medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Today (9. December) is the feast day of:

1) Leocadia (?). Leocadia is the traditional patron saint of Toledo, where her cult is first attested from the seventh century in the form of references to her basilica there and to her veneration by St. Ildefonsus as recorded in the latter's later seventh-century Vita by St. Julian of Toledo. Whereas the basilica is recorded as dedicated to Leocadia the confessor, she is usually considered a martyr. Her legendary Passio (BHL 4848, etc.; first witness is of the tenth century) makes her a slave arrested during the Great Persecution who while in prison hears of the suffering of St. Eulalia and who then resolves to undergo martyrdom. The sadistic persecutor Decianus accommodates her wish. Thus far Leocadia's Passio.

St. Ildefonsus of Toledo (d. 667) reports in his _De virginitate Beatae Mariae_ that while he was praying before Leocadia's tomb the saint arose before him and offered words of praise for his devotion to the BVM (whom Ildefonsus credited with the operation of this miracle). This text, which was widely copied in Spain and in southern France from the tenth to thirteenth centuries, was used at for liturgical readings on the feast of the Annunciation and facilitated Leocadia's association with the Virgin. The French poet Gautier de Coinci, who had a relic of Leocadia that he believed had formerly belonged to St. Ildefonsus, devoted considerable attention to her in his earlier thirteenth-century _Miracles de Nostre Dame_. Herewith two illuminations depicting Leocadia in an earlier fourteenth-century copy (ca. 1330-1340) of that text (Paris, BnF, ms. Nouvelle acquisition française 24541, fols. 21r and 111v):
http://tinyurl.com/ya7guu4
http://tinyurl.com/yap2s4s
For those with access to JSTOR, David Raizman's article "A Rediscovered Illuminated Manuscript of St. Ildefonsus's _De Virginitate Beatae Mariae_ in the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid", _Gesta_ 26 (1987), 37-46, has on p. 41 a black-and-white image of that manuscript's illumination of Ildefonsus cutting a piece of Leocadia's veil while the saint sits upright in her open tomb (the ms., which Raizman assigns to the early thirteenth century, is Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, MS 21546).

In the ninth century relics believed to be Leocadia's were translated from Toledo to Oviedo, where Alfonso II of Asturias (Alfonso the Chaste) built a church to house them and, in its upper portion, the precious Sudarium of Oviedo. The structure, now known as the Cámara Santa, is annexed to Oviedo's cathedral. Two exterior views:
http://tinyurl.com/yzovjqb
http://tinyurl.com/6s6ma7
The building's Cripta de Santa Leocadia:
http://tinyurl.com/5a67lu
http://tinyurl.com/5z3xd8
Leocadia's putative relics were later taken out of Spain and were not returned until the later sixteenth century. She is in the ninth-century historical martyrologies and was venerated medievally in France as well as in Iberia.

Other dedications to Leocadia:

a) The originally twelfth-century fortified église Sainte-Léocadie at Vic-la-Gardiole (Hérault), starting with views of the exterior:
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/4145178.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/yb5xwb6
http://tinyurl.com/yeeevz6
http://tinyurl.com/y86wmch
http://tinyurl.com/yhr6w5a
http://tinyurl.com/yergauw
http://tinyurl.com/y88986q
http://tinyurl.com/y9gwfaf
Interior:
http://tinyurl.com/yd2j5ag
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/4BGOoSA5_qHQZJpUS_Yg_w

b) The originally twelfth-century iglesia de Santa Leocadia at Frixe, a locality of Muxía (Galicia):
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/11022397.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/ya9jlv7

c) The apse of the iglesia (ermita) del Cristo de la Vega at Toledo, a survivor of a twelfth-century rebuilding (1166) of Leocadia's Visigothic-period basilica there:
http://tinyurl.com/6lvno6

d) Views, etc. of the originally thirteenth-century iglesia de Santa Leocadia at Toledo:
http://tinyurl.com/6ygh34
http://tinyurl.com/66hffk
http://www.artehistoria.jcyl.es/ciudades/obras/28412.htm
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/7590723.jpg
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/19381132.jpg
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/211/472884029_498a01f0eb_o.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/yc24sh2


2) Proculus of Verona (d. early 4th cent., supposedly). Revered as an early bishop of Verona who was not a martyr, this Proculus (there are of course other saints of this name) has had a cult in that city since at least the fifth century, when the original predecessor of Verona's chiesa di San Procolo was built in an extramural cemetery there. He is figured on the eighth- or ninth-century so-called Velo di Classe (in Ravenna's Museo nazionale), a textile thought to have been created as an altar frontal for Verona's church of its martyrs Sts. Firmus and Rusticus. Proculus comes fourth in the list of his city's bishops in the very late eighth- or early ninth-century _Versus de Verona_: _quartus Proculus confessor pastor et egregius_. His church is first documented from 846, when its restoration by archdeacon Pacificus (d. 844) was included among that worthy's achievements cited in his surviving funerary inscription.

According to his legendary Vita (BHL 6959b), whose manuscript tradition can be traced as far back as the activity of bishop Ratherius of Verona (d. 968), Proculus was bishop when the Great Persecution broke out. Although he had left Verona to avoid capture, he returned to visit Sts. Rusticus and Firmus in prison and then turned himself in to their persecutor, the prefect Anulinus, in the expectation that he too would be martyred. Instead, after being given a boxing about the ears and then beaten with rods he was released on account of his old age and was expelled from the city.

Proculus' church in Verona was rebuilt after the great northern Italian earthquake of 1117; the crypt was expanded then. In 1492 relics believed to be his were found in this crypt and were placed on a side altar. When the church was deconsecrated in 1806 these were moved to San Zeno, whence they were returned once the newly restored San Procolo had been reconsecrated in 1989. Proculus' traditional feast on this day was dropped from the liturgical calendar of the diocese of Verona in 1961 when a new combined feast on 30. October was established for Verona's sainted bishops (only Euprepius and Zeno retained their separate feasts). The patron saint of Naturno / Naturns (BZ) in the South Tirol, he is celebrated there today in an originally early medieval church dedicated to him. Today was also Proculus' day of commemoration in the RM until its revision of 2001, when he ceased to grace its pages.

A few illustrated, Italian-language accounts of Verona's chiesa di San Procolo:
http://tinyurl.com/27ctlxh
http://tinyurl.com/24aju3k
http://tinyurl.com/y8tsfoq
Other exterior views:
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/300c80/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/krispy/311281180/
Thumbnail views of the crypt:
http://www.scholarsresource.com/browse/work/2144616361
A capital in the crypt:
http://tinyurl.com/ycdptzy

An illustrated, Italian-language account, with plans, of the originally seventh-century chiesa di San Procolo / St. Prokulus Kirche in Naturno / Naturns (BZ; major modifications in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries), said to be the only church outside of Verona now to be dedicated to today's Proculus:
http://www.archaeoastronomy.it/san_procolo_naturno.htm
A better view of the exterior:
http://tinyurl.com/ykvhflq
A better view of this church's most famous fresco:
http://tinyurl.com/23vpgp5
A distance view of that fresco:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bautisterias/7477406580/lightbox/
Another early medieval fresco in this church:
http://tinyurl.com/28vthz2
Fourteenth-century Creation frescoes:
http://tinyurl.com/armhx3e
An illustrated, Italian language account of the church's frescoes (the views are expandable):
http://tinyurl.com/awezpk6


3) Syrus of Pavia (d. later 4th cent.?). By all accounts, none of which is either very early or particularly credible, Syrus (also Sirus) was the first bishop of Pavia. The traditional third bishop, St. Inventius / Eventius, is attested from the end of the fourth century. If Inventius / Eventius really was the third bishop, then his predecessor but one was presumably in office sometime earlier in the second half of that century. A tomb in Pavia's basilica dei Santi Gervasio e Protasio, where remains believed to have been those of Syrus are known to have reposed for centuries prior to their translation to the cathedral, is inscribed SVRVS EPC, i.e. Syrus episcopus:
http://tinyurl.com/5t8ool
It is thought that Syrus was laid to rest in this since much rebuilt church and that the inscription (whose EPC portion seems to be a later addition) goes back to a time when he was not yet considered considered a saint. Herewith some views of his putative relics on display in Pavia's cathedral:
http://tinyurl.com/bywwkys
http://tinyurl.com/bv5fsq9

The first we hear of _saint_ Syrus is in a Vita dated to the eighth or the ninth century (BHL 7976) whose purpose is pretty clearly to claim apostolic foundation for the diocese of Pavia and to establish that the latter was really the original bishopric for the large swath of northern Italy that historically belonged to the archdiocese of Milan. This is done by making Syrus a disciple of St. Hermagoras of Aquileia (who supposedly was consecrated by St. Mark the apostle) and the apostle not only of Pavia but also of Verona, Brescia, Lodi, and Milan itself, the legendary foundation of whose church by the apostle Barnabas seems to be a response to such posturing. A later medieval Vita and a separate translation account provide other, sometimes contradictory details but reaffirm the antiquity of Pavia's diocese vis-a-vis that of Milan (of which Pavia was a suffragan from at least the early eighth century onward).

Milan adopted Syrus as a saint of the archdiocese and spread his cult throughout its territory. Further afield, the Syrus venerated at Padua as an early bishop seems in origin to have been today's Syrus, the protobishop of Pavia. Opinions differ on whether that is also the case with the supposedly fourth-century St. Syrus of Genoa.

Some portrayals of Syrus of Pavia:

a) Syrus of Pavia as portrayed in a relief in Pavia's basilica dei Santi Gervasio e Protasio saved from that church's twelfth-century facade when the latter was replaced in the eighteenth century:
http://ticino.diocesi.pavia.it/pavia/allegati/24051/SAM_1466.JPG
Detail view:
http://www.diocesi.pavia.it/pavia/allegati/24039/ssiro.jpg

b) Syrus of Pavia (at right; central figure in lower register) as depicted in a fifteenth-century fresco in the chiesa dei Santi Primo e Feliciano (but previously dedicated to San Siro) at Leggiuno (VA) in Lombardy:
http://www.prolocoleggiuno.it/wp-content/gallery/san-primo/9.jpg

b) Syrus of Pavia as depicted in a mid-fifteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1455) by Vincenzo Foppa, now in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts:
http://tinyurl.com/alrq2dq

c) Syrus of Pavia as depicted in the probably later fifteenth-century frescoes (restored in 1984) of the chiesa di San Siro in Lasino (TN) in Trentino-Alto Adige:
http://tinyurl.com/bdoh2n3

Some dedications to Syrus of Pavia:

a) Illustrated, Italian-language (one expandable exterior view) and English-language (several exterior and interior views, all expandable) accounts of the originally eleventh- / twelfth-century pieve di San Siro at Cemmo, a _frazione_ of Capo di Ponte (BS) in Lombardy's Vallecamonica / Valcamonica, largely rebuilt in 1912:
http://tinyurl.com/2evxhrg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieve_of_Saint_Syrus_%28Cemmo%29 
The page on this church at Italia nell'Arte Medievale:
http://tinyurl.com/bzwcsox
Another interior view:
http://tinyurl.com/23rxv75

Medievally, this was a diaconal church, dedicated to St. Stephen, of a parish whose parochial church dedicated to Syrus was situated elsewhere. It became the parochial church and assumed the latter's titulature toward the end of the sixteenth century.
TAN: Along the path up to the church and its cemetery are two large rocks covered with prehistoric carvings of cervids and bovids. Herewith an illustrated, Italian-language site on them and on the megalithic sanctuary of which they were a part:
http://tinyurl.com/2cdoy6h
Another view of one of these carved rocks:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/75584456@N00/2399066044/

b) The originally twelfth(?)-century chiesetta di San Siro at Capriate San Gervasio (BG) in Lombardy, whose entry was repositioned in 1722:
http://tinyurl.com/27tekd
http://tinyurl.com/yrdfn6
http://tinyurl.com/2hd3zw
http://tinyurl.com/ys9lj7
http://tinyurl.com/yvcplr

c) An illustrated, Italian-language page on, and other views of, the originally eleventh-century but much rebuilt chiesa dei Santi Siro e Libera at Verona, overlooking that city's Roman Theatre:
http://tinyurl.com/239nfad
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/FmuJgVO2rsKCp402ZsrzlQ
http://tinyurl.com/adbp8dd

d) An illustrated, Italian-language page on, and some single views of, the now mostly seventeenth-century chiesa di San Siro at Lasino (TN) in Trentino-Alto Adige (the belltower is central medieval below and late medieval above):
http://tinyurl.com/yez697b
http://tinyurl.com/abkmegx
http://tinyurl.com/ak59mm5
http://www.iluoghidelcuore.it/chiesetta-di-san-siro
Some views of this church's probably later fifteenth-century frescoes (restored in 1984):
http://peintures.murales.free.fr/fresques/Italie/Trentin/lasino-siro.htm

On Syrus' early Vita, see Nicholas Everett, "The earliest recension of the Life of S. Sirus of Pavia (Vat. Lat. 5771)", _Studi Medievali__ 3a serie, 43 (2002), 857-958.


4) Gorgonia (d. early to mid-370s). The daughter of St. Gregory the Elder, bishop of Nazianzus and of his wife St. Nonna, Gorgonia was the elder sister of Sts. Gregory of Nazianzus (Gregory the Theologian) and Caesarius of Nazianzus. She was married, raised three children, and was very devout. Our principal source for Gorgonia is her funeral oration by her brother Gregory (BHG 704). Herewith a link to an English-language translation of that text:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/gregnaz-gorgonia.asp

Gorgonia (top register, at far right), Gorgonia again (middle register, at far left), and Gorgonia's death (bottom register) as depicted in a later ninth-century manuscript of the _Orationes_ of St. Gregory of Nazianzus (Paris, BnF, ms. Grec 510, fol. 43v):
http://tinyurl.com/2aozy6e
Gorgonia (top register, at far left) as depicted on another leaf (fol. 452r) of the same manuscript:
http://tinyurl.com/9ldc6nt

Best,
John Dillon

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