medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Praxedes (also Praxedis, Praxidis) is the saint of a Roman church that is first attested from the late fifth century as the _titulus Praxedis_. A systematizing and very legendary late antique or early medieval Passio (BHL 6988, etc.; offshoots focusing on Praxedes herself are at BHL 6920ff.) makes her a virgin daughter of St. Pudens and the sister of the likewise virginal St. Pudentiana (both 19. May; the saints of another titular church whose successor is today's Santa Pudenziana). According to this tale, Praxedes assisted imprisoned Christians, gave burial to martyrs' remains during a great persecution under an emperor Antoninus, and, worn-out by her labors, obtained the grace of dying very shortly afterward on 21. July of an undetermined year. She was venerated medievally as a martyr. In the early ninth century pope St. Paschal I (817-24; a great devotee of the relics of Roman martyrs) erected on the site of an earlier church dedicated to Praxedes today's since largely redecorated basilica di Santa Prassede.
Though the seventh-century lists of saint's resting places in and about Rome locate the remains of Praxedes and her sister in the cemetery of Priscilla on the Via Salaria, the absence of earlier indications of their existence has been thought telling. They are first recorded liturgically from the eighth century. The likelihood is that they, like the generality of the eponyms of Rome's early titular churches, were not martyrs but merely owners of the properties that became house churches named for them. In the early ninth century pope St. Paschal I (817-24; a great devotee of the relics of Roman martyrs) erected on the site of an earlier church dedicated to Praxedes today's since largely redecorated basilica di Santa Prassede.
Praxedes was removed from the general Roman Calendar in its revisions promulgated in 1969. Today (21. July) is her feast day in Rome's basilica di Santa Prassede and her day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology.
Some period-pertinent images of St. Praxedes:
a) as depicted (second from left, betw. St. Paschal I and St. Paul) in the originally earlier ninth-century apse mosaic of Rome's basilica di Santa Prassede:
http://tinyurl.com/he4hw7o
b) as depicted (at right; at left, Sts. Agnes and Pudentiana) in an earlier ninth-century mosaic on an upper wall of the cappella di San Zenone in Rome's basilica di Santa Prassede:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/hen-magonza/4168202165/
c) as depicted (second from left [but perhaps St. Pudentiana]; the others, from left: Paschal I's mother Theodora, the BVM, and St. Pudentiana [but perhaps Praxedis]) in an earlier ninth-century mosaic over a doorway from the cappella di San Zenone in Rome's basilica di Santa Prassede:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/smbtravels/4100677599/
d) as portrayed in relief (second from right; at far right, St. Pudens) in a tondo in the eleventh(?)-century prothyrum frieze of Rome's basilica di Santa Pudenziana:
http://www.gliscritti.it/gallery3/index.php/album_058/Santa-Pudenziana-017
e) as depicted (at right, flanking the BVM and Christ Child; at left, St. Pudentiana) in a later eleventh-century fresco (ca. 1080) in the Oratorio mariano in Rome's basilica di Santa Pudenziana:
http://tinyurl.com/grdfqpp
f) as depicted (with St. Pudentiana, burying the bodies of martyrs) in a late thirteenth-century copy of French origin of the _Legenda aurea_ (San Marino, [CA], Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 78r):
http://tinyurl.com/3c2jdbt
g) as depicted in a later fourteenth-century Roman missal of north Italian origin (ca. 1370; Avignon, Bibliothèque-Mediathèque Municipale Ceccano, ms. 136, fol. 255r):
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht2/IRHT_055337-p.jpg
h) as depicted in a late fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century copy of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Rennes, Bibliothèque de Rennes Métropole, ms. 266, fol. 170r):
http://tinyurl.com/jx5zc3q
i) as depicted in the early fifteenth-century Châteauroux Breviary (ca. 1414; Châteauroux, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 2, fol. 236v):
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht2/IRHT_054074-p.jpg
j) as twice depicted (feeding a crippled beggar; preparing a grave for a martyr) in an early fifteenth-century copy of the _Elsässische Legenda aurea_ (1419; Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Pal. germ. 144, fol. 22v):
http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cpg144/0060
k) as depicted (right margin, uppermost image) in a hand-colored woodcut in the Beloit College copy of Hartmann Schedel's late fifteenth-century _Weltchronik_ (_Nuremberg Chronicle_; 1493) at fol. CXIVr:
https://www.beloit.edu/nuremberg/book/6th_age/right_page/18%20(Folio%20CXIVr).pdf
Best,
John Dillon
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