medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (24. December) is also the feast day of:
1) Gregory of Spoleto (d. ca. 305, supposedly). Venerated at Spoleto as a local martyr since late antiquity, G. has a legendary Passio (BHL 3677; thought to be not later than the sixth century) that remains unpublished except in the form of its adaptation for a Passion of St. George in Paris, BN, ms. lat. 3789. According to this story, G. was a priest whose success at proselytizing led to his denunciation, arrest, interrogation, torture, and execution under Diocletian. He was buried on 23. December near a stone bridge outside the city wall by a pious woman named Abundantia. Unknown to earlier martyrologies, G. was entered first by Ado and then by Usuard under today's date and with a synopsis of his Passio. That Passio also underlies a perhaps tenth-century hymn in G.'s honor, seemingly of Spoletan origin, that circulated in the collection once known as the _Hymnarius Severinianus_ and in at least one other from central Italy.
G.'s present church in Spoleto, San Gregorio Maggiore, was begun in 1099 and consecrated in 1146. Two English-language accounts:
http://en.umbriaonline.com/article_221.phtml
http://www.artstudio.it/spoleto/en_209.html
Front view:
http://www.prospoleto.it/images/arte/image-5.jpg
Advertisment for a guide to the church, showing frescoes in the crypt:
http://www.silvanaeditoriale.it/catalogo/prodotto.asp?id=1537
Remains of what may have been the church's late antique predecessor were discovered this past September:
http://tinyurl.com/y8253h
In the tenth century G.'s remains were translated to Köln. Here he is (at right) in an early fourteenth-century window in that city's cathedral:
http://www.koelner-dom.de/index.php?id=17437&L=1
Note that in this English-language version the window is miscaptioned (or captioned hypercorrectly; see next paragraph). It's correctly captioned in its German-language counterpart:
http://www.koelner-dom.de/17436.html
G. seems to have been dropped from the latest version (2001) of the RM, perhaps because of the persistent suspicion that his cult at Spoleto is merely a local variant of that of some other saint (the chief candidates being George of Lydda and, far less plausibly, Gregory of Lilybaeum). Previously he was entered for today. The archdiocese of Köln still gives this as his feast day. The archdiocese of Spoleto-Norcia now celebrates G. on 30. January.
For an edition of the Spoletan hymn to G. and of its glosses, see Claudio Leonardi, "S. Gregorio di Spoleto e l'innario umbro-romano dei codici Par. lat. 1092 e Vat. lat. 7172", in Walter Berschin and Reinhard Düchting, eds., _Lateinische Dichtungen des X. und XI. Jahrhunderts: Festgabe für Walther Bulst zum 80. Geburtstag_ (Heidelberg: Lambert Schneider, 1981, pp. 129-48, esp. pages 136-39.
2) Irmina of Trier (d. ca. 708). I. (also Ermina; also "of Oeren") was a member of the Frankish nobility and a great patron of St. Willibrord, to whom she gave (among other things) the villa where he founded the monastery at Echternach. Her Vita (BHL 4471, 4472) was written in 1104 by Echternach's abbot Theofrid. In the first years of the eighth century, after the death of her husband, I. became abbess of the monastery of Oeren (Öhren) at Trier. From the eleventh century onward she was entered under today's date in calendars of the (arch)diocese of Trier, which is where she still is in the RM. The diocese of Trier now celebrates I. on 3. January.
Best,
John Dillon
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|