medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
To be honest what intrigues me (well it would, wouldn't it) is the focus on Caerleon in later developments of the story.
As an add-on: Jeremy Knight has suggested the location of the chapel of SS Julius and Aaron was the site now known as Mount St Albans, on the ridge south of Caerleon and east of Christchurch. In 2008, Andrew Seaman (then of Cardiff University, subsequently at Canterbury) conducted a small campaign of excavation there as follow-up to a desktop and geophysical survey. This located a post-medieval quarry pit, backfilled in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, and some evidence of a structure which may have been a stone-lined cist grave. The xcavation report is at http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/share/resources/Trial%20Excavation%20at%20Mount%20St%20Albans%20near%20Caerleon.pdf (accessed 20.11.13); see also Andrew Seaman, ‘The Roman to Early Medieval Transition in South-East Wales: Settlement, Landscape and Religion’ (unpublished Cardiff Ph D thesis, 2010), esp. ch. 5 and appendix 4; idem, ‘Julius and Aaron, Martyrs of Caerleon’, Archaeologia Cambrensis (not sure if this has been published yet). Andy was planning to go back for another go in the summer of last year but we haven't been in touch so I don't know what if anything he found.
Maddy
Madeleine Gray PhD, FRHistS, FSA
Professor of Ecclesiastical History/Athro Hanes Eglwysig
School of Humanities and Social Sciences /Ysgol Ddyniaethau a Gwyddoniaethau Cymdeithasol
University of South Wales/Prifysgol De Cymru
Caerleon Campus/Campws Caerllion,
Newport/Casnewydd NP18 3QT Tel: +44 (0)1633.432675
http://www.southwales.ac.uk
http://twitter.com/penrhyspilgrim
http://twitter.com/HeritageUSW
http://twitter.com/USWHistory
'Let the victors, when they come, When the forts of folly fall, Find thy body by the wall!'
________________________________________
From: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious culture [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of John Dillon [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, April 27, 2015 12:53 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [M-R] Amphibalus (and Alban) (WAS: Re: [M-R] painted carvings)
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Alban's taking on the outer garment (in the early texts, incl. that of Bede, it's called a _caracalla_) of a Christian priest fleeing persecution is a core element of his story, found in all the early versions of his Passio. But that this priest subsequently returned or was apprehended elsewhere and that he too was martyred is absent from all these texts and belongs to a much later elaboration of the story. His putative relics were discovered only in 1178. By this time (but perhaps not before Geoffrey of Monmouth earlier in the same century) he was being called Amphibalus (in general usage, another term for an outer garment but also specifically the name of an ecclesiastical vestment and so perhaps thought an appropriate updating of the not specifically clerical _caracalla_ of the Passio in its early versions). Neither his sanctity nor his veneration is attested to at anything approaching the antiquity of the evidence for Alban himself.
Moreover, there remains the question of the reliability of even the earliest version of the Passio of St. Alban. The scholarship of the last fifteen years or so on the genesis and early forms of the Passio has raised considerable doubt on this score. It is quite possible that rather than being "a perfectly real person" the priest who later became known as Amphibalus is only a fiction, just as are other of the Passio's _dramatis personae_ (e.g. the executioner who converts and is himself martyred). The doubts in question spring in part from Richard Sharpe's demonstration that the very bare-bones E-version must have preceded the considerably fuller T- and P-versions (see his "The Late Antique Passion of St Alban" in Martin Henig and Philip Lindley, edd., _Alban and St Albans: Roman and Mediaeval Architecture, Art and Archaeology_ [Leeds: Maney, 2001], pp. 30-37) and were further elaborated by Ian Wood, "Germanus, Alban and Auxerre", _Bulletin du centre d’études médiévales d’Auxerre_ 13 (2009), 123-129 [online at <http://cem.revues.org/11037>] and _idem_, "Levison and St. Alban", in Matthias Becher and Yitzhak Hen, edd., _Wilhelm Levison (1876-1947). Ein jüdisches Forscherleben zwischen wissenschaftlicher Anerkennung und politischem Exil_ (Siegburg: Franz Schmitt, 2010), pp. 171-185, as well as by Wood's student Michael Moises Garcia in his 2010 Leeds dissertation _Saint Alban and the Cult of Saints in Late Antique Britain_ [online at <https://www.academia.edu/3585748/Saint_Alban_and_the_Cult_of_Saints_in_Late_Antique_Britain>], esp. pp. 48-60.
Best,
John Dillon
On 04/26/15, Ms B M Cook wrote:
>
> Dear Maddy et al,
>
> I don’t have notes or references to hand, but what I remember from my days in St Albans, “Amphibalus” = “The Man in the Cloak” is a later nickname for a perfectly real person whose actual name is not known. In the account of the conversion and martyrdom of Saint Alban, the British protomartyr, an otherwise unnamed British Christian priest is given sanctuary at a time of anti-Christian persecution by the then pagan Alban. Impressed by the priest’s piety and the gospel he preaches, Alban is converted. When the military arrive to arrest the priest, Alban changes clothes with him – presumably swaps his toga for the priest’s rough cloak, allowing the priest to escape. Alban is arrested tried and condemned to death. Initially he is to be thrown to the beasts in the arena but manages to convince the judge he is a Roman citizen. He is therefore beheaded by the sword on the hill overlooking the city of Verulamium and a monastery is eventually erected over the site of his place of burial – a monastery dedicated to Saint Alban and around which the modern city of St Albans has grown up. (The date when Alban was martyred is hotly disputed. My money is on the reign of the Emperor Septimus Severus - but that’s another story!) The Man in the Cloak (Amphibalus) was later captured, martyred and his bones along with those of St Alban were revered in St A’s Abbey. They each had a splendid shrine which at the Reformation were smashed up and used to block an internal wall in the abbey to divide the monastic church in two, one part being the new grammar school and the other part destined to serve as the parish church. In the 19th century the wall was demolished and a big 3D jigsaw puzzle was carried out by antiquarians to restore the two shrines. About 20 years ago, the shrine of St Alban was carefully taken apart and reconstructed and is now very prominent in the Cathedral and Abbey Church of Saint Alban. The Victorian bodge-up of St Amphibalus’ shrine is still AFAIK in the north aisle but there have been plans to give it the modern archaeological gold treatment as well. It will be that project that may have finally raised the cash.
>
> The association of Alban and Amphibalus with Caerleon is a clerical error. The Ven Bede refers to A & A and two martyrs of Caerleon all in the same sentence which gave rise to the belief that all 4 belonged to the same location and the same period. Whether the VB was being careless or whether the error was in his sources (I hope the latter!) is impossible to tell.
>
> Brenda M. Cook
> Independent Scholar
> Member of the Fraternity of the Friends of St Albans Abbey.
>
> From: Madeleine Gray <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2015 2:50 PM
> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: [M-R] painted carvings
>
>
>
>
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture p {margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;} The other thing is they seem to be reviving the cult of St Amphibalus - as well as the carvings I think I have read that they have funding to restore his reliquary.
> As far as I know Amphibalus is a completely fictional saint whose name derives from a misreading of a manuscript. He also had some totally mythical connection with the University of Caerleon upon Usk - as our campus is now in line for demolition perhaps we should be praying to him as well.
>
> Maddy
>
> Madeleine Gray PhD, FRHistS, FSA
> Professor of Ecclesiastical History/Athro Hanes Eglwysig
> School of Humanities and Social Sciences /Ysgol Ddyniaethau a Gwyddoniaethau Cymdeithasol
> University of South Wales/Prifysgol De Cymru
> Caerleon Campus/Campws Caerllion,
> Newport/Casnewydd NP18 3QT Tel: +44 (0)1633.432675
(http://twitter.com/USWHistory)>
> 'Let the victors, when they come, When the forts of folly fall, Find thy body by the wall!'
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