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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

St Bernard:

Glass from the cloister of the Abbey of Altenberg and now attributed to
Anton Woensam of Worms, c1525 - (Originally there were around 60 panels of
glass showing the life of Bernard). All these images are now in St Mary,
Shrewsbury, Shropshire:

_http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151176270/_
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151176270/)
_http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151179568/_
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151179568/)
_http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3150349421/_
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3150349421/)
_http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151175554/_
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151175554/)
_http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151176998/_
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151176998/)
_http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3320495186/_
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3320495186/)
_http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151436102/_
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151436102/)
_http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3150533479/_
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3150533479/)
_http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3150350231/_
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3150350231/)
_http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151177812/_
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151177812/)
_http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151174870/_
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151174870/)
_http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151178656/_
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151178656/)
_http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151173500/_
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151173500/)
_http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151174260/_
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151174260/)
_http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151180388/_
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151180388/)
_http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151436086/_
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3151436086/)

Gordon Plumb

In a message dated 20/08/2011 05:32:39 GMT Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Today, August 20, is the feast of:
Amator / Amadour of Rocamadour (?) In 1166 an incorrupt body was found
under the floor of a church in Rocamadour, France, and a cult of "St. Amadour"
soon became popular. Who the owner of this body may have been is a
complete mystery; popular belief makes him a hermit from the region, “The first
hermit of Gaul”.
Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153) A well-educated scion of a knightly family
in Burgundy, Bernard was born at Fontaines in 1090, and entered religion at
Citeaux at the age of twenty-two, bringing with him as fellow postulants
close to thirty relatives and friends. A few years later he was the founding
abbot of Clairvaux. A voluminous and talented writer, his sermons on the
Song of Songs are medieval classics, and an ardent reformer, the personally
ascetic Bernard played a leading role both in the rapid growth of his
Cistercian Order and in ecclesiastical matters more generally (e.g. the
condemnation of Abelard in 1141). His support of Innocent II against Anacletus II
brought him to Italy several times and, as papal legate, to Germany. It was
probably at the council of Pisa (1134) that he met a local canon, also named
Bernard, who later followed him to Clairvaux and who in 1145 would become
the first Cistercian pope, taking the name Eugenius III. Bernard vigorously
endorsed Eugenius' call for what is now known as the Second Crusade and
his eloquence in that cause at the diet of Speyer in 1146 helped to secure
the participation of the emperor Conrad III. His writing seems to have
stopped in about 1148 with his De consideratione, addressed to Eugenius (whom he
outlived by less than two months) and showing his characteristic
combination of mystic spirituality and concern for the affairs of the church in the
world. He founded 68 monasteries and was acclaimed as a living saint.
He died ‘very shortly before the third hour’ on Thursday, Aug 20, 1153.
Bernard was canonized in 1174. In 1830 he was declared a Doctor of the
Church. He is the patron saint of Gibraltar (reconquered for Christendom on
August 20, 1462) and a patron of Queens' College, Cambridge.
And here are two depictions of him, one from a north Italian antiphonary
in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (W. 412 b.):
_http://cistercians.shef.ac.uk/image_gallery/pages/0276.php_
(http://cistercians.shef.ac.uk/image_gallery/pages/0276.php)
and one from a Catalan breviary of the late fourteenth/early fifteenth
century in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris (ms. Rothschild 2529, "Breviary
of Martin of Aragon", f. 374):
_http://www.aquiweb.com/templiers/images/bernard2.jpg_ (http://www.aquiweb.com/templiers/images/bernard2.jpg)
Bernardo Tolomei (Ptolemaeus) (blessed) (d. 1348) The Sienese nobleman and
contemplative Giovanni Tolomei was born in 1272. Trained as a lawyer,
Bernard underwent a "sudden" conversion in 1312, when instead of giving a
lecture on philosophy he gave a sermon on the contempt of the world; after the
sermon he resigned his position and moved away from his hometown of Siena to
the solitude of the woods of Mont'Amiata. He then joined the
Confraternity of the BVM attached to his city's hospital of Santa Maria della Scala. In
1313, seeking a more ascetic lifestyle, he resigned his position, took the
name Bernardo in honor of Bernard of Clairvaux and together with other
nobles withdrew to a family property in the Accona desert of central Tuscany
where they lived eremitically in shallow caves. There he was soon joined by
Ambrose Piccolomini and Patrick Patrizi. Their hermit-like existence
aroused suspicion and they were reported to the authorities, which caused them to
be summoned before Pope John XXII at Avignon. They were able to
demonstrate their orthodoxy to the pope's satisfaction; but the pope instructed them
to put themselves under one of the approved religious rules. They adopted
the Benedictine rule to which a number of austerities were added, including
a total abstinence from wine. In 1319 the group, which had grown larger,
was permitted by the bishop of Arezzo to erect a Benedictine monastery of
Santa Maria di Monte Oliveto. The monks, as they now were, elected their abbot
annually and a Patrizi and a Piccolomini each served for a year before
Bernardo was elected in 1321, after which time he was re-elected annually for
the remainder of his life.
This initial Olivetan community found willing adherents elsewhere and
before his death Bernardo established ten priories, all called Santa Maria di
Monte Oliveto and all strictly bound to the mother house. In 1344 the
Benedictine congregation so formed received papal approval from Clement VI. In
1348 Bernardo moved to the priory at Siena to assist in the care of his monks
who had been stricken by the Black Death and died there in the same year
(traditionally, on August 20). He was buried at the Sienese priory; the
location of his gravesite is now unknown. In 1462 the Olivetans at the mother
house were said to be venerating his relics there. Bernardo’s cult was
confirmed by the Congregation of Rites in 1644 and approved in 1681. He was
canonized papally in 2009.
Burchard of Worms (d. 1026) A native of Hesse, Burchard was born in 965,
became a monk at Lobbes and was made bishop of Worms in 1006 by Henry II. He
was a famous compiler of canon law.
Christopher and Leovigild (d. 852) Our information about Christopher and
Leovigild comes from St. Eulogius of Córdoba's Memoriale sanctorum_, 2. 11.
They were monks of different houses from the vicinity of Córdoba who during
the mid-ninth-century wave of Christian challenges to Muslim superiority
in that city presented themselves before a judge, proclaimed their
Christianity, and, knowing that this was a capital offence, called Mohammed a false
prophet. Adjudged guilty, Christopher and Leovigild were incarcerated,
beaten, and executed by decapitation. Although their corpses were burned,
Christians managed to salvage some physical relics of them and deposited these
in Córdoba's basilica of St. Zoilus.
Eulogius, who had been Christopher's teacher, records today as their dies
natalis. So does Usuard, who had been in Spain in 858 and who had met
Eulogius then.
Edbert of Northumbria (d. 768) ruled Northumbria for 21 years, then
abdicated, became a priest, and spent the last decade of his life in prayer and
ascetic practices.
Herbert of Conza/-of Middlesex) (d. 1181, probably) is thought, on the
basis of a confused notice in the Ymagines historiarum of Ralph of Diceto
(a.k.a. Ralph of Diss), to have been an Englishman who moved to the kingdom of
Sicily and was appointed archbishop of Conza by William II. Ralph actually
says that Herbert was made archbishop of Cosenza in Calabria and that he
perished in a great earthquake there (1184). But Herbert is documented in the
see of Conza from 1169 through 1179 (when he took part in Lateran III) and
his death date was inscribed, presumably from local records, on a pilaster
in the old cathedral of Conza (the one destroyed by the earthquakes of
1694 and 1732) as August 20 1118 (presumably a mistake for 1181). He was
interred beneath a side altar there and moved to the high altar in 1684 in
connection with a canonical recognition of his relics. A sarcophagus said to be
his was housed until recently in the Museo Provinciale Irpino at Avellino
but is now back at Conza. Herbert has no surviving Life and no medieval
Office.
Heliodorus, Dausa, and companions (d. 362) The Persian ruler Shapur II
deported 9000 Christians, but selected 300 of them and "invited" them to
apostatize. 275 of them refused and were martyred - the group commemorated
today.
Maximus of Chinon (in French: Maxime, Mesme, Mexme) (d. 5th century) All
that is known about the historical Maximus comes from chapter 22 of St.
Gregory of Tours' De gloria confessorum. According to this, he was a disciple
of St. Martin of Tours who left the Touraine to live humbly as a monk on
the Île-Barbe at Lyon. When growing fame compelled him to move on and he was
crossing the Saône, his boat sank to the bottom but he was able to cross
without difficulty to the other shore, all the while carrying the Gospels, a
chalice, and a paten. Maximus returned to the Touraine, where he founded a
monastery at today's Chinon (Indre-et-Loire). He is said to have aided
besieged and thirsty people of the town by causing the occurrence there of a
massive downpour. An eleventh-century Vita et Miracula adds nothing about
him his own lifetime.
Maximus’ monastery at Chinon was rebuilt in the tenth century and was
expanded and rebuilt at various times in the succeeding centuries. The collapse
in 1817 of the transept tower of its collégiale Saint-Mexme entailed the
destruction of the building's east end.
Oswin/Oswine of Deira (d. 651) was the last king of independent Deira. We
know about him chiefly from Bede with regnal dates furnished by the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. He became king in 643 or 644. Bede tells a story in which
Oswin humbly accepts a reproof from St. Aidan. Oswin was killed in 651 by
men in the service of the Northumbrian king Owsiu, whose seizure of Deira the
militarily outnumbered Oswin chose not to contest, instead Oswin disbanded
his war host and went into hiding before he was discovered and killed.
Oswiu's wife Eanflæd, a member of the Deiran royal house, is said to have
persuaded him to show penitence by founding a monastery at the place of Oswin's
murder, Ingetlingum (generally said to be Gilling in Richmond [West
Yorks]). Oswin's entry for today in the early eighth-century Calendar of Saint
Willbrord attests to his early cult in the North. Bede writes of Oswin:
"King Oswin was a man of handsome appearance and lofty stature, pleasant in
speech and courteous in manner. He was generous to high and low alike, and
soon won the affection of everyone by his regal qualities of mind and body,
so that nobles came from almost every province to enter his service. But
among his other especial endowments of virtue and moderation the greatest was
what one may describe as the singular blessing of humility."
(Ecclesiastical History, book 3, Ch. 14)
In about 1111 a monk of St. Albans wrote a Vita, Inventio, and Miracula of
Oswin asserting that his body had in 1065 been discovered at the monastery
of Tynemouth (since 1090 a dependency of St Albans). Symeon of Durham
(which also claimed the monastery at Tynemouth) relates a slightly different
story asserting Durham's claim to the relics through a gift to the monks of
Jarrow who later formed the initial community of St Cuthbert's monastery in
Durham. On August 20 (Oswin's traditional dies natalis) 1110 his putative
remains at Tynemouth were translated to that town's newly finished church of
St. Mary. Oswin was venerated as a martyr; as a 12th-century homilist
explained, it was because he died "if not for the faith of Christ, at least
for the justice of Christ" (Farmer). His shrine there was dismantled in 1539.
In at least post-Conquest England Oswin's feast day was celebrated on
August 20. He's not in the RM but is in the Roman Catholic church dedicated to
him at Tynemouth (in Roman Catholic contexts a preference for tomorrow's
date would be trumped by tomorrow's St. Bernard of Clairvaux). His feast was
indicated for August 20 in a 15th century missal which apparently belonged
to York Minster.
Philibert (d. 685) The Gascon Philibert was a son of Philibald, who became
the bishop of Aire when Philibert was about four years old. Philibald had
his son educated and then sent him to the Merovingian court. But Philibert
became a monk at the age of 20 in St. Ouen’s monastery of Rebais. He was
abbot for a while but was too inexperienced for the office, so retired to
Neustria. Clovis II gave him land there and he founded the monastery of
Jumieges in 654. He ran into trouble when he criticized the notorious mayor of
the palace Ebroin, and was imprisoned and then expelled from his monastery.
So he went and founded another one, later called Noirmoutier, in 676, and
restored Quincay. He also built a monastery for women at Pavilly. Besides his
work as monastic founder, he is credited with evangelizing the region of
Vendee. His feast day is attested in the Paris Missal c. 1380, listing him
for France and Trier. He is venerated as apostle and patron of the Vendée.
Philibert's shrine in Tournus was a great pilgrimage goal until the
seventeenth century, and still attracts pilgrims.
His name is the origin of the name 'filbert' for hazelnuts.
Rognvald / Ronald (d. 1158/9) was earl of Orkney. In 1137 he began
building the cathedral of St. Magnus at Kirkwall in thanksgiving for gaining the
earldom (a kinsman had taken it from him). Rognvald went on pilgrimage to
the Holy Land; on his way home, he was murdered in Caithness. A popular cult
grew up around his tomb, venerating him as a martyr, although he is not
formally canonized.
Severus, martyred at Bizya in Thrace (?) Prior to its revision of 2001 the
RM celebrated on August 20 the martyrs Severus and Memnon the Centurion,
put to death in a fiery furnace or oven and recorded in various Greek
synaxary notices. According to the latter, Severus was the son of a Roman prefect
of Side in Pamphylia who had been born at Philippopolis (in Thrace; now
Plovdiv in Bulgaria) and of his wife Mygdonia (i.e., of the Mygdones, an
ancient people of Thrace), both of whom had been baptized by a bishop
Xenophon. The family having returned to Philippopolis during a persecution, Severus
was motivated by a vision to meet the centurion Memnon, whom he readily
converted to Christianity. Severus and Memnon were arrested and were
conducted by a Roman proconsul first to Adrianople (now Edirne in Turkey) and then
to Bizya (now Vize in Turkey). There Memnon met his death by fire and
Severus underwent several tortures prior to being decapitated.
The absence of any record of an ancient cult of a martyr Memnon, coupled
with the knowledge that the converted centurion is a stock character in
legendary Passiones, seems to have led to Memnon's recent ejection from the RM.
Severus remains, but apart from his Thracian connection we know nothing
about him. It has been proposed, not altogether convincingly, that he is
identical with the Severus who is one of the companions in martyrdom, at
Adrianople, of St. Philip of Heraclea (Oct 22) in the latter's Passio.
Happy reading,
Terri Morgan
--
Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a
fruit salad. - Anon

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