medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (28. July) is the feast day of:
Liutius (Lucido) of Aquara (d. after 1037). What little is known of
the life of today's less well known saint of the Regno comes from the
chroniclers of Montecassino. He is said to have been born at today's
Aquara (SA) in southern Campania, of which he is now the patron saint,
and to have entered religion at the nearby monastery of St. Peter, a
dependency of Montecassino. L. was in residence at Montecassino late
in 985, when he is named by Leo of Ostia as a leading figure among
those who left the abbey rather than remain under its new abbot Manso,
elected at the behest of his relatives in the princely house of Capua.
He then (again according to Leo) lived for some time as a hermit in the
cave near Salerno where later (1011) St. Alferius founded what became
the monastery of the Most Holy Trinity at today's Cava de' Tirreni and
where L. was treated with honor and respect by the then prince of
Salerno (Guaimar IV).
After a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, L. returned to Montecassino in about
the year 1000. Soon he founded a nearby oratory dedicated to the BVM.
Later, thanks to the generosity of the next prince of Salerno (Guaimar
V), he turned this into a very well furnished priory of about thirty
monks, Santa Maria dell'Albaneta, expanding the chapel into a proper
church and seeing to it that it received painted decoration
unfortunately not further described in our sources. Here L. lived very
simply, grinding his own meal and singing the psalms of David, until
his death on 5. or 6. December of a year in the abbacy of Richerius
(1038-55).
With his burial at Albaneta L. passes out of history until 1458, when
townspeople of Aquara removed what was said to have been his body from
its resting place at the now decayed monastery, transported it all the
way back to the Cilento, and interred it in their church dedicated to
St. Nicholas of Bari (i.e. of Myra). A cult was instituted in his
honor and he was represented by a wooden and copper bust still housed
in St. Nicholas:
http://www.aquaresi.it/Chiesa_san_Nicola/San_Lucido.htm
St. Nicholas itself is first documented from 1308. It was rebuilt in
the eighteenth century, was remodeled in the 1930s, and has recently
been the subject of another restoration whose aesthetics are still late
early modern. A page on its rebuildings is here:
http://www.aquaresi.it/Chiesa_san_Nicola/corpo_chiesa01.htm
and another set of expandable views is here:
http://www.aquaresi.it/Chiesa_san_Nicola/Chiesa_SNicola00.htm
In 1649 L.'s remains were placed in a silver reliquary statue. This
was stolen in 1895 but the relics themselves were found not long
afterwards and were subsequently placed in a new statue of the same
material. The latter was stolen in 1975; when a second replacement
statue (the one now in use) was made, L.'s relics were still missing.
But in 1999 L.'s head was recovered by the authorities and solemnly
returned to his church of St. Nicholas on 28. July of that year. Since
at least 1890 (ten years after papal confirmation of his cult), this
has been L.'s formally sanctioned feast day, celebrated with a special
Office. My guess is that this or some day close to it has been his
feast day for much longer than that and that it commemorates his
translation to Aquara in the fifteenth century. Brand new views of
this year's ceremonies are here:
http://www.aquaresi.it/28-07-06/index.htm
Best,
John Dillon
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