medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
1) Virtually nothing is known about St. Sabinus (Savinos) of Catania, celebrated in Orthodox churches on 15. October, the day under which he is entered in the Synaxary of Constantinople. He appears in the Bios of St. Leo of Catania (BHG 981, 981b) as the latter's predecessor in that see who retired and became an hermit. Since that romance-like Bios is untrustworthy in many of its details, the possibility exists that bishop Sabinus is purely fictional. If he is not, then there is still the problem of his dating. Traditionally, St. Leo (II) of Catania is dated to the later eighth century; those who accept this dating place Sabinus' death at ca. 760. On the other hand, the preponderance of modern students of early Byzantine hagiography and prosopography who've confronted this matter treat Leo's highly fictionalized Bios as aimed at an audience several centuries later than its subject and identify him with the later sixth-century bishop of Catania of the same name, Leo (I). On this view, his predecessor Sabinus (again assuming that he's not wholly fictional) is also to be dated to the later sixth century. Unlike Leo of Catania, Sabinus of Catania has yet to grace the pages of the Roman Martyrology.
St. Sabinus of Catania as depicted (at left; at right, the prophet Hosea) in an October calendar portrait in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322) of the nave of the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending upon one's view of the matter, the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija: :
http://tinyurl.com/o6g63hy
2) The very poorly documented Aurelia of Regensburg (Bl.; d. 1027, supposedly) has an elevated tomb from 1330 in Regensburg's ex-abbey church of St. Emmeram; its inscription calls her a princess. According to a local legend printed in 1581, she was a daughter of Hugh Capet who to avoid an arranged marriage fled to Regensburg and who with the permission of the abbot of St. Emmeram was allowed to live out her life as a recluse in that city's monastery of St. Andrew. Aurelia is said to have had Regensburg's bishop St. Wolfgang (d. 994) as her confessor and spiritual guide. German churches commemorate her on 15. October. Aurelia of Regensburg has yet to grace the pages of the Roman Martyrology.
An ancient Roman sarcophagus lid bearing the funerary inscription of an Aurelia who was the wife of one P. Aelius Silvanus (_CIL_, 3. 5960) used to be on display in the cloister of St. Emmeram. The humanistically educated historian Johann Aventin (d. 1534) relates in his _Bayrische Chronik_ how an uneducated canon interpreted this object to him as the gravestone of the virgin St. Aurelia. Whether, as some have surmised, the sarcophagus lid with its inscription was the source of Aurelia's late medieval and sixteenth-century cult is unknown (for a more certain instance of such an origin, cf. 17. October's St. Catervus of Tolentino).
Bl. Aurelia of Regensburg as portrayed on her fourteenth-century tomb:
http://tinyurl.com/qaqxyuc
http://tinyurl.com/ps9v2es
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/2b7yzhh
Best,
John Dillon
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: subscribe medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: unsubscribe medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/medieval-religion
|