medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

All at sea with the numerous Pelagias who have been celebrated on 8. October? Perhaps these notices will help.

1) Pelagia of Antioch (d. 283 or 284, supposedly; a.k.a. Pelagia the Virgin). Orthodox churches celebrate on this day at least two saints Pelagia, this one and Pelagia the Penitent (no. 2, below; also said to have been of Antioch). The present Pelagia is entered under today in the later fourth-century Syriac Martyrology and was eulogized on this day by St. John Chrysostom in a sermon (BHG 1477) that furnishes the details by which her story is generally known. According to Chrysostom, Pelagia was a fifteen-year old Christian virgin of Antioch on the Orontes who, when in the reign of Numerian (283-284) her house was surrounded by soldiers who had come to arrest her, went to its roof, prayed to God to keep her from being assaulted by those below, and then threw herself to her death in the street below.

Eusebius of Caesarea, in a paragraph relating the suffering of Christians in Antioch during the persecution of Diocletian (_Historia ecclesiastica_ 8. 12. 2), seems to have been thinking of Pelagia when he says that some threw themselves to their death from the tops of tall houses rather than to suffer at the hands of their enemies. In the next paragraph Eusebius similarly presents anonymously the martyrdom of the female Antiochian saints who in other texts are called Ber(e)nice and Prosdoce. In a Latin tradition represented by St. Ambrose of Milan (_De virginibus_, 3. 7. 33; Letter 27 [to St. Simplicianus]) and by the ninth-century Florus of Lyon in his martyrology, Pelagia is the sister of these other two.

Medievally, this Pelagia -- the martyr of Antioch -- was occasionally celebrated in Greek churches on 9. June rather than today. Although the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology records her under 8. October, in the medieval Latin West from Florus of Lyon in the ninth century onward she was usually celebrated on 19. October in a joint feast with Ber(e)nice re-gendered as Beronicus. Prior to 2001 the Roman Martyrology commemorated her twice, on 9. June by herself as a saint treated by Ambrose and John Chrysostom and on 19. October as a companion of Beronicus. Both commemorations were dropped in the revision promulgated in that year, when this Pelagia was moved in the Roman Martyrology to 8. October (replacing Pelagia the Penitent [no. 2, below]).

In this earlier fourteenth-century fresco (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322) in the nave of the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending upon one's view of the matter, Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo, the Pelagia on the viewer's right is the present one and the Pelagia on the viewer's left is Pelagia the Penitent:
http://tinyurl.com/ybazp2d
That painting is from the October calendar, which at Gračanica as at many other places included under this day a third Pelagia, the martyr of Tarsus whose quite legendary Passio is BHG 1480 and whom Orthodox churches celebrate separately on 4. May. Here's a view of the entire composition:
http://tinyurl.com/ovh5uge
A closer view of Pelagia of Tarsus as depicted at Gračanica:
http://tinyurl.com/p7xqbem

Pelagia of Tarsus is said in her Passio have suffered martyrdom by burned in a brazen bull. All three Pelagias are so depicted this scene in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1313 and 1318; conservation work in 1968) by Michael Astrapas and Eutychios in the church of St. George in Staro Nagoričane in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://tinyurl.com/nh3v2uv
The three Pelagias as depicted (bottom panel, upper register, center and right; lower register, at left) in a calendar composition in the same earlier fourteenth-century frescoes in the church of St. George in Staro Nagoričane in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://cp14.nevsepic.com.ua/217/21667/1390000841-136.jpg
Pelagia of Tarsus in the brazen bull as depicted (but shown in a reduced, grayscale image) in the late tenth- or very early eleventh-century so-called Menologion of Basil II (Città del Vaticano, BAV, cod. Vat. gr. 1613, p. 96):
http://tinyurl.com/ntb8thk
TAN: Three Pelagias of a different sort:
http://tinyurl.com/2vceop5

A martyr Pelagia as depicted (second from right) in the heavily restored later sixth-century mosaics (ca. 560) in the nave of Ravenna's basilica di Sant' Apollinare Nuovo:
http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/saint.jpg

Pelagia the Virgin Martyr (at left) and Pelagia the Penitent as depicted (panel at upper left) in an earlier fourteenth-century pictorial menologion from Thessaloniki (betw. 1322 and 1340; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Gr. th. f. 1, fol. 12v):
http://image.ox.ac.uk/images/bodleian/msgrthf1/12v.jpg


2) Pelagia the Penitent (d. 4th or 5th cent., if not altogether fictional). We know about this Pelagia (also P. of Antioch, P. of Jerusalem) from an originally Greek-language Bios by someone calling himself James the Deacon that exists in different versions in Greek (BHG 1478, 1478d), in Syriac (BHO 919; the earliest surviving text), and in Latin (BHL 6605-4409; ?also 6604t). This is an expansion of a sermon by St. John Chrysostom (_Hom. 67 in Mt_) about an unnamed former actress of Antioch on the Orontes who had become a recluse. According to James, Pelagia (who was also called 'Pearl' because of her luxurious manner of dress) had lived sinfully as a prostitute and as the head of a band of actors until she was converted by a bishop named Nonnus who had been trained at a famous monastery in the Egyptian desert (this Nonnus is sometimes identified with the fifth-century bishop St. Nonnus of Edessa).

Still according to James, after resisting attacks of the devil the newly baptized and penitent Pelagia gave away all her property to the church of Antioch to be used to support the poor. She then dressed herself in men's clothing that she had received from Nonnus and went to Jerusalem, where she passed for male and lived on the Mount of Olives as a monk named Pelagius. James, who had been Nonnus' deacon, encountered Pelagia on a trip to Jerusalem; she recognized him but he did not recognize her. Pelagia's secret was discovered only after her death. Thus far her Bios.

Later versions of this Pelagia's very widely disseminated story include Latin poems by Flodoard of Reims (BHL 6610) and by Geverhard von der Grafschaft (BHL 6610d), a Latin prose retelling in Jacopo da Varazze's _Legenda aurea_, and, in Greek, a Bios by St. Symeon Metaphrastes (BHG 1479; re-worked version, BHG 1479b). Pelagia the Penitent was commemorated on this day in Usuard's Martyrology and in the Roman Martyrology until its revision of 2001 (when she ceased to grace its pages).


Some medieval images of Pelagia the Penitent (other than those linked to above at Gračanica, at Staro Nagoričane, and in the pictorial menologion from Thessaloniki):

a) as depicted (with Nonnus; changing her garb) in the late tenth- or very early eleventh-century so-called Menologion of Basil II (Città del Vaticano, BAV, cod. Vat. gr. 1613, p. 98):
1) reduced, grayscale image:
http://tinyurl.com/pkq9rn7
2) reduced, color image with identifying legends added:
http://tinyurl.com/ojl7pw9

b) as depicted (being baptized by Nonnus) in an earlier thirteenth-century collection of saint's lives in their French-language translation by Wauchier de Denain (betw. 1226 and 1250; London, BL, Royal 20 D VI, fol. 42r):
http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=42704

c) as depicted (being blessed by Nonnus) in a late thirteenth-century copy of French origin of the _Legenda aurea_ (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 141r):
http://tinyurl.com/23uouqu

d) as depicted (with other prostitutes plying their trade while Nonnus prays) in an earlier fourteenth-century copy of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (ca. 1326-1350; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 185, fol. 264v):
http://tinyurl.com/2cefz2z

e) as depicted (at right, with martyr's palm; at left, Nonnus and other bishops) in an earlier fourteenth-century copy of books 9-16 of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (ca. 1335; Paris, BnF, ms. Arsenal 5080, fol. 229v):
http://tinyurl.com/obva7ca

f) as depicted (submitting to Nonnus) in an October calendar scene in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) of the narthex in the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending upon one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/26gxaey

g) as depicted (second from right; at left, Nonnus and other bishops) in a later fourteenth-century copy of books 11-13 of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (ca. 1370-1380; Paris, BnF, ms. Nouvelle acquisition française 15941, fol. 67r):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8449688c/f141.item.zoom

h) as depicted (having changed her garb) ) by the court workshop of Frederick III in a mid-fifteenth-century copy of the _Legenda aurea_ (1446-1447; Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. 326, fol. 213r):
http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7006884.JPG

i) as depicted (with Nonnus, other prelates, other prostitutes, and some young nobles seemingly much more interested in the latter than in the former) in a later fifteenth-century copy of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (1463; Paris, BnF ms. Français 51, fol. 32v):
http://tinyurl.com/3y74xld

Best,
John Dillon

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