medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Better known in some languages as Symeon of Polirone, after the locale (today's San Benedetto Po, outside of Mantua) of the monastery that promoted his cult, S. has a Life and Miracles (BHL no. 7952-53) written by a monk of Polirone and dated by John M. Howe (_Studi medievali_, 3a ser., 25 [1984], 291-99) to the pontificate of Benedict IX (1032-45). This has a modern edition by Paolo Golinelli in _Studi medievali_, 3a ser., 20 [1979], 709-788 ("La 'vita' di San Simeone monaco"); that's not available to me as I write this, but the text of the Life in the _Acta Sanctorum_ specifically names (in ch. 5) only St. James at Compostella and St. Martin at Tours.
Whether that's actually a record or, instead, a piece of exemplary fiction is of course another matter.
Best,
John Dillon
My thanks to John Dillon for advertising my work, but I must confess that I do not feel that my redating of Symeon's Vita in _Studi medievali_ offers the last word on the subject. The text raises a number of problems. Scholars traditionally dated it to the years between the death of Symeon in 1016 and the death of Pope Benedict VIII in 1024, making it a virtually contemporary document. My redating put the life much later, arguing that the canonization mentioned was actually an elevation documented under Leo IX (1049-54). This explained away what would otherwise have been several anachronisms. However, as Paolo Golinelli subsequently objected, a late date for the life does not explain why the miracles focus on the first wife of Margrave Boniface of Mantua/Tuscany, rather than on his powerful second wife, Beatrice of Lorraine (the mother of the famous Matilda of Tuscany). Nor does my reconstruction illuminate why there was a separate circulation for one item in the vita, a letter of recommendation written for Symeon by an otherwise unknown Patriarch Arsenius of Jerusalem.
It may be an error to assume that the text is a discrete literary composition. It is possible that here, as with a number of other texts, especially from eleventh-century Italy, we see one stage of a "living text," a version containing fragments of earlier materials rearranged and improved by a later revisor or revisors. This would explain the disparate chronological indicators. The text seems to have reached its present form at some time in the second half of the eleventh century, quite possibly in connection with the elevation under Leo or a later one under Alexander II (1061-73). Thus it provides a general window on eleventh century spirituality but to use elements in it more precisely requires supplementary justifications.
Symeon's travels and miracles are specific and detailed for sites in Mantua/Tuscany, a conglomerate principality that his travels linked together. This supports the interests of the Canossan family who promoted the cult. His alleged broader western pilgrimages are vaguely noted and appear to have interested the writer(s) only as general witnesses of his holiness.
--John Howe, Texas Tech
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