medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Wed, 28 Apr 2004 12:48:32 -0400 Meg Cormack wrote:
> We'd appreciate
>any help you can give with relevant literature on holy wells in the middle ages (or later),
>
Dear Meg,
I infer from the way in which the above is phrased that your inquiry is not restricted to literature about phenomena of north-west Europe only.
Most of the literature on holy wells in Italy concerns truly prehistoric sites (esp. those on Sardinia, about which in general there's a big and often not particularly scholarly literature) or else archaic sites of either Italic culture (such as the holy wells discovered in the course of the late 1930s excavations in Rome's Foro Boario) or Greek culture (many have been discovered in temple complexes at, e.g., Paestum [Campania] or Kaulonia [Calabria] and some are also known from rural grotto sites in karstic terrain).
But there _is_ a Christian tradition, recorded from Malta, from Sicily, and from mainland southern Italy, of holy wells associated with the apostle Paul in his capacity as protector against snake and spider bites. See Brizio Montinaro, _San Paolo dei serpenti. Analisi di una tradizione_ (Palermo: Sallerio, 1996) and Giulietta Livraghi Verdesca Zain, _Tre santi e una campagna_ (Bari: Laterza, 1995).
Hope this helps,
John Dillon
PS: There is of course that puteal in St. Bart's on the Island in Rome, a church believed to have succeeded a temple of Asclepius on the same site. One could check out the literature on the recent excavations/restoration there to see if evidence of any holy well practices has turned up here.
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