>More about Saint Roch :
>In an iconographical guide i read that he was born in Montpellier (south
>of France-beautiful town and a good soccer team, where a man called
>Cantona played ;-), son of a rich merchant, spends his life in
>pilgrimage, is in Roma from 1368 to 1371, on his return trip he gets the
>plague. Hidden in a wood, he is fed by a nearby seigneur's dog, which
>steals a piece of bread everyday for him. An angel comes to heal and
>cure him, he gets back to his town, where nobody recognizes him, taken
>for a spy by his uncle, he is kept in jail, and dies there in a
>supernatural light. Another version makes him die in the jail of
>Angleria (Lombardia). Anyway he is the healer of the plague.
>A good reason to build churches for him.
>Can anybody confirm that story ?
>--
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>James Herisson
>Paris - France
>"Fiducia est quoddam robur spei"
>e-mail : [log in to unmask]
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That is indeed the story of Roch's life as told in his Vita, which one can
read in the AASS. Whether such a person ever existed or existed at that
time (there are also arguments for him being a contemporary of the Council
of Constance) is a different story. There is simply no confirmation, and,
as I understand it, the cult appears only in the 15th century.
Laura Smoller
Department of History
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
2801 South University Ave.
Little Rock, AR 72204-1099
tel 501-569-8389
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|