medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (or rather, tomorrow), February 26, is the feast day of:
Dionysius of Augsburg (d. c304, supposedly), who has yet to grace the pages
of the RM, is the legendary protobishop of Augsburg, said to have been
martyred under Diocletian. In the Conversion of St. Afra (BHL 108) he
appears as her maternal uncle and the brother of St. Hilaria, ordained
priest and later consecrated bishop by the missionary bishop Narcissus of
Gerona and martyred by being burned alive after his niece. Today is the
anniversary of the elevation, authorized by Alexander IV in 1258, of his
supposed remains in Augsburg's church of St. Ulrich, the predecessor of
today's originally late fifteenth-century Basilica of Sts. Ulrich and Afra.
In 1351 the king of the Romans and future emperor Charles IV provided the
church of Augsburg with a silver gilt reliquary for Dionysius' head bearing
an inscription in leonine hexameters that the early Bollandist Henschen
called as full of piety as it was devoid of cultivation and elegance.
Alexander of Alexandria (d. 326 or 328) was elected bishop of Alexandria in
313, succeeding St. Achillas. Although he had to deal with other matters
(e.g. the Meletian schism, left over from the days Alexander's predecessor
but one, St. Peter the Martyr, and another schism in which a point of
differentiation was the correct timing of Easter), his tenure in office is
memorable especially for his dealing with the priest Arius. He tried to
bring his cleric Arius to a more trinitarian view of God, then banishing him
and his followers to Illyricum, and finally had to excommunicate him.
Alexander convened a synod in Alexandria in 320 that condemned as heretical
Arius' Christological teaching and followed this up both by doctrinal
letters to individual bishops and by an encyclical cataloguing Arius'
errors. Alexander had a leading role in the condemnation of Arius at the
First Council of Nicaea (the First Ecumenical Council) in 325. He was
succeeded as bishop by his disciple St. Athanasius of Alexandria.
Alexander (at centre in this view; pope St. Sylvester at left) as
depicted, in a representation of the First Ecumenical Council, in the
(between 1335 and 1350) frescoes in the narthex of the church of the Holy
Ascension at the Visoki Deèani monastery near Peæ 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/y96krb3
Alexander opposing Arius (the latter in blue) at the First Ecumenical
Council as depicted in a (1463) copy of Vincent de Beauvais' Speculum
historiale in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms.
Français 51, fol. 130r): http://tinyurl.com/yzb3xjp
Porphyry of Gaza (d. 420) We know about Porphyry from his Bios by Mark the
Deacon. Porphyry was a well to do native of Thessalonika who went to Egypt
to become a hermit when he was 25. Eventually he settled in Jerusalem, was
made a priest in 393, and was given care of the True Cross. But on a trip to
Caesarea he was kidnapped by the townspeople of Gaza and forcibly
consecrated as their bishop. The non-Christians of the city soon accused
Porphyry of bringing a drought with him, but rain came in answer to his
prayer and a lot of people converted. In Gaza he labored mightily in the
face of persecution by local pagans, destroying temples and cult images
wherever he could, and whose temples he ultimately was able to have
completely destroyed by soldiers of the empress Eudoxia (or the emperor
Arcadius) whereupon his house was looted and he was nearly lynched.
Porphyry gradually enjoyed considerable success in his missionary efforts.
He replaced the largest with a cruciform church paid for by E. and called
the Basilica Eudoxiana.
An English-language translation of Mark's Bios of Porphyry is here:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/porphyry.html
Ottokar/Otkar/Oatkar and Adalbert of Tegernsee (Blessed; d 771)The brothers
Adalbert and Ottokar are said to have been counts respectively of Warngau
and of Tegernsee, but proof is lacking. They are the traditional founders of
what became the great imperial abbey at Tegernsee in southeastern Bavaria,
settling it with monks from St. Gallen c750. Tegernsee quickly became
famous, especially after the brothers obtained the relics of the martyr St.
Quirinus for their foundation, and became an important cultural centre. At
the foundation Adalbert (d c800/804) became the first abbot and Ottokar, who
predeceased him, became a monk.
In 1445, during the reforming abbacy of Kaspar Ayndorffer, the founders'
relics were translated from a chapel in the abbey church of St. Quirinus to
a newly built sepulchre in the nave. In 1457 this monument received a) an
inscription, since lost, attesting to Adalbert's and Ottokar's working of
miracles and b) a cover showing the two founders in relief. That cover
(with Adalbert at left and Ottokar at right) now adorns the church's west
portal: http://www.gen.heinz-wember.de/tegernsee/bilder/Image2.html
Ottokar and Adalbert have yet to grace the pages of the RM.
Edigna of Puch (d. 1109) A popular folk saint, Edigna's life is strongly
overlaid with legend. She is supposed to have been a daughter of King Henry
I of France. Her parents tried to force her to marry, so she fled in c1075
to Puch (Bavaria). There she lived in a hollowed-out linden (or lime) tree
as a hermit until her death. Many farmers of the area and pilgrims from
further afield came to Edigna for advice (apparently especially when they
had problems with their cattle). The "1000 year linden" is still standing,
and the citizens of Puch stage an "Edigna play" every ten years.
Leo of Saint-Bertin, abbot (1163) Leo was abbot of Lobbes before becoming
abbot of St. Bertin in 1138. Reaching Jerusalem during the Second Crusade,
he returned with the alleged relic of drops of Christ's blood, collected by
Joseph of Arimathea when he prepared the body for entombment.
Isabella of France (Bl.; d. 1270) The daughter of Louis VIII of France and
of Blanche of Castile, Isabella was the younger sister of St. Louis IX and
the aunt of St. Louis of Tolouse. Isabella turned against royal life as an
adolescent; fasting almost to the point of death, refusing to wear fine
clothes, etc. She also refused to marry; even a papal appeal that she accept
King Conrad of Jerusalem for the sake of Christendom didn't get her to
change her mind. Her pious parents acceded to her refusal. In 1254 Innocent
IV authorized her retention of Franciscan spiritual advisors and in the
following year she began to acquire land in what is now the Bois de Boulogne
for the establishment of a Damianite convent. Not all such houses then
followed the Rule of St. Clare (1253) and when the convent was completed in
late 1258 or very early 1259 I. secured Alexander IV's approval of the Rule
she herself had written for what she called the Order of the Humble
Handmaidens of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Ordo humilum ancillarum B.V.M.).
The monastery itself was called that of the Humility of the BVM; posterity
knows it as the abbey of Longchamp.
Isabella never became a nun, dwelling instead in a modest house of her
own (with an associated chapel) on monastery property where she lived in
modified conformity to her Rule. In 1263 she revised the latter in
conjunction with St. Bonaventure and with other eminent members of the Order
of Friars Minor. In this revision the sisters were officially designated as
Sorores minores, a form of nomenclature showing that though they were not
Poor Clares they were Franciscan.
Isabella died on February 23 in the aforementioned house and was buried
in the abbey church. Miracles were reported at her tomb and a cult arose.
An inventory of the abbey's relics drawn up in 1325 includes in seventh
place some of Isabella's hair in a vessel with a silver gilt foot. In 1521
Isabella's cult was confirmed, with an Office, for the sisters of Longchamp;
in 1696 a feast of Isabella on August 31 was authorized for the entire
Franciscan family.
happy reading,
Terri
--
"It's not the verbing that weirds the language -- it's the renounification."
- Mahk Leblanc
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