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Today, 8 September, is the feast of ... * the Birthday of Mary the Virgin - feast first mentioned in the West c. 600, in the Auxerre *Hieronymianum*; for legends of her birthplace, see *Analecta Bollandiana* 62 (1944) 272-273 Two years ago Tom Izbicki added the following: General celebration of the feast of the Conception of Mary seems to have been authorized late in the MA. What I read about the feast tags its general celebration to Sixtus IV, after a failed effort by the Council of Basel to define the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception following its break with Eugenius IV. Tallon says in his book on the French at Trent that the French delegation gave up its efforts to get a dogmatic pronouncement made by the council. In relation to the the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin A year ago a thread was started regarding queries about the cult of St Anne. At that time interesting bibliographical materials and other items were sent to the list. They follow below: Bibliography: LOUIS, C., ed., The Commonplace Book of Robert Reynes of Acle. An Edition of Tanner MS 407 (New York and London 1980). PARKER, R.E., ed., The Middle English Stanziac Versions of the Life of St Anne (EETS London 1928). BRANDENBARG, T., 'St Anne and her family. The veneration of St Anne in connection with concepts of marriage and family in the early modern period', SION C.H.H. and VAN DER WILDEN, R.M.J., trans, Saints and She-Devils. Images of Women in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (London 1987), 101-128. GIBSON, G.McM., 'Saint Anne and the religion of childbed. Some East Anglian texts and talismans', in ASHLEY, K. and SHEINGORN, P., eds, Interpreting Cultural Symbols - St Anne in late Medieval Society (Athens, Georgia 1990), 95-110. SHEINGORN, P.M., 'The wise mother: The image of St Anne teaching the Virgin Mary', Gesta, 32 (1993), 69-80. DUFFY, E., 'Holy maydens, holy wyfes: The cult of women saints in fifteenth and sixteenth-century England', in Women and the Church, ed.D.Wood, Studies in Church History, 27 (Oxford 1990), 175-96. JAMES, M.R., 'The Salomites', The Journal of Theological Studies, 35 (1934), 287-97. *Interpreting Cultural Symbols: Saint Anne in Late Medieval Society*, ed. Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn (Univ. of Georgia Press, 1990). And the query: Any idea on how Anne got her name? -- Perhaps form the aramaic for mother? And the answer of Bill East: Hebrew Hannah - cf the mother of Samuel in the books of that name. Mary's Magnificat would seem to owe something to Hannah's song of joy at the birth of Samuel. * Adrian and Natalia, martyrs (c. 304) - Adrian was a pagan officer moved to convert when he witnessed the torture of 23 Christians; his wife Natalia, to spare her husband having to see others being killed, actually helped the executioners carry out their task; she took away his severed hand as a relic, and travelled to the Christian community in Argyropolis, where she died a peaceful death. * Eusebius, Nestabus, Zeno and Nestor, martyrs (c. 362) - the first three were brothers, and Nestor was a fellow Christian martyred in Gaza; all were made famous by the brothers' relative, also named Zeno, when he eventually was made bishop in the reign of Theodosius * Disibod (c. 674) - an Irish bishop, he went to Germany where he founded a monastery on a hill near Bingen; his vita was written by St Hildegard, based on her visions * Sergius I, pope (701) - after Sergius was elected as pope, the imperial exarch John extorted a huge sum of money from him; as pope, he ordained that the Roman church should observe the four feasts of Mary, including her birthday (which is today -- coincidence?) * Corbinian, bishop (725) - early apostle of Bavaria; one day when he met a woman accused of being a magician, he 'unsympathetically' stole her provisions and beat her soundly with his own hands; no wonder his hagiographer Aribo says that Corbinian was a man quick to anger Three years ago Rozann Elder also reminded us of the following feast day: 8 September is also the anniversary of the death, and therefore the liturgical commemoration, in those rare places where he is commemorated (theoretically the archdiocese of Reims and the Cistercian Order) of William of Saint Thierry, Benedictine abbot until 1135 and Cistercian until his death in 1147/1148. This demonstrates the bad luck of dying on a feast day. ******************* Dr Carolyn Muessig Department of Theology and Religious Studies University of Bristol Bristol BS8 1TB UK %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%