medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (17. March) is the feast day of:
1) Patrick (5th cent.). P. is the apostle of Ireland and one of its patron saints. The son of a deacon and the grandson of a priest, he was captured at the age of sixteen from his home town in Britannia by pirates who sold him into slavery in Ireland. He toiled for six years as a herdsman before escaping and returning home. But he had nocturnal vision in which he was recalled by the Irish to minister unto them and, with a little more prompting from God, he returned to engage in pastoral activities of that sort (chiefly, it would seem, in Ulster). We have two genuine writings by P., the _Confession_ and the _Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus_. English-language translations of these are here:
http://www.irishchristian.org/stpatrick/confessio1.html
http://www.irishchristian.org/stpatrick/CoroticusFrame.htm
By the seventh century, when his Life by St. Muirchu will have been written, P. was already the stuff of legend. Armagh claimed to have his remains and promoted his cult. A notable relic of this activity is the ninth-century Book of Armagh (now Trinity College, Dublin, Ms. 52), which in addition to the Gospels and other New Testmant texts contains Muirchu's Life of P., another by bishop Tirechan (late seventh- or early eighth-century), and other writings bearing on P. A page from this manuscript is shown here:
http://tinyurl.com/2n9cgq
The Book of Armagh was long kept in an eighth-century satchel originally crafted for a larger book:
http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carlson/leather/armagh.jpg
Another relic associated with P. is the very early (late sixth-century?) handbell known as the Black Bell of St Patrick and now kept, along with its late eleventh- or very early twelfth-century shrine, in the National Museum in Dublin. Views of both the bell and the shrine are here:
http://tinyurl.com/3xy893
http://members.aol.com/lochlan6/bell.htm
Another view of the bell:
http://www.dunningspub.com/images/cloch_dubh.JPG
2) Gertrude of Nivelles (d. 659). Getrude was a daughter of Pepin of Landen and of his wife, St. Itta; she was thus also a sister of St. Begga. After Pepin's death Itta founded a double monastery at today's Nivelles (prov. de Brabant Wallon) in Belgium and entered it along with G., who became abbess. In about 670 a monk of Nivelles wrote the first of G.'s Vitae (BHL 3490), setting forth her knowledge of Scripture, her works of charity, and her miracles. Her cult spread widely in the Low Countries and in adjacent areas.
G.'s monastery has disappeared without trace. Herewith some views of Nivelles' originally eleventh-century collégiale dedicated to her, now rebuilt after extensive bombing damage sustained early in World War II:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/Joshke/Niv1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/Joshke/Niv2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/Joshke/Niv3.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/Joshke/Niv6.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/Joshke/Niv5.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/Joshke/Niv4.jpg
Here's an illustrated, German-language page on the originally later fourteenth-century Pfarrkirche St. Gertrudis in Horstmar (Kr. Steinfurt) in Germany's Land Nordrhein-Westfalen:
http://tinyurl.com/2bnuz4
And here's a page of views of the originally late fifteenth-century St. Gertrudiskerk in Workum (Fr) in The Netherlands:
http://frieslandchurches.tripod.com/workumherv.html
Best,
John Dillon
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