medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (2. December) is the feast day of:
1) Bibiana (?). Bibiana (also Vibiana, Viviana) is a very poorly attested martyr of Rome, first recorded in the _Liber Pontificalis_ where we are told that pope St. Simplicius (468-83) dedicated to her a martyrial basilica containing her body and situated near the Licinian palace (i.e. on the Esquiline in the vicinity of Santa Maria Maggiore); it is not said how, in violation of ordinary Roman funerary practice, Bibiana's body came to be within the former _pomerium_. Archeological excavation on the site of this church's early modern successor has yielded the remains of what has been interpreted as a hypogeum constructed by Simplicius. Bibiana's a legendary Passio (BHL 1322-1323) makes her a martyr scourged to death with lead weights under Julian the Apostate (for western saints, martyrdom under this emperor is a good indicator of fiction) and has her buried in her own house where previously she had buried her mother Dafrosa and her sister Demetria (who also were venerated in this church). Burial in one's own house is also a feature of the legendary Passio of Sts. John and Paul, whose paleochristian church on the Caelian seems to have had a _confessio_ over what may have been construed as these saints' original graves. The church of St. Bibiana is mentioned again as one of the sights for pilgrims listed in the later eighth-century Itinerarium Einsiedlense; in seemingly the ninth century it received an adjacent monastery for women that bore Bibiana's name and that lasted until the 1540s. The church and the monastery were rebuilt in the thirteenth century by Honorius III and the church was reworked, largely on the same plan, by Bernini in 1624-26. Herewith a few views of its interior, showing ancient Roman columns said to have come from the fifth-century church:
http://tinyurl.com/cq8lemm
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42858885@N00/6796837585/lightbox/
http://medrelart.shutterfly.com/activityfeed/86
A later medieval inscription recording the belief that Bibiana's church and monastery were on the site of a cemetery containing the bodies of 5266 Christian martyrs (not counting women and children) is mounted in one wall of Bernini's massive portico for Santa Bibiana:
http://medrelart.shutterfly.com/activityfeed/95
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dealvariis/7138428237/
Inside the church, behind a protective grille said to have been designed by Bernini, is a red marble column traditionally venerated as part of the one to which Bibiana was bound when she endured her fatal flogging:
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2761/4100602053_022cca9d84_z.jpg
Santa Bibiana also preserves the tombstones of several of the abbesses of the adjacent monastery. Here's one:
http://medrelart.shutterfly.com/activityfeed/91
Two sets of views of this church:
http://medrelart.shutterfly.com/activityfeed/85
http://tinyurl.com/bwwlrmc
2) Pi(g)menius of Rome (?). Pigmenius is a somewhat less poorly attested Roman martyr who was attracted into the legend of Bibiana as a priest executed by being drowned in the Tiber. His entry under today in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology led to Bibiana's being commemorated on this day in the RM. According to the (ps.-)HM, Pigmenius reposed in the cemetery of Pontianus on the Via Portuensis; that catacomb's early modern rediscoverer, Antonio Bosio (d. 1629), reported having seen Pigmenius' image there. In addition to his inclusion in Bibiana's Passio Pigmenius has one of his own, the also quite legendary BHL 6849-6849a.
3) Chromatius of Aquileia (d. 407 or 408). Bishop of Aquileia from 388 onward, Chromatius was a friend both of St. Jerome and of Rufinus of Aquileia. He encouraged the latter to undertake his translation of Eusebius' _Ecclesiastical History_. A correspondent of Ambrose of Milan, Chromatius seems both from his sermons and from buildings dated in part to his episcopacy to have been about as active as was Ambrose in consecrating churches and martyria. One of these was the structure at Aquileia now referred to as the basilica di Monastero, parts of whose sacristy and of two phases of mosaic flooring survive in the structural complex of the present eleventh-/fourteenth-century patriarchal basilica. Herewith a few views of the remains of this paleochristian basilica:
http://www.aquileia.net/images/musei02.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/27bgoh6
http://tinyurl.com/ud8ne
Also attributed to Chromatius is this baptistery in the patriarchal basilica:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3031/2921377288_11c1959c70.jpg
The nave of the patriarchal basilica replaced a predecessor whose early fourth-century mosaic floor was uncovered a little less than a century ago. Measuring some 700 square metres, it is said to be the largest early Christian mosaic floor in western Europe. Herewith some views of a monument with which Chromatius will certainly have been familiar:
http://tinyurl.com/2cfuus
http://tinyurl.com/6abevv
http://tinyurl.com/y67pb6
http://tinyurl.com/ycvq8a
4) Silverius, pope (d. 537). Like his father pope St. Hormisdas, whose epitaph he wrote (MGH, Antiquitates, 1: _Poetae Latini aevi Carolini_, vol. 1, p. 114; _Liber Pontificalis_, ed. Duchesne, vol. 1, p. 274), this less well known saint of the Regno hailed from what is now Frosinone in southern Lazio. He was a subdeacon when in early June 536 king Theodahad compelled the Roman clergy to elect him their bishop, succeeding St. Agapitus I, who had died in Constantinople. The holders of power in Constantinople (especially, it would seem, the empress Theodora) had a candidate of their own for that position, the deacon Vigilius who at the time was papal aprocrisarius to their court. After Belisarius entered Rome in December of that year Silverius' position became perilous. Accused of having collaborated with the Gothic enemy, he was degraded and removed from his post on 11. March 537.
Silverius was exile to Patara in Lycia, where the local bishop took it upon himself to persuade Justinian that there had been a miscarriage of justice. Silverius was sent back to Rome to face a trial and, if convicted, re-assignment to a new see. Instead, Vigilius had him exiled to one of the larger Pontine islands (probably today's Palmarola but perhaps Ponza itself), where an abdication seems to have been extracted from him in November and where his death on this day is thought to have been hastened by starvation and neglect. Silverius was buried on the island; his body was never taken elsewhere. (That and not his birthplace is what makes Silverius a saint of the Regno.) Miracles were reported at his grave, which latter became a pilgrimage destination. An eleventh-century calendar from the monastery of the BVM on the Aventine accords Silverius the status of martyr. He is the patron saint of Ponza (LT) in southern Lazio.
A dedicatory inscription from a priest Hilarus celebrating Silverius' safety (recovery from illness?) was discovered in 1962 in Rome's basilica of Santa Pudenziana. Here's a view:
http://tinyurl.com/6jmceu
5) Francus of Francavilla (Bl.; d. early 11th cent., supposedly). This less well known holy person of the Regno is a co-patron of Francavilla al Mare (CH) in Abruzzo. He belongs to a cult of Sette Santi Fratelli ('Seven Holy Little Brothers'; in some accounts they are as many as nine) whose individual members are venerated on different days in different Abruzzese towns. Brief Italian-language accounts of them are here:
http://www.casoli.info/casoli/prata/prata02.htm
According to the _Croniche ed antichità di Calabria_ of Fra Girolamo Marafioti (Padova, 1601), who drew on accounts furnished by correspondents in Benevento, Francus and his colleagues in the cult were Greek-rite monks from Calabria who moved to today's Abruzzo as a community under a hegumen called Hilarion and who after the latter's death in the pontificate of Eugenius IV (1431-47) became hermits in separate locations along the great chain of central Appennine peaks now known as the Maiella. But at least some were venerated earlier than this.
Twentienth-century scholars resolved the difficulty by positing that Marafioti had confused Eugenius IV with the earlier Sergius IV (1009-1012) and by then hypothesizing that Francus and his colleagues had come from Greek-rite monasteries in Calabria that had been abandoned in later tenth century in consequence of Muslim raids. Medieval documentation for the belief that Francus et al. were Greeks from the south would render this view more plausible. The chances are excellent that these are local saints whom subsequent community memory first adapted to the paradigm of hermits of the Maiella (of whom there were a great many) and later to the well-known paradigm of The Saint Who Has Come to Us from Afar. Their cult (confirmed papally in 1893) was promoted by Franciscans of Abruzzo who honored them as their predecessors in this region. Francus has yet to grace the pages of the RM.
6) Oderisius I, abbot of Montecassino (Bl.; d. 1105). The name of this less well known holy person from the Regno is sometimes given as Odorisius. A scion of the counts of the Marsi, he was educated at Montecassino under abbot Richerius. Two of Oderisius' brothers were Atto, bishop of Chieti and Transmundus, abbot of San Clemente a Casauria and bishop of Valva. In 1059 pope Nicholas II made him a cardinal; for close to thirty years Oderisius served the papacy in Rome. In 1087 Oderisius was back at Montecassino as prior and in September of that year he was elected abbot to replace Desiderius II (who was now pope as Victor III).
Known to historians for his correspondence with the emperor Alexius I Comnenus in support of the First Crusade, Oderisius continued Desiderius' work in bringing the abbey to a state of proper splendor and usefulness. In particular, Oderisius was responsible for a major expansion of the abbey's library and promoted the work of its scriptorium, many of whose products are described in Francis Newton's monumental study, _The Scriptorium and Library at Monte Cassino, 1058-1105_ (Cambridge University Press, 1999). Oderisius has yet to grace the pages of the RM.
7) John of Ruusbroec (Bl.; d. 1381). Rather little is known about the life of this Flemish mystic. His town of origin is today's Ruisbroek near Brussels, whose older spelling Ruusbroec (in English, sometimes also Ruysbroeck) is often used in his nomenclature to differentiate him from the fifteenth-century architect generally known as Jan van Ruisbroek. Raised by his mother (there is some suspicion that he may have been illegitimate), in order to attain a more than rudimentary education he was sent at the age of eleven to Brussels and lived there with a wealthy relative who for some thirty years would serve him as a surrogate parent. John's mother later moved to Brussels too, where she became a beguine and was separated from her son.
The relative in Brussels was a chaplain at the collegiate church of St. Gudula and it was at the chapter school there that John was educated for the church. He was ordained priest in 1318 and in time became a choral vicar at St. Gudula and later a chaplain there. In 1343 he, a friend, and his surrogate father founded a monastic community at Groenendael in today's West-Vlaanderen that in 1350 became a house of canons regular with John as its prior. John held this post until his death.
During his very long life John wrote at least eleven spiritual treatises in Middle Dutch, of which his _Die geestelike brulocht_ (in English, _The Spiritual Espousals_) is considered his masterwork. Once translated into Latin, these and seven of his letters formed the basis of his European reputation. The latter suffered a serious setback when they were condemned by Jean Gerson, the chancellor of the university of Paris, who had been asked to review them in 1399. But John's esteem remained strong at Groenendael, whose earlier fifteenth-century institutional history by Henricus Pomerius drew both on the local archive and on a now lost early Vita to create a picture of him that is our chief biographical source for him. Late in their lives John had been in contact with Geert Grote, the founder of the Devotio Moderna movement in the northern Netherlands; there too his writings found a warm and continued reception.
John was beatified by St. Pius X in 1908. He entered the RM in its revision of 2001.
Some views, etc. of Brussels' mostly thirteenth- to fifteenth-century now cathedral church of St. Michael and St. Gudula (over an eleventh-century crypt):
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathedraal_van_Sint-Michiel_en_Sint-Goedele
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Michael_and_Gudula_Cathedral
http://www.trabel.com/brussel/brussels-ch-churchstmichael.htm
http://tinyurl.com/7rfy3r
A ground plan and a brief architectural history are here:
http://tinyurl.com/9gyyg5
A multi-page, illustrated, English-language guide to the crypt begins here (follow the arrows):
http://tinyurl.com/8gub96
Four virtual tours of the building (not including the crypt) are available here:
http://bruxelles.arounder.com/en/churches/st-michael-and-gudula-cathedral
This expandable view of a later fifteenth-century painting, by the Master of the View of Saint Gudula, of the Preaching of St. Gaugeric, shows one of the church's towers not yet completed:
http://www.worldvisitguide.com/oeuvre/O0018284.html
Rosemary Hayes has some photos of this church on the second page of her Brussels album on Shutterfly:
http://hayesmilligan.shutterfly.com/22
A fairly recent book of note on J. is Geert Warnar, _Ruusbroec: literatuur en mystiek in de veertiende eeuw_ (Amsterdam: Athenaeum – Polak & Van Gennep, 2003), also available as _Ruusbroec: Literature and Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century_, tr. Diane Webb (Leiden: Brill, 2007).
Best,
John Dillon
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