fol. 414v):
http://tinyurl.com/ylbu3ze
q) The mostly late fourteenth-/early fifteenth-century chapelle Sainte-Barbe at Le Faouët (Morbihan) in Brittany:
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/2032966.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2kpvy6
http://tinyurl.com/ycs6vb9
r) B.'s mostly late fourteenth-/early fifteenth-century cathedral church (Sv. Barbory; restored, nineteenth century) at the Czech mining town of Kutná Hora:
http://tinyurl.com/38mn9k
http://www.pbase.com/ianm_au/image/34082215
http://www.topbicycle.com/H-KutnaHora.htm
s) B. (at right) as depicted in the Pähl Altarpiece (ca. 1400), now in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich:
http://www.wga.hu/art/m/master/zunk_ge/zunk_ge3/triptych.jpg
t) B. as depicted by Jan van Eyck in an earlier fifteenth-century panel painting now in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp:
http://tinyurl.com/29ojxys
u) Starting with an expandable view in the penultimate row here
http://www.chania-citizen-guide.gr/2-26_gallery_---.html
, the remains of the fifteenth-century monastery church of Ag. Varvara at Voulgaro, a village in Latziana (Chania prefecture) on Crete, a building extensively re-using spolia from an ancient temple at the site. Other views:
http://tinyurl.com/2bjwjbl
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26383793@N08/3395944405/
http://tinyurl.com/26c62z5
http://tinyurl.com/2dtlgyy
http://tinyurl.com/29uxjad
http://tinyurl.com/2fnhvrw
v) B. as depicted in a fifteenth-century Novgorod School icon now in the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow:
http://www.icon-art.info/masterpiece.php?lng=en&mst_id=517
w) B. as depicted in a fifteenth-century wall painting in St Ethelbert's Church, Hessett (Suffolk):
http://www.paintedchurch.org/hessbarb.htm
http://tinyurl.com/yhqpkmj
x) B. as depicted in a fifteenth-century drawing now in the Universitätsbibliothek Salzburg (Handzeichnung H 2):
http://www.ubs.sbg.ac.at/sosa/graphiken/H2.jpg
y) B. as depicted by Domenico Ghirlandaio in a later fifteenth-century fresco (1471) in the pieve di Sant'Andrea at Sesto Fiorentino (FI) in Tuscany:
http://www.wga.hu/art/g/ghirland/domenico/1early/1cercin1.jpg
z) B. (at right) as depicted by Hans Memling in a later fifteenth-century panel painting (early 1480) now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York:
http://tinyurl.com/yadj5f3
aa) The originally mostly fifteenth-century (1380s to 1516) Pfarrkirche St. Barbara in Abensberg (Lkr. Kelheim) in Bavaria (the tower an eighteenth-century replacement for a late medieval predecessor):
http://tinyurl.com/27qpxh6
http://tinyurl.com/24o7wth
http://tinyurl.com/2e4vcrp
http://tinyurl.com/28bcous
http://tinyurl.com/29k92bu
B. as depicted in a late fifteenth-century fresco inside this church:
http://tinyurl.com/24mf62w
bb) B. as portrayed in a late fifteenth-century statue on the église Saint-Pantaléon at Troyes:
http://vieuxtroyes.free.fr/t/stpan/stpan20.JPG
cc) B. as portrayed by the Flemish engraver Master FVB in a late fifteenth-century engraving now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York:
http://www.wga.hu/art/m/master/fvb/1barbara.jpg
dd) Expandable images of many late fifteenth- and earlier sixteenth-century manuscript illuminations of B. in Books of Hours and graduals are here:
http://tinyurl.com/yzfn6w3
2) Meletius of Pontus (d. earlier 4th cent.). In his _Historia ecclesiastica_ (7. 32. 26-28) Eusebius mentions M., "bishop of the churches in Pontus", as a learned and rhetorically very proficient churchman whom he himself has known. His later, not very detailed praise by the very orthodox Sts. Athanasius of Alexandria and Basil of Caesarea works against his identification with the M., bishop of Sebastopolis (presumably the one in Pontus) whom Philostorgius (_Historia ecclesiastica_, 1. 8) numbers among the Arians at the First Council of Nicaea.
M. is not known to have had a late antique cult; he is also absent from the Synaxary of Constantinople. He first appears in Latin martyrolgies in that of Usuard, who entered him under today with an elogium drawn from Rufinus' translation of Eusebius.
3) Felix of Bologna (d. 430/31). Paulinus of Milan says in his _Vita Ambrosii_ that F. was a deacon of that city who now (ca. 422) is bishop of Bologna. He is characterized as a saint both in the twelfth-century _Vita sancti Petronii_ and in the so-called Elenco renano, the oldest list of the bishops of Bologna. Bologna celebrates F. liturgically on 3. October. Today is his day of commemoration in the RM.
The only visuals associated with F. that I have found on the Web are views of the Porta San Felice, one of ten survivors of the original twelve city gates in Bologna's final, thirteenth-/fourteenth-century city wall and located at the point where the Via Emilia entered the city (the continuation into the city centre is now called the Via San Felice). The cardinal who returned papal overlordship to Bologna in 1327 made his ceremonial entry through this gate. Views:
http://tinyurl.com/yedh2mt
http://tinyurl.com/yd3kvxu
4) John of Damascus (d. ca. 750). The theologian and hymnographer J. was the Arabic-speaking son of a financial officer of the Ummayad caliphate whom he followed in the family business in Damascus until hostility to Christians on the part of a new caliph caused him to move by the year 700 to the monastery of Mar Saba near Jerusalem. There he deepened his understanding of Christian theology and wrote his _Pege gnoseos_ (i.e. _Fount of Knowledge_) and other dogmatic and apologetic works. J. was ordained priest by Jerusalem's patriarch John V (706-735). Numerous sermons and panegyrics survive under his name, not all of which are his.
J.'s iconophile positions caused him to be condemned at the council of Hieria in 754; the Second Council of Nicaea (787) affirmed his orthodoxy. He was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1890. Two excerpts from an English-language translation of J.'s anti-iconoclast writings are here:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/johndam-icons.html
Some visuals:
a) J. as depicted in a twelfth-century fresco in the church of Agios Nikolaos tis Stegis at Kakopetria (Nicosia prefecture), Republic of Cyprus:
http://tinyurl.com/y9ttx3w
An illustrated, English-language page on this church:
http://tinyurl.com/ylqlgb7
b) J. as depicted in the late twelfth-century frescoes (1192; cleaned and restored, late 1960s and early 1970s) of the church of the Panagia tou Arakou in Lagoudera (Nicosia prefecture), Republic of Cyprus:
http://tinyurl.com/2fmdwto
c) J. as depicted in a late thirteenth- or very early fourteenth-century fresco, attributed to Manuel Panselinos, in the Protato church on Mt. Athos:
http://tinyurl.com/26q7ta3
d) J. (at lower left, with St. George and St. Ephraem the Syrian) as depicted in a panel from an earlier fourteenth-century triptych now in Saint Catherine's Monastery, Sinai:
http://tinyurl.com/5ctk4u
e) J. (at right on the pillar) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1313 and 1320) of the King's Church (dedicated to Sts. Joachim and Anne) in the Studenica monastery near Kraljevo (Raška dist.) in Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/254tl2d
f) J. as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1314 and ca. 1320) of the church of St. Nikita at Čučer in today's Čučer-Sandevo in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://tinyurl.com/ybtrn9v
g) J. (at right, center panel) 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/yhfe8sf
h) J. as depicted in a fourteenth-century fresco in the church of the Timios Stavros at Pelendri (Limassol prefecture), Republic of Cyprus:
http://tinyurl.com/yem385z
i) J. as depicted in the mid-fourteenth-century frescoes of the monastery church of St. Michael the Archangel at Lesnovo in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://tinyurl.com/yaygt67
j) J. as depicted in the later fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1365 and 1371) of the monastery church of St. Nicholas in Psaca (Kriva Palanka district), Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://tinyurl.com/yk9dhmg
k) A widely disseminated miracle story made J. a victim of iconoclastic persecution under the emperor Leo III (r. 717-741). According to this tale, J., who because he was living in Damascus and thus in the caliphate was beyond Leo's power, had enraged the emperor though his defense of icons. In response, Leo had a forged letter, seemingly from J. and urging an imperial attack on Damascus, delivered to the caliph. The latter then had J. punished for his supposed treason by having his right hand cut off. J. got the caliph's permission to retain his severed member. That night he prayed to the Theotokos before her icon and dreamt that she restored his hand. When J. awoke the hand had in fact been restored. Herewith J.'s punishment and the miracle as depicted in a later fifteenth-century copy of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris: BnF, ms. Français 310, fol. 46r):
http://tinyurl.com/32s7oa9
l) An English-language page on Niccolò da Varallo's St. John Damascene window (betw. 1498 and 1516) in the cathedral of Milan, with hotlinks to views of some of the panels:
http://tinyurl.com/2wdxknp
Best,
John Dillon
(matter from last year's post revised and with the addition of Meletius of Pontus)
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