medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Today, February 22, is the feast day of:

Aristion of Salamis (1st century) According to tradition, Aristion was one
of Jesus’ original 72 disciples. His missionary field was Salamis, Cyprus.
He was martyred either there or in Alexandria. In art he is represented
burning on a pyre.

Papias of Hierapolis (d. prob. earlier 2nd century). The Apostolic Father
Papias, bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, was the author in five books of a
Gospel or Sayings commentary, the Logion kyriakon exegesis, preserved
fragmentarily in quotations by others. It is the source for the traditions
that Matthew wrote his gospel in Aramaic and that Mark's gospel was a
summary of Peter's preaching. He is said by St. Irenaeus of Lyon to have
been an auditor of John and a companion of Polycarp. The latter is clearly
the martyr bishop of Smyrna and the former is identified by Eusebius and by
Jerome as being, in P.'s case, John the Presbyter. Ado, who entered Papias
in his martyrology under today's date, understood this John to be St. John
the Evangelist. For the remainder of the Middle Ages Papias was in the Latin
West considered in a direct recipient of apostolic teaching.

The Feast of the Chair of St Peter at Antioch. The feast of the Chair of St
Peter at Rome is on 18 January. This feast is first mentioned in 354. In the
late fifth century Perpetuus of Tours calls it Natalis S. Petri episcopatus
(the anniversary of Peter’s consecration as bishop). When the Cathedra Petri
came to be celebrated on January 18, the two feasts were differentiated by
calling that one the feast of the Chair of Peter at Rome and today's feast
that of the Chair of Peter _at Antioch_ (commemorating Peter's elevation to
the episcopate in that city). Both feasts are already present in the early
eighth-century Calendar of St. Willibrord. With the suppression in 1960 of
the January 18 feast the specification "of Antioch" was dropped from today's
celebration.
   The wood and ivory Chair enclosed in Bernini's splendid bronze
installation was very probably among the gifts brought to Rome on the
occasion of Charles the Bald's imperial coronation in 875 and was probably
made in Metz. How it became identified with St Peter is unknown. It was
hidden under an embroidered cover in 1481 and then enclosed by Bernini in
1689. It underwent a thorough investigation and restoration in 1968-74
before being returned to its bronze shrine.
   It is suggested that the January 18 was a Frankish feast of the sixth or
seventh centuries which later spread to Rome, duplicating that of 22
February, causing the latter to be re-designated as marking Peter's
consecration as bishop of Antioch. this feast was known in the twelfth
century as 'St Peter's banquet day'.
   An expandable view of Peter enthroned as depicted on Giotto's Stefaneschi
Triptych (c1330) in the Pinacoteca Vaticana: http://tinyurl.com/27lg2o
   Peter enthroned 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. 70r): http://tinyurl.com/ycq826u

Beradates (d. c460)  was a Syrian hermit, whom Theodoret calls "the
admirable." He lived in a hut open to the weather and engaged in severe
ascetic exercises (for example, he wore a leather garment that allowed only
his mouth and nose to be seen). Beradates was credited with great religious
insight; Emperor Leo I even wrote to consult him about the Council of
Chalcedon (451). He was even a good, obedient hermit - probably a great
relief to bishops in that age of rather wild-eyed ascetics: when his bishop
ordered him to give up the eremetical life, Beradates obeyed without
question.

Thalassius and Limnaeus (5th century) These were two hermits. Thalassius,
the elder of the two, made himself a hermitage in a cave in Syria; his
disciple Limnaeus later joined him there. Limnaeus in particular had a great
reputation as a healer; he later walled himself up as a recluse, but had
crowds turn up at his window. So many blind people came to him for help that
he built two houses to care for them.

Isabella of France (Blessed) (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. Her pious parents acceded to her wish
to remain unmarried. 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
Isabella 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 humilium 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 the latter was revised by Isabella
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 this day in the aforementioned house and was buried in
the abbey church.  Miracles were reported at her tomb and a cult arose.  Her
Vie (begun in 1283) by the abbess Agnes of Harcourt is considered the first
extant vernacular biography of a female contemporary written by a European
woman.  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 her 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.

Margaret(a) of Cortona (d. 1297) Margaret was born in Laviano, Tuscany, to a
small farming family.  She is said to have run away from an abusive
stepmother to spend nine years as the mistress of a knight, but when he was
murdered and his dog led her to the pit in which his body lay, she gave up
everything and returned with her son to her father's home, seeking
forgiveness and publicly confessing her sins. Her father refused, so
Margaret asked the Franciscan friars to help. They arranged for Margaret and
son to be taken in by two ladies, and Margaret went on to lead a life of
dramatic public penance, including self-mutilation and even (it is said)
child abuse of her son. In time she became a Franciscan tertiary and got
rather more balanced; caring for the sick, attacking vice, and preaching
repentance, founding a hospital for the poor. Margareta herself took to a
life of strict penitence and enjoyed many mystical experiences. Multitudes
came to her for spiritual counsel and miracles. She founded at Cortona a
community of religious women that survived her and that promoted her cause
by means of the Legenda de vita et miraculis beatae Margaritae de Cortona
(BHL 5314).  The latter is a work of multiple authorship including a lengthy
record of Margareta's visions as recounted to and written down by her
confessor G., now generally identified as the Franciscan friar Giunta
Bevegnati.  The Legenda also incorporates matter from a later confessor and
from various locals offering miracle accounts. She was acclaimed as a saint
on the day of her death and the citizens of Cortona started building a
church in her honor immediately afterward, her cult was confirmed for
Cortona in 1515 but she wasn't canonized until 1728.
   Margaret at rest in her mostly nineteenth-century church at Cortona:
http://tinyurl.com/atv9wd
   An expandable view of a late thirteenth-century panel painting of M. and
of scenes from her Legend: http://tinyurl.com/26t62r
   Margaret in an expandable view of part of a fourteenth-century panel
painting showing scenes from her Legend  (the painting, housed in the Museo
Diocesano di Cortona, is now attributed to a follower of Margarito[ne] of
Arezzo): http://www.beatoalano.it/Genesi/IMAGE027.JPG
   Margaret restoring a dead boy to life as depicted in a
seventeenth-century watercolor based on a now destroyed fresco by Ambrogio
Lorenzetti (d. 1348): http://tinyurl.com/cbmxd2


happy reading,
Terri
--
Q. What's the difference between genius and stupidity?
A. Genius has its limits.

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