medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (29. January) is the feast day of:
1) Constantius (Constant) of Perugia (d. ca. 170-180, supposedly). C. is the legendary protobishop of Perugia (PG) in Umbria. Along with the sixth-century martyr-bishop St. Herculanus and with St. Lawrence, to whom Perugia's cathedral is dedicated, he is a co-patron of that city. According to his Passio (BHL 1937 and later reworkings), C. was still a young man when he was martyred under an emperor Antoninus. The latter is commonly interpreted as Marcus Aurelius. In collective representations of Perugia's saints, C. is the young bishop and Herculanus is the older bishop.
E.g.:
http://www.cittadifiume.it/xhtml.asp?art=1710
and
http://tinyurl.com/2y8bxq
A church at Perugia dedicated to C. is attested from the early eleventh century. Perugia's present chiesa di San Costanzo (consecrated, 1205) was extensively rebuilt at the end of the nineteenth century. Surviving from the thirteenth-century church are the exterior of its apse and portions of its ornamental main portal. An illustrated, Italian-language page on this building is here:
http://tinyurl.com/32xzwp
Trevi (PG) also had a medieval church dedicated to C. To see what's become of it, go here:
http://www.sancostanzo.com/living.htm
Perugia's candlelight procession in C.'s honor is first attested from 1310. It is one of four such processions dealt with in Perugia's statutes of 1342. For another form of community recognition of C., see:
http://tourism.comune.perugia.it/canale.asp?id=261
2) Gildas (d. ca. 570). This historian of late Roman and sub-Roman Britain is said to have been a king's son, born in Strathclyde and educated as a churchman either in Wales or in Gaul. He preached in Ireland and is presumed to be the _Giltas auctor_ referred to by St. Columbanus late in the sixth century. G. was a major source for Bede in his _Ecclesiastical History_. The earlier of G.'s two principal Vitae (BHL 3541; eleventh-century) seems to have been written at the monastery named for him at today's Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys (Morbihan) in Brittany and claims him as its founder. The later one (BHL 3542; twelfth-century) knows nothing of G.'s having been in Brittany but has him retire to a hermitage near Glastonbury and avers that he was buried at Glastonbury Abbey.
The originally eleventh-century abbey church of St-Gildas at Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys was extensively rebuilt in the twelfth century and again in the seventeenth. Two illustrated, French-language pages on it are:
http://tinyurl.com/2594ry
http://catholique-vannes.cef.fr/site2/09-02i.html
Other views:
exterior:
http://www.frobar.info/golfe/photos/st_gildas_abbatiale.jpg
http://en.structurae.de/photos/index.cfm?JS=50869
http://tinyurl.com/yw9ob3
http://tinyurl.com/ynptke
interior:
http://www.abaelard.de/abaelard/images/070gild5.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2xveo9
Abelard was abbot here from 1125 to 1136. Among the possessions of the church's treasury is this fourteenth- or fifteenth-century arm reliquary (partly gilded silver on wood with rock crystal):
http://tinyurl.com/2wtynp
Also dedicated to G. is the originally twelfth-/thirteenth-century abbey church, rebuilt in the nineteenth century, of Saint-Gildas-des-Bois (Loire Atlantique) in the Pays de la Loire. The abbey itself was founded in 1020. Some views:
http://tinyurl.com/2twa8v
http://tinyurl.com/2dd794
Two others are on this page:
http://tinyurl.com/26loah
Best,
John Dillon
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