medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture



Virtually nothing is known about the historical Nicholas of Myra (d. earlier 4th cent. ?). What gives him a question mark after "4th cent." instead of the "supposedly" one would use for, e.g., the likewise at least very largely legendary St. Panteleimon / Pantaleon of Nicomedia and St. Blasius / Blaise of Sebaste is the presence of bishop Nicholas of Myra in the longer lists of participants in the First Ecumenical Council. Were it certain that Nicholas was among those at Nicaea in 325, as opposed to having been added later when legend had made him a contemporary of St. Constantine I, one could dispense with the question mark altogether. But that would still leave us with a dearth of reliable information about this person's earthly life. While the earliest testimonies both for the existence of his cult at Myra and elsewhere and for his popular construction as a holy man and thaumaturge come from the sixth century, his earliest comprehensive Bios (BHG 1348) and earliest Vita (BHL 6104-6109) seemingly appear only the ninth century (some would date BHG 1348 to the eighth century). These, though they depend ultimately on a source with some knowledge of late antique Myra, are already very largely legendary in character, including such well-known tales as the saving of three condemned soldiers, the providing of dowries for three destitute daughters, and the saving of storm-tossed seamen. 

 

In the tenth century Nicholas' Bios by St. Symeon Metaphrastes (BHG 1349) added other matter, including miracles drawn from the Bios of the earlier sixth-century St. Nicholas of Sion. At this point Nicholas' cult was widespread both in the Greek-speaking world and in places importantly influenced from it. Seemingly new legends continued to spring up: three that are thought to be of "Western" origin are those of the barbarian (later, the Jew) with an icon of Nicholas, of Nicholas reviving three pickled students, and of Nicholas and the boy with the golden cup.  In lands that were liturgically Latin Nicholas' cult was to varying degrees already established before his translation to Bari in 1087.  But the latter certainly brought him a considerable increase in popularity.  In short order he was one of the great saints of Christianity in general. 



An illustrated, English-language page on Nicholas' relics: 

http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/relics/ 

An illustrated, English-language page on the examinations in the 1950s of the relics at Bari believed to be those of Nicholas: 

http://www.stnicholascenter.org/Brix?pageID=943 





In many churches today (6. December) is the feast day of St. Nicholas of Myra (and of Bari).  Herewith some period-pertinent images of him (some doubtless familiar, others perhaps not):



a) as depicted (at lower left; at lower right, St. John Chrysostom) on a pair of leaves from a seventh-century encaustic triptych in the Holy Monastery of the God-trodden Mount Sinai at St. Catherine (South Sinai governorate): 

http://tinyurl.com/b9nheyz 

 

b) as depicted in a tenth-century glazed ceramic icon of Byzantine origin in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore: 

http://tinyurl.com/a3cmubb 



c) as depicted in the late tenth- or very early eleventh-century so-called Menologion of Basil II (Città del Vaticano, BAV, cod. Vat. gr. 1613, p. 226):

http://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.1613/0248

http://tinyurl.com/jomx2pb



d) as depicted (at left) in an eleventh- or twelfth-century fresco in the church of the rupestrian Eski Gümüs monastery near Gümüs in Turkey's Niğde province: 

http://tinyurl.com/728zxto



e) as depicted in a twelfth-century fresco in the patron niche of the church of Agios Nikolaos tis Stegis at Kakopetria (Nicosia prefecture) in the Republic of Cyprus: 

http://www.mlahanas.de/Cyprus/Geo/AgiosNikolaosStegis01.jpg 



f) as depicted in the earlier twelfth-century Melisende Psalter made at the monastery of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (ca. 1131-1143; London, BL, Egerton MS 1139, fol. 209r):

http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=egerton_ms_1139_f209r



g) as portrayed (three scenes from his Vita) around the curving head of the mid- or later twelfth-century ivory St. Nicholas crozier (ca. 1150-1170) of French or English manufacture in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London: 

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O70467/the-st-nicholas-crozier-staff-head-unknown/ 



h) as depicted in the later twelfth-century frescoes (1164) in the church of St. Panteleimon at Gorno Nerezi (Skopje municipality) in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia: 

http://tinyurl.com/hvjr5yy 

Detail view: 

http://tinyurl.com/op3slhf 



i) as depicted, in the patron niche, in the later twelfth-century frescoes (betw. 1160 and 1190) of the church of St. Nicholas Kasnitzes in Kastoria in northwestern Greece: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/millinerd/2672308962/in/photostream/lightbox/ 

Detail view: 

http://tinyurl.com/35q6wod



j) as depicted (providing dories for the three destitute daughters) in one of four panels of a full-page illumination in the late twelfth-century so-called Bible of Saint Bertin (ca. 1190-1200; Den Haag, KB, ms. 76 F 5, fol. 37v, sc. 1B):

http://manuscripts.kb.nl/zoom/BYVANCKB%3Amimi_76f5%3A037v_min_b1 



k) as depicted (at right; at left, St. Achilles / Achillius) in the late twelfth-century frescoes (ca. 1191) in the church of St. George at Kurbinovo (Resen municipality) in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia: 

http://tinyurl.com/paehsta 

Detail view (Nicholas): 

http://tinyurl.com/hw3vfr8 



l) as depicted in a twelfth- or thirteenth-century fresco in the church of St. Peter (and Paul) at Stari Ras (Raška dist.) in Serbia: 

http://tinyurl.com/7kjy66l 



m) as depicted (with scenes from his Bios) in a late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century icon in the Holy Monastery of the God-trodden Mount Sinai at St. Catherine (South Sinai governorate): 

http://tinyurl.com/aear2s2 



n) as depicted (at left; at center, St. Barbara; at right, St. Panteleimon) in a thirteenth-century fresco in the rupestrian chiesa di San Nicola dei Greci in Matera: 

http://www.caveheritage.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/IMG_2392-copy.jpg 

Detail view (Nicholas): 

http://www.caveheritage.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/IMG_2405-copy.jpg 



o) as depicted (at center; below and to the right, St. Lawrence of Rome) in a thirteenth-century wall painting in Hejdeby kyrka in Hejdeby (Gotlands län): 

http://tinyurl.com/pfpc2oa



p) as depicted in the earlier thirteenth-century frescoes (1230s) in the narthex of the church of the Ascension in the Mileševa monastery near Prijepolje (Zlatibor dist.) in Serbia: 

http://tinyurl.com/bx4cm3f 

Detail view: 

http://tinyurl.com/a37kwwr 



q) as depicted on a seemingly earlier to mid-thirteenth-century map of the Mediterranean (ca. 1234-1266; Lyon, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 175, sheet 8): 

http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht8/IRHT_125819-p.jpg 



r) as depicted (fifteen miracle scenes) in the earlier to mid-thirteenth-century St. Eligius and St. Nicholas window (w. 18; ca. 1235-1250) in the cathédrale Saint-Étienne in Auxerre: 

http://therosewindow.com/pilot/Auxerre/w18.htm



s) as depicted (reviving the three pickled students) in a mid-thirteenth-century psalter for the Use of Reims (Carpentras, Bibliothèque municipale Inguimbertine, ms. 77, fol. 176v): 

http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht4/IRHT_073118-p.jpg  



t) as depicted in a mid-thirteenth-century Novgorod School icon in the State Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg: 

http://www.icon-art.info/masterpiece.php?lng=en&mst_id=446



u) Nicholas as depicted in the mid-thirteenth-century frescoes (1259) in the church of Sts. Nicholas and Panteleimon at Boyana near the Bulgarian capital of Sofia: 

http://galenf.com/Bulgaria/36/bu_0015.jpg 

http://tinyurl.com/d5sdgmf 

This fresco's position in the church: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vintagedept/4967294741/lightbox/ 

Another portrait of Nicholas and scenes from his Bios in the same mid-thirteenth-century frescoes in this church: 

http://galenf.com/Bulgaria/36/bu_0011a.jpg 

http://galenf.com/Bulgaria/36/bu_0011b.jpg 

http://galenf.com/Bulgaria/36/bu_0012.jpg 

http://galenf.com/Bulgaria/36/bu_0012a.jpg 

http://galenf.com/Bulgaria/36/bu_0012b.jpg [the idol is that of Artemis / Diana] 

http://galenf.com/Bulgaria/36/bu_0013.jpg 

http://galenf.com/Bulgaria/36/bu_0013a.jpg 

http://galenf.com/Bulgaria/36/bu_0013b.jpg 

http://galenf.com/Bulgaria/36/bu_0014c.jpg 

http://galenf.com/Bulgaria/36/bu_0014.jpg 

http://galenf.com/Bulgaria/36/bu_0011.jpg 

http://galenf.com/Bulgaria/36/bu_0014b.jpg  



v) as depicted in a later thirteenth-century fresco (betw. ca. 1263 and 1270 or slightly later) in the chapel of St. Symeon Nemanja in the monastery church of the Holy Trinity at Sopoćani (Raška dist.) in Serbia: 

http://tinyurl.com/cergvfa 



w) as depicted (lower register) in a later thirteenth-century fresco (betw. 1263 and 1270 or slightly later) in the chapel of St. George in the monastery church of the Holy Trinity at Sopoćani (Raška dist.) in Serbia: 

http://tinyurl.com/6lpm895 



x) as depicted (standing, with scenes from his Bios) in a late thirteenth-century icon from the church of Agios Nikolaos tis Stegis at Kakopetria in the Republic of Cyprus, now in the Byzantine Museum of the Archbishop Makarios III Foundation in Nicosia: 

http://www.noteartistiche.it/traduzioni/files/nicola_kacopedia.jpg 



y) as depicted (reviving the three pickled students) in a late thirteenth-century copy of French origin of the _Legenda aurea_ (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol.1r: 

http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/ds/huntington/images//000849A.jpg 



z) as depicted (providing dowries for the three destitute daughters) in the late thirteenth-century Livre d'images de Madame Marie (ca. 1285-1290; Paris, BnF, ms. Nouvelle acquisition française 16251, fol. 90v): 

http://tinyurl.com/262f2jt



aa) as depicted in a late thirteenth-century icon (1294; from the church of St. Nicholas on Lipnya in Veliky Novgorod) in the Novgorod State United Museum: 

http://tinyurl.com/28wxm65



bb) as depicted (at right; at left, St. Theodosius the Coenobiarch) in the late thirteenth-century frescoes (ca. 1295) by Eutychios and Michael Astrapas in the church of the Peribleptos (now Sv. Kliment Ohridski) in Ohrid:

http://tinyurl.com/jy67ssc

Detail view:

http://tinyurl.com/na282ae



cc) as depicted in a late thirteenth- or very early fourteenth-century fresco in the church of the Holy Apostles in the Patriarchate of Peć at 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/y8wqrl7 



dd) as depicted in a late thirteenth or very early fourteenth-century fresco, attributed to Manuel Panselinos, in the bema of the Protaton church on Mt. Athos: 

https://www.stnicholascenter.org/galleries/gallery/5657/ 



ee) as depicted (three scenes from his Vita) in the very late thirteenth- or very early fourteenth-century frescoes (ca. 1300-1301), attributed to Guido di Palmerino, in the cappella di San Nicola in the lower church of the basilica di San Francesco in Assisi: 

1) providing dowries for the three destitute daughters: 

http://www.wga.hu/art/p/palmerin/1nichola.jpg 

2) halting the execution of the three soldiers: 

http://www.wga.hu/art/p/palmerin/3nichola.jpg 

3) forgiving the corrupt magistrate at Myra: 

http://www.wga.hu/art/p/palmerin/2nichola.jpg 



ff) as portrayed (standing, plus scenes from his Vita) on a fourteenth century relief mounted on the exterior of the basilica di San Nicola in Bari: 

http://tinyurl.com/jnolx59 



gg) as depicted (at left) in an early fourteenth-century fresco in the apse of the right transept of the basilica di San Nicola in Bari: 

http://www.pbase.com/querido/image/50660484 



hh) as depicted (with the boy with the golden cup) in an early fourteenth-century fresco in the rupestrian chiesa di Santa Maria delle Grotte in Rocchetta a Volturno (IS) in Molise: 

http://www.francovalente.it/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/grotte034.jpg 

Detail view (Nicholas): 

http://www.francovalente.it/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/grotte035.jpg 



ii) as depicted (scenes from his Bios) in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1311 and ca. 1322) in the church of St. Nicholas Orphanos in Thessaloniki:

https://plus.google.com/photos/110067756467697073060/album/5247055849101272625/5247081467249645330

https://plus.google.com/photos/110067756467697073060/album/5247055849101272625/5247081323697102498

https://plus.google.com/photos/110067756467697073060/album/5247055849101272625/5247081163587651266

https://plus.google.com/photos/110067756467697073060/album/5247055849101272625/5247081742933631858



jj) as depicted (at lower right) by Simone Martini in an earlier fourteenth-century polyptych (betw. 1320 and 1320) in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge: 

http://tinyurl.com/agqss3k 

Detail view (Nicholas): 

http://tinyurl.com/bhw9px5



kk) as depicted (providing dowries for the three destitute daughters) 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. 143r): 

http://tinyurl.com/2bovzh4 



ll) as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century icon donated to the church of St. Nicholas in Bari by the Serbian tsar Stefan Uroš IV Dušan in 1327: 

http://www.stnicholascenter.org/galleries/gallery/2390/ 

Detail view: 

http://www.stnicholascenter.org/media/images/b/bari-icon-serbian-lg.jpg



mm) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (1330s) in the apse of the church of the Hodegetria in the Patriarchate of Peć at Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija: 

http://tinyurl.com/yzb6xly 



nn) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the nave of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija: 

http://tinyurl.com/2a4j82d 

Detail view: 

http://tinyurl.com/2bcl6qc 



oo) as depicted in the mid-fourteenth-century frescoes of the monastery church of St. Michael the Archangel at Lesnovo in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia: 

http://tinyurl.com/nksu8vp 

Detail view: 

http://tinyurl.com/pbx9hv8 



pp) as depicted (reviving the three pickled students) in a mid-fourteenth-century copy of the _Legenda aurea_, from the workshop of Richard and Jeanne de Montbaston, in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (1348; Paris: BnF, ms. Français 241, fol. 10v):

http://tinyurl.com/jh6xlmz



qq) as portrayed by Frà Giovanni di Bartolomeo (a.k.a. the Master of the Magi of Fabriano) in a later fourteenth-century polychromed wooden statue in the chiesa di San Niccolò in Fabriano: 

http://tinyurl.com/zk25e73 



rr) as depicted (two scenes from his Bios) in the later fourteenth-century frescoes (1360s and 1370s; restored in 1968-1970) in the church of St. Demetrius in Marko's Monastery at Markova Sušica (Studeničani municipality) in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia: 

1) three innocent generals condemned by Constantine appeal to him: 

http://tinyurl.com/nuuz8ae 

2) his dormition: 

http://tinyurl.com/pey8rqw



ss) as depicted (providing dowries for the three destitute daughters) by Giovanni di Benedetto and workshop in a late fourteenth-century Franciscan missal of Milanese origin (ca. 1385-1390; Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 757, fol. 363v):

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8470209d/f730.item.r=.zoom 



tt) as depicted (reviving the three pickled students) 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. 12v):

http://tinyurl.com/gu9x5rg



uu) as depicted by Gentile da Fabriano (at left, flanking the BVM and Christ Child; at right, St. Catherine of Alexandria) in a late fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1395-1400 or ca. 1405) in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin: 

http://tinyurl.com/zshoxqm



vv) as depicted in a fifteenth-century Novgorod School icon in the Karelian Fine Arts Museum in Petrozavodsk: 

http://www.icon-art.info/masterpiece.php?lng=en&mst_id=2770 



ww) as depicted (second from left) by Gentile da Fabriano in his dismembered earlier fifteenth-century Quaratesi polyptych (ca. 1425): 

1) second from left in a panel from the main structure now in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence: 

http://www.wga.hu/art/g/gentile/quarate/03quarat.jpg 

2) four predella panels (scenes) in the Pinacoteca Vaticana: 

Overview: 

http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/PIN/PIN_Sala02_02.html 

Providing dowries for the three destitute daughters: 

http://www.wga.hu/art/g/gentile/quarate/10quarat.jpg 

Saving storm-tossed seamen: 

http://www.wga.hu/art/g/gentile/quarate/11quarat.jpg 

Reviving the three pickled students: 

http://www.wga.hu/art/g/gentile/quarate/12quarat.jpg



xx) as depicted by Beato Angelico in an earlier fifteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1425-1430) in the Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck in Remagen: 

http://tinyurl.com/z7ekeaz



yy) as depicted (reviving the three pickled students) in the earlier fifteenth-century Hours of Marguerite d'Orléans (Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 1156 B, fol. 172r): 

http://tinyurl.com/3322ur8 



zz) as depicted (two scenes from his Vita) by Johann of Laibach the son of Friedrich of Villach in the mid-fifteenth-century frescoes (1443) in the cerkev sv. Nikolaja in Visoko pod Kureščkom, Slovenia: 

1) halting the execution of the three soldiers: 

http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7010958.JPG 

2) saving storm-tossed seamen: 

http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7010976.JPG



aaa) as depicted in grisaille (reviving the three pickled students) by Jean le Tavernier in the Suffrages of the mid-fifteenth-century Hours of Philip of Burgundy (ca. 1451-1460; Den Haag, KB, ms. 76 F 2, fol. 265r):

http://manuscripts.kb.nl/zoom/BYVANCKB%3Amimi_76f2%3A265r_min



bbb) as depicted (scenes from his Vita) 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, fols. 117v, 118r, 119r, 121r, 122r): 

http://tinyurl.com/36fgjjt 

http://tinyurl.com/37wdb45 

http://tinyurl.com/2vbe4gt 

http://tinyurl.com/3y37c7a 

http://tinyurl.com/32v9g3b 



ccc) as depicted by Benozzo Gozzoli in a later fifteenth-century fresco (1465) in the apsidal chapel of the chiesa di Sant'Agostino in San Gimignano: 

http://www.wga.hu/art/g/gozzoli/4gimigna/saints/5nicbari.jpg 



ddd) as portrayed (reviving the three pickled students) in a late fifteenth- or very early sixteenth-century wooden statue of southern Netherlandish origin now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York: 

http://tinyurl.com/3xawexg



eee) as depicted (conch portrait and scenes from his Bios) by Dionisy and sons in the early sixteenth-century frescoes (1502) in the Virgin Nativity cathedral of the St. Ferapont Belozero (Ferapontov Belozersky) monastery at Ferapontovo in Russia's Vologda oblast (expandable images on these pages): 

http://www.dionisy.com/eng/museum/1195/ 

http://www.dionisy.com/eng/museum/1214/?frag 

http://www.dionisy.com/eng/museum/1278/?frag 



fff) as depicted by Dionisy in an early sixteenth-century icon (ca. 1502) in the icon museum of the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery at Goritsy in Russia's Vologda oblast: 

http://tinyurl.com/cm2kpeh 

Detail view: 

http://tinyurl.com/dxqmhyy  



ggg) as portrayed by the Master of the Altötting Doors in an earlier sixteenth-century wooden statue (ca. 1520-30; formerly polychromed) in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich: 

http://tinyurl.com/q2tf7k2 



hhh) as depicted by Theofanis Strelitzas-Bathas (a.k.a. Theophanes the Cretan) in the earlier sixteenth-century frescoes (1527) in the katholikon of the monastery of St. Nicholas Anapafsas in Kalambaka (Trikala regional unit) in northern Greece: 

http://tinyurl.com/7sswsf6 

 

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