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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Today (1. June) is the feast day of: 1) Justin Martyr (d. ca. 165). J. was born of pagan parents in Flavia Neapolis (today's Nablus) in Palestine. A philosopher by training, he became a Christian and devoted himself to expounding the truth of his religion. His surviving works are an _Apology_ to the emperor Antoninus Pius and to his adoptive sons Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, another addressed to the Senate of Rome, and the _Dialogue with Trypho_, Trypho having been a rabbi whom he had met at Ephesus. At some point J. moved to Rome, where he was put to death in the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Apparently genuine Acta survive from his trial before the city prefect Junius Rusticus (162/63-167/68). Usuard entered J. in his martyrology under 13. April; his reason for selecting that date is unknown. 13. April is also where J. was entered in the RM until its revision of 2001, when he was moved to today, his standard date of commemoration in the Greek church. A Justin venerated in Umbria and in adjacent portions of Lazio who was associated at least in the early modern period with the local saint Crescentinus or Crescentianus (supposedly a solder martyred under Diocletian) may also have been local but is now often identified with the famous Justin Martyr and celebrated liturgically on this day. A noteworthy witness to that cult is the originally eleventh-/twelfth-century abbey church of San Giustino d'Arna (later, d'Arno) at today's _frazione_ of Ripa in Perugia (well outside the city centre). A brief, illustrated, Italian-language account is here: http://tinyurl.com/3hops3 More (and larger) views: http://www.cittadifiume.it/xhtml.asp?art=1358 J. is a patron saint of Fabrica di Roma (VT) in northern Lazio, whose chiesa collegiata di San Silvestro (rebuilt in the sixteenth century) is said to house relics of him beneath its main altar. In the same general area, J. is the patron of San Giustino (PG) in Umbria and a co-patron of Valentano (VT) and Roccasinibalda (RI) in Lazio. One wonders whether the J. of the now ruined eleventh-/twelfth-century chiesa dei Santi Cipriano e Giustino at Campello sul Clitunno (PG) in Umbria was at one time that church's sole dedicatee. Some views of that (with Giustino mislabeled as Giustina!): http://tinyurl.com/6p55fc While we're at the famous Fonti del Clitunno, herewith a few views of the nearby, probably later seventh-century Tempietto del Clitunno: http://tinyurl.com/5axpn5 http://www.go-silvignano.com/images/g_halfhour_05.jpg http://tinyurl.com/5qfa84 A side less often photographed: http://tinyurl.com/55tu9m An advertisement for Judson Emerick's very thorough study of this early medieval church: http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-01728-7.html 2) Proculus of Bologna (d. ca. 304, perhaps). The (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology lists a Proculus for this date, place of martyrdom unspecified. Our P.'s cult at Bologna was known to the late fourth-/early fifth-century writers Victricius of Rouen and Paulinus of Nola. His church there goes back to the early eleventh century. Later medieval members of the adjacent monastic community created various Vitae for P., including a twelfth-century one (BHL 6954) that made him a military martyr under the early sixth-century emperor Justin I and a thirteenth-century one identifying him as the Proculus of Narni and thus a bishop (BHL 6956, drawing on the early medieval _Legenda XII Syrorum_, whose own account of that P.'s feast had already in the twelfth century been read in the dioceses of Bologna and Ravenna on 1. June). Herewith two Italian-language pages on Bologna's San Procolo (both unfortunately showing only the nineteenth-century neogothic facade): http://kidslink.bo.cnr.it/besta/lavoro/3s3r/procolo.html http://tinyurl.com/4um2nj And here's a view of Michelangelo's statue of P. (1494) on St. Dominic's monumental shrine in Bologna's San Domenico: http://tinyurl.com/3y4g37 3) Fortunatus of Montefalco (d. ca. 400). We know about F. from his late seventh- or early eighth-century Vita (BHL 3087) by the priest Audelaus. According to this text, F. was a poor priest of a church about twelve miles distant from Spoleto who engaged in manual labor in order to make ends meet and who with the little he earned was constantly generous to to widows and orphans, to paupers, and to pilgrims. One day, while plowing a field he turned up a couple of _denarii_ (low-value coins), put them away, and went back to work. An angel came by in the guise of a pilgrim came by and asked for aid; F. offered him the _denarii_ and as he did so these were turned into _aurei_ (high-value coins of gold). F. gave them to the pilgrim/angel and went back to work. Though he did not operate miracles in his lifetime, he did so after his death. A popular cult arose and a church, consecrated by a bishop of Spoleto, was later built to house his remains. Today's Montefalco (PG) in Umbria is a fortified hilltown that acquired its present name in the later 1240s and that in the fourteenth century was the administrative center of the duchy of Spoleto. Its extramural church of San Fortunato, believed to have succeeded the late antique basilica of F.'s Vita, was given in the earlier fifteenth century to Observant Franciscans who erected an adjacent convent and who in ca. 1450 had the church redecorated with frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli and pupils. Herewith two views of Gozzoli's portrait there of F. enthroned: http://www.beniculturali.it/dpc/gozzoli/images/12a.jpg http://tinyurl.com/4bze8d 4) Caprasius of Lérins (d. after 434). The Provençal hermit C. accompanied St. Honoratus and the latter's brother Venantius on a journey to the East that ended at Modon in the Peloponnese, where Venantius died. C. returned with Honoratus to Provence, where they founded the famous monastery of Lérins. Late antique ecclesiastical writers of Gaul (Sts. Eucherius of Lyon and Sidonius Apollinaris) praise his sanctity. C. enters the martyrologies with Florus of Lyon. 5) Ronan of Locronan (d. 6th cent.?). The eponym of Locronan (Finistère), this Breton saint has a legendary Vita (BHL 7336), seemingly of the thirteenth century and written at Quimper. According to that account, the Irish-born R. established a hermitage in the forest of Névet, where he was visited by, and dispensed counsel to, king Grallo (the very legendary fourth-century Gradlon) and where he had to contend with accusations by a local wife of being a werewolf and of having tried to seduce her. R., so this story goes, then moved on to the vicinity of Hillion, where he died after establishing a new hermitage. A dispute over the possession of his body was resolved by its miraculous transportation back to his first hermitage, where a chapel (later destroyed by Northmen and then rebuilt) was erected in his honor. Later still R.'s remains found their way to Quimper, where they were kept in the cathedral and worked miracles. The site of R.'s memorial chapel came to be called Locronan. His cult there is attested from the 1030s onward. Herewith some views of its fifteenth-century église priorale Saint-Ronan and of the adjacent chapelle du Pénity: Exterior: http://www.locronan.biz/locronan-church-photo.html http://tinyurl.com/6k8zlr http://tinyurl.com/4e4y76 http://photos.viaouest.com/IMG/galerie/l/locronan2-big.jpg http://site-images.ws/images/cust/183884/sud1%20(3).JPG Interior (église): http://tinyurl.com/44gvdw A multi-page site on the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century statuary: http://monsite.orange.fr/locronan/page1.html R.'s cenotaph in the Pénity: http://tinyurl.com/4h9tzn 6) Simeon of Trier (d. 1035). According to his early eleventh-century Vita (BHL 7963) by abbot Eberwin of Trier, S. (also Symeon; sometimes called "of Syracuse") was a Greek-speaking native of Syracuse who grew up in Constantinople and who became a monk first in Palestine and later at St. Catherine's in Sinai. He was sent from the latter to Normandy to collect a debt from duke Richard II, traveling part of the way with his future biographer, who was returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. When S. arrived at his destination the duke was dead, his successor would not pay, and S. returned to Palestine as tour guide to a group of pilgrims from Trier. Later he moved to Trier and became a hermit in a gate in the Roman city wall. Here's a view of it, saved when the rest was torn down in 1803 because it housed a chapel dedicated to him: http://tinyurl.com/yvz9ng S. was canonized papally in 1042. Best, John Dillon (Justin Martyr, Proculus of Bologna, Caprasius of Lérins, and Simeon of Trier 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