medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today, February 10, is the feast day of:
Zoticus of Rome, Amantius of Rome (?) are martyrs of the tenth milestone on
the Via Labicana, uncertainly thought to have perished in the Diocletianic
persecution. They appear together without companions in the
(pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology. From the ninth-century historical
martyrologies onward they were coupled with martyrs now thought not to have
been buried with them, Irenaeus and Hyacinthus, as they also were in the RM
until its revision of 2001. According to the Liber Pontificalis pope St. Leo
III (795-816) restored their cemetery (which at this point was named for
Zoticus); his immediate successor St. Paschal I (817-24) brought the
martyrs' remains from there to Rome's church of Santa Prassede. An early
medieval basilica at the cemetery belonged in the twelfth century to the
Greek monastery at Grottaferrata, which latter probably acquired it from the
see of Labicum (whose first bishop, attested from 313, was a Zoticus).
Zoticus and companions have a legendary Passio of the eleventh century
(BHL 9027t) in which they are martyrs under Decius. Zoticus' cemetery was
rediscovered in 1715.
Charalampes/Charalampos/Charalampus/Charalampios/Charalambos/Charalampos/Har
alampos of Magnesia, Baptus, and Porphyrius (d. 202, supposedly) Charalampes
is said both in his legendary Passiones (BHG 298-298e) and in the Synaxary
of Constantinople to have been a very elderly priest at Magnesia martyred
under an emperor Severus. The latter has to be Septimius Severus, whose
persecution began in 202. But which Magnesia? Modern potted accounts of
Charalampes divide with equal assurance between the Magnesia in Thessaly and
Magnesia on the Maeander in Asia Minor. The latter was in the province of
Asia, one of the places where the Severan persecution is reported to have
been oppressive. So was the apparently lesser known Magnesia on Sipylus
(today's Manisa in Turkey), situated in the same province, seemingly at
least as good a candidate as its homonym on the Maeander.
This uncertainty, which goes hand in hand with the absence both of any
identified late antique cult locale for Charalampes and of any witness to
the existence of his story prior to the tenth century, makes Charalampes
pretty much a figure of legend. In the Passiones he is tortured several
times, works miracles, and by his example converts others to Christianity;
at different points in the story Charalampes' oppressors are punished only
to be forgiven by him. In the end, he receives the grace to die just before
he is to be decapitated (so the Passiones; in the Synaxary of Constantinople
he is executed). Legendarily, this was at age 113. Also legendarily, The
governor was outraged when Ch. continued to work miracles and wanted to flay
the saint personally but the governor's hands were crippled, so he had to
ask Charalampes for healing. The governor didn't convert, but five
bystanders (including the executioner) did; all six were tortured and
beheaded. Baptus (also called Dauktos) and Porphyrius are Roman soldiers who
at an early torture session convert and are then executed. The RM includes
them in its commemoration of Charalampes.
Charalampes as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century (between c1312
and 1321/1322) frescoes in the nave of the monastery church of the Theotokos
at Graèanica 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/yacgdy4
Charalampes became popular in the Early Modern period, when he was viewed
as a protector against plague. Purported relics of him exist all over
today's Greece (what is said to be his head is at St. Stephen's monastery at
Meteora).
Zeno of Antioch (d. first quarter 5th cent.) Zeno, born in the mid-fourth
century in Pontus (on the coast of the Black Sea), was a student of Basil
the Great. Later he became a soldier, but in 378 left the army and proceeded
to live for 40 years as a hermit in a tomb near Antioch.
Scholastica (d. 543/7) The sister, perhaps twin, of Benedict of Nursia.
Scholastica figures in Gregory's Dialogues. He tells that S. was a
consecrated virgin from an early age. She followed him to Montecassino and
lived a religious life nearby. An eleventh-century legend makes her the
first Benedictine dove. She settled at Plombariola near Monte Cassino, and
probably founded a convent under Ben's authority, serving as abbess. Brother
and sister met once a year between the two monasteries. When S. was about to
die, she asked Ben to stay longer; when he refused, her prayers roused such
a violent storm that he had to stay whether he wanted to or not. She died
three days later. Benedict saw his sister's soul fly to heaven in the form
of a dove. She was buried in the tomb in Monte Cassino that Benedict
intended for his own inhumation, and four years later he was buried beside
her. The tomb, by the way, still exists at Monte Cassino. The story on
Scholastica duplicate bones seems to be somewhat as follows. When the monks
of Fleury went down to the ruined Monte Cassino in the mid-seventh century
and retrieved the bones of St. Benedict, the bones of Scholastica were also
taken back to France. There does not seem to have been however a cult of
Scholastica at Fleury, though it may have been subsumed under the devotion
to Benedict. By the ninth century the legend arose that her bones had been
taken from Fleury to Le Mans (a ways down the Loire from Fleury). The heads
of two other monasteries downriver on the Loire saw this prosperity an fame:
abbot Odo of Glanfeuil and the abbess of the convent at LeMans. Within only
a few years of each other in the mid-9th century, Glanfeuil announced the
discovery of the bones of Blessed Maurus, Benedict's first named disciple.
Almost at the same time, the convent at LeMans announced the discovery of
the bones of Scholastica. Both places became relatively popular cult centers
in their own right, though never rivaling Fleury.
Glanfeuil fell on unhappy days with the invasions of the Vikings; the
community fled to Paris, taking Maurus's bones with them...and he never
returned. If you are taking the Metro you will pass on the way to more
interesting parts of the city, the stop of St-Maur-des-Fossés, site of the
long since destroyed (French Revolution of course) Parisian cult center of
Blessed Maurus. Charles the Bald's wife demanded the relics of Scholastica
for her foundation at Jumieges from the townsmen of Le Mans. The local cult
formed around the bones she left behind. Scholastica is still invoked to
bring rain, and prevents people from being struck by lightning.
Austreberta, virgin (704) - Austreberta was the daughter of a Frankish
count, born near Therouanne. As a girl, she got a foretaste of her future
life, when she looked at her reflection in a river and saw a veil over her
head. She ran away from home to escape an arranged marriage and took refuge
with St. Omer, who consecrated her as a nun. Her father was eventually
reconciled to her career choice and she entered the monastery of Port (now
Abbeville). She served as abbess there and then at Pavilly.
William of Malavalle (d. 1157). The spiritual father of the Williamites (or
Wilhelmites; an order later folded into the Augustinian Hermits), W. is
largely a figure of legend. After pilgrimages to Compostela, Rome, and
Jerusalem, he is said to have settled down in about the year 1155 in a cave
in the Malavalle near today's Castiglione della Pescaia (GR) in Tuscany,
driving off in the process a large Satanic serpent (_draco_). In the
following year he attracted a disciple, Albert, who wrote a Vita (BHL 8922)
inspiring the eremitical Rule of the Wilhelmites (approved by Innocent III
in 1211). An interpolated version by one Theobald (Thibaut; BHL 8923) added
material from the Vita of the monastic founder St. William of Gellone (BHL
8916) and so made today's W. a military hero turned hermit.
W.'s cult, which spread quickly from southern Tuscany across parts of the
papal state and then into much of western Europe, was approved by Alexander
III at the level of _beatus_. Opinions differ as to whether W. were
equivalently canonized by Innocent III in 1202. He is pretty universally
referred to as 'Saint' and is so designated in the latest version (2001) of
the RM.
The originally early thirteenth-century pieve di Santa Maria Assunta at
Buriano (AZ) in Tuscany possesses a relic of W., preserved in the reliquary
shown at right here: http://www.abbazie.com/sanguglielmo/foto/BURIANO5.jpg
The seventeenth-century chiesa di Sant'Andrea Apostolo at Tirli (GR) in
Tuscany (an expansion of an earlier chapel) posses a skull fragment and
other pieces of bone said to be relics of W.: http://tinyurl.com/boe59l
A thirteenth-century portrait of W. by the Master of St. Augustine, now
in the Pinacoteca "Bruno Molajoli" at Fabriano (AN) in the Marche:
http://tinyurl.com/dy5ogp
A view of Hans Memling's portrait (ca. 1470) of a young man with W. (in the
panel painting at right; at left are a donor and St. Anne) in the Pierpont
Morgan Library and Museum in New York: http://tinyurl.com/bv2ctv
William of Notre-Dame de l'Olive (blessed) (d. 1240) William was born c.1175
in Brabant (Belgium). He became a baker but after a dissolute life became a
monk. He later lived a highly penitential life as a hermit - according to
tradition going around on his hands and feet like an animal to show his
humility. He also founded the nunnery of Notre-Dame de l'Olive in Belgium.
Clare/Chiara Agolanti da Rimini (blessed) (d. 1346) Born in 1282 Clare was a
noblewoman of Rimini. She was married twice, leading an actively sinful life
in the process. But when husband #2 died and her father and brother were
killed, she was converted by a vision. At 34, she became a Franciscan
tertiary and she lived in a hollow in the city wall; known for her excessive
penances, she was accused of heresy. She founded Our Lady of the Angels in
Rimini (which she did not enter) and spent the rest of her life in stringent
penance. Her cult was confirmed for Rimini in 1784.
happy reading,
Terri
--
"Be gentle to all and stern with yourself." - St. Teresa of Avila
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