medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (30. October) is the feast day of the following saints (3) and
blessed (1) of the Regno:
1. Marcian of Syracuse (1st cent., supposedly). We have no information
about the legendary proto-bishop of Syracuse prior to the late seventh
and early eighth centuries, when he is the subject of a hymn by Gregory
of Syracuse and of an anonymous Encomium (BHG 1030) that makes him an
Antiochene disciple of Peter sent to Sicily to preach the Gospel and
martyred at Syracuse after having made many conversions there. In the
sixth century, a basilica at Syracuse thought to have been dedicated to
M. was built in (crypt, with a martyr's tomb) and over (remainder of the
basilica) part of a Christian cemetery whose dated inscription is of the
early fifth century. In the eighth or very early ninth century, M. was
depicted in a fresco in that city's catacombs of St. Lucy. In 842,
during the ongoing Muslim conquest of Sicily, relics said to be his were
translated to the Campanian port city of Gaeta, where M. subsequently
became one of that city's patron saints. At about the same time his
_dies natalis_ was recorded for today on the Marble Calendar of Naples;
this festal date is also recorded for him in a Capuan codex of 991 and
in the eleventh- through thirteenth-century menaia of the Greek abbey at
Grottaferrata. In around 1092, after the Latin reconquest of Syracuse,
the aforementioned basilica there was rebuilt as a church of St. John
the Apostle and its crypt, now called that of St. Marcian, was amplified
and re-worked. Illustrated, Italian-language accounts of the crypt are
here:
http://www.siracusacity.com/Monumenti/CriptaS_Marziano.htm
http://www.ibmsnet.it/siracusa/chgiovan.html
and especially here:
http://tinyurl.com/853yx
2. Germanus of Capua (d. ca. 541). G., an early bishop of Capua, has a
vague and unreliable Vita (BHL 3465; late but earlier than 873-74) that
tells us that he was born in that city of illustrious parents and that,
upon his father's death and with his mother's consent, he sold off his
entire inheritance and dedicated himself to the poor. The _Liber
Pontificalis_ offers details of his role in the papal embassy to
Constantinople of 519-20 which brought about the end of the Acacian
schism. Gregory the Great has two stories about him in the _Dialogues_.
In one (4. 40), G.'s prayers secured the release from purgatorial
punishment of the deceased Roman deacon Paschasius, now toiling as a
bath attendant at a place identified medievally as Agnano in the
Phlegraean Fields; in the other (2. 35), St. Benedict, having been
granted a vision of the whole world all at once, saw the soul of G.
ascending to heaven. In 887 Louis II brought G.'s remains from Capua to
Montecassino, where the new town at the foot of the mountain -- today's
Cassino (FR) -- became known as San Germano, the name it would retain
until 1863. G.'s relics were later moved to a chapel in the abbey
church, where they were destroyed in the Allied bombardment of 1944.
Two reproductions of a thirteenth-century miniature from the Biblioteca
Angelica copy (ms. 1474) of Peter of Eboli's _De balneis Terrae
Laboris_ (vel sim.; title varies) showing Germanus and Paschasius at
upper left are here:
color:
http://www.nsula.edu/campaniafelix/sites/agnano/Images/manuscript02.jpg
black-and white, larger:
http://www.sin-italy.org/jnonline/vol17n2/329.html
For a discussion of this image and of the corresponding passage in
Peter's poem, see this page by Jean D'Amato Thomas, the American
doyenne of medieval and early modern Phlegraean Field studies:
http://www.nsula.edu/campaniafelix/sites/agnano/purgatory.htm
3. Gerard of Potenza (d. 1122?). We are not well informed about this
bishop of what is now the capital city of Basilicata. He does have a
medieval Life, written in the persona of his otherwise undocumented
successor Manfred, who claims to have been a partial eyewitness to the
actions and events recounted. Whereas these are mostly reported in very
general terms, we _are_ told that G. came from a noble family of
Piacenza (in the Italian north), that he was elected bishop of Potenza
late in life, that he served only eight years, and that his canonization
_viva voce_ by Calixtus II (d. 13 or 14 Dec. 1124) was announced in
Potenza by several bishops (one of whom was not yet in office at the
start of the first Lateran council, 18 March 1123). Local tradition has
G. dying in 1119. If he is correctly recorded as having signed a bull
of Calixtus' issued at Catanzaro in 1121, he was still alive in the
latter year. G.'s cult is attested from 1250, when his remains were
moved to a place of honor in Potenza's cathedral. Thanks to the first
of the few miracles related in his Life, G. is considered a patron of
cripples and the paralytic.
Potenza's late twelfth-century cathedral (since dedicated to G.) was
rebuilt in the eighteenth century and was restored following damage
sustained in the earthquake of 1930 and the Allied bombing of 1943.
During the latest restoration, the foundation of the original apse and a
hypogeum with a mosaic floor were brought to light. The oculus in the
facade is said to be a survivor from the medieval church. A set of
expandable views (not including the hypogeum) is here:
http://www.basilicata.cc/paesi_taddeo/t_663/p_monum/663_05.htm
4. Balsam of Cava (blessed; d. 1232). The tenth abbot of the famous
Benedictine abbey of the Most Holy Trinity at Cava de' Tirreni (near
Salerno), B. enjoyed exceptionally good relations with his king,
the emperor Frederick II. While greatly expanding the abbey's holdings,
he maintained high standards of austerity, scholarship, and doctrinal
purity within his community. In 1295 the abbey's scribe John of Capua
called B. _gemma sacerdotum prelatorumque monile_ ("jewel of priests and
neck ornament of prelates"). B., who died on 24. November and who until
recently was commemorated on that day (as, for all I know, he may yet be
in the Benedictine family), was beatified in 1928. The Chiesa Cattolica
Italiana's "Santo del Giorno" page for today and the "Santi Beati" site
to which it links now list B. under today's date.
The abbey's unique copy of Benedict of Bari's _De septem sigillis_ ("On
the Seven Seals"), written under B., contains both a metrical dedication
to him and the presentation illustration reproduced here:
http://tinyurl.com/b432t
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post, revised)
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