medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (6. March) is the feast day of:
1) Fridolin (d. late 6th cent.?). F. is the legendary founder of the monastery of Säckingen on an island in the Rhine at today's Bad Säckingen (Kreis Waldshut) in Baden-Württemberg. His lightly regarded Vita by one Balther, a monk of Säckingen (BHL 3170; written ca. 1000), makes him an Irish missionary and a contemporary of Clovis, king of the Franks. Since there is reason to think that the monastery may have been founded from Luxeuil, it is possible that F. was indeed Irish. F.'s cult is first attested from the ninth century; from the central Middle Ages onward it has been widespread both along the upper Rhine and in the Swiss canton of Glarus.
F.'s tomb at Säckingen was opened in 1357 for an examination of his remains. These (less pieces since distributed elsewhere) remain in the former monastery church, now Bad Säckingen's parish church of St. Fridolin (the Fridolinsmünster). Views of this edifice are here:
http://tinyurl.com/2vvlw3
and here (four pages):
http://www.saeckinger-geschichte.de/munster.htm
and here:
http://www.boldts.net/album/D-ch-BadSaeckingen.shtml
The restored original of the statue in the lower view now looks like this:
http://www.saeckinger-geschichte.de/images/frid_ur.jpg
The skeleton next to F. represents Ursus, a Glarner whom F. legendarily raised from the dead. U. is a frequently recurring figure in F.'s iconography. You casn see more of him in two of the views here:
http://www.saeckinger-geschichte.de/fridolin2.htm
F. is the patron saint of Bad Säckingen and of Canton Glarus. Here he is in a modern version of the latter's arms:
http://tinyurl.com/2kxayn
2) Julian of Toledo (d. 690). J. was born into a Christian family that had recently been Jewish. A student of Eugenius II at the cathedral school of Toledo, he succeed E. first as abbot of Agali and later (in 680) as archbishop of Toledo. His surviving writings include an exegetical commentary on the Old Testament and on the New, other theological works (including at least one, on Messianic prophecies, intended for the conversion of Jews), a Latin grammar, and a Life of king Wamba (in whose poisoning J. has been thought to be complicit). An announcement of a recent English-language translation of this last is here:
http://cuapress.cua.edu/books/viewbook.cfm?Book=PISW
3) Chrodegang of Metz (d. 766). C. studied at the monastery of St.-Trond and then served at the Frankish court under Charles Martel and later under Carloman. The latter made him bishop of Metz in 741 or 742. A notable ecclesiastical reformer, C. wrote a rule for canons that later underwent several revisions and was influential outside of Francia as well as within it. Among his monastic foundations are Gorze in Lorraine and Lorsch in today's Hessen. For the former he procured the relics of the Roman martyr St. Gorgonius (later translated to Minden an der Weser) and for the latter those of the Milanese martyrs St. Felix and Nabor (later translated to Köln).
Whereas the abbey at Gorze was called that of St. Gorgonius, its surviving twelfth-/thirteenth-century church (with later additions) is dedicated to St. Stephen. Herewith some views of this St.-Etienne, restored in the nineteenth century. Views:
http://tinyurl.com/2pzp6s
http://vaux57.free.fr/galerie/gorze.htm
http://tinyurl.com/yp2ba7
http://www.tholey-historisch.de/Kirche_gorze.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/32vkyf
Here's an English-language website on the remains of the abbey at Lorsch (Kreis Bergstraße):
http://www.kloster-lorsch.de/lingua/englisch.html
Some views in color of the atrium (the so-called King's Hall) of the abbey church are here:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kloster_Lorsch
Best,
John Dillon
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