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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture On 11/25/11, Katherine French wrote: > medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture > > > Speaking of saints, does anyone know anything about a St. Denise? I can't find her in the Golden Legend or in my dictionary of saints, but Wikipedia has a short article on her. I have her invoked in a drinking song or verse. > > It appears that you have your choice of saints of this name (in Latin, Dionysia). At <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Denise> the English-language Wikipedia identifies two: a martyr of Lampsacus and a martyr of Africa under Vandal rule. Both are in groups of named martyrs, each of which has its own English-language Wikipedia article, namely: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter,_Andrew,_Paul,_and_Denise and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denise,_Dativa,_Leontia,_Tertius,_Emilianus,_Boniface,_Majoricus,_and_Servus [tiny URL for that: <http://tinyurl.com/8aa72rg>] In both cases the provision of usable source references is rather thin. I'd look for entries for each group in the _Bibliotheca Sanctorum_ or the Bautz _Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon_ (BBKL), bearing in mind 1) that in these the choice of a saint to head up a group listing may not be the same as what's used here (though the Lampsacan group does seem ordinarily to begin with Peter) and 2) that in Italian 'Dionysia' is rendered as 'Dionisia'. In the case of the African group the narrative source is Victor of Vita's propagandistic _Historia persecutionis Africae provinciae_, 3. 22 in modern editions and 5. 1 in the edition in Migne. You can read the latter here: http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/30_10_0430-0484-_Victor_Vitensis.html Apart from that, the two Wikipedia articles noted above seem reasonably informative and fairly reliable. But wait, there's more! There's also a martyr Dionysia from the Decian persecution in Alexandria. The source for her seems to be (I haven't checked) Eusebius of Caesarea, _Historia ecclesiastica_ 6. 41, quoting of course from Eusebius' source for these events, a now lost epistolary account by St. Dionysius of Alexandria. Best, John Dillon ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html