Today, July 2, is the feast of:

The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (c4 BCE) The pregnant Mary's visit with her kinswoman Elizabeth, then pregnant with St. John the Forerunner (Luke 1:39-56) is commemorated in this feast, whose earliest secure attestation is said to be its adoption by the Order of Friars Minor in 1263. It was first adopted into the Roman Calendary in the late 14th century; the Council of Basel ordered its celebration; in 1369 pope Urban VI, in a decree published by his successor, Boniface IX and fixing its date on July 2, extended the feast to the entire Roman church. In the later Middle Ages it appears on calendars at a number of different dates. The day fixed by Urban remained the feast's day in the general Roman Calendar until the latter's revision promulgated in 1969, when it was moved to today. The date of 2 July seems to have come to the west from Constantinople, and particularly the Blachernae church, which possessed the Maphorion, the miraculous veil of the Mother of God. From an early date July 2 was celebrated there as the feast of the deposition of the veil of the Virgin in the church. The date was changed to May 31 in 1969.

Acestes (1st century) The legend of the martyrdom of Paul tells that Acestes and two other soldiers escorted Paul to his execution. They were both converted, and soon afterwards beheaded.

Processus and Martinian (?) are Roman martyrs of the Via Aurelia. Absent from the Depositio martyrum of the Chronographer of 354, they are recorded for today in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology (which also has them on May 31 and on July 1) and in the Gelasian and Gregorian sacramentaries and the Marble Calendar of Naples. Their cult is at least as old as the late fourth century when their now vanished martyrial church near the basilica of St. Pancras is already attested. About a century later Pope St. Gregory the Great delivered a sermon on their feast there. That sermon tells us nothing about the historical Processus and Martinian but it does tells us that they were invoked as healers and that during the time of the Gothic siege (537-38) a woman had seen the two saints dressed as monks. They have a legend that seems also to be at least as old as the later fourth century, as it already occurs in Pseudo-Linus' Martyrium beati Petri apostoli. This makes them Peter's jailers at Rome, converted by him and Peter baptized them using a spring that conveniently (and miraculously) appeared in the prison. The two were then tortured by their superior for refusing to sacrifice and finally killed. Their own Passio adds details. In the ninth century their relics were moved to St. Peter's, and are still under their altar in the south transept.

   Processus and Martinian as portrayed (at lower right) on a sarcophagus (c320-330) in the Bode Museum in Berlin: http://tinyurl.com/2vxcrnd

   Processus and Martinian as portrayed (at lower left) on the (c335) Sarcophagus of Marcus Claudianus in the Museo Nazionale Romano (Museo delle Terme) in Rome: http://tinyurl.com/2calk29

   Processus and Martinian as depicted in an early twelfth-century Office lectionary from the abbey of Saint-Pierre de la Couture at Le Mans (Le Mans, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 227, fol. 13r): http://tinyurl.com/3vs6ak

   The martyrdom of Processus and Martinian as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century French-language collection of saint's Lives (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 183, fol. 23v; illuminations attributed to the Fauvel Master): http://tinyurl.com/2fvx8lv

   Processus and Martinian as depicted in a Roman Missal of about 1370 (Avignon, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 136, fol. 252r): http://tinyurl.com/6exhtw

   Processus and Martinian as depicted in a window from 1439-1442 in Florence's cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore attributed to Agnolo Lippi under the supervision of Lorenzo Ghiberti: http://tinyurl.com/6nzy4e

   The martyrdom of Processus and Martinian  as depicted in a copy (1463) of Vincent of Beauvais' Speculum historiale in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 50, fol. 328v): http://tinyurl.com/2bkrm8z

Liberatus, Bonifacius, Servius, Rusticus, Rogatus, Septimus, and Maximus (d. 483) The RM enters them under today.  Previously it had entered them under August 17, the day used for them in the martyrologies of St. Ado and Usuard. See  Aug 17

Monegundis/Monegunda (d. 6th century) St. Gregory of Tours tells us that Monegundis was a married woman of Chartres who after the premature deaths of her daughters became, with her husband’s permission and assistance, a recluse in a specially prepared cell on her own premises. When a girl who had been her attendant withdrew from her service God provided sustenance for her. She operated miraculous cures, and, fleeing her growing fame, she went to Tours and established herself in a little cell near the tomb of St. Martin. Her husband brought her back to Chartres, installing her there in her previous cell. But with prayer and fasting, and through the aid of St. Martin, she was able to return to her cell at Tours. There she gathered a small community of women religious, operated many more cures, died, and was buried in her cell, where miracles continued to occur.

   She is entered for today both in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology and in liturgical sources from Tours from the ninth century onward. Ado entered her under July 1, Usuard entered her for today. Her relics, preserved at Tours' monastery of Saint-Pierre-Puellier, were profaned by Huguenots in 1562 but are said to have been recovered in large part. At Chimay in Belgian Hainaut an Monegundis who may or may not have been originally the same saint and whose veneration there is attested from 1119 was also celebrated on July 2. Her relics are said to have been burned in 1552. In 2006 the remnants of a ninth-century collégiale and of an older church beneath it were found at Chimay. Their connection with her is conjectural. A strong cult of Monegundis continued throughout the Middle Ages.

Oudoceus (d. c615), according to a much later vita, was the son of a Breton family that migrated to Wales in c545. Oudoceus became a monk in Llandogo (and bishop from c580 on). Legend reports that he went to Augustine of Canterbury for consecration; as a result, Oudoceus is commemorated in many English calendars. His shrine was at Llandaff until 1540.

Placing of the robe of the Theotokos (Mother of God) at Blachernae (860) Constantinople got an authentic robe of the Virgin Mary in the reign of Emperor Leo I (457-74), which was enshrined in the church of Blachernae. The robe was credited with saving the city on several occasions. Today commemorates its success in staving off the Russian invasion of 860; the ceremonial return of the garment to its shrine was made an annual festival. (It may be a veil rather than a robe.)

Swithun/Swithin (d. 862) We know little about the historical Swithun. He became bishop of Winchester in 852 or 853; his charter record (not devoid of forgeries) begins in 854. Over a century later a popular cult had developed at his grave outside the Old Minster and on 15. July 971 his remains were translated into that church (dedicated to Sts. Peter and Paul). That it had been raining heavily at the time (recorded by Wulfstan Cantor in his metrical Translation account [BHL 7947]) may underlie his having become an English weather saint. Healing miracles continued after the translation and a few years later a jeweled reliquary donated by king Edgar was placed in a shrine built over Swithun's former gravesite. The latter was incorporated in the Minster's westwork of 980; other relics of Swithun were kept on the main altar. On July 15, 1093 Swithun's wonder-working remains were translated to the cathedral, then new, where they remained until their profanation in 1538.

  A page on Swithun's shrines at Winchester: http://www.britannia.com/church/shrines/sw-shrine.html

   Swithun has a late eleventh-century Vita (BHL 7943) that links him to king Æthelwulf (d. 855) and that includes among his activities as a model bishop the building of churches and his inviting the needy rather than the rich to his table. It includes among Swithun's miracles a tale of an elderly woman of Winchester who had been sleeping at home with the door open when a wolf entered and carried her off to the woods, where its howling threatened to bring other wolves to the scene. The woman prayed to Swithun, the wolf fell asleep, and the woman was able to get away safely pursued by a now awakened wolf that no longer was able to harm her.

   Swithun's cult spread to France and to Norway. Stavanger's much rebuilt cathedral, originally erected in the 1120s by a bishop who came from Winchester, was dedicated to him. Closer to Winchester, the eleventh-century church at Corhampton (Hamps) preserves wall paintings depicting scenes from Swithun's miracles.  See the views and discussions here: http://www.astoft.co.uk/corhampton.htm and here: http://www.paintedchurch.org/corhampt.htm

   Swithun's fourteenth-century church at Old Weston (Cambs) has a wall painting of a seated bishop very plausibly interpreted as Swithun: http://www.paintedchurch.org/owestswi.htm

Lidanus/Lidano (d. 1118) was a native of the Abruzzi who became a monk at age 9. He was the founding abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Sezze on the Pontine Marshes. While in office, he attempted to drain the marshes; apparently worn out by the unsuccessful attempt (they were only drained in the 20^th cent.), he retired in his old age to Monte Cassino. One of the patron saints of Sezze in southern Lazio, he is a fixture in the onomastic repertoire of the area, where his Italian name is "Lidano", accented on the first syllable.  This unusual accentuation (Lidano having been neither Sard nor Magyar) is of long standing: in the sixteenth century the name was explained as a medieval form of the similarly accented ancient personal name "Lygdamus".

   He is best known for activity outside the territory of the former kingdom. But he is honored today as a local boy who made good, and he is associated in his tripartite Life and Miracles with the great Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino, now in Lazio but medievally in Regno territory. Sezze is located in the Monti Lepini at the former eastern edge of the Pontine Marshes; his monastery, dedicated to St. Cecilia (said to have been his mother's name), included marshy territory. Dionysius, the author of the Life proper, tells us that Lidanus was greatly annoyed by the constant confused noise of the area's numerous little frogs and that, smiting the marsh with his staff, he admonished them to be silent and to cease disturbing a man of God. Which, not surprisingly, they did: the miracle was that they stayed silent and, according to Dionysius, not a peep has been heard out of them since.

   Lidanus lived here for seventy-two years and was buried in the monastery church. His remains were later translated to Sezze proper and interred in its cathedral, where they remain today. His cult was confirmed by Leo X. One of Sezze's patron saints, he lives on in the names of many of his present-day concittadini.

   Here's Lidanus as depicted in his oldest surviving image, on a cover of a fourteenth-century manuscript in the capitular archive at Sezze containing his revised Vita et Miracula by John, bp. of Sezze (BHL 4921): http://tinyurl.com/n2te9y

Laetus of Provins (d. 1169) The son of a weaver, Laetus was murdered by kinsman at the age of fourteen, since he had opposed their blasphemous arguments. His relics were raised in the year 1200.

Peter of Luxembourg (Blessed) (d. 1387).  A scion of one of later medieval Europe's great noble houses, Peter was born in 1369 at today's Ligny-en-Barrois (Meuse).  Orphaned early, he was brought up in an atmosphere of considerable piety and was educated at Paris, where among his teachers were Nicolas Oresme and Pierre d'Ailly and where he was made a cathedral canon in November 1378.  Appointments in the dioceses of Cambrai (archdeacon of Brussels) and of Chartres (archdeacon of Dreux) followed swiftly.  The first Clement VII (the one who ruled from Avignon) named Peter bishop of Metz early in 1384; slightly over two months later the same worthy created him cardinal deacon of St. George in Velabro.

   Unable to establish himself in Metz against the candidacy of an adherent of Urban VI, Peter withdrew to Luxembourg.  In early 1386 the young cardinal of Luxembourg (as Peter was called in popular parlance) was called to Avignon, where he lived out the brief remainder of his life as a visionary and extreme ascetic.  He was buried in Avignon's cemetery of St. Michael; miracles were ascribed to him, a cult arose, and a wooden chapel was built at Peter's gravesite.  In 1393-1395 Charles VI of France founded for the Celestinians a convent there and provided it with a church built over Peter's resting place.  The Celestinians adopted Peter as one of their own.

   Early Vitae were written, various devotional texts in Latin were ascribed to Peter, and in 1402 he was proclaimed Avignon's patron saint.  Conciliar abolition in 1417 of the line of papal claimants from Avignon, subsequent general acceptance of their characterization as schismatics, and Peter's beatification in 1527 by the Clement VII who ruled from Rome (this occurred very shortly before the Sack) have led to his rather unusual styling as "Blessed pseudocardinal Peter of Luxembourg".

   The Prayerbook of Cardinal Peter of Luxembourg (Avignon, Médiathèque Caccano, ms. 207) used to be considered Peter's autograph and is still often said to date from 1386.  Current scholarly opinion tends to the view that it is an anonymous post-mortem compilation perhaps created for his patronal proclamation in 1402.  Herewith a page of expandable views of its illuminations, some of which depict Peter: http://tinyurl.com/2awzf2t

   Peter is said to have received, while praying a before a crucifix, a vision of Christ's suffering on the Cross.  This is the subject of his mid-fifteenth-century portrait in Avignon's Musée Calvet: http://tinyurl.com/255s9ed

      and of these illuminations in fifteenth-century Books of Hours containing a Latin-language litany ascribed to Peter:

      http://tinyurl.com/24wob6t , http://tinyurl.com/28bugav

   A resurrection miracle attributed to Peter is depicted in this later fifteenth-century fresco in the cathedral of Ivrea: http://tinyurl.com/3xssn8z

Photios of Kiev and all Russia (d. 1431) Photios was a Greek monk, noted for his learning, who was chosen to become metropolitan of Kiev in 1408. In 1410 he moved the metropolitan see to Moscow. He was a very active metropolitan, fighting off the Catholic threat in the western regions of his jurisdiction and dealing with heretics.

Happy reading,

Terri Morgan

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Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. - Anon