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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Verena is a popular but poorly documented saint of today's northern Switzerland 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 Vitae, BHL 8540t. Written for a pious and noble lady who in all probability was St. Richardis (d. ca. 895) and preserved in numerous witnesses from the end of the ninth or the beginning of the tenth century onward, this makes her an Egyptian of excellent family who together with other Christians accompanied the Theban Legion to northern Italy, who was at Milan when St. Maurice and most of the legion were -- according to their legend -- martyred at Acaunus (also Acaunum and Agaunum), who hearing of their death traveled Acaunus, and who then settled down at today's Solothurn, living ascetically as a holy virgin. A re-working of this Vita from the later tenth or eleventh century (BHL 8541) brings Verena to Zurzach (now Bad Zurzach in Kanton Aargau), where since the tenth century her cult has been centered. There she tends lepers, gives alms to the poor, 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 Verena's legend acquired fresh details. Verena's cult is first attested from the monasteries of Reichenau, St. Gallen, Muri, and Einsiedeln. It flourished as well in its local diocese of Konstanz and traveled down the Rhine to the dioceses of Trier and Köln. 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 St. Giles (Egidius) on this day (1. September): http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/fmb/cb-0030/6r Today is Verena's feast day in Bad Zurzach and in other localities and her day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology. I have been unable to ascertain whether she is considered a patron of camp followers. Two differently illustrated German-language pages on Verena's church at Bad Zurzach: http://tinyurl.com/gmtnxju [Wikipedia] http://www.st-verena.ch/index.php?page=informationen-zum-verenamunster Outside of Solothurn one can visit a cave piously believed to have been inhabited by Verena (and said to be first recorded from 1442 as "ze sant Frenen"): http://www.lochstein.de/hrp/orte/verena/verena.htm http://www.einsiedelei.ch/ Some period-pertinent images of St. Verena: a) as depicted (at right in the upper left-hand quadrant) in an earlier twelfth-century copy of Usuard's martyrology in a choir book from the abbey of Zwiefalten (betw. 1138 and 1147; Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Cod. hist. 2° 415, fols. 18v-87r, at fol. 62v): http://tinyurl.com/hygxrqk b) as depicted (giving alms) by the court workshop of Frederick III in a mid-fifteenth-century copy of the _Legenda aurea_ (1446-1447; Vienna, ÖNB, cod. 326, fol. 277v): http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7006900.JPG c) as depicted (at right; at left, St. Mary Magdalene; at center, St. John the Evangelist) by the Zürcher Veilchenmeister in an early sixteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1505; on a wing from a dismembered altarpiece) in the Schweizerisches Nationalmuseum in Zurich: http://tinyurl.com/jn3vmy8 d) as depicted (performing acts of mercy) in an earlier sixteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1524) in the Württembergisches Landesmuseum Stuttgart (Inv. Nr. 1928-89): http://tinyurl.com/nf6jsw Best, John Dillon ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: subscribe 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: unsubscribe 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/medieval-religion