medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Today (1. September) is the feast day of the following less well known 
saint from the Regno:

Priscus of Capua (d. 68, supposedly, or perhaps 368 or 378).  P. is an 
early martyr recorded for the today in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian 
Martyrology, in the Marble Calendar of Naples, and in various other 
sources from late antiquity through the Carolingian period.  His cult 
is attested from the late fifth century, the approximate date of the 
portrait mosaics of Campanian saints that once adorned the church 
dedicated to him at what is now San Prisco (CE), between Capua and
Caserta.  In the Martyrology of Ado he is said to have been one of 
Christ's disciples; local tradition (neither unanimous nor particularly 
credible) makes him a companion of St. Peter and the first bishop of 
Capua.  P.'s Casssinese Vita (BHL 6927; ?10th cent.) makes him a bishop 
expelled from Africa during a later fourth-century persecution who 
settled at Capua, destroyed the temple of Diana on the site of the 
later Sant'Angelo in Formis, and was martyred for his pains.  The even 
more legendary eleventh- or twelfth-century _Passio sancti Castrensis_ 
(BHL 1644) includes him among the dozen bishops who fled Vandal 
persecution in Africa and settled down in various parts of Campania.  
Real proof of P.'s episcopal dignity is lacking.  Domenico Ambrasi, 
s.v. "Prisco di Capua, santo, martire," in the _Bibliotheca Sanctorum_, 
vol. 10 (1968), cols. 1114-16, suggests that he may have been a soldier 
or an imperial functionary of some sort.


Today is also the day of remembrance of:

Agnes of Venosa (Blessed; d. after 1142).  This less well known holy 
person from the Regno is usually said to have been the sexually 
promiscuous noblewoman of John of Nusco's late twelfth-century Life of 
William of Vercelli (BHL 8924) who made a bet with Roger II that she 
could seduce William and thus prove to Roger and to his admiral, George 
of Antioch, that their favorite holy man was really a hypocrite.  When 
she arrived, the divinely forewarned William invited the woman to his 
bed; she accepted but backed off when this turned out to be of burning 
coals (so one could say that she got coaled feet).  William lay down on 
it anyhow and arose unscathed, thus shaming the would-be seductress, 
who returned remorsefully to Roger's court and told the king what had 
happened.  On the following day spies whom Roger had sent confirmed 
this miraculous event.  Roger was fearful and contrite at his part in 
this attempt to dupe a man of God; George, who had been convinced of 
William's virtue all along, was delighted.

William's final hermitage and intial resting place became the dual 
(male and female) monastery of the Holy Savior at the Goleto, outside 
of today's Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi (AV).  John's Life of William ends 
with a verse inscription recording the erection by abbess Agnes, 
shortly after William's death, of a burial chapel in his honor in the 
monastery's church as well as the conducting of services there.  John's 
sixteenth-century editor Felice Renda identified this Agnes with the 
would-be seductress of the Life, adding that A. had been so ashamed of 
her behavior that she had entered religion at the Goleto and become its 
first abbess.  In the next century the Bollandists conflated our A. 
with a thirteenth-century abbess (d. 1241) of this name buried at Rome 
and listed her among the _praetermissi_ of 1. September.  Her 
veneration has spread from the community of Montevergine to the 
Benedictine Order more generally. 

The monastery at the Goleto was essentially a house for women with a 
small attached community of males who were there to perform sacraments 
and to provide spiritual direction.  Dedicated to the Holy Savior ("the 
Goleto" is a toponym), the monastery flourished until the middle of the 
fourteenth century and was closed in the early sixteenth century (the 
last abbess died in 1515).  Whereupon the property reverted to 
Montevergine, which promptly reopened it as a small, male institution; 
it began to grow again in the late sixteenth century and enjoyed 
considerable prosperity over the next two centuries.  In the 
secularization of the abbeys in 1807 its property was divided among the 
neighboring communities and the buildings quickly fell into disrepair.  
In 1973 a monk of Montevergine obtained permission to live on the site 
and began a process of restoration which now, thanks in large part to 
infusions of public monies, has achieved some notable results.

Some views of the abbey (now called that of St. William, after its
founder) before and after restoration are here:
http://www.goleto.it/storia.htm
More are included in the virtual tour accessible here:
http://www.goleto.it/home.htm
(Click on "visita l'abbazia").

The Chapel of St. Luke was the upper part of the abbey's church in the
later Middle Ages.  Two interior views are here:
http://www.goleto.it/images/storia06.GIF
and here:
http://www.goleto.it/images/visita5_big.GIF
The church's lower part was originally the funerary chapel of the
"romanesque" basilica of the Holy Savior.  William remained here until
1807, when he was removed to Montevergine.

Another of William's foundations was the church at Monte Pierno near 
San Fele (PZ) honoring a wooden statue of the BVM that William is said 
to have miraculously found here.  This too received a double monastery 
that became a dependency of that of the Goleto; today it is the heart 
of the Sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin of Pierno.  The church, rebuilt 
in the late twelfth century by master Sarolus of Muro Lucano (famous 
for his work on the cathedral of Rapolla) under the Goleto's then 
abbess Agnes, is one of Basilicata's few notable specimens 
of "romanesque" architecture.  Two Italian-language histories of the 
Sanctuary are here:
http://www.comune.sanfele.pz.it/giubileo/sez01.html
Exterior views (first set expandable):
http://www.basilicata.cc/paesi_taddeo/t_676/p_monum/676_02.htm
http://www.comune.sanfele.pz.it/giubileo/PIERNO4.jpg
Interior views (expandable):
http://www.basilicata.cc/paesi_taddeo/t_676/p_monum/676_02_2.htm

Best,
John Dillon

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