medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today, September 1, is the feast of:
Vibiana (?) An important saint, the principal patron of Los Angeles, no less. What she is, though, is some unlabelled bones taken from the catacombs and given to the cathedral of Los Angeles in 1858. She is claimed to be a virgin-martyr - on no evidence at all - and the name Vibiana was given to her arbitrarily.
Ruth (d. c1000 BCE) was a Moabite woman, daughter-in-law of Naomi, whom she refused to abandon in poverty and whose religion she accepted. Ruth is an ancestress of David and of Jesus. For details, see the biblical book of Ruth.
Pelagius (d. 283) was a pious noble, killed in present-day Croatia during Numerian's reign. His relics were brought to Constance in 904, and for two centuries Pelagius was one of the most popular saints of Alemannia.
Verena (3rd century?) is a popular but poorly documented saint of today's northern Switzerland, where since the tenth century her cult has been centered upon Zurzach (canton Aargau), and southern Germany. She is first heard from in the late ninth century, the presumed date of composition of the earlier of her two legendary Vita, BHL 8540t. Written for a pious and noble lady who in all probability was St. Richardis (d. c895) and preserved in numerous witnesses from the end of the ninth or the beginning of the tenth century onward, this makes Verena an Egyptian who accompanied the Theban Legion to northern Italy, then was at Milan when Maurice and most of the legion were (acc. to their legend) martyred at Acaunus (also Acaunum and Agaunum), who hearing of their death traveled to Acaunus, and then settled down at today's Solothurn, living ascetically in a cave as a holy virgin.
A re-working of this Vita from the later tenth or eleventh century (BHL 8541) brings Verena to Zurzach, where she tends lepers, lives chastely, dies, and is buried non sine miraculis. An accompanying Miracula (BHL 8542) attests to the vigor of Verena's posthumous cult at Zurzach. In the later Middle Ages her legend acquired fresh details.
Verena's cult is first attested from the monasteries of Reichenau, St. Gallen, Muri, and Einsiedeln. It traveled down the Rhine to the dioceses of Trier and Köln and flourished as well in its local diocese of Konstanz. In the later Middle Ages Habsburg possession of Zurzach led to Verena's adoption as a Habsburg family saint and to a further expansion of her cult west to Vienne and east along the Danube. In the twelfth- or thirteenth-century calendar of southwest German origin shown here (Cologny, Fondation Martin Bodmer, cod. Bodmer 30; fol. 6r) she follows Giles (Egidius) on this day: http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/cb/0030/6r/small . She is portrayed holding a comb and a bowl.
A sixteenth-century reliquary of Verena in the Münster Unserer Lieben Frau in Radolfzell am Bodensee (Lkr. Konstanz) in Baden-Württemberg: http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Verena2.jpg
Outside of Solothurn one can visit a cave said to have been inhabited by Verena (it's first recorded from 1442 but it's not clear that the association with her is that early): http://www.lochstein.de/hrp/orte/verena/verena.htm , http://tinyurl.com/23ecrza
A painting of c1524 showing Verena engaging in acts of mercy, now in the Württembergisches Landesmuseum Stuttgart, (Inv. Nr. 1928-89):
http://tinyurl.com/nf6jsw
Ammon of Heraclea & co. (d. 322?) Ammon was a deacon in Thrace. He and forty young women he had converted were martyred at Heraclea during the reign of Licinius. Ammon was killed rather grotesquely, by putting a red-hot helmet on his head.
Twelve Brothers (early 4th century) The relics of twelve southern Italian martyrs were brought together in the church of St. Sophia in Benevento in 760. The legend then developed that they were the twelve sons of Sts. Boniface and Thecla. The truth of the matter is that they are four unrelated groups of martyrs from various cities. The cult was suppressed in 1969.
Terentianus of Todi (?) is the legendary protobishop of Todi in Umbria. He has an originally sixth-century Passio in several versions that has him martyred under the emperor Hadrian along with one Flaccus, a priest of the idols (sacerdos idolorum) whom Terentianus had converted. According to tradition, he was racked, then had his tongue cut out, and was beheaded. According both to the Passio and to the (ps-)HM, today is his dies natalis. The Passio further notes that Terentianus and Flaccus were buried at the eighth milestone from Todi in a rocky place called Colonia.
A cemetery has existed since pre-Roman times in a karstic area about a dozen kilometers northeast of Todi. An originally eleventh-century church, dedicated to Sts. Terentianus and Flaccus but now generally referred to simply as San Terenziano, was built over a cave here in which relics believed to be those of Terentianus and Flaccus were preserved in simple sarcophagi of local travertine (now located in the lower church). Two glass balsamaries from the third or fourth century, found in the 1980s in the immediate vicinity of the earlier resting places, suggest the antiquity of a cult on this site. Flaccus' absence from the (ps.-)HM, coupled with the legendary character of the Passio, has kept him out of recent editions of the RM.
In 1260 relics said to be those of Terentianus were brought from Todi to Capranica, where they are housed in the originally thirteenth-/fourteenth-century church of San Terenziano al Monte. A chapel at Cavriago in Emilia-Romagna dedicated to Sts. Eusebius and Terentianus is documented from the late tenth century; by the thirteenth century this had expanded and was being referred to simply as “S. Terencianus”. Terentianus is the patron saint of both Capranica and Cavriago.
Victor of Le Mans (d. 490) According to the two early episcopal Gesta of Le Mans, Victor became bishop there in 450, participated in councils at Angers (453) and at Tours (461), and died on this day in 490. St. Gregory of Tours records in his De gloria confessorum that Victor was greatly venerated in Gregory's own time and that he was famous for having obtained the cessation of a fire that was devastating his city. Victor has a legendary Vita that connects him with other saints of his region (Liborius, Martin of Tours) and that adds nothing to our knowledge of him.
Priscus of Capua (5th century?) is recorded for the today in the (ps-)HM, in the Gelasian Sacramentary, and in various other sources from late antiquity through the Carolingian period. A saint of this name was depicted in the late fifth- or early sixth-century portrait mosaics of Campanian saints that once adorned the church thought to have been dedicated to our Priscus at what is now San Prisco, between Capua and Caserta. Ado, followed by Usuard, makes him one of Christ's disciples. Local tradition (neither unanimous nor particularly credible) makes him a companion of St. Peter and the first bishop of Capua.
Priscus’ perhaps tenth-century Cassinese Vita makes him a bishop expelled from Africa during a pro-Arian persecution of the later fourth century. According to this account, Priscus settled at Capua, destroyed the temple of Diana on the site of the later Sant'Angelo in Formis, and was martyred for his pains. (One version asserts that Priscus was actually bishop of Castra in Africa and is supposed to have been a bishop in north Africa, set adrift in a rudderless boat along with his priests by Arian Vandals. They reached Italy, where Priscus became bishop of Capua (and several of the companions also became bishops). This version of the cult was reduced to local calendars in 1969.
The even more legendary eleventh- or twelfth-century Passio sancti Castrensis includes Priscus among the dozen bishops who fled Vandal persecution in Africa and settled down in various parts of Campania. Until its latest revision (2001), the RM distinguished the Priscus of the (ps.-)HM from the Priscus of this group, entering both under today's date (another of these twelve, St. Adiutor, had in ninth-century Naples been celebrated on this day along with Priscus). Real proof of Priscus' episcopal dignity is lacking. Domenico Ambrasi suggests that he may have been a soldier or an imperial functionary of some sort. Delehaye's view was that the church at today's San Prisco had been dedicated to Priscus of Nocera (September 16) and that the (ps.-)HM's entry for our Priscus was an error deriving from a false assumption about the church's dedicatee.
Regulus of Lucca (d. c545) By an odd coincidence, Regulus, too, ran foul of the Arian Vandals in Africa. He was exiled and became a hermit on the coast of Tuscany, only to be killed by the Ostrogothic leader Totila.
Constantius of Aquinum/-of Aquino (d. during the years 561-73) was a bishop of Aquino, the birthplace of the Roman satirist Juvenal and later the seat of the county into whose comital family St. Thomas Aquinas was born. Constantius is mentioned twice by Gregory the Great: in the second of these passages he is said to have foretold that he would have but two successors in his see, a prophecy soon effectuated – according to Gregory - by a Lombard sack followed by pestilence. His legendary Vita (ca. 1125) by the Cassinese scholar and forger Peter the Deacon is lost. Constantius is Aquino's patron saint and a co-dedicatee of its present Basilica Cattedrale San Tommaso [d'Aquino] e San Costanzo, completed in 1959 (the medieval cathedral replaced in the eighteenth century had been dedicated to St. Peter; its immediate successor, destroyed in 1944, was dedicated to Constantius alone).
Lupus of Sens (in French: Loup, Leu) (d. 623) is said to have succeeded St. Artemius as bishop of Sens in 609. His unreliable eighth- or ninth-century Vita makes him a nobly born native of the territory of Orléans, very devout, a tireless shepherd of his flock, and an exemplary guardian of Sens who was exiled unjustly by Chlotar II, distinguished himself in exile as a person of exceptional holiness, and was on that account restored by Chlotar. One day, while singing Mass, a precious stone dropped miraculously into the chalice. Another time, he lost a ring in the water, but it was recovered in the belly of a fish. Lifetime and posthumous miracles confirmed his sanctity. His cult was widely promoted within the metropolitan diocese of Sens, whose relics of Lupus were authenticated by Innocent III in 1210. In France, Lupus and St. Giles (see below) are frequently co-titulars.
Here's Lupus as he appears on the trumeau of the west portal of his church at Saint-Loup de Naud (Seine-et-Marne), a former priory of Sens: http://www.art-roman.net/stloupdn/stloupdn6x.jpg
An expandable view of Lupus receiving Chlotar and the return of Sens' miraculous church bell that the king had had stolen (BHL 5082, cap. 20), as depicted in a late thirteenth-century copy of French origin of the Legenda aurea (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 117v): http://tinyurl.com/25us759
Lupus as depicted in a (c1326-1350) collection of French-language saint's Lives (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 185, fol. 252r):
http://saints.bestlatin.net/images/gallery/lupus_bnfms.jpg
Lupus as depicted in a (1348) copy of the Legenda aurea in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 241, fol. 234v): http://tinyurl.com/2d4obt3
Lupus as depicted in a (c1480-1490) copy of the Legenda aurea in the version by Jean de Vignay (Paris: BnF, ms. Français 245, fol. 80v): http://tinyurl.com/2etf4sq
Sebbe (d. c694) was an East Saxon king (he became co-ruler with Sighere in 664). When Sighere returned to his ancestral religion, Sebbe remained Christian and ended up spending the 30 years of his rule winning people back to his religion. Sebbe eventually abdicated, distributed his wealth to the poor, and became a monk in London. He was buried in the north wall of old St Paul's. Named in the Roman Martyrology on August 29, his feast is kept today in the diocese of Brentwood. (See Aug 29)
Drithelm (d. c700) Drithelm was a monk of Melrose. He decided to become a monk after falling ill and having a death experience (he revived a few hours after his "death", then divided his wealth, giving 1/3 to his wife, 1/3 to his sons, and 1/3 to the poor before retiring to a monastery). His change of heart was brought about by a visit to hell, purgatory, and paradise during his brief spell of deadness. He was known to stand in the icy river Tweed reciting his office.
Giles or Aegidius (in Latin, Egidius; in French, Gilles), abbot (d. c720) - according to the very popular legend (dating from a Vita, BHL 93, etc, written approx. in the ninth or tenth century), Giles was an Athenian by birth, who worked two miracles (his first two recorded miracles are curing someone of snakebite and curing someone else of demonic possession) and was then so shocked at the adulation he got that he moved to Marseille. Eventually, he became a hermit who lived in a cave near Arles, at times in the company of a hind who would hide from King Flavius’ huntsmen – he had been crippled by an arrow meant for the hind and in gratitude she nursed him as if he were her fawn; Flavius eventually discovered this, and induced Giles to found an abbey. It was later named St-Gilles after him. In the Middle Ages his tomb in the monastic church was a famous pilgrimage stop on the way to Compostela. He was one of the most popular saints of the Middle Ages, about 160 known churches were dedicated to him in England alone. One reason for Giles' popularity was the widespread belief that his intercession was so effective that his devotees didn't even have to make full confessions. For example, a legend tells that King Charles went to the saint, seeking forgiveness for a sin he didn't dare confess - Giles prayed for him, and in a vision saw the emperor's record of sins wiped clean. Giles died on a Sunday, September 1, 'leaving the world sadder for his bodily absence but giving joy in Heaven by his happy arrival'. Giles' cult, presumably spread at first by pilgrims, extended far and wide in the Latin West. Considered a protector of those suffering from fever, fear, or mental illness, he ultimately became one of the late medieval Fourteen Holy Helpers, but still was excluded from the Roman calendar in 1969.
Expandable views of scenes from Giles' Vita as depicted in stone and in glass at the cathedral of Chartres are accessible from here: http://tinyurl.com/63yxf5
Expandable views of various manuscript illuminations of Giles (one with St. Lupus of Sens) are accessible from here: http://tinyurl.com/5oed6x
An expandable view of Giles (with a hind who seems to have grown antlers) as depicted in a late thirteenth-century copy of French origin of the Legenda aurea (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 118v): http://tinyurl.com/2bxevp3
Giles exorcising a demon, as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century French-language collection of saint's Lives (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 183, fol. 112v; illuminations attributed to the Fauvel Master): http://tinyurl.com/28lmdqq
Giles’ first miracle (giving his tunic to a sick man who then is cured), as depicted in a (1348) copy of the Legenda aurea in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 241, fol. 235v): http://tinyurl.com/2eldrre
Giles (at left; St. Lupus of Sens at right) as depicted in the (c1410) Hours of René d'Anjou (an Horae BVM for the Use of Paris; London, British Library, MS Egerton 1070, fol. 101r): http://tinyurl.com/yksh5p9
Giles and Arcanus (d. c1050) Giles and Arcanus, one a Spaniard and the other Italian, founded a monastery at what is now Borgo San Sepolcro (Italy) to house the relics they brought back from the Holy Land.
Agnes of Venosa (d. 1142, supposedly) is the sexually promiscuous noblewoman of John of Nusco's late twelfth-century Life of William of Vercelli who made a bet with Roger II that she could seduce William and thus prove to Roger and to his admiral, George of Antioch, that their favorite holy man was really a hypocrite. When she arrived, the divinely forewarned William invited the woman to his bed; she accepted but backed off when the bed turned out to be of burning coals. William lay down on it anyhow and arose unscathed, thus shaming the would-be seductress, who returned remorsefully to Roger's court and there told the king what had happened. On the following day spies whom Roger had sent confirmed this miraculous event. Roger was fearful and contrite at his part in this attempt to dupe a man of God; George, who had been convinced of William's virtue all along, was delighted.
William's final hermitage became the dual (male and female) monastery of the Holy Savior at Goleta. John's Life of William ends with a verse epitaph for the saint proclaiming its erection by the abbess Agnes. The sixteenth-century hagiographer Felice Renda identified Agnes will the would-be seductress of the Life, adding that Agnes had been so ashamed of her behavior that she had entered religion at Goleta and become its first abbess. In the next century the Bollandists conflated this Agnes with a thirteenth-century abbess (d. 1241) of this name buried at Rome and listed her among the praetermissi of September 1. (See Sep 4)
John of Perugia and Peter of Sassoferrato, martyrs (1231) - sent by Francis of Assisi to preach in Valencia, where they were beheaded while praying for the conversion of the emir; seven years later, he not only converted but he gave his house to the Franciscans for use as a friary (it is surely a coincidence that by that time, the emir was subject to the king of Aragon, James I the Conqueror).
Bronislava, (blessed) (d. 1259) who was born in 1203, entered the Praemonstratensian nunnery of Zwierzyniec near Krakow at the age of sixteen. She became well-known for her piety, especially for her devotion to the cross, but more for going out to the community to comfort sufferers during the Mongol invasion of 1241. Bronislava was beatified in 1839, and a canonization process is currently underway.
Juliana di Collatlo (blessed) (d. 1262) was born in 1186 near Treviso in northern Italy. At the age of ten, at her own wish she became a Benedictine nun. She later became an abbess in Padua, then after 1226 founded the content of SS. Biagio e Cataldo in Venice, where she was abbess until her death. Her local cult was approved in the eighteenth century by Pope Benedict XIV.
Dulcelina (d. 1274) was a native of Digne. She founded a house of Beguines at Hyeres (Provence) in c. 1230, as well as at Aix and Marseilles.
Joan Soderini, virgin (1367) was a Florentine noble who joined St Juliana Falconieri in the house of the third order regular of the Servites. She was known for her gift of prophecy and her predilection for performing the most distasteful tasks.
Beatrice de Silva Meneses (d. 1490) Beatrice was a Portuguese noblewoman, sister of St. Amadeus. She was a lady-in-waiting to the queen of Castile but gave up court life to become a Cistercian nun. In 1484 she founded the Congregation of the Immaculate Conception (Conceptionists). She was canonized in 1976.
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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