 |
 |
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Today (18. April) is the feast day of: Eleutherius, bp. of Illyricum, and his mother, Anthia (d. ca. 125, supposedly). An Eleutherius celebrated on 18. April occurs in the late fifth-century (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology, in the early ninth-century Marble Calendar of Naples, and, it is said, in the Mozarabic Calendar. Medieval dedications to a saint of this name are widespread in central and southern Italy. Some of these are to our E., though others commemorate the pope of this name and still others (in a much later-arising cult centered on southern Lazio) honor a pilgrim celebrated in late May. An E. commonly celebrated in Eastern-rite churches on 15. December has a quite legendary sixth- or seventh-century Greek Passio (BHG 568-571b) that makes him a Roman native and son of a highly placed woman named Anthia and has him consecrated bishop by a certain Anicetus and sent to Illyricum to take up his ecclesiastical office, only to be sent to Rome for trial. Here, after a colloquy with the emperor Hadrian and an impressive series of failed execution attempts, he is put to death along with Anthia on 15. December of some unspecified year. One of this text's Latin translations (BHL 2451-52), said to be earlier than the eighth century, adapts the legend to the E. of 18. April by changing this E.'s martyrdom to that date; it also makes him a less well-known saint of the Regno by substituting Aeca (the predecessor of Troia in northern Apulia) for Illyricum. In 1105 two monks from Troia removed from a burial site near Velletri in Lazio and brought back to their home town the supposed remains of pope saint Pontianus and of a saint E. identified by the Troiani as their former bishop. (Troia is an eleventh-century Byzantine foundation on the ruins of Aeca; lacking a continuous tradition of settlement, it had to go elsewhere for the bodies of its local saints.) A version of the Passio of the E. of Aeca and of his mother A. was known to Florus of Lyon in the ninth century, who when listing these saints for 18. April substituted 'Messana' for 'Aeca' as the name of E.'s Apulian town. This odd error led to later cults of E. and A. at Messina in Sicily and at Mesagne on the Salentine Peninsula (the heel of the Italian boot). Prior to its latest version (which omits them entirely), the RM listed Messina as the place of martyrdom for our E. and A. Today's E. and A. have also had a long-standing cult at Rieti in eastern Lazio, where a church or churches dedicated to a St. E. are attested from the eighth through at least the thirteenth century and where the remains of E. and A. are said to have been translated to the cathedral in 1198. Web-based visuals of medieval origin relating to these saints are not numerous. An eleventh-century sepulchral inscription for E. and A., now in the diocesan museum at Rieti, is shown on this page: http://tinyurl.com/3e2eay A view of the facade of Troia's cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta (1093-1119) will be found here: http://www.arte-argomenti.org/schede/troia/troia.html The architrave (_sensu Italiano_) / lintel over the main portal is replete with carvings (said to have been reworked in the sixteenth century). In the view of it on this page, E. is the saint at the far left: http://xoomer.virgilio.it/guidoiam/arte/guidoiam/porta_centrale.htm The second saint from left in this late fourteenth-century panel painting now in the diocesan museum at Velletri is our E. and the pope at the far right is E.'s fellow abductee to Troia, saint Pontianus: http://tinyurl.com/mdeqn By the middle of the fourteenth century the E. of 18. April had also joined the pantheon of local saints at Porec (Italian: Parenzo) in Croatia, where he shared a tomb with the local martyr-bishop Maurus (yes, this is the same M. whose presumed remains had by this time been in the Lateran Baptistery for centuries) and where of course he was remembered as a bishop of Illyricum. In 1354 this tomb and its contents became spoils in the Genoese sack of Porec; they stayed in Genoa until 1933, when they were returned to Porec. Nepi (VT) in northern Lazio had a medieval church dedicated to our E. "Restored" in the sixteenth century, it is now deconsecrated and houses an art gallery: http://tinyurl.com/r3a3n 2) Ursmar (d. 713). According to the tradition of the monastery at Lobbes (in today's Hainaut in southern Belgium), U. became its abbot in 689. He introduced the Benedictine Rule into this house and, in 697, consecrated its church of Sts. Peter and Paul. He is said to have been bishop of Lobbes as well and to have built outside the monastery a second church dedicated to the BVM. U.'s cult at Lobbes produced a tenth-century Vita (BHL 8417) by Rather of Verona, a late tenth- or eleventh-century one formerly ascribed to abbot Anso (BHL 8416), a metrical Vita by Heriger of Lobbes (BHL 8419), and several miracle collections. 3) Wicterp (d. 771). W. (Wikterp, Wigbert, Wiggo, etc.) is the first historically attested bishop of Augsburg. His cult in this diocese is documented starting in the central Middle Ages. Relics believed to be his were first kept at his supposed birthplace of Epfach an der Lech, south of Augsburg, and then in Augsburg itself, winding up in the church of Sts. Ulrich and Afra. 4) Herluca of Bernried (or of Epfach; Bl.; d. 1127). The well educated recluse H. has a Vita (BHL 3835) by Paul of Bernried, known to many on this list as the early biographer of pope St. Gregory VII. One is not surprised, therefore, to find H. (also Herluka) presented as an ardent supporter of Gregorian reform. For thirty-six years she lived at Epfach an der Lech, whither she had arrived in her mid-twenties and where she performed acts of charity and promoted the cult of St. Wicterp (see above), who had appeared to her in a vision. H. was at this time in correspondence with the also well educated Benedictine recluse Bl. Diemut (Diemoth; 30. March) at nearby Wessobrunn. Becoming unpopular at Epfach, she fled in ca. 1122 to the Augustinian house at Bernried on the Starnberger See in today's Landkreis Weilheim-Schongau in southern Bavaria. There she was befriended by Paul and lived out the brief remainder of her life. Best, John Dillon (Eleutherius and Anthia revised from last year's post) ********************************************************************** 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