medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Superb image and background description Gordon. The first time I saw
Nottingham alabasters in any number was on my first visit to the Burrell
collection in Glasgow - hugely frustrating because there is no provenance
with any of the pieces. Is that typical? Do we just have the panels with
no indication of where and by whom they were originally used?
Rosemary Hayes
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gordon Plumb" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2015 8:47 AM
Subject: Re: [M-R] FEAST - A Celebration for the Day (February 24): the
First and Second Finding(s) of the Head of St. John the Forerunner
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Only marginally relevant to this is the fact that the head of John the
Baptist was a major subject of Nottingham
alabasters: Here is an example in the Castle Museum in Nottingham.:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/16244647939
Gordon Plumb
-----Original Message-----
From: John Dillon <[log in to unmask]>
To: MEDIEVAL-RELIGION <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tue, 24 Feb 2015 8:27
Subject: [M-R] FEAST - A Celebration for the Day (February 24): the First
and Second Finding(s) of the Head of St. John the Forerunner
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
In
Orthodox and some other Eastern-rite churches of the Chalcedonian persuasion
24.
February is the feast of the First and Second Finding(s) of the Head of St.
John
the Forerunner. Roman-rite martyrologies from at least the ninth century
through
to the modern Roman Martyrology prior to its revision of 2001 entered under
that
day a commemoration of the Finding (later, the First Finding) of the Head of
St.
John the Baptist. The Coptic Orthodox Church celebrates these Findings in a
feast of the Appearance of the Head of St. John the Baptist on 30. Amshir
(9.
March; 24. February, old style).
In Greek tradition the First Finding took
place in the time of Constantine the Great (306-337) and was effected by two
monks informed by John in a dream. The recovered head was brought in secret
to
another place where in time it came into the possession of an Arian who used
its
miracle-working presence to bring about cures for which he took the credit
and
who, having been exiled, buried the head against an intended return that
never
happened. Later, after a monastery had been built over the place where the
head
was hidden, John appeared to the monastery's hegumen Marcellus, apprised him
of
what lay beneath, and so put in motion the Second Finding. Coptic Orthodox
tradition is very similar but identifies the churchman who effects the
Second
Finding as Martianus, bishop of Emesa. In the Latin tradition represented by
the
later ninth-century martyrology of Usuard of Saint-Germain the Finding took
place in the time of the emperor Marcian (450-457); this accords with the
customary dates for the Second Finding (either 452 or 453).
According to its
originally eleventh-century _Hypotyposis_ (handbook of arrangements), at the
Theotokos Evergetis monastery in Constantinople on only this feast and that
of
the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste would the monks break their fast during Great
Lent.
Some medieval images of the First and Second Findings of the Head of St.
John the Forerunner:
a) The First Finding as depicted (with Constantine and
others present) in the later tenth- or very early eleventh-century so-called
Menologion of Basil II (Città del Vaticano, BAV, cod. Vat. gr. 1613, p. 420;
reduced grayscale view):
http://tinyurl.com/mzm2tyo
b) The First Finding (at
bottom left) as depicted in an eleventh- or twelfth-century menologion of
undetermined origin (Paris, BnF, ms. Grec 1528, fol.
216r):
http://tinyurl.com/ojwvlvo
c) The First Finding as depicted (panel at
lower right) in an earlier fourteenth-century set of miniatures from
Thessaloniki (betw. 1322 and 1340) for the Great Feasts (Oxford, Bodleian
Library, MS Gr. th. f. 1, fol.
28r):
http://image.ox.ac.uk/images/bodleian/msgrthf1/28r.jpg
d) The Second
Finding (note the presence of the monastery church) as depicted in the St.
John
the Forerunner cycle in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (1330s) in
the
diakonikon of the church of the Hodegetria in the Patriarchate of Peć at Peć
in,
depending upon one's view of the matter, either Serbia's province of Kosovo
and
Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/83eevtp
e) The First
Finding (upper register; lower register: the Entombment of St. John the
Forerunner) as depicted in the earlier sixteenth-century frescoes (1545 and
1546) by Theofanis Strelitzas-Bathas (a.k.a. Theophanes the Cretan) in the
chapel of St. Nicholas in the katholikon of the Stavronikita monastery on
Mt.
Athos:
http://tinyurl.com/6lgc36s
f) The First and Second Findings (bottom
register, last two panels at right) as depicted in an earlier
sixteenth-century
icon, from Nyonoks in the Arkhangelskaya region, of St. John the Forerunner
with
scenes from his life, now in the Arkhangelsk Fine Arts
Museum:
http://www.iconrussia.ru/eng/icon/detail.php?ID=5837
The Second
Finding is represented by John's appearance to the hegumen Marcellus.
g) The
First and Second Findings (bottom register, last two panels at right) as
depicted in an earlier or mid-sixteenth-century Yaroslavl School icon of St.
John the Forerunner with scenes from his life, now in the Art Museum in
Yaroslavl:
http://www.icon-art.info/hires.php?lng=en&type=1&id=1128
h) The
First and Second Findings (bottom register, last four panels at right) as
depicted in two pairs of scenes (John's appearances; actual findings) in a
mid-sixteenth-century Yaroslavl School icon of St. John the Forerunner with
scenes from his life, now in the Museum of History and Architecture,
Yaroslavl:
http://www.icon-art.info/hires.php?lng=en&type=1&id=1129
Best,
John
Dillon
(matter from an older post now
revised)
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