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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Today (15. December) is the feast day of: 1) Susannah the Deaconess (d. 362, supposedly). According to her legendary Bios kai Martyrion (i.e. Vita et Passio; BHG 1673), S. (in Greek, Sosanna) was the daughter in Palestine of a pagan, Christian-hating priest and a Hebrew mother. When they had died she was baptized a Christian, gave away her inheritance to the poor, and determined to live ascetically. After cutting her hair short, changing her manner of dress, and taking the name John, she was accepted as a monk in a monastery for men at Jerusalem, where in time she (still passing for male) became hegumen. A nun who had become enamored of the supposed John tried unsuccessfully to win her affection and then tearfully told the bishop of Eleutheropolis that John had raped her. The bishop arrived with two deaconesses to whom S. revealed her true sex. S. was acquitted. Since she could no longer rule her then house, the bishop brought her back to Eleutheropolis, where he made her a deaconess and put her in charge of a house of nuns. There she served with spiritual distinction for many years until, in her old age, she was arrested during the Julianic persecution, refused to sacrifice to pagan gods, was tortured severely, and finally was starved to death in prison. S.'s _dies natalis_ was 19. September. Thus far S.'s Bios kai Martyrion. Cardinal Baronio entered her in the early RM under 19. September on the basis of her account under that day in a Greek menologion. She left the RM in its revision of 2001. Orthodox churches celebrate S. today, the date of her major commemoration in the Synaxary of Constantinople. 2) Valerian of Abbenza (d. 457). V. is a martyr of the Vandal persecution in Africa. Our only source for him is Victor of Vita's sometimes tendentious _Historia persecutionis Africanae provinciae_. An octogenarian, V. was expelled from the city of which he was bishop. His decree of banishment included a provision forbidding others to shelter him and he spent the brief remainder of his life on public roads. V. entered the historical martyrologies in the second edition of the martyrology of Florus of Lyon. 3) Maximinus of Micy (d. ca. 520, supposedly). According to his early ninth-century Vita (BHL 5817) by Berthold of Micy, M. (in French: Mesmin, Même) was the first abbot of the monastery of Micy on the Loire near Orléans. This institution was believed to have been founded by Clovis towards the beginning of the sixth century; whether it really was that old is unknown. Relics said to be those of M. were preserved in the abbey church. Among his alleged disciples are St. Leonard of Noblac and M.'s reputed successor as abbot, St. Avitus. Excerpts translated by Thomas Head from Berthold's Vita of M. are here: http://urban.hunter.cuny.edu/~thead/berthold.htm According to the Vita, M. was initially buried not at the abbey but in a spot of his own choosing where earlier he had killed what in translations of the Vita is called a dragon (I suspect that the Latin, which I have not seen, really signifies "huge serpent"]). This place is now La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin (Loiret). Its originally late eleventh-/twelfth-century église Saint-Mesmin has been much rebuilt. Herewith some views showing its partly restored early twelfth-century west portal. The second link is to a set of photographs whose views of the church are in the third line from the top: http://tinyurl.com/6fjc83 http://tinyurl.com/3664fb http://tinyurl.com/3duels http://tinyurl.com/32o574 The former prieuré Saint-Mesmin at Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine (Indre-et-Loire), dating from ca. 1060, was converted into a parish church in the thirteenth century and became private property with the suppression of the abbey in 1793. Here are two fairly recent views of the present structure: http://tinyurl.com/2yc6z6 http://www.francebalade.com/valvienne/stemaumesm2.jpg 4) Adalbero of Metz (d. 1005). As bishop of Metz, A. (in French, Adalbéron) is Adalbero II. A son of Frederick I of Upper Lorraine and of Beatrix, a sister of Hugh the Great, father of Hugh Capet, he was raised at the abbey of Gorze. A. became bishop of Verdun through family influence in 984 and in the same year gave up that see for the more important one at Metz. According to his eleventh-century Vita (BHL 29) by Constantinus, abbot of the monastery of St. Symphorian at Metz (which A. re-founded and in whose church he was buried ), A. vigorously defended his church's property interests against various local nobles, a number of whose castles he successfully besieged, while at the same time avoiding imperial military service for himself and his men through annual money payments most of which came from his personal resources. Said to have practiced self-mortification by fasts and by the continuous wearing of a hair shirt, he turned his palace into an hospital during a pestilence and himself tended the sores of the afflicted. In addition to the re-establishment of St. Symphorian, A. endowed the abbey of St. Maurice at Épinal, founded by his predecessor, made it a house for women, and established convents for women in Metz and at Neumünster in today's Luxembourg. The abbey church of St. Maurice and St. Goery at Épinal, made of wood in A.'s time, was rebuilt in stone in the mid-eleventh century and underwent major modifications into the thirteenth century. Herewith an illustrated, French-language page on the present basilique Saint-Maurice at Épinal: ttp://tinyurl.com/28mzk5g Single views http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/9167527.jpg http://tinyurl.com/y8wmnyr http://tinyurl.com/ycyujpq http://tinyurl.com/y9lkuyx http://tinyurl.com/2fao4w4 Multiple views: http://www.lorrainesud.com/epinal.html http://tinyurl.com/y8kc8ej http://tinyurl.com/y8fgpju A. has yet to grace the pages of the RM. In recent centuries the diocese of Metz has commemorated him, as a Beatus, on 13. or 14. December. Today is his day of commemoration, as a Saint, by the Église Orthodoxe de France. 5) Marinus of La Cava (Bl.; d. 1170). This less well known holy person of the Regno was abbot of the Benedictine monastery of the Most Holy Trinity at what is now Cava de' Tirreni (SA) in Campania. It is said that when, shortly after his election in 1146, he went to Rome to receive the blessing of the pope he was awarded not only that but also the Roman monastery of San Lorenzo in Formoso (now known as San Lorenzo in Panisperna) in order to reform it according to Cavensian discipline. In 1149 M. got the same pope (Eugenius III) to make Holy Trinity at La Cava an abbey _nullius_. In 1156 he got king William I to confirm all the abbey's rights and possessions and to proclaim its status as a royal abbey. During his lengthy time in office M., who previously had been the abbey's vestiarius (which put him in charge of a lot more than vestments), greatly increased the abbey's substance and embellished its church with marbles and with a polychrome mosaic floor. Though earthquakes and rebuilding have caused the loss of almost all this adornment, the abbey church retains a cosmatesque ambo from these years: http://tinyurl.com/ozn96 Here's a view of the twelfth-century crypt, with re-used columns said to be originally of the ninth or tenth century: http://www.scafati2.it/Cava/cripta.jpg M.'s cult was confirmed papally in 1928 in a job lot along with other blessed abbots of La Cava. Best, John Dillon (last year's post revised and with the addition of Susanna the deaconess) ********************************************************************** 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