medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today, April 25, is the feast of:
Mark the Evangelist (d. c64, supposedly) The gospel that bears his name was already attributed to to Mark early in the second century by Papias, who derived his information from John the Presbyter. Eusebius reports an earlier tradition that Mark was Peter's "interpreter." From the gospel itself, it seems clear that Mark was not a native of Palestine and was writing for a non-Jewish audience. He may be the same person as the John Mark who appears in Acts. Eusebius also knew a tradition, not vouched for by Clement of Alexandria, that Mark founded the church of Alexandria in Egypt and was its first bishop. Jerome says that Mark died there. Eusebius, in saying that St. Anianus became Mark's first successor in the Alexandrian see in the eighth year of Nero (so 63/64) gives an approximate date for Mark's death. According to the legendary fourth- or fifth-century Acts of Mark (Martyrium Marci), this occurred by martyrdom at Alexandria on a return visit two years after Anianus became his successor there.
By the end of the fourth century Mark had a tomb at Alexandria that was the object of pilgrimage. By then too he had an important basilica at Constantinople, erected by Theodosius the Great. The emperor Romanus I restored it in the first half of the tenth century. In the late eighth century the Friulans Paul the Deacon and Paulinus of Aquileia gave voice to the belief that Mark had been the apostle of the upper Adriatic. In 829 the Venetian doge Giustiniano Particiaco left money in his will for the erection in his city a church to house Mark's remains (apparently not including his head, which Alexandrians still claim to have). The narrative portion of the tenth-century Translation of St. Mark to Venice provides a nicely detailed story of how these remains got there from Alexandria - some Venetian merchants stole his relics, hiding them in a barrel of pork so the Muslim customs guards wouldn't look too closely. That early church (consecrated in 832) is long gone. Its late eleventh-century replacement was in the thirteenth century adorned with spolia from Constantinople, including perhaps pieces from Mark's Theodosian basilica there. Mark's emblem the lion, like the emblems of the other evangelists, is a very early tradition. Already in the time of Augustine and Jerome, the four living creatures of the Apocalypse were held to be typical of the evangelists.
A few views of full-page depictions of Mark from various gospel books:
a) Rossano Gospels (Byzantine; sixth-century; also known as the Codex Purpureus of Rossano), Rossano (CS), diocesan museum (this is said to be the oldest surviving portrait of an evangelist in the history of manuscript illumination): http://tinyurl.com/3yd86d
b) Lindisfarne Gospels (Northumbria, late seventh- or early eighth-century), London, BL, Cotton MS Nero D. IV, fol. 93b:
http://www.katapi.org.uk/BibleMSS/LindisfarneMk.htm
c) Lichfield Gospels (Gospels of St Chad; eighth-century), Lichfield, cathedral library: http://tinyurl.com/2npljz
d) Blois Gospels (earlier ninth-century), Paris, BnF, ms. Latin, fol. 73v: http://tinyurl.com/25c27v5
e) Soissons Gospels (earlier ninth-century), Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 8850, fol. 81v: http://tinyurl.com/265r8s , http://tinyurl.com/2s4nqp
f) Lothar Gospels (mid-ninth-century), Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 266, fol. 75v: http://tinyurl.com/26448zm
g) Landévennec Gospels (Brittany; ninth-century), Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Auct. D. 2. 16, fol. 71v: http://tinyurl.com/3bqpjo
h) Trebizond Gospels (Armenian; eleventh-century), Venice, San Lazzaro, Mekhitarist Library, MS 1400/108: http://tinyurl.com/6ccxwz
i) A Greek-language gospels from Constantinople (eleventh- or twelfth-century), Paris, BnF, ms. Coislin 20, fol. 151v: http://tinyurl.com/2f3q792
j) A Greek-language gospels from Sicily or mainland southern Italy (twelfth-century), Glasgow University Library, MS Hunter 475 (V.7.2), fol. 110v: http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/apr2006.html
k) A Greek-language gospels from Constantinople (thirteenth-century), Paris, BnF, ms. Grec 54, fol. 111r: http://tinyurl.com/2dtro4t
Mark as depicted in the mid-eleventh-century mosaics of the Nea Moni on Chios: http://tinyurl.com/2dyb78m , http://tinyurl.com/22ruk3c
Mark as depicted in the mid-eleventh-century mosaics of the cathedral of St. Sophia in Kyiv (Kiev): http://www.icon-art.info/masterpiece.php?lng=en <http://www.icon-art.info/masterpiece.php?lng=en&mst_id=982> &mst_id=982
Mark in a relief on the early thirteenth-century north portal of the abbey church of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire (Loiret): http://tinyurl.com/2eezbhk
Mark as depicted in the frescoes (c1317-1324) of the church of St. Demetrius in the Patriarchate of Peć at Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija: http://tinyurl.com/293v22f , http://tinyurl.com/2dqevax
Mark as depicted in a window (c1380) from the cathedral of Erfurt, now in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich: http://tinyurl.com/2dkwy8k
The modern copy of Donatello's statue of Mark (1411-1413) for the church of Orsanmichele in Florence on display in the appropriate niche:
http://tinyurl.com/2dywee , http://tinyurl.com/yrjtam , http://tinyurl.com/26p2ub
Mark as depicted by Beato Angelico in the Museo Nazionale di San Marco in Florence:
The Martyrdom of St. Mark (c1433): http://tinyurl.com/28rn6a
Detail (St. Mark), Crucifixion and Saints (c1441-42): http://tinyurl.com/yop6jy
Same, entire composition: http://tinyurl.com/23ud5n
Mark enthroned as depicted by Bartolomeo Vivarini in an altarpiece from 1476 in the basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice:
http://tinyurl.com/2eznmrm
Anianus/Annianus (d. 1st. century, supposedly) is the fairly legendary first bishop of Alexandria after St. Mark, whom, according to Eusebius, he succeeded in 63 or 64. The Acts of Mark (Martyrium Marci) relate how Mark, freshly arrived at Alexandria, took to the cobbler Anianus his sandal whose strap had just broken. During the repair, Anianus accidentally injured his hand with an awl. Mark caused the wound to heal forthwith, whereupon Anianus gave Mark the hospitality of his own home. From there Mark preached the gospel in Alexandria and there he converted Anianus and his family along with many others. Mark later moved on to the Pentapolis but before he left Alexandria he established Anianus as its bishop.
A smallish view of a relief (1478) by Pietro Lombardo, in the portal lunette of Venice's church of San Tomà (the cobblers' church), of Mark healing Anianus: http://tinyurl.com/2w6hor
A view of a relief (c1481) by Tullio Lombardo, in Venice's church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo (San Zanipolo), of Mark baptizing Anianus: http://www.wga.hu/art/l/lombardo/tullio/mocenig2.jpg
Kebius (4th century) A native of Cornwall, legend reports that Kebius was consecrated bishop by Hilary of Poitiers, after which he returned to Cornish lands as a missionary.
Phaebadius/Phoebadius/Fiari/Foebadius/Febadius/( in French) Phébade or Phébadius of Agen (d. c392) was the first attested bishop of Agen in Gascony. As he is not among the subscribers of the acts of the Council of Serdica/Sardica (342-343), his elevation is presumed to have occurred between then and 357/58, the year in which he seem to have written his surviving treatise Contra Arianos. He was a strong ally of Hilary of Poitiers in the fight against Arianism. Although he doesn't seem to be known modernly, he was one of the greatest bishops of Gaul in the fourth century; he presided over several councils. Phaebadius was a major figure at the synod of Rimini in 359. He is also recorded among the participants in the synods of Valence in 374 and Zaragoza in 380 and, treated as an author who is still living, is the subject of chapter 108 of St. Jerome's De viris illustribus, written in 392-393.
Since 1112 remains believed to be those of Phaebadius have reposed at the originally eleventh-, but mostly thirteenth-/fourteenth-, century église Saint Pierre (et Saint Phébade) in Venerque (Haute-Garonne.
Stephen of Antioch (d. 481) In 478 the monophysite patriarch of Antioch was exiled and Stephen was imposed in his place. The monophysites didn't like this and eventually succeeded in murdering the interloper (in a church) and threw his body in the river.
Macedonius II of Constantinople (d. 516) provides a good lesson in how patriarchs of Constantinople should *not* deal with emperors. He was appointed patriarch in 496. But he insisted in return that the emperor accept the canons of the council of Chalcedon. The emperor didn't like conditions. Macedonius spent the rest of his life in exile.
Maccald/Maughold, bishop of Man (about 518) When St. Patrick was at Sabhall, or Saul, his favourite retreat, he met with one Maccald, Maugold, or Machaldus, a man of profligate life, and a captain of robbers, who harrassed the country with their continual plunderings and murders. Maccald was converted, and afterwards baptized. On asking what penance he should undergo for his crimes, Patrick ordered him to quite Ireland without taking anything with him except a coarse garment, and, entrusting himself in a leather coracle, to land in the first place whither the wind wafted him, and there to serve God. He obeyed, and was carried by the winds to the Isle of Man, where he was kindly received by two bishops, Conindrus and Romulus, who directed him in his penances, and with so much spiritual advantage, that he succeeded them as bishop of the island.
Clarentius (d. early 7th century) We know from the Chronicon of St. Ado of Vienne that in Ado's time Clarentius was thought to have been that city's twenty-ninth bishop. His successor, St. Sindulfus of Vienne, is recorded as having been present at a council in 626. Ado's martyrology enters Clarentius under today's date. For reasons that are not clear, Baronio in entering him in the RM moved his commemoration to April 26. Today's RM restores the commemoration to the earlier date of the 25th.
Ermin/Erminus/Erminius/Ermenus of Lobbes (d. 737) We know about Ermin from his late tenth-century Vita formerly ascribed to his immediate successor Anso of Lobbes as well as from matter in the also late tenth-century Gesta abbatum Lobiensium of Folcuin of Lobbes (Folcuin of Saint-Bertin). According to these accounts, Ermine was born at Erclie, near Laon, and was ordained priest by Madalgar, bishop of Laon. He was abbot-bishop St. Ursmar's chosen succesor, being consecrated bishop (an office that both permitted Lobbes to conduct missions and that reduced external interference) in 711 and installed as abbot following Uusmar's death in 718. He was noted for his extensive missionary activities and for numerous miracles. Today is his dies natalis.
Heribald, bishop of Auxerre (857): An ancient Gallican martyrology relates that the light of Heribald's virtues, although hidden for long time in a monastic cell, afterwards spread its rays over the whole of Gaul. He had been a monk who became abbot of St. Germain and later bishop of Auxerre.
Franca of Piacenza (d. 1218) We know about the Benedictine abbess and Cistercian founding abbess Franca (also Francesca [da] Vitalta, after the comital family to which she is said to have belonged) from a brief, allegedly shortly post-mortem account by a prior Lanfranc of the Cistercian house of Santa Maria di Ponte Trebbia (a.k.a. Santa Maria di Quartazzo) and from an earlier thirteenth-century Vita by a Cistercian priest from Milan, Bertramus Reoldus, deriving from information he learned while in exile in Piacenza. The first of these, in a report of two visions received by Cistercian from Ponte Trebbia's mother house of Chiaravallle della Colomba, tells us that Franca had entered a monastery at Piacenza, that from there she had founded a new house which after a false start elsewhere was established in the wilderness at a place called Locus sanctus, and that on her death she had been received as a saint in Heaven.
Lanfranc adds that the pope had decreed that Franca be honored as a saint on earth. Father Bertramus' account tells us additionally that she belonged to the aforementioned comital house, that she had been oblated at the age of seven in the Benedictine monastery of St. Syrus in Piacenza, that she there became abbess but provoked dissent through attempts to enforce stricter observance of the Rule (for example, prohibiting such practices as the cooking of vegetables in wine), that she became a Cistercian at Rapallo and together with another noble (Carenzia Visconti) founded her Cistercian house of Locus sanctus, that she was famous for miracles (many of which are described), that after her death her body was translated twice, winding up in Piacenza, and that other Cistercian houses descended from hers.
Bertramus' Vita would appear to have been destined for a canonization campaign. In Piacenza, the tradition was that her cult had been confirmed by Gregory X (said to have been a relative of the aforementioned Carenzia Visconti, who succeeded Franca as abbess of Locus sanctus). In the mid-sixteenth century Franca became the titular of a new church in Piacenza; in the early seventeenth century Paul V recognized her cult for the diocese of Piacenza at the level of Saint, the title she also bears in the RM.
Boniface of Valperga (blessed) (d. 1243) Boniface started his career as a Benedictine monk at Fruttuaria, but transferred to the Augustinian canons and became prior at St. Ursus, Aosta. He went on from there to become bishop of Aosta in 1219. His cult was confirmed in 1890.
Philippinus of Castille (d. 1290) Not formally canonized. According to tradition, the Franciscan tertiary Philippinus accompanied St. Antony of Padua from Spain to Italy in 1221. He was present at the deathbed of St. Francis, and afterwards lived for over 60 years as a hermit near Montalcino in Tuscany. He was very highly honored for his mystical gifts, most notably the gift of tears.
Happy reading,
Terri Morgan
--
From the Book of Kerric:
"It requires great strength to be kind, whereas even the very weak can be brutal. Likewise, to speak hard truths fearlessly is often the hallmark of greatness. Bring me one who is both gentle and truthful, ...and I will show you an iron oak among hawthorns, a blessing on all who know them."
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