medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Herewith a link to the list's "Saints of the Day" for 1. January 2010 (including Mary the Mother of God; Justin, active in Campania and Abruzzo; Fulgentius of Ruspe; William of Volpiano; and Odilo of Cluny):
http://tinyurl.com/7fjdcca
1. January is also the feast day of:
1) Almachius (?). At _Historia ecclesiastica_, 5. 26 the earlier fifth-century bishop Theodoret of Cyr(rh)us recounts a reported incident in which during the reign of the emperor Honorius (395-423) an eastern ascetic named Telemachus, who had journeyed to Rome expressly to protest the continued holding there of gladiatorial games, interrupted such a show on an unspecified day, and for his pains was killed by outraged, diabolically inspired spectators; Honorius added Telemachus to the role of martyrs and put an end to gladiatorial combats. Thus far Theodoret. No edict of Honorius survives to this effect; while it is possible that gladiatorial shows still existed in Rome at this time (they certainly survived Constantine's prohibition against them in 325), the story is vague enough in important aspects to elicit doubts.
With important differences the story recurs in the ninth-century martyrologists St. Ado of Vienne and Usuard of Saint-Germain: the interruption took place on the Kalends of January just as the City Prefect was opening games that would last for a week; the interrupter's name was Almachius; his eastern origin and his ascetic status are not given; he objected to pagan sacrifice at the games (this had been a concern earlier in the fourth century); the gladiators killed him; no official higher than the City Prefect is mentioned; it is not said that this action put an end either to the show in question or to gladiatorial games more generally. Although the City Prefect is named, he has proven difficult to identify; that and the absence of any regnal indication have permitted vastly different conjectures as to when this incident occurred (should it have occurred at all: it could be a survivor of earlier Christian propaganda that had assumed a legendary existence).
2) Eugendus (d. 510). We know about Eugendus (in French: Oyend) from his brief Vita (BHL 2665) in the _Vitae patrum Jurensium_. He is said to have been a disciple of Sts. Romanus and Lupicinus, the fifth-century founders of the ascetic monastic community headquartered at Condat (today's Saint-Claude in the Swiss canton of Jura). Literate from his childhood and monastically educated, he became the community's fourth abbot. Eugendus was remembered for building the community's first stone church, after the wooden one erected by Romanus had burned down, and for endowing it with precious relics. He was formally elevated by his successor, who built a shrine over his grave. This in turn attracted so many pilgrims that the monastery's town was known by his name for much of the Middle Ages, though ultimately that gave way to the greater popularity of one of his successors, St. Claudius.
3) Zdislava (d. 1252). This pious Moravian was the wife of a duke of Lemberk in what is now the Czech Republic and the mother of four children. Personally ascetic, she was extraordinarily charitable to the poor and to other misfortunates. Together with her husband she founded Dominican houses at Turnov and at Jablonné v Podještědí; the latter has her tomb. A fourteenth-century chronicle ascribes several miracles to Zdislava. Her cult was confirmed papally in 1907 for Bohemia at the level of Beata; canonization followed in 1995.
Best,
John Dillon
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