medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Venerated since late antiquity at Spoleto as a local martyr, Gregory has a legendary Passio (BHL 3677; thought to be not later than the sixth century) that remains unpublished except in the form of its adaptation for a Passion of St. George preserved in Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 3789. According to this story, Gregory was a priest whose success at proselytizing led to his denunciation, arrest, interrogation, torture, and execution under Diocletian. He was buried on 23. December near a stone bridge outside the city wall by a pious woman named Abundantia. Thus far the Passio.
Absent from earlier martyrologies, Gregory was entered by St. Ado of Vienne under 24. December with a lengthy synopsis of Gregory's Passio; Usuard of Saint-Germain also entered Gregory under that day in his martyrology but with only a very brief synopsis of the Passio. That Passio underlies as well a perhaps tenth-century hymn in Gregory's honor, seemingly of Spoletan origin, that circulated in the hymnary once known as the _Hymnarius Severinianus_ and in at least one other collection from central Italy.
Gregory's present church in Spoleto, the basilica di San Gregorio Maggiore, was begun in 1099 and was consecrated in 1146. Two illustrated, English-language accounts:
http://tinyurl.com/8lh33c
http://www.keytoumbria.com/Spoleto/S_Gregorio_Maggiore.html
And two in Italian:
http://www.sangregoriospoleto.it/24-La-Basilica.html
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_di_San_Gregorio_Maggiore
The Italia nell'Arte Medievale page on this church:
http://tinyurl.com/yzyflfa
Remains of what may have been the church's late antique predecessor were discovered in September 2006:
http://tinyurl.com/y8253h
In the tenth century remains believed to be Gregory's were translated to Köln. Since the early thirteenth century they have reposed in the Shrine of the Magi (_Dreikönigenschrein_) in Köln's Hohe Domkirche St. Peter und Maria.
Gregory formerly was commemorated in the Roman Martyrology under 24. December. He was dropped altogether in the revision of 2001, perhaps because of the persistent suspicion that his cult at Spoleto is merely a local variant of that of some other saint (the chief candidates being George of Lydda and, far less plausibly, Gregory of Lilybaeum). The archdiocese of Spoleto-Norcia celebrates him on 30. January.
Some period-pertinent images of St. Gregory of Spoleto:
a) as depicted (at right) in an earlier fourteenth-century window in Köln's Hohe Domkirche St. Peter und Maria (English-language and German-language pages):
http://www.koelner-dom.de/index.php?id=17437&L=1
http://tinyurl.com/8m2pv8
b) as depicted in a fifteenth-century fresco in Spoleto's basilica di San Gregorio Maggiore:
https://www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Gregor_von_Spoleto2.jpg
c) as depicted (grayscale view) in a late fifteenth-century fresco (1483) in the chiesa della Madonna della Villa in Sant'Egidio di Perugia (PG) in Umbria:
http://tinyurl.com/jh283r9
d) as portrayed in a late fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century silver reliquary bust (ca. 1500) in the treasury of Köln's Hohe Domkirche St. Peter und Maria:
http://www.bildindex.de/obj20075785.html#|home
https://www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Gregor_von_Spoleto.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
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