medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (3. November) is also the feast day of:
Berard, bp. of the Marsi (ca. 1079-1130). In fact, it is the 925th
anniversary, according to calculations that may be off by a year or so,
of the birth into this world of today's less well known saint from the
Regno. That birth occurred at today's Colli di Montebove (AQ) and was
commemorated both civically and ecclesiastically this spring at Pescina
(AQ), where B.'s relics are located and where he is the subject of an
annual patronal feast at the beginning of every May. B.'s day of birth
into the next world is today, the date fixed by the Life (BHL 1176)
written, probably between 1140 and 1150, by his student and protege,
John, bp. of Segni (Johannes Signiensis, Giovanni Signino).
B. was a son of Berard IV, count of the Marsi, and thus belonged to a
family that had furnished not only several bishops of the Marsi but also
at least two abbots of Montecassino as well as the famous brothers Atto,
bp. of Chieti and Transmundus, abt. of San Clemente di Casauria and bp.
of Valva. He studied at Montecassino during the abbacy of his kinsman
Oderisius II and was called to Rome by Paschal II, under whom he filled
various offices; one of these, an ecclesiastical governorship with the
rank of count, led to his being briefly held prisoner in a well at
Palestrina by a local lord who felt threatened by him. Paschal made him
bishop of the Marsi (today's diocese of Avezzano) in about 1110; if, as
some think, he had some years earlier been created cardinal deacon of
Sant'Angelo in Pescheria, he gave that upon assumption of his bishopric.
B. was a notable reformer and at the same time celebrated for his
sanctity. He was canonized in 1802.
B.'s cathedral was the now ruined Santa Sabina in the _civitas
Marsorum/Marsicana_, today's San Benedetto dei Marsi (AQ), shown and
discussed here:
http://www.radicchio.it/sanbenedettodeimarsi/page4.html
and here (a different photograph):
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/marruvium/santa_sabina.html
In 1580 the episcopal seat of the diocese of the Marsi was transferred
provisionally to Pescina's newly rebuilt Santa Maria delle Grazie, an
arrangement made permanent, with Royal consent, in 1630. B.'s relics
were transferred here in 1631. An Italian-language page on this church
is here:
http://www.sezione10.terremarsicane.it/chiesemonu/cattedralesmdg.htm
and a better exterior photograph is here:
http://www.caroabruzzo.net/images/aquila/foto529.jpg
B.'s relics are in the reliquary bust at the center of the back wall of
this chapel (also the final resting place of other bishops of the Marsi):
http://www.immagini6.terremarsicane.it/ingrpescina/1_copia(39).htm
The church itself was badly damaged by the earthquake of 1915, was
restored in the 1930s, and was damaged again by Allied bombing World War
II. Much of what one sees is therefore restoration work.
John of Segni's prosimetric Life of B. is in the _Acta Sanctorum_,
Novembris tomus II., at pp. 125-35. For a discussion of this edition,
its manuscript sources, and other witnesses as well as a considered
study of B.'s ecclesiastical career, see Sofia Besch Gajano, "Berardo
vescovo dei Marsi tra agiografia e storia," in Gennaro Luongo, ed., _La
Terra dei Marsi: cristianesimo, cultura, istituzioni. Atti del Convegno
di Avezzano 24-26 settembre 1998_ (Roma: Viella, 2002), pp. 339-64.
Best,
John Dillon
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