medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today, September 30, is the feast of:
Eusebia of Marseille (?). An inscription formerly placed over a late antique sarcophagus in the crypt of the abbey of St. Victor in Marseille identified this as the resting place of the nun Eusebia, a great handmaiden of God: Hic requiescit in pace Eusebia religiosa, magna ancilla Dei. The inscription, which by itself does not indicate a cult, has been dated as early as the seventh century; a later dating to perhaps the early eighth century is suspect as being perhaps influenced by a local tradition of long standing that makes Eusebia an abbess of the monastery of St. Quiricus in Marseille who perished in an undated Muslim raid along with thirty-nine other nuns of that house (they are said, in a medievally not unparalleled form of feminine resistance to the threat of personal violence, to have cut off their noses in anticipation of being captured and raped).
Candidates for the raid in question include one from c738 (the one usually favoured, perhaps only because it's closer in time to the inscription) and another from the late ninth century. But it is not clear that the Eusebia of the inscription actually perished in this fashion.
The cult of Eusebia and her companions seems mostly early modern. It has left scant trace in medieval records and its brief narrative texts begin only in the seventeenth century. Perhaps reflecting Eusebia's presence without companions in a catalog of St.-Victor's relics from 1460, the RM commemorates Eusebia alone.
Sophia of Rome (d. c117) Actually a Christian allegory, according to legend Sophia (Wisdom) was a widow, mother of three girls named Faith, Hope, and Charity (Fides, Spes, and Caritas). The four of them left Milan after their husband/father died, going to Rome so that they could be martyred there. Emperor Hadrian obliged; the three daughters died after many tortures; Sophia was beheaded (or died naturally) three days after burying her daughters. The cult of Sophia is attested in Rome from the sixth century.
Antonius of Piacenza (d. c303, supposedly) Antonius’ cult is attested to as early as the late fourth century, when Ambrose of Milan sent relics of him to Victricius of Rouen. Reliable information about Antonius is lacking. In about 570 a group of pilgrims traveling under his protection made a tour from Constantinople to the holy places (and other tourist spots) in Palestine and Egypt; the surviving account, known as the Itinerarium Antonini (though its author is better referred to as the Pilgrim of Piacenza), is an engaging piece of lowbrow travel literature not dissimilar in some respects from what a blogger of today might write and post.
According to his legend, which is late, Antonius was a member of the Theban Legion who suffered martyrdom at Piacenza. The city still has a phial claiming what is said to be his blood, which liquefies annually, like the more famous blood of Januarius of Naples.
Antonius appears thus in an early fifteenth-century Golden Legend now in the Hunterian in Glasgow (its MS Gen.1111):
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/images/exhibitions/treasures/G1111_368rl.jpg TinyURL for this: http://tinyurl.com/bfvwl . Executed in Flanders, this book is thought (from the fact that Antonius' illumination is larger than any of the 101 others) likely to have been commissioned by a religious house in Piacenza. In medieval Piacenza he was celebrated principally on July 4 (still the date of his patronal feast there). The (ps-)HM lists him on September 30; Baronio followed suit when he edited the Roman Martyrology.
Ursus, Victor, and companions (d. c303) were, in legend, members of the Theban Legion. When the legion was killed, Ursus and his companion Victor, along with 66 others, managed to escape but were pursued and killed in Solothurn (Switzerland).
Gregory the Enlightener/the Illuminator (in Armenian, Grigor Lusarovich) (d. between 328 & 335) seems to have been a missionary to the kingdom of Armenia, where he succeeded in converting the king and became first bishop of the new Armenian church. As bishop of Ashtishat he built up a native clergy and did a lot of evangelizing, eventually consecrating his son to succeed him (his see seems to have been hereditary for some time). At the Council of Nicaea, he was represented by his son, St Aristakes.
According to fifth-century Armenian accounts of a partly legendary nature, Gregory was the son of a Parthian nobleman executed for having killed his king, a Persian. A child at the time, he was spirited away by well-wishers to Caesarea in Cappadocia, where he was raised as a Christian. As an adult Gregory moved to (in some accounts: returned to) Armenia, married, had children, proselytized, was imprisoned underground for years after a persecution of Christians, was released, and converted king Tiridates III to Christianity. After Tiridates had made Armenia officially Christian Gregory, consecrated by Cappadocian bishops, became its metropolitan and established his church along Greek and Syriac lines. He is said to have become a solitary near the end of his life and to have died in a mountain cave.
In the earlier ninth-century Marble Calendar of Naples today is shared by Jerome and by Gregory. The latter's cult seems to have been brought there not much earlier, along with putative relics of him, by Eastern-rite monks who founded what is still the city's monastery of San Gregorio Armeno (Benedictine since the later eleventh century). In 2000 pope John Paul II gave to the Catholicos Kamekin II at Etchmiadzin in Armenia relics of Gregory from the monastery in Naples; in the following year he made a similar gift to the Armenian Catholicos of Cilicia. Still in the Regno, Gregory has been patron of Nardò on Apulia's Salentine Peninsula since, it is said, the ninth century and is now also patron the diocese of Nardò-Gallipoli.
Gregory in mosaic (fourteenth-century) in a cupola of the museum of the former church of the Pammakaristos (Fetiye camii) in Istanbul:
http://tinyurl.com/3jn9s7
Gregory as depicted in a fresco (c1310) in the church of the Aphendiko at Mistra (or Mystras): http://tinyurl.com/ybp4vuq
In the view, Gregory's fresco is the one in the middle: http://tinyurl.com/23f4avw
Gregory as depicted in a mosaic (c1312) in a cupola of the museum of the former church of the Pammakaristos (Fetiye camii) in Istanbul:
http://tinyurl.com/3jn9s7
Gregory (at right) as depicted in a September calendar portrait in the frescoes (betw. c1312 and 1321/1322) of the nave of the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo: http://tinyurl.com/3ag5alj
Gregory (at right) as depicted in September calendar portraits in the frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) of the narthex in the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć: http://tinyurl.com/33884jk
Leopardus (d. c362) According to legend, Leopardus was the chamberlain of Emperor Julian the Apostate. After quarreling with the emperor on religious issues, Leopardus was flogged and then beheaded.
Jerome (d. 419 or 420) One of the four Latin fathers of the church, and the only one who never became a bishop, Jerome was one of the greatest Christian theologians, gave monastic life a strong impetus in western Europe, and influenced the shape and thought of western Christianity for many centuries through his translation of the Bible – the Vulgate. Jerome was born in c. 347 in Strido, Dalmatia. He received a good education (in part at Rome under the famous pagan grammarian Donatus), and was baptized sometime before 366. In 370 he joined a circle of ascetic friends in Aquileia. But already in 373 he began a series of pilgrimages to the East. He became a priest in Antioch and lived for a time in a monastic community near Aleppo. Jerome became a hermit there for five years, devoting himself to the study of Hebrew. In 382 Jerome returned to Rome, where he became Damasus I's secretary, and apparently hoped to become Damasus' successor as pope. Disappointed in this hope, Jerome and a circle of pious women left Rome together in 385, settling in 386 in Bethlehem. Jerome went on to found a series of religious houses for both men and women (using funds donated by St. Paula), and to study and write. It was while he was Damasus’ secretary and with his encouragement that Jerome began his magnificent translation of the Bible, a work he continued in the East (after scandalous gossip that his female devotees were more than just friends). Jerome died on this day in 420. His relics have been in S. Maria Maggiore in Rome since the late 13th century. Jerome is regarded as the greatest biblical scholar after Origen.
During the Middle Ages the Glagolitic priests maintained a legend that it was Jerome, a native of this land,(Croatia) who had invented the Glagolitic script (not Cyril and particularly not Methodius).
Concerning his translation of the Bible, Butler writes: "His new translation from the Hebrew of most of the books of the Old Testament was the work of his years of retreat at Bethlehem ... He did not translate the books in order, but began by the books of Kings, and took the rest in hand at different times. The only parts of the Latin Bible called the Vulgate which were not either translated or worked over by Jerome are the books of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch and the two books of Machabees."
Amatus of Remiremont (d. c628) was a native of Grenoble. He spent a long time as a monk of St. Maurice of Agaune (Switzerland) and hermit, then joined the community at Luxeuil. He inspired the foundation of the Columbanian double monastery of Remiremont, and became the first abbot there.
Honorius of Canterbury (d. 653) Honorius arrived in England in 601, part of the second installment of Roman missionaries sent to Kent by pope Gregory I. He became fifth archbishop of Canterbury in 627 and was consecrated by his fellow missionary St. Paulinus, bishop of York. He spent the rest of his life consolidating the work of conversion, among other activities sending missionaries to East Anglia. He collaborated with Paulinus and with king Eadwine in Northumbria in persuading pope Honorius I to grant metropolitan status to York as well (which the pope did in June 634, sending pallia both to Honorius and to Paulinus, making them both archbishops). When the northern mission collapsed after a hostile regime change in Northumbria Honorius translated Paulinus to the see of Rochester. In 644 he consecrated the first English bishop, St Ithamar. Today is His dies natalis. He was buried at Canterbury in the west porch of the monastery church of Sts. Peter and Paul. Just about all that is known definitely about him comes from St. Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum.
Laurus/Lery (d. late 7th century) was a Welshman who migrated to Brittany, where he founded and led a monastery originally named St-Malo, but later called St-Lery.
Tancred, Torthred, and Tova (d. 870) These two men and a woman were hermits of Thorney (Cambridgeshire), and were killed by Danes in 870. A strong cult developed in Thorney from c. 1000.
Simon of Crepy (d. 1082) was count of Crepy (in Valois France), raised at the court of William the Conqueror. He was a relative of Matilda, the wife of William the Conqueror. Simon wanted to be a monk; William wanted him to marry his daughter Adela. The legality of the marriage was uncertain and Simon set off to Rome to inquire - on the way, he snuck off to the monastery of St-Claude at Condat (Jura) and became a monk. His rank made him an effective mediator in some of the many disputes of the eleventh century. He assisted pope Gregory VII in his negotiations with the Normans, and received last rites from the same pope.
Amatus of Nusco (d. 1093) Less is known about him than was true when the Bollandists first published Augusti tomus VI. of the Acta Sanctorum and proclaimed August 31, 1193 as the dies natalis of this first bishop of the Campanian town of Nusco, the "balcony of Irpinia". This is because the Bollandists' guide in this matter, Felice Renda's sixteenth-century Vita, has since been shown to be a piece of fiction falsely claiming Amatus for Montevergine (of which Renda was at the time prior) and making him a disciple of the latter's founder, St. William of Vercelli. Amatus' will of September 1093, which has survived in the cathedral archives of Nusco and which was also long a subject of controversy, was proven authentic in 1881 by the distinguished Neapolitan archivist Bartolomeo Capasso. Archdiocesan records at Salerno show that Nusco was one of the latter's suffragan dioceses created during the time of archbishop Alfanus I. The ordinary assumption is that Amatus was consecrated by this famous Campanian churchman.
Both Renda's Vita and its fifteenth-century predecessor by Francesco de Ponte are now considered largely legendary, though how legendary remains a matter of dispute. Errico Cuozzo's relatively recent attempt to identify Amatus with the historian Amatus of Montecassino has not generally been accepted but his article remains valuable as a useful summary of the pertinent documentation and hagiographic traditions. Three Sapphic hymns from Amatus' Office at Nusco have survived and are certainly medieval but have been little studied.
Nusco's cathedral of Santo Stefano, now a co-cathedral of the diocese of Sant’Angelo dei Lombardi - Conza – Nusco - Bisaccia, has been largely rebuilt in early modern times. Amatus' remains are preserved in the crypt (perhaps 13th-century but redecorated much later):
http://www.mionusco.it/it/pagina29.htm
Here's a view of Amatus' effigy reliquary from an older engraving: http://www.mionusco.it/it/Immagine%20S.Amato%209.jpg
Also in the crypt are these recently uncovered fourteenth- or fifteenth-century Nativity scenes in fresco: http://www.mionusco.it/it/Affreschi%20Cattedrale.htm
Conrad of Zahringen (blessed) (d. 1227)was a noble put on the fast-track of religious preferment. Conrad became a canon at Liege, but then entered the Cistercian order. Despite this flight from the world, Conrad's rise in ecclesiastical rank was quick: he became abbot of Viler in 1209, of Clairvaux in 1214, and of Citeaux in 1217. In 1219 he rose to the eminence of cardinal-bishop of Porto. Conrad was a papal legate during the Albigensian crusade.
Happy reading,
Terri Morgan
--
“The nice thing about studying history is that you can always find people who are a lot weirder than you are.” – Delia Sherman
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