medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On 11/25/13, Madeleine Gray wrote:
> A colleague of mine was put on the spot by some students who asked about the Cathars. He dredged up memories of the Carmargue and the cult of St Sarah, mythical companion of Mary Magdalene and patron saint of the Gypsies. Unfortunately, he then went off on a riff about the Holy Blood and the possibility that it was Jesus and Mary Magdalene who were married at Canaan in Galilee ...
> Having sorted out the confusion among the students I realised I didn't know enough about the folk traditions around St Sarah. Has anything serious been written about this?
>
St. Sara seems to be unattested prior to 1521, when she appears in a bilingual (but mostly French) _Missa communis sanctarum sororum Marie Jacobie et Marie Salome_ included in a collection of materials produced by one Vincent Philippon and bearing upon the cult of the Three Marys at what is now Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (now Arles, Médiathèque d'Arles, ms. 133). For a description of the ms. see:
http://tinyurl.com/qe8m7bs
A digitization is here (the images could be clearer):
http://www.e-corpus.org/notices/102159/gallery/
A little more on Philippon's activity is here (an ms. description by Barbara Shailor at the Beinecke):
http://brbl-net.library.yale.edu/pre1600ms/docs/pre1600.ms162.htm
For a summary (with bibliographic references) of the not very extensive modern scholarship on Sara, go to section II here (Monica Ruethers, "Jewish spaces and Gypsy spaces in the cultural topographies of a New Europe: heritage re-enactment as political folklore", _European Review of History: Revue europeenne d'histoire_ 20, no. 4 (1913), pp. 671-695):
http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/XiQEBYU4m6MSvU63xSXj/full#preview
For some broader cultic context, see this French-language Wikipedia article offering a fairly detailed historical account (but focusing on recent centuries) of the celebration of the Three Marys in the Camargue:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A8lerinage_aux_Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer#cite_note-PC-8
Note that the involvement of Roma in these festivities is said not to be documented prior to the later C19.
Best,
John Dillon
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