medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
A week ago today (16. July) was also the feast day of:
Vitalian of Capua (?). The Epternach recension of the pseudo-
Hieronymian Martyrology commemorates on 3. September a Vitalianus
martyred, it would seem, in Samnium: _in Caudis Vitalianus_; if
_Caudis_ signifies ancient Caudium, today's location would be in the
vicinity of Montesarchio (BV). That this V. had an early medieval cult
elsewhere in Campania is established by the ninth-century Marble
Calendar of Naples, where he is again commemorated on 3. September.
V.'s brief legendary Vita (BHL 1254) makes him a bishop of Capua whose
enemies sewed him up in a leather sack and threw him into the sea
(rationalizers suppose that he will have been thrown into the river
Garigliano and washed downstream), whence with divine aid he rowed all
the way to Ostia (!). According to this account, V. then returned to
Campania but not to Capua: instead, he settled on Monte Partenio (near
today's Avellino), founded an oratory to the Virgin, and finished his
days there, with his body later being translated to Benevento. If
you're up on your medieval Campanian toponomastics, you may recognize
the site of V.'s oratory as today's Montevergine, whose famous abbey
was founded in the twelfth century by William of Vercelli. The usual
assumption is that the Vita was written in the late twelfth century to
establish a Beneventan connection with this locale. As V. is absent
from the earliest diocesan calendar of Capua (also late twelfth
century), his association with that city in either its ancient or its
central medieval and modern location could be an invention of this Vita.
An earlier incident in the Vita has V.'s enemies placing women's
clothing and shoes in his bedroom one night in the correct expectation
that when he arose on the following morning he would in the darkness
dress himself in these and, so attired, celebrate Matins before the
people and clergy. As the light grew, it became apparent to all (were
there no candles in V.'s cathedral to facilitate earlier discovery?)
how V. was dressed; it was widely assumed that V.'s sartorial
embarrassment arose from unchaste behavior on his part. Can any of the
learned on this list cite ancient or medieval parallels of unintended
crossdressing provoking ridicule or suspicion against a cleric or other
authority figure?
By the early fourteenth century V. was being honored in Catanzaro (CZ)
in southern Calabria, whose cathedral contains relics of him that seem
to have come directly from Montevergine and not from Benevento; the
frequently repeated view that he was translated thither at the behest
of Calixtus II in connection with his transfer to that city in 1122 of
the see of Taverna (ancient Tres Tabernae) is possible but not
established. V. is Catanzaro's patron saint; he is celebrated
liturgically on 16. July, the date in which he occurs in the twelfth-
century Beneventan martyrology of Santa Maria del Gualdo and in later
medieval calendars from Capua. His cult continues in Campania as
well.
Best,
John Dillon
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