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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture The previous message had some significant but not always obvious typos. Herewith a corrected version. Please accept my apologies for the errors. On Tuesday, April 4, 2006, at 7:32 am, John Briggs wrote: > John Dillon wrote: > > On Tuesday, April 4, 2006, at 2:51 am, John Briggs wrote: > > > >> St Ambrose [who seems to have got lost somewhere along the way] > > > > The revisers of the Roman Calendar seem to have used on Ambrose of > > Milan (now celebrated liturgically in the Roman church on 7. > > December) the same lever they applied to Gregory the Great in order > > to spring both of them to another time of the year: consecration as > > bishop. Perhaps they were implying that, in some cases at least, > > elevation to episcopal dignity may be tantamount to birth into > > eternal life :-) > > Except that Ambrose was moved earlier, and was presumably the > precedent for > Gregory. Does anyone know when Ambrose was moved (and why)? This turns out to be rather interesting. I had naively assumed that A.'s move was recent too. But it's not. In listing A.'s _depositio_ on 4. April, what is said to be Benedict XIV's ed. of the RM (1749) notes that his feast is celebrated rather on 7. December, the day of his ordination as bishop of Milan: "Mediolani depositio sancti Ambrosii Episcopi, Confessoris et Ecclesiae Doctoris; cujus studio, inter cetera doctrinae et miraculorum insignia, tempore Arianae perfidiae, tota fere Italia ad catholicam fidem conversa est. Ipsius tamen festivitas septimo Idus Decembris potissimum recolitur, quo die Episcopus Mediolanensis ordinatus est." The online version that this is from: http://members.aol.com/liturgialatina/martyrologium/01.htm is defective for December, so here's a text of A.'s _laterculus_ of 7. December as given from another site claiming to present the 1749 ed. (though its statement "Corrected in 1749 by Benedict XII" could give one pause): "Sancti Ambrosii Epíscopi, Confessóris et Ecclésiæ Doctoris, qui pridie Nonas Aprilis obdormívit in Dómino, sed hac die potíssimum colitur, qua Mediolanensem Ecclésiam gubernandam suscépit." (from: http://www.breviary.net/martyrology/mart.htm/) The latter "1749" ed. includes Albertus Magnus (canonized 1931), mentioning in the latter's _laterculus_ on 15. November both Pius XI and Pius XII. And the previously cited one takes its text from an undated "editio novissima". So in neither case are we dealing with the edition of 1749 _tout court_. But that by 1749 A.'s chief liturgical celebration in the Roman church already fell on 7. December rather than on 4. April can be inferred from the absence of an entry for him in the seventeenth-century _Acta Sanctorum_ (which, as is known, omits the saints of December). Chances are that A.'s celebration has been given as falling on 7. December in all editions of the RM since its late sixteenth-century inception. But in Usuard, the early modern RM's chief creditor, A.'s _laterculus_ occurs on 4. April: "Mediolani, depositio beati Ambrosii episcopi et confessoris, cuius studio inter cetera doctrinae et miraculorum insignia, tempore Arrianae perfidiae, tota Italia ad catholicam fidem conversa est." (ed. Dubois [1965], p. 206). Usuard has nought for Ambrose on 7. December (so also Ado, in case anyone cares). One might suspect, then, that the change occurred on Baronio's watch, during the making of the RM. The change for the church of Rome as a whole, that is. This is apparently but one of a number of changes in the post-Tridentine festal calendar that reflect the already established practice of the Roman Curia as seen in the latter's Breviary. Anselm Rosenthal OSB, ed., _Martyrologium und Festkalender der Bursfelder Kongregation. Von den Anfängen der Kongregation (1446) bis zum nachtridentinischen Martyrologium Romanum (1584)_ (Münster: Aschendorff, 1984), pp. 144-45, identifies several such changes and gives reasons for these. For A.'s move the reason offered (without documentation but nonethless quite plausibly) is a desire to have the celebration always fall outside of Lent. According to R. (p. 145, n. 947), in most of these cases the new date had some other connection with the saint or saints being commemorated. That said, in some places the practice of commemorating A. on 7. December is of very long standing. The De Rossi / Duchesne edition of the _Martyrologium [pseudo-]Hieronymianum_ has A.'s feast falling on 4. April: "Depos[itio] S[an]c[t]i ambrosi ep[iscop]i" but notes that one of the three main branches of the tradition of this text, that of the codex Wissenburgensis, has at its usually Ambrose- free listings of 7. December a variant entry: "Natalis s. ambrosi". It's not clear how old that variant is. But there's a very similar datum in the Marble Calendar of Naples (first half of the ninth century), which lists A. twice, once on 3. November (said to be a Greek festal date for him; the Marble Calendar has a number of such doublets) as his feast and again on 7. December, this time as a commemoration of his _depositio_ (sic). In both instances (MH and Marble Calendar), we seem to be dealing with descendants of an entry written for 4. April and moved, unedited, to the later date. Best, John Dillon ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join 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: leave 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/lists/medieval-religion.html