medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
The completed notice:
Today (31. July) is the feast day of:
Tertullinus (d. 257, supposedly). T. is problematically first recorded
in the legendary Passio of pope St. Stephen I (BHL 7845-47; sixth-
century??), where he is said to have been arrested in the Valerianic
persecution two days after Stephen had ordained him priest, to have
been subjected to various tortures and then decapitated, and to have
been laid to rest on this day at his place of execution in the
pozzolana crypts at the second milestone of the Via Latina. Seventh-
century pilgrim itineraries record a memorial basilica dedicated to him
on the same road (precise location not given; the cemetery in this
vicinity now known as the Catacomba di Tertullino, though not fully
explored, appears to be no earlier than the fourth century). T. enters
the martyrologies with Bede (a brief notice, based on the
aforementioned Passio). Ado, who has a much fuller extract from the
same Passio, lists T. under 4. August, which is where Usuard also put
him, as did the RM until its revision of the year 2000. The calendar
in a late thirteenth-century missal from Austria now at Yale (Marston
Ms. 213) shows the continued influence of Stephen's Passio by listing
T. on 31. July, a datum consistent with the online Grotefend's
reporting of listings for T. on this date in calendars of Brixen,
Freising, Regensburg, and Salzburg. A likely point of origin for this
particular distribution is identified below.
T.'s basilica on the Via Latina was rebuilt by pope St. Adrian I (772-
95). Relics of him are said to have been included among those
translated by pope St. Paschal I (817-24) to Rome's church of Santa
Prassede. In 1624 a printed edition of the propers of Le Puy-en-Velay
in Auvergne asserted that T.'s relics were at the high altar of its
cathedral of Notre Dame; the early Bollandists were unable to locate
anything to substantiate this claim.
Long before this, though, the monastery of Schlehdorf in Oberbayern
claimed to have them. In the tradition of this community (Benedictine
in the eighth and ninth centuries; refounded in the twelfth century by
bishop Otto I of Freising and entrusted to Augustinian Canons), the
founding abbot had brought them from Rome in 769. Whatever the truth
of that may be, the medieval abbey's church was dedicated to T., as is
its successor, the present Pfarrkirche St. Tertulin. That church only
dates from 1773, but others belonging to today's Pfarrei are medieval
in origin. There's a menu here:
http://www.pfarrei-schlehdorf.de/htm/1Geschichte.htm
Of these, the baroque Friedhofskapelle has a crucifix said to be from
ca. 1200:
http://www.pfarrei-schlehdorf.de/htm/US%20Friedhofskapelle.htm
And the St. Georgskirche in Grossweil has a piece of choir barrier from
the eighth or ninth century as well as a thirteenth-/fourteenth-century
fresco of Christ receiving the crown of thorns:
http://www.pfarrei-schlehdorf.de/htm/USGeschichteGrwlalt.htm
Kloster Schlehdorf promoted T.'s cult through its possessions
stretching from Bavaria through to southern Austria, e.g. the
predecessor (dedicated to T.) of the fourteenth-century church of St.
Giles (Aegidius) at Hatting in the Tirol:
http://tinyurl.com/prrjb
Best,
John Dillon
PS: Today is of course also the feast day of Germanus of Auxerre. But
there are people on this list more knowledgeable about him than I who
could, if they wished, contribute a brief account (highlights) of his
life and cult.
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