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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture On Monday, January 22, 2007, at 6:05 pm, I wrote of St. Vincent of Saragossa: > ... and St. Augustine (who eulogized V. annually on this day > and from whom we have no fewer than five sermons celebrating him). Six, actually. > His Passiones are relatively late. Well, that was a widespread view prior to the work of Victor Saxer. BHL 8631 (the standard account) was in existence by the middle of the sixth century. Saxer thinks that the brief BHL 8638 is close to the text of a Passio that circulated in the fifth century. See his _Saint Vincent diacre et martyr: Culte et légendes avant l'An Mil_ (Bruxelles: V, 2002; Subsidia Hagiographica, vol. 83). The second URL for the views of the church of Santi Vincenzo ed Anastasio at Ascoli Piceno (AP) was bumped by an intrusive signature block. The two links are: http://tinyurl.com/yv9jd7 http://tinyurl.com/yvuzfh 22. January is also the feast day of: 3) Valerian of Saragossa (d. early fourth century). Vincent of Saragossa's bishop, he survived to take part in a synod at Elvira. This V. has a cult in his own right, on which see also Saxer (cit.) and Bruno W. Häuptli in the Bautz _Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon_ at: http://www.bautz.de/bbkl/v/valerius_v_z.shtm 4) Dominic of Sora (d. 1032). D. is one of Italy's fairly numerous crop of reformer saints from the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. Active primarily in central Italy, he founded monasteries in today's Lazio, Abruzzo, and Molise. His last foundation, the monastery of Santa Maria between today's Isola del Liri (FR) and Sora (FR), was renamed to include D. by Paschal II and is generally referred to as that of San Domenico at Sora. D., who is generally thought to have been born in today's Foligno (PG) but who takes his name from here, was buried in its church (today's parish church of San Domenico abate). And here he has remained, with the exception of a brief interlude from 1799 to 1810, when he was a guest of Santa Restituta in Sora. The church was badly damaged by an earthquake in 1915 and has undergone a radical interior restoration (less radical, though, in the crypt, which is where D.'s remains are). Some views of it are here: Exterior: http://www.nuovipanorami.it/italia/lazio/ciociaria/sora.jpg http://www.diocesisora.it/A157.jpg http://www.diocesisora.it/A19.jpg Exterior views with a little contemporary context lacking or barely apparent in the foregoing close-ups. In the first of these, the monastery (Cistercian since 1222) is at the lower right: http://www.diocesisora.it/A114.jpg http://www.diocesisora.it/A115.jpg Here's the progam of this year's celebrations (yesterday and today): http://www.sandomenicoabate.it/ Revered as a protector against snakebite, D. is famously celebrated in the Abruzzese town of Cocullo (AQ) at a popular festival that takes place in early May, the Festa dei Serpari. Whereas that is not attested medievally, the church at Cocullo (Santa Maria delle Grazie) from which D.'s statue is brought out for the celebrations is said to be originally of the twelfth or thirteenth century. Herewith a few exterior views: http://tinyurl.com/2jlpxd http://tinyurl.com/2rkbum http://tinyurl.com/2ljja9 On D., see John Howe, _Church Reform and Social Change in Eleventh-century Italy: Dominic of Sora and his Patrons_ (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), Teemu Immonen, "Il culto di San Domenico di Sora. Osservazioni sulle relazioni tra i testi e la società del tempo", _Benedictina_ 50 (2003), 235-250, and idem, "The Cult of Saint Dominic of Sora: Hagiographical Texts and their Contexts", in Flavia De Rubeis and Walter Pohl, eds., _Le scritture dai monasteri. Atti del II° seminario internazionale di studio “I Monasteri nell’alto medioevo” Roma 9-10 maggio 2002_ (Roma: Institutum Romanum Finlandiae / Istituto Romano di Finlandia, 2003), pp. 145-155. 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