medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
There are several problems with the chronological approach. Should it be
the date of death of the person, or the date (if any) of their
canonisation? Or the date at which they became more more widely, or
generally, commemorated?
Should the saints be divided region in which thwy are commemorated, or
into those commemorated in the medieval period and those commemorated
only later?
John Briggs
On 21/01/2011 15:00, Christopher Crockett wrote:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> hi Terri,
>
> many thanks for taking over the thankless task of posting the daily saints.
>
> i notice that you have changed the format used by John D. and his
> predecessor(s) somewhat.
>
> might i suggest that listing the saints in an alphabetical order is great for
> the index of a book, but a chronological arrangement is more suitable for the
> daily listing which you put together, as it allows those with, say, a special
> interest in a particular period to quickly browse through the pre- and post-
> periods of lesser interest, and to quickly concentrate on those Lesser Known
> Saints of the Regno which fall within a particular period of interest.
>
> perhaps others might find the alphabetical format preferable --and should
> speak up, if that is the case-- but, to me, it is curiously inappropriate, in
> this context.
>
> please consider returning to a chronological listing format.
>
> thanks,
>
> c
>
> ------ Original Message ------
> Received: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 11:59:05 PM EST
> From: Terri Morgan<[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [M-R] Feasts and Saints of the Day - January 21
>
>> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>>
>> Today, January 21, is the feast day of:
>>
>> Abo of Tbilisi (d. 786) According to his Georgian-language Passio, the
>> martyr Abo was an educated Muslim and a maker of perfumes and unguents in
>> Bagdad. He became acquainted with a Georgian great noble of Christian faith
>> who had been imprisoned there and who had been released upon the accession
>> of a new caliph. When the noble returned to Georgia (which had been under
>> Muslim rule since 655), Abo accompanied him as a member of his household.
>> Abo became both orally proficient in Georgian and literate in that tongue.
>> He read Holy Scripture and other Christian writings but for fear of
>> denouncement as an apostate refrained from converting.
>> When the noble and his household were later in exile among the Khazars
>> Abo did convert; later they all returned to Georgia, where Abo spent three
>> years as a practicing Christian in Tbilisi before being denounced. The amir
>> before whom he was brought offered him opportunities to abjure his
>> Christianity. Abo refused and was executed; a miraculous pillar of light
>> appeared that evening on the spot of his execution and glowed in the dark
>> for some three hours. An even more marvellous light, so bright that it
>> illuminated the whole town, appeared there on the following night. Abo has
>> yet to grace the pages of the RM. He is Tbilisi's patron saint.
>>
>> Agnes of Rome (d. 258/9 or c304?) Entered under today in the Depositio
>> martyrum of the Chronographer of 354, Agnes is a martyr of the Via
>> Nomentana, where a cemetery was named for her. Adjacent to it Constantine's
>> daughter Constantina erected a large basilica dedicated to her, remains of
>> which can still be seen today. When Agnes was martyred is unknown: the two
>> leading candidates are the persecutions of Decius and Valerian. Early
>> literary notices, of which there are a number (Agnes was always a popular
>> saint), stress her youth (twelve years old, says St. Ambrose) and,
> initially
>> as an indicator of her age but quickly sexualized (as in Prudentius,
>> Peristephanon, 14), her virginity.
>> By the time of St. Maximus of Turin (d. c465) Agnes had a legendary
>> Passio. This exists in numerous versions; according to some, the son of the
>> urban prefect of Rome fell in love with Agnes and wanted to marry her, but
>> she insisted that her bridegroom was Christ. The angered prefect wanted to
>> kill her, but she miraculously survived an effort to burn her at the stake.
>> She was then beheaded. Along with that are extended treatments of Agnes's
>> being placed in a brothel and of the blinding of a male admirer (both
>> already present in Prudentius' poem) and an execution in the Circus
> Agonalis
>> (today's Piazza Navona). Agnes's early modern church there (Sant'Agnese in
>> Agone) is variously said to have some of her hair and/or her head. But her
>> chief place of veneration in Rome is the church over her burial site at the
>> aforementioned cemetery, Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura. Erected by Honorius I
> in
>> the early seventh century, several times rebuilt, and containing such of
> her
>> relics as are not elsewhere, this has long been the venue of today's
>> blessing of two lambs from whose wool archiepiscopal pallia are made by the
>> nuns of St. Agnes in Rome. Their connection with Agnes depends upon the
>> similarity between her name and the Latin words agnus and agna ('lamb'; a
>> frequent attribute of Agnes).
>> A text of the Ambrosian hymn Agnes beatae virginis is here (starts a
>> little more than halfway down the page): http://tinyurl.com/28kynq and a
>> text of Prudentius, Peristephanon, 14 (the closing piece in this collection
>> of triumphal poems celebrating Christian martyrs):
> http://tinyurl.com/27x5gz
>> Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura apse mosaic:
>> http://www.santagnese.org/foto/mosaico.jpg and Marjorie Greene's views, in
>> Medrelart, of the Sant'Agnese complex: http://medrelart.shutterfly.com/385
>> The very young Agnes in a fourth-century pluteus from the altar erected
>> by pope Liberius (352-366) at Agnes' tomb and now, like the Damasan
>> inscription shown above, embedded in a wall alongside the basilica's
>> entrance stairway: http://www.santagnese.org/img/pluteo_liberio.gif
>> Agnes accompanied by a lamb in the procession of the virgin martyrs
>> (c560; heavily restored) in Ravenna's Sant'Apollinare Nuovo:
>> http://www.classicalmosaics.com/images/DSCN2519.JPG Detail:
>> http://tinyurl.com/3yjbth
>> Agnes at left (St. Barbara at right) as depicted in the c1285-1290 Livre
>> d'images de Madame Marie (Paris: BnF, ms. Nouvelle acquisition française
>> 16251, fol. 96r): http://tinyurl.com/y9wmsx6
>> Agnes appears at far right, holding the Agnus Dei, in Duccio di
>> Buoninsegna's great Maestà (betw. 1308 and 1311) for the cathedral of
> Seina.
>> Here's a detail view of her:
>> http://www.wga.hu/art/d/duccio/buoninse/maesta/maest_07.jpg
>> Agnes defending herself from her suitor and his friends as depicted in a
>> (1348) copy of the Legenda aurea in its French-language version by Jean de
>> Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 241, fol. 44v):
> http://tinyurl.com/y96nhmg
>> The c1370-1380 Royal Gold Cup in the British Museum is notable for its
>> scenes from Agnes's Passio: http://tinyurl.com/ywqzgm . It is a bit
>> depressing to find the British Museum misspelling the name of Agnes'
>> legendary sister, St. Emerentiana.
>> Scenes from Agnes's passio as depicted in a 1463 copy of Vincent de
>> Beauvais' Speculum hisoriale in its French-language version by Jean de
>> Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 51, fol. 257r):
> http://tinyurl.com/y8flqbc
>>
>> Edward Stransham, martyr (1586) was arrested while celebrating mass in a
>> house in Bishopsgate Street Without, in London.
>>
>> Eugenios of Trapezunt (d. 310) Eugenios, from Trapezunt in Asia Minor, was
>> executed along with several companions after knocking over a pagan statue.
>> His cult became important: a monastery and a church were named after him,
> he
>> became the city patron of Trapezunt, and in the Middle Ages he even
> appeared
>> on coins.
>>
>> Fructuosus, Augurius, and Eulogius (d. 259) Fructuosus, bishop of Tarragona
>> and his deacons Augurius, and Eulogius were victims of the Valerianic
>> persecution, said to have been burned at the stake. Eulogized by Prudentius
>> (Peristephanon, 6), they have a brief Passio (BHL 3196) that though thought
>> to date in its present form from the fifth century consists chiefly of a
>> summary eyewitness account of the judicial proceedings against them. At
>> least one of St. Augustine's surviving sermons was delivered on the day of
>> their feast, which latter in the (ps-)HM and in all the Mozarabic calendars
>> is recorded for today. This is still their day of commemoration in the RM
>> and the day of their feast (a Solemnity) at Tarragona; in most Spanish
>> dioceses they have an optional Memorial on January 20.
>> The cult of Fructuosus, Augurius, and Eulogius radiated from Iberia into
>> what is now southern France, where their Passion is depicted on one of the
>> late eleventh- or very early twelfth-century capitals of the abbey cloister
>> at Moissac: http://tinyurl.com/733hpy , http://tinyurl.com/727btx
>>
>> Meinrad (d. 861) was born to a peasant family near Wurtemberg, and became a
>> monk of Reichenau who then became an hermit at a place in today's
>> Switzerland. (In the following century a monastery was founded there that
>> later became the famous Benedictine abbey of Einsiedeln.) He lived there
> for
>> 25 years and is said to have been murdered by robbers. Venerated as a
>> martyr, Meinrad has a late ninth-century Passio (BHL 5878) that probably
> was
>> composed at Reichenau, where in 1039 his relics received a formal elevatio
>> and where an Office was written for him that is still in use. Even before
>> this, distribution of Meinrad's relics had begun. Einsiedeln has a head
> said
>> to be his. A later fourteenth-century Vita by George of Gengenbach (BHL
>> 5878b) added numerous miracles and other legendary episodes.
>> Here's a full-page illustration from a later fifteenth-century
> manuscript
>> in the university library at Heidelberg showing Meinrad's martyrdom.
>> Included in this scene are two ravens that, so the story goes, Meinrad had
>> been feeding for some time and that had become habituated to him. They are
>> said to have pursued Meinrad's murderers and by calling attention to these
>> felons to have caused them to be brought to justice:
>> http://tinyurl.com/387lho
>>
>> Neophytos (d. c250) Celebrated only by the Orthodox Church, Neophytos'
> story
>> is quite wonderful. He was born to a Christian family of Bithynia, and
>> started working miracles at the age of nine (miraculously producing food
> for
>> his schoolmates). One day when he was in bed, a dove flew in and spoke to
>> Neophytos in human voice - Neophytos's mother was so shocked that she died,
>> but Neophytos's prayer soon resurrected her. Neophytos and the dove then
>> went off to set up housekeeping in a cave on Mt. Olympus, where Neophytos
>> was nourished by angels. He returned home at the age of 11, where he gave
>> all the family goods to the poor. Then, led by an angel, Neophytos went to
>> Emperor Decius and professed his Christian faith. After surviving all
>> tortures unscathed, Neophytos was finally killed with the sword.
>>
>> Publius (d. c. 112) According to tradition, Publius was head of the
>> Christian community on the island of Malta. When Paul was shipwrecked
>> there, he and Publius became friends. Publius is supposed to have later
>> become bishop of Athens, where he was martyred in the reign of Trajan.
>> Another tradition reports that Publius was first bishop of Malta.
>>
>>
>>
>> Terri Morgan
>> --
>> No trees were harmed in the transmission of this message.
>> However, a significant number of electrons were temporarily inconvenienced.
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
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