medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (17. November) is the feast day of:
Hugh of No(v)ara (d. later twelfth century). H. was remembered as a disciple of St. Bernard. He is often said to have been sent by B. from Clairvaux to the abbey at Casamari (which latter became Cistercian in the 1140s). At some unknown time he became the first abbot of his order's monastery of Santa Maria la Noara in today's Novara di Sicilia (ME), completing its construction in 1167 (on another view, in 1172). His cult was perpetuated at the monastery, first at its original site at a place called Vallebuona some five kilometers distant from the town of Novara and, from the seventeenth century onward, at its new church dedicated to him on a site just above the town itself.
H. was beatified in 1604. In 1928 the Congregation of the Rites granted an Office in his honor to the Cistercian Congregazione di San Bernardo in Italia. It's not clear whether he is also celebrated by the same order's Congregazione di Casamari. When his entry in the _Bibliotheca Sanctorum_ was written he was styled Blessed; more recent publications and the latest version (2001) of the RM call him Saint.
A view of the medievally rebuilt and recently restored former abbey church of Santa Maria la Noara is here:
http://members.fortunecity.it/terradisicilia/noara.jpg
"la Noara" is of course a toponym; the church's dedication is to St. Mary of the Annunciation. She and H. are also the civic patrons of Novara di Sicilia. H.'s major patronal feast falls in August, but Novara di Sicilia's _frazione_ of Badiavecchia celebrates him on 10. November. H.'s liturgical feast day is today, his traditional _dies natalis_. His relics were long kept in the seventeenth-century church dedicated to him in Novara (now undergoing restoration); today they are in the town's also early modern principal church of Santa Maria Assunta.
Best,
John Dillon
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