medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (27. March) is the feast day of:
1) Rupert (d. ca. 717). R. (also Ruprecht) was a Frankish noble whom duke Theodo of Bavaria, who was related to him by marriage, had brought into his lands as a bishop by 696. According to at least one of his early Vitae (BHL 7393), R. had previously been bishop of Worms. Where he established his see is not altogether clear. Traditionally considered the first bishop of Salzburg, he seems at to have founded a couple of small monasteries and at least one church in the general area. Both the year and the place of his death are unknown; the leading candidate for the latter is Worms. In the later eighth century bishop St. Virgil brought R.'s putative remains to Salzburg for the erection there of his new cathedral. The day of that translation, 24. September, is the date of R.'s feast in the dioceses of Salzburg, Freising, and Munich. Today is his accepted _dies natalis_ and his feast day in the General Roman Calendar.
R. is the patron saint of Salzburg, whose cathedral is dedicated to him. His cult is widespread in Bavaria and in those parts of Austria and Italy that once belonged to the diocese of Salzburg.
The artifacts shown on this page (a bishop's staff and a flask for journeys) are traditionally said to have been R.'s:
http://tinyurl.com/2vqpvh
As is also this cross:
http://www.english.ox.ac.uk/coursepack/rood/images/rupert.html
http://www.schlossbergschule.de/Comenius2/salzburg5.jpg
Here's an illustrated page on Vienna's medieval church dedicated to R.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruprechtskirche
Note that this was once the seat of the city's salt bureau. As bishop of Salzburg, R. became a patron saint of salt merchants. In his iconography he is often shown with a small keg or bucket for salt. Here's an example (shown twice) from ca. 1500:
http://www.kirchen.net/pfarren/aurach/Kapellen.htm
An illustrated, German-language page on this church is here:
http://www.ruprechtskirche.at/guided_tour/de-tour.htm
And here's a view of its wooden statue of R. from around 1370:
http://www.ruprechtskirche.at/fragmente121a1.htm
2) Panacea (Bl.; d. ca. 1383). P. (Panaxia, Panasia, etc.) is a poorly documented Blessed whose cult centers on two towns in the diocese of Novara in Piedmont, Quarona and Ghemme, both in today's Vercelli province. According to legend (whose only surviving medieval witnesses are a few frescoes in churches in the area), P.'s father came from Quarona, where she spent her brief life, and her mother, who died when R. was three, came from Ghemme. The father remarried. When P. was fifteen her stepmother, who hated her and abused her, found her alone at prayer in the countryside near their home (P. is variously said to have been out gathering wood or tending sheep) and beat her to death with objects that have been variously described but which usually include a wooden shaft of some sort as shown in this late fifteenth-century detached fresco said to have originally been in a chapel dedicated to P. at Quarona:
http://www.quaronasesia.it/SANGIOVANNI/sgiov07.jpg
Prodigies are said to have accompanied P.'s death and her subsequent burial at Ghemme, where a church was erected over her gravesite. Her cult is attested from the fifteenth century onward.
The church now housing that fresco is the much rebuilt San Giovanni al Monte just outside of Quarona:
http://tinyurl.com/2k4xmk
It contains a number of fresco fragments from the thirteenth century through the sixteenth. An illustrated, Italian-language guide starts here (follow the arrows at lower right):
http://www.quaronasesia.it/SANGIOVANNI/san_giovanni_1.htm
Best,
John Dillon
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