medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
According to his not awfully reliable ninth-century Vita (BHL 4899), Leutfrid (Leutfred, Leufroy, Lieffroy) was born into a noble family of Évreux, studied locally and at Chartres, became a recluse in the diocese of Rouen, moved to the latter town and became a monk, and later left to found the monastery of La-Croix-Saint-Ouen, where the Vita was written. He died on this day in 738, reportedly in the odor of sanctity. The Vita recounts lifetime and posthumous miracles. One of the former puts him in the sanctoral fire brigade: he extinguished through prayer alone a fire that threatened to consume his monastery. According to a later Translation account (BHL 4900), Leutfrid was formally elevated at the monastery church in 851 by a bishop of Évreux. In the tenth century his tomb was so popular that his name replaced that of St. Ouen (Audoenus) in references to the monastery, whose later town is today's La-Croix-Saint-Leufroy (Eure).
Today is Leutfrid's day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology. In Thiverny (Oise), whose église Saint-Leufroy houses relics of him, he has a movable feast falling on the Sunday immediately following 21. June.
Some period-pertinent images of St. Leutfrid:
a) as depicted in an originally later thirteenth-century window (restored several times) in the église Saint-Leufroy at Thiverny (Oise):
http://tinyurl.com/gnvsrpd
b) as depicted (his death) in the later fourteenth-century Breviary of Charles V (ca. 1364-1370; Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 1052, fol. 395r):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84525491/f799.item.zoom
c) as depicted in an early fifteenth-century copy of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay followed by the _Festes nouvelles_ attributed to Jean Golein (ca. 1401-1425; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 242, fol. 305r; this _Vie_ in the _Festes nouvelles_):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8426005j/f627.item.zoom
d) as depicted in the early fifteenth-century Châteauroux Breviary (ca. 1414; Use of Paris; Châteauroux, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 2, fol. 198r):
http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht2/IRHT_054043-p.jpg
e) as twice depicted in a later fifteenth-century copy, with illuminations by a Flemish master, of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay followed by the _Festes nouvelles_ attributed to Jean Golein (ca. 1470; Mâcon, Médiathèque municipale, ms. 3, fol. 168r; this _Vie_ in the _Festes nouvelles_):
1) at left, surviving a fall from a horse that, counter to his vow, he had been forced to ride by bishop Desiderius of Évreux:
http://tinyurl.com/ny56h6
2) at right, extinguishing the fire in his abbey:
http://tinyurl.com/mhd5v2
Best,
John Dillon
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