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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Today (1. August) is the feast day of: 1) St. Peter in Chains. A translation from the Italian 'San Pietro in Vincoli', this feast celebrates the dedication of the Roman church of that name, founded in the first half of the fifth century to house the chains with which St. Peter had been secured when he was imprisoned in Jerusalem (Acts 12: 6-7). At first called the _titulus Eudoxiae_ (perh. after Eudoxia, the wide of Valentinian III, thought by some to have helped pay for it), it was dedicated by Sixtus III both to Peter and to Paul and for centuries was also known as the _titulus Apostolorum_. Its present designation (also late antique in origin) when expressed in Latin usually occurs as _(Ecclesia) Sancti Petri ad vincula_; hence also the customary Latin name of the feast, _Sancti Petri ad vincula_. The poet Arator gave a public reading of his _De actibus Apostolorum_ here on four consecutive days in 544. The church was restored by Adrian I (772-95) and rebuilt under Sixtus IV (1471-84) and Julius II (1503). At some point the chains thought to have held Peter when he was imprisoned at Rome prior to his execution were brought from the so-called Mamertine Prison (not attested as an ancient designation) and were added to those said to be from Jerusalem. According to legend, they fused of their own accord. They are now on display in the confessio before the high altar: http://roma.katolsk.no/img/pietrovincoli_relics1.JPG http://tinyurl.com/zubuk By the later Middle Ages St. Peter in Chains had become today's principal feast in the Roman church. It was removed from the general Roman Calendar in 1969. Rome's church of San Pietro in Vincoli houses a funerary monument well known to some on this list: http://keptar.demasz.hu/arthp/art/b/bregno/andrea/bregno.jpg Oh, were you perhaps expecting this one?: http://inillotempore.com/blog/images/Julius2Tomb.jpg The first is of the philosopher and ecclesiastical administrator Nicholas of Cusa (d. 1464), appointed cardinal priest of this church by Nicholas V. The second is of course the tomb of Julius II with its statue of Moses by Michelangelo: http://inillotempore.com/blog/images/Moses_by_Michelangelo.jpg There are other dedications in Italy to St. Peter in Chains. Here are some views of Pisa's late eleventh-/early twelfth-century church of San Pietro in Vinculis (a.k.a. San Pierino): http://tinyurl.com/jp72o http://www.stilepisano.it/immagini8/index1.htm and of the church of San Pietro in Vincoli (1363; later modifications) at Limone Piemonte (CN) in Piedmont: http://tinyurl.com/he2pj http://www.hulsen.net/images/Piemonte-Limone001.JPG Peter in Chains is Piemonte Limone's patron saint. 2) The Seven Holy Maccabees (and their Mother). One of the oldest feasts of the Roman sanctoral calendar, this celebration was once subsumed into that of St. Peter in Chains but even now in the Roman church is trumped by that of a modern saint of the Regno, Alphonso Liguori (1696-1787). It honors the seven brothers (and their mother) of 2 Macc. 7, gruesomely put to death in the second century BC by Antiochus IV Epiphanes and widely revered in the early church as martyrs for Judeo-Christian faith and thus as Christians before the letter. The feast appears in eastern and in western calendars from the fifth century onward. Their chief early cult center was at Antioch, the presumed venue of their martyrdom. In the sixth century remains said to be theirs were translated to Rome and housed in the church of St. Peter in Chains, which had been dedicated on their day. Their present location is in a crypt behind and below the shrine containing Peter's chains (on which, see above). The feast's popularity in the West in the early Middle Ages is attested to by its listings in the Gelasian Sacramentary and in the Marble Calendar of Naples. In the latter (which does not mention Peter in Chains) it occurs as that of the Passion of the Macchabees and of St. Felicity, thus giving the mother a name (taken, it would seem, from the Felicity of 23. November, also the mother of seven sainted sons). A translation of a letter from Bernard of Clairvaux explaining why this feast should be kept is here: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bernard/letters.xlvii.html A women's monastery dedicated to the Seven Holy Maccabees was founded at Cologne (Köln) in the twelfth century. See: http://tinyurl.com/h8btc And the same city's Dominican church of St. Andreas (the resting place of Albertus Magnus) houses an impressive early sixteenth-century reliquary of them described on this page: http://www.sankt-andreas.de/kirchenfuehrer/english.php/1 and shown here: http://tinyurl.com/z7gzz 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