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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Yes, but always at the foot of the cross, whereas the figure on the amulet is as big as the cross (this may, of course, just be due to the size of the object). That said, Mary Magdalene still seems the likelier than Helena Meg -----Original Message----- From: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious culture [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Graham Jones Sent: Sunday, November 21, 2010 5:52 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [M-R] saints of the day 20. November/Essex reliquary medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Dear All (and Maddy in particular) Having got into all this saints business through an interest in Helen, I hate to line up on the side of those who doubt the figure on the amulet is her. Her cult in Colchester was certainly important - she was patron of the civic guild, after all. However, Essex is a big county and while Colchester is in the north, almost on the Suffolk border, Hockley, where the amulet was found, is in the south, almost as near to London as it is to Colchester and not far from the Thames estuary. See the Wiki page on Mary Magdalene for more images of her clasping the Cross: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Magdalene She is the architypal penitent and the Sacred Heart and drops of blood/sweat are emblematic of salvation through the Cross and Resurrection (MM is a central figure in the Easter story, too). I wish I could find my large-scale JPG of the Limerick image. I'll keep looking. I think we can be sure of the Magi - the BBC photos show the name 'Balthasar' on another of the side faces. The Magi's gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh foretell the story of Redemption through death and ressurection. The amulet appears to speak of suffering and a clinging to hope. And if the Three Kings are in the picture, given the location of the find so close to the Thames Estuary, there is always the possibility that the piece originated at Cologne, where the Magi were, of course, greatly venerated. Its owner might even have been involved in a shipwreck - in which case its presence in Essex might be entirely fortuitous. Best wishes Graham **************************************************************** Dr Graham Jones, St John's College, Oxford OX1 3JP Senior Research Associate, Oxford University School of Geography ________________________________________ From: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious culture [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Madeleine Gray [[log in to unmask]] Sent: 21 November 2010 09:06 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [M-R] saints of the day 20. November/Essex reliquary medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Good ol' Wikipedia - and it gives the Colchester connection. The depiction on the amulet/reliquary looks to me as if it could be based on a woodcut. That might be a possible line of enquiry to track down an identification. Back to the library ... Maddy Dr Madeleine Gray Reader in History School of Education/Ysgol Addysg University of Wales, Newport/Prifysgol Cymru, Casnewydd Caerleon Campus/Campws Caerllion, Newport/Casnewydd NP18 3QT Tel: +44 (0)1633.432675 'Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness' (Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms) ________________________________ From: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious culture [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Marjorie Greene [[log in to unmask]] Sent: 21 November 2010 01:51 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [M-R] saints of the day 20. November/Essex reliquary medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture This page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena_of_Constantinople shows H. in various venues with a huge cross, especially the shrine in Saint Peter's, and with or without crown. The Essex find appears rather bizarre to me. All I could see of Magi was a name that looked more like "IASPAR" than "Caspar," if indeed that was what Jim was referring to. But I think the refusal to accept Helena as the person in question solely on the "no crown" basis is incorrect. MG Marjorie Greene http://medrelart.shutterfly.com/ --- On Sat, 11/20/10, Madeleine Gray <[log in to unmask]> wrote: From: Madeleine Gray <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: [M-R] saints of the day 20. November To: [log in to unmask] Date: Saturday, November 20, 2010, 5:14 PM medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture I've been trying several times to send to the list a link to our BBC reporting of a reliquary found in a field in Essex. Apparently the British Museum has described it as depicting the Virgin Mary with a cross symbolising the Pieta. A colleague emailed suggesting it was more likely St Helen and was told very firmly that it couldn't be Helen because the figure is not crowned. I'd like to consult the collective wisdom of the list - so I'll try to send this again but without the link in case that's the problem. Without the link you can find it by going to the BBC site and keying in Reliquary as a search term. Maddy Dr Madeleine Gray Reader in History School of Education/Ysgol Addysg University of Wales, Newport/Prifysgol Cymru, Casnewydd Caerleon Campus/Campws Caerllion, Newport/Casnewydd NP18 3QT Tel: +44 (0)1633.432675 'Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness' (Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms) ________________________________________ From: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious culture [[log in to unmask]<http:[log in to unmask]>] on behalf of John Dillon [[log in to unmask]<http:[log in to unmask]>] Sent: 20 November 2010 16:47 To: [log in to unmask]<http:[log in to unmask]> Subject: [M-R] saints of the day 20. November medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Today (20. November) is the feast day of: 1) Basil of Antioch (d. 2d cent.). B. is entered under today in the later fourth- or early fifth-century Syriac Martyrology as an "ancient martyr" (i.e. one who suffered prior to the Diocletianic persecution). He is also entered under today, along with an otherwise unidentified Dionysius, in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology. The latter repertory has another entry for B., along with an Auxilius and a Saturninus, under 27. November. That entry, now considered multiply erroneous, underlay the commemoration under that day in the pre-2001 RM of the the three saints so named. Restoring B. to his better attested day leaves us as much in the dark as before about details of his life and suffering. For a fictional Basil of Antioch of the same period, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silver_Chalice 2) Dorus of Benevento (?). The cult of this poorly documented saint of the Regno is attested by pope St. Leo I in a letter of 448 (_Ep._ 417 Jaffe-Wattenbach). His putative relics were among those translated on 15. May 1119 by archbishop Landulf II to his recently built cathedral (the present one, which has since undergone modifications, horrific bomb damage in World War II, and a modern rebuilding). 3) Hippolytus of Condat (d. later 8th cent.). According to the mid-twelfth-century catalogue of the abbots of the monastery of Condat (for most of the Middle Ages called Saint-Oyend; today's Saint-Claude [Jura] in Franche-Comté), H. was a bishop and abbot who served in the former capacity for seven years and in the latter capacity for twenty-six years. While some, both medievally and recently, have supposed that he was the homonymous bishop of Belley listed in that diocese's eleventh-century catalogue of bishops, the combination of evidence pointing to that H.'s having lived in the sixth century and the presence of a bishop H. of the abbey of Condat among the subscribers of the acts of the council of Attigny in 762 makes it appear that the two are distinct. Some views and a brief, English-language discussion of H.'s originally twelfth(?)-century but much rebuilt church at Saint-Hippolyte (Doubs) will be found toward the bottom of this page: http://home.eckerd.edu/~oberhot/romanesque-jura.htm Other views: http://clochers.free.fr/base/sthippo.html H. is also the titular of the église collégiale Saint-Hippolyte in Poligny (Jura), founded in about 1430. Some views of that church: http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/9833983.jpg http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/7181475.jpg http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/10049328.jpg http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/10049332.jpg http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeanmannecy/2790344426/sizes/o/ 4) Edmund the Martyr (d. 869 or 870). E. was a king of the East Angles slain in battle against invading Danes. He has very brief notices in the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ (under 870) and in Asser's _Vita Alfredi_ (cap. 33). His veneration as a saint is first documented from coinage of the later ninth and early tenth centuries. Abbo of Fleury's late tenth-century _Passio_ of E. (BHL 2392) presents him as a willing victim for his people who sacrifices himself to certain torture and death in order to prevent further bloodshed. Abbo further relates the miraculous Inventio of E.'s head by Christians who already had his body and his later translation to a splendid church at the royal vill of Beadericesworth (later, Bury St Edmunds). Relics believed to be those of E. were venerated there until the Dissolution. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.736 is a richly illustrated, earlier twelfth-century (ca. 1130) miscellany of texts related to E. Its catalog description is here: http://tinyurl.com/2c8t4w6 Starting here, one can go from page to page of reproductions of the illuminations: http://tinyurl.com/27smpjm To see a list of captions for these, go to <http://corsair.themorgan.org/> and click on "Search the catalog". In the next screen enter <M.736> in the box marked "Find This", limit this search to "Medieval Images only", and click on "Search". Other visuals: a) Pennies said to be from E.'s reign (views expandable): http://finds.org.uk/earlymedievalcoins/rulers/ruler/id/166 b) Penny (before 905) commemorating E.: http://tinyurl.com/68ash6 c) E. crowned and offering to heaven the arrows of his martyrdom as depicted in a mid-thirteenth-century glass panel in the Church of St Mary, Saxlingham Nethergate (Norfolk; photograph courtesy of Gordon Plumb): http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/2438839667/ d) E.'s martyrdom as depicted in the early fourteenth-century (1307) Breviary of Chertsey Abbey (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Lat. liturg. d. 42, fol. 36r): http://tinyurl.com/23ox9qt e) E. (at right, seated) as depicted in a fourteenth-century painting on a stone pier in St Mary's Church, Lakenheath (Suffolk): http://www.paintedchurch.org/lakenhse.htm f) The abbey gate (mid-fourteenth-century) at Bury St Edmunds (Suffolk): http://tinyurl.com/6g5cy3 g) E. in full armor as depicted in a later thirteenth-century panel (ca. 1360) in a glass window of the Church of St Michael and All Angels, Heydour (Lincs; photograph by Gordon Plumb): http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3449668757/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3450481334/ h) E. (at left) as depicted on a panel of the Wilton Diptych (ca. 1395-1399) in the National Gallery, London: http://tinyurl.com/5ho5m2 i) E. as depicted in an earlier fifteenth-century glass roundel (ca. 1420-1440) from Hardwick House in Suffolk, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London: http://flickr.com/photos/66122200@N00/342266730 j) E. (at left, holding an arrow) as depicted in a fifteenth-century tracery light in St Lawrence's Church, Harpley (Norfolk; photograph courtesy of Gordon Plumb): http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3320361898/ k) E. (third from left, defaced) as depicted in full armor on a wooden screen in St Andrew's Church, Kimbolton (Cambs): http://www.standrew-kimbolton.org.uk/Images/S%20aisle2.jpg l) E. (at center) as depicted in a later fifteenth-century glass window in Holy Trinity Church, Long Melford (Suffolk; photo courtesy of Gordon Plumb): http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/2226700652/ m) Abbo's Passio of E. borrows from that of St. Sebastian by likening its subject shot with arrows to a hedgehog. Consequently, depictions of E.'s martyrdom can make him seem England's answer to St. Sebastian. Herewith some fourteenth- and fifteenth-century examples of that, courtesy of paintedchurch.org: http://www.paintedchurch.org/bishbbed.htm http://www.paintedchurch.org/stokeded.htm http://www.paintedchurch.org/picedmun.htm Roger Rosewell's review in _Vidimus_ no. 31 (July/August 2009) of Anthony Bale, ed., _St Edmund King and Martyr: Changing Images of a Medieval Saint_ (Woodbridge: York Medieval Press / Boydell and Brewer, 2009) has a useful survey of E.'s medieval cult and images: http://tinyurl.com/2653lny (The review that precedes this is of Gerallt Nash, ed., _Saving St Teilo’s: Bringing a Medieval Church to Life Again_). 5) Gregory the Decapolite (d. ca. 841). We know about the visionary and thaumaturge G. chiefly from his closely posthumous Bios (BHG 711) by Ignatius the Deacon. A native of Irenopolis in the Isaurian Decapolis (in today's southwestern Turkey), he spent fourteen years in a monastery headed by a maternal uncle of his and then began a period of wandering that took him to Ephesus, to Proconnesus, through Thrace and Macedonia to Thessaloniki, thence to Corinth, thence by ship to Reggio di Calabria, and thence to Rome where he is said to have stayed for three months and to have sought pope Leo III's aid against the iconoclast emperor Leo V. On his return trip he lived for a while as an hermit at Syracuse and then traveled to Thessaloniki by way of Otranto where he ran afoul of an iconoclast bishop. In his second stay at Thessaloniki G. acquired as a disciple the young St. Joseph the Hymnographer (3. April), with whom he visited Constantinople and whom he sent on his disastrous mission to pope Gregory IV. As both the Bios and a canon by Joseph attest, his cult was immediate. After G.'s death Joseph is said to have built in Constantinople a church dedicated to St. Nicholas of Myra into which he translated G.'s remains. Relics believed to be G.'s (in some accounts, his incorrupt body) are kept in the originally late fifteenth-century and since rebuilt Bistriţa (Vâlcea) monastery near Râmnicu Vâlcea in Romania, whither they are said to have been brought by one of the founders, Barbu Craiovescu, a ban of Wallachia, who supposedly purchased them from a Turkish official. Herewith two views of G.'s reliquary chest in that monastery: http://tinyurl.com/28w3n4l http://tinyurl.com/22k8tn9 G. as a depicted in a tenth- or eleventh-century manuscript illumination (Greek, clearly, but where?): http://tinyurl.com/249kgfr A reduced, black-and-white image of G. as depicted in the late tenth- or very early eleventh-century so-called Menologion of Basil II (Città del Vaticano, BAV, Vat. gr. 1613, fol. 197r): http://tinyurl.com/2aphfww G. as depicted in a late thirteenth- or very early fourteenth-century fresco, attributed to Manuel Panselinos, in the Protaton church on Mt. Athos: http://tinyurl.com/27py6hk 6) Bernward of Hildesheim (d. 1022). Our chief source for B.'s life is his Vita by his former teacher Tangmar (d. ca. 1002) as supplemented by others (BHL 1253, 1254). After study at Hildesheim and then at Mainz, where he was ordained priest, he spent six years as a chaplain at the imperial court where he was tutor to the future Otto III. In 993 B. was consecrated bishop of Hildesheim, where he reformed episcopal government, founded the abbey of St. Michael, and defended his city against incursions of Northmen. He created an impressive episcopal library and was an important patron of many arts. B. was buried in the abbey church of St. Michael, to whose monks his cult was authorized by a council at Erfurt in 1150. Papal canonization ensued in 1193. In the following year B.'s relics were divided, some going to the cathedral and others remaining in the abbey upon whose suppression in 1803 they passed to the church of the Magdalene. Hildesheim's abbey church of St. Michael was begun by B. very early in the eleventh century and was completed by his successor St. Godehard in 1033 Here's an illustrated, English-language page on it: http://tinyurl.com/7lgyx Further views: http://tinyurl.com/3bte4v http://tinyurl.com/2jms2j http://tinyurl.com/2v65gw The cathedral of the BVM at Hildesheim (the "Hildesheimer Dom") was initially built by B. during the period 1010-1020. Subsequently modified, horribly bomb-damaged in World War II, and since rebuilt, it has at least two pieces of liturgical furniture dating from its adornment by B.: A paschal candlestick (commonly referred to as a column because of its form and because it is an imitation of Trajan's column in Rome): http://hvanilla.sakura.ne.jp/hildesheim/image/hildesheim14.jpg http://hvanilla.sakura.ne.jp/hildesheim/image/hildesheim15.jpg and a great _corona_ (suspended holder for multiple lamps or candles) used for extra illumination on special feasts: http://hvanilla.sakura.ne.jp/hildesheim/image/hildesheim21.jpg B.'s bronze doors for this cathedral also survive: http://tinyurl.com/6dj7s2 Expandable views of some panels start about a quarter of the way down this page: http://tinyurl.com/6kpa86 This early eleventh-century pair of altar candlesticks is traditionally thought to date from B.'s time: http://tinyurl.com/fl9og A page of views of B.'s reliquary shrine in the Magdalenenkirche at Hildesheim: http://tinyurl.com/6ntc4y 7) Cyprian of Calamizzi (d. ca. 1215). This less well known saint of the Regno (also C. of Reggio; in Italian: Cipriano di Calamizzi, often C. dei Calamizzi) was a medical doctor from a wealthy family of Reggio di Calabria who by turns became a monk, then an hermit on family property at Pavigliana in the coastal hills south of the medieval city (whence he is also sometimes called Cipriano di Pavigliana), and finally abbot of the extramural Greek monastery of St. Nicholas of Calamizzi near the outflow of the river Calopinace. In the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries the area around Reggio was rural and largely Greek-speaking, with a populace that supported numerous small monasteries as well as a cultured elite of lay professionals descended from the nobility of what until recently had been a Byzantine possession. C., who seems to have been responsible for the development of a locally significant scriptorium at the Calamizzi monastery (which he rebuilt and embellished), represents a link between these two elements of the population. Both C.'s Bios (BHG Supp., 2089; written by March 1242) and the surviving hymns in his honor (four stichera and a theotokion) are modest productions. But the former is noteworthy for its survival only at the monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai. Though its presence there is explainable from that monastery's having had a dependency at Messina, diagonally across the strait from Reggio, it also serves as a reminder that texts of Italo-Greek origin could travel widely in the greater Byzantine cultural area. A prose prayer for healing found in Italo-Greek manuscripts circulated under C.'s name as well as anonymously. C.'s monastery of St. Nicholas survived the seismic sinking of the Calamizzi promontory in 1562 but fell victim to the very destructive earthquake of 1783. There are caves in the hills around Pavigliana that were once hermitages; C. is thought to have lived for a while in one of these. In this map of today's Reggio, Punta Calamizzi is no. 10 and the area of it that sank is colored blue-green: http://tinyurl.com/34hzrw In that map, no. 4 is the area of the medieval city. The latter's outline is still plainly visible in this map of the city from 1700: http://tinyurl.com/2bsg84 8) Ambrogio Traversari (Bl.; d. 1439). A student of the emigre Greek professor Manuel Chrysoloras, the Camaldolese monk A. was the leading early Quattrocento translator (into Latin) of Greek patristic writings, General of his order from 1431 to 1434, and a moving spirit of the Council of Florence. An expandable view of the explicit of a fifteenth-century manuscript of A.'s translation of the _De mystica theologia_ of pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (Città del Vaticano, BAV, ms. Pal. lat. 148, fol. 106v): http://tinyurl.com/6huso2 Best, John Dillon (last year's post revised) ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask]<http:[log in to unmask]> To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask]<http:[log in to unmask]> To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask]<http:[log in to unmask]> In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask]<http:[log in to unmask]> For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask]<http:[log in to unmask]> To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask]<http:[log in to unmask]> To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask]<http:[log in to unmask]> In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask]<http:[log in to unmask]> For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html ********************************************************************** 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 ********************************************************************** 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