medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (6. February) is the feast day of:
1) Silvanus of Emesa (d. ca. 311) and companions. According to Eusebius (_H.E._ 9. 6), the elderly S. had been bishop for forty years when he was martyred along with other Christians by being exposed to wild beasts at Emesa (today's Homs in Syria) during the persecution of Maximian. His named companions are St. Luke the deacon and St. Mocius the lector.
2) Vedastus (d. ca. 540). According to Alcuin, whose brief Vita of V. (Vaast, Waast; BHL 8508) one may read in English translation here:
http://tinyurl.com/2p895v
, V. tutored Clovis in the elements of the faith prior to the king's baptism by St. Remigius of Reims. In this illumination of the baptism from the Grandes Chroniques de France de Charles V (Paris, ca. 1375-1380; BNF, Ms. Français 28213, fol. 12v.), the bishop behind Remigius is sometimes identified as V.:
http://tinyurl.com/yfezco
If that identification is correct, V.'s episcopal dignity here would be proleptic: Remigius did later make him the first bishop of Arras. V.'s relics are kept in Arras' cathédrale Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Vaast. He is the principal patron of the diocese of Arras.
Here's a smallish reproduction of a fifteenth-century tapestry depicting V. and the bear in a scene rather different in character from its analog in Alcuin's Vita:
http://tinyurl.com/2u9mju
3) Angelo of Furci (Blessed; d. 1327). According to tradition (which is all we have for A.'s early life), today's less well known holy person from the Regno was born at today's Furci (CH) in Abruzzo. As a youth he was schooled at the then Benedictine abbey of St. Michael the Archangel (Sant'Angelo) at nearby Cornaclano in what's now Fresagrandinaria (CH), where an uncle was the abbot. After the uncle's death, A. returned home. His father dying not long afterwards, A. again entered a religious house, this time that of the Augustinians at Vasto, the chief coastal town of the area. There he made his profession, furthered his studies, and was ordained priest. For the relative locations of these places, see the map here:
http://www.abbey.org/furcimaps.html
A page of expandable views of the remains of the monastery at Cornaclano is here:
http://tinyurl.com/2al537
Probably fairly early in his career A. was sent to Paris, where he will have studied under Giles of Rome. After a period as lector at an unidentified convent in Italy he was posted to his order's _studium_ at Naples, where he served as professor of theology and in or shortly before 1291 was elected prior provincial. He retired in ill health at the age of eighty-one and, already viewed as a living saint, died shortly afterward on this day at the Neapolitan convent popularly known as Sant'Agostino alla Zecca (the royal mint was just across a square from the convent's main entrance).
A. had a popular cult in Naples and later also at Furci, whither his remains were translated in 1808. He was beatified in 1888. A church outside of Furci was dedicated to him in 1968; in 1990 his relics were translated to it and in 1993 this became the church of a new sanctuary named for him. Some views of this very modern site (the last two showing A.'s display coffin behind the altar):
http://tinyurl.com/2wt5hr
http://www.abbey.org/furci.jpg
http://web.tiscali.it/abruzzocitra/abruzzo/furci/furci14.jpeg
Best,
John Dillon
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