medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today, June 23, is the feast of:
Agrippina (d. c256, supposedly) A virgin martyr of Rome said to have been put to death in the reign of Valerian (253-60), she is unknown to the early martyrologies. Whereas her cult has traveled widely, she is essentially an Italo-Greek saint of Sicily principally venerated at today's Mineo. Agrippina's legend is attested to by a Latin-language Translation from Rome to Mineo as well as by a Greek-language Office, Canon, and brief menaion entry, all transmitted in sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century printed sources drawing upon older Sicilian manuscripts. These together form a reasonably coherent dossier suggesting that this legend, as we now have it, goes back as least as far the eighth century (possibly earlier if a post-mortem miracle said to have occurred during a Muslim raid is a later accretion). Agrippina is said to have been brought to Mineo shortly after her death and to have been buried at a spot where a church was later erected in her honor. At some point in the central Middle Ages her cult reached Constantinople; from there it spread as far as Russia. In the Latin West, an offshoot developed in Köln. She is patron of both Köln and Mineo. She is invoked against evil spirits, leprosy and thunderstorms. Agrippina was dropped from the RM in its revision of 2001. Today is her feast day in Sicilian dioceses of the Roman Catholic church and in Orthodox churches worldwide.
Zeno and Zenas (c304) Zeno was a rich citizen of Philadelphia (near the Dead Sea); Zenas was his emancipated former slave. Both were beheaded in Diocletian's persecution.
John of Rome (d. 362) A Roman priest, decapitated in the reign of Julian. It has been suggested that the head of John "the Baptist" at San Silvestro in Capite, Rome probably was originally attached to this John instead.
John Cassian (d. c435) After a classical education, John Cassian went as a pilgrim to Palestine and entered the monastery in Bethlehem. Some years later, he and a friend went to the Egyptian desert, spending some years there. In c401, however, he went to Constantinople, where he became a deacon under John Chrysostom, who in 405 sent John to Rome. John spent the rest of his life in Marseilles, where he founded monasteries for both men and women. He is most noted for his writings about the desert fathers, but he also composed several other works, including an extended attack on Nestorianism.
Nazarius (mid-sixth century) is a popular saint of Capodistria (Italy). He was born near Capodistria sometime in the sixth century, and is regarded as the first bishop of that city, consecrated in 524. Nazarius is especially noted for the defense of his city against the Goths.
Etheldreda/Æthelthryth/Audrey/ Ediltrudis (d. 679) was one of four saints who were all daughters of King Anna of East Anglia. Her father gave her to her first husband, the elderly Tonbert, who agreed to a chaste marriage. The kingdom of East Anglia probably profited by his endowment of Ely and its fenlands to her (though there is some disagreement as to whether he owned it first or she had it from the start as a dowry). The marriage lasted three years before Tonbert died. Five years later, in 660, her brother subsequently gave her to the fifteen-year-old Egfrid of Northumbria but no one says what he got in return. The agreement in both cases to respect her virginity was upheld in the second marriage by her alliance with archbishop Wilfrid. In the seventh century chaste marriage (either non-consummated or entailing a later vow of abstinence) was upheld by the church on the grounds that Joseph and Mary had a valid marriage. It was also an instrument for trying to get priests who were married to give up their conjugal rights (with mixed success). It is possible that Egfrid agreed to the non-consummation of his marriage because he already had a sexually active wife or acquired one in the course of the marriage. Bede makes a villainess out of his "second" wife Iurmenberg because she was hostile to Wilfrid but the chronology of these marriages was far from clear. It is suspected that Bede may have consistently fudged or concealed polygamous habits among the Anglo-Saxons. In any case, Egfrid did try to renege and both Etheldreda and Wilfrid had to flee the kingdom as a result. Though again, there may have been more political causes for the breach than Bede cares to let on. By the time Egfrid succeeded to the throne a decade later Etheldreda, determined to remain a virgin, was being counseled spiritually by St. Wilfrid.
In about 672 she became a nun at Coldingham, where her aunt St. Ebbe was abbess, and in the following year she founded a double monastery of her own on her estates at Ely. Before 678, when her husband finally divorced her, she had given Wilfrid the estate on which he founded his monastery at Hexham. When Etheldreda died (of plague) she had been abbess for only seven years. In 695 her sister St. Sexburga (Seaxburh), who had succeeded her as abbess, oversaw in Wilfrid's presence the translation of Etheldreda's allegedly incorrupt remains from the nuns' cemetery to a sarcophagus near the high altar of the abbey church. She is the first saint of England whose entire body was declared so to have been miraculously preserved, though St. Cuthbert would provide another instance only a few years later (698). Not only her tomb but also her coffin and her original burial clothes were held to be wonder-working. And to the wonder of those there, her neck tumor, which had caused her death, was gone – appearing healed after her death.
Etheldreda's cult survived in fine style both the Norman Conquest and the short-lived revolt based on Ely that followed a few years after. In 1106 she was translated to a new shrine in the choir of the rebuilt abbey church, soon (1109) to be Ely cathedral. New Vitae and miracle collections were written. Her shrine remained popular until its destruction during the Dissolution. Her hand is still kept at the Catholic church at Ely.
In an odd linguistic note, the word "tawdry" is a corruption of "St. Audrey" (= Etheldreda) and refers to the quality of merchandise that was sold in the saint's honor at Ely. Specifically, "Tawdry lace" which was a silk cord or ribbon sold at St Audrey's Fair and worn as a necklace (neck lace). "Tawdry" was thus originally a noun rather than an adjective: "Buy me a Tawdry, Uncle Baldric!" The word came to be used of any cheap and gaudy finery.
St. Audrey had died of a tumor in her throat, which she considered to be a just retribution, because in her youth she had for vain show adorned her neck with manifold splendid necklaces. These "ribbons" had undoubtedly been touched to St Etheldreda's reliquary and thus had the status of contact relics. They also fall into a larger category of propitiatory devotional practices surrounding ribbons that, in all likelihood, represents a synchretic practice that, in one form or another, predated the arrival of Christianity in Europe. Besides being worn, ribbons such as these could be buried, burned or attached to trees, in the hopes of miraculous interventions to cure diseases, etc. Remnants of such practices still survive in various rural parts of Europe, e.g. The "arbre de St Claude" near Neuville-Coppegueule in Picardy, which is still quite regularly covered with ribbons.
The Church of St. Etheldreda, in downtown London (right in the heart of The City, in fact), dates from the 13th century originated as the palace chapel of the bishop of Ely and after the Reformation was used as a chapel for Catholic ambassadors, especially the Spanish ambassador. Later it was used as a warehouse before becoming a functioning Catholic church again.
Etheldreda (at left) as depicted on fol. 90v of the so-called Benedictional of St Æthelwold (c973; London, BL, Add MS 49598), with a benediction commencing on fol. 91r: http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/sdk13/MSS/etheldreda.JPG
Mural painting of Etheldreda (mid-thirteenth-century), St Mary and All Saints Church, Willingham (Cambs): http://www.paintedchurch.org/wilhamet.htm
Another view: http://tinyurl.com/2vzphk3
Four scenes from Etheldreda's life (panel paintings, c1455), courtesy of the Society of Antiquaries of London: http://tinyurl.com/3xaqbjf
Gwentroc/Ventroc (7th century?) in the small parish of Treflez (Brittany) ; but the "official" patron of the parish church is saint Ediltrude since the early 17th century, and maybe earlier. As Brieuc's mother is also named Eldruda in the saint's vita (written around 1050), we can imagine that the development of the cult of the Anglo-Saxon princess in Brittany is a consequence of such homonymy ; but Ediltrude is also mentioned in the old calendar of Landevennec Abbey (around 950) at the date of 23 June : Natale sanctae Hildetrudae virginis.
Colman of Lismore (d. c702) became abbot-bishop of Lismore (Co. Waterford, as anyone knows who likes fine crystal) in 698. The monastery and its school reached a height in his reign.
Jacob of Toul (d. 769) Possibly a Benedictine monk, Jacob became bishop of Toul in 756. According to tradition, he supported Benedictine monasticism strongly. He is supposed to have died while returning from a pilgrimage to Rome, while praying before the grave of St. Benignus in Dijon.
Lietbert of Cambrai (d. 1076) is Lietbert I in the numeration of the bishops of Cambrai-Arras. In 1051 he succeeded his uncle, bishop Gerhard I, who had educated him and later promoted him through various offices to the provostship of the cathedral chapter and archdeacon of Cambrai. Late in life, Lietbert led a difficult pilgrimage (a contemporary account says there were 3000 pilgrims)to the Holy Land that turned into a disaster because a civil war was going on in Hungary at the time, the pilgrims were attacked by disease and famine besides hostile bands, and finally they were shipwrecked. Fewer than 1000 survived to reach Laodicea, only to learn that the Muslim authorities had closed the Holy Sepulcher to Christian visitors. So he did the next best thing when he finally limped back to Cambrai, building a church dedicated to the Holy Sepulcher and praying there a lot. His Vita by Ralph of St-Trond details this disappointing journey at considerable length. He promoted monastic reform in his diocese. Lietbert excommunicated the lord of Cambrai, who responded by brutally persecuting Lietbert. His cult was approved in 1211.
Excerpts from Raoul's Vita are here in an English-language translation: http://www.web.pdx.edu/~ott/hst399/vitalietberti/index.html
Peter of Juilly (blessed) (d. 1136) There is an unconfirmed cult of Peter among the Cistercians. He was an Englishman, a companion of St. Stephen Harding at Molesme. Peter became chaplain of the Benedictine nuns of Juilly-les-Nonnais (where Bernard's sister was abbess). He was a miracle worker and great preacher.
Lanfranc of Pavia (d. 1194) Unlike his better known homonym of about a century earlier, this Lanfranc of Pavia was a theologian who never went to Bec or to Canterbury but instead became bishop in his home town of Pavia. According to his Vita et Miracula by his successor, the jurist Bernard of Pavia, he was charitable to the poor, a protector of widows and orphans, assiduous and effective in recovering church property that had been alienated, a prudent defender of the faith, and a scourge of heretics; his enemies thought him proud and cruel. He fought continuously with Pavia's communal government over ecclesiastical property and ecclesiastical rights, was exiled, took refuge in the Vallombrosan monastery of San Sepolcro within the city, later fled to Rome, and was restored by the diplomacy of Clement III. When later a new government renewed its struggle with the bishop, Lanfranc attempted to resign. He moved from his palace to San Sepolcro but died before he could fulfill his intention of becoming a Vallombrosan monk. Today is his dies natalis. Miracles followed his burial at San Sepolcro and a cult arose. When in the first half of the thirteenth century the monks of San Sepolcro built a new church (utilizing some of the previous structure) it was dedicated to Lanfranc and consecrated by the local bishop. He has never been papally canonized. In the RM he's a beatus.
In Pavia's chiesa di San Lanfranco, Lanfranc now reposes there in a tomb sculpted by Giovanni Antonio Amadeo commissioned in 1498 and completed after February 1508: http://www.pavianet.com/images/lanfranco.jpg , http://www.sanlanfranco.it/typo3temp/pics/ed2941e970.jpg
Lanfranc as depicted (enthroned, between St. John the Baptist and St. Liberius) by Giovanni Battista Cima (a.k.a. Cima da Conegliano) in a panel painting of c1515-1516 now in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge: http://tinyurl.com/28oux3h
The Fitzwilliam's page on this painting: http://tinyurl.com/2b5hsf6
Mary/Maria of Oignies (blessed) (d. 1213) Considered one of the first Beguines, the daughter of wealthy citizens of Nivelles, Mary of Oignes took to a life of extreme asceticism at a young age - refusing as a child to have her hair curled, to play games, etc. She was married off at age 14, but convinced her husband that sex was a Bad Idea and it would be much better to turn their home into a leprosarium. She spent her life fasting, depriving herself of sleep, praying prostrate on the bare ground in midwinter, etc. It's no wonder that she had "the gift of tears" and became a visionary. She attracted many visitors looking for spiritual guidance, but finally spent the last years of her life (before dying at the ripe age of 38) as a widowed recluse. She perhaps enjoyed the first known case of the stigmata in Christian history. Her Vita was written by Jacques de Vitry, who had been her confessor and disciple.
homas Corsini (1345) joined the Servites after he had repeated visions of Mary, inviting him to fight under her banner.
Happy reading,
Terri Morgan
--
" Nobility depends not on parentage or place of birth, but on breadth of compassion and of loving-kindness. If we would be noble, let us be greathearted."
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