medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (19. April) is the feast day of:
1) Gerold of Großwalsertal (G. of Vorarlberg; d. 949). On 1. January 949 the emperor Otto I restored property in today's Land Vorarlberg in Austria to a man of God named Adam who previously been deprived of his possessions for having taken part in a plot against him. A tenth-century entry in the Necrology of the abbey of Einsiedeln in Switzerland records an Adam, not expressly said to have been a monk, who died on 16. April 949. In the abbey's later medieval tradition A. was called Gerold, its priory at his former hermitage was called St. Gerold, and he was venerated liturgically as a saint. Medievally G.'s feast fell on various days; today's observance was established only in the seventeenth century.
St. Gerold (the place) is located at today's Blons, Bezirk Bludenz. The priory dates from before 1313, when a predecessor of its present church was consecrated. Excavations in 1965/66 produced remains of an earlier "romanesque" church (said to have been destroyed in 1311) with what had been G.'s tomb.
2) Alphege (d. 1012). A.(Ælfheah, Elphege) became bishop of Winchester in 984 and archbishop of Canterbury in 1006. In September or early October 1011 viking raiders seized Canterbury and ordered a huge money payment to be made to them on the following Easter. When this was paid they turned around and asked for another sum as A.'s ransom. A. forbade this second payment (or else lacked the wherewithal to pay). A few days later, on 19. April, he was beaten to death by some of his captors during a feast. He was buried at London and translated back to Canterbury in 1023 on the orders of king Cnut, who being Danish probably felt it in his English interest to honor A.
A. has a late eleventh-century Vita (BHL 2518) by Osbern of Canterbury, commissioned by archbishop Lanfranc. His cult remained strong throughout the Middle Ages.
Here's a view of the later medieval church of St Alphege at Solihull:
http://tinyurl.com/2mrpkc
Some expandable views are here:
http://stalphegechoir.users.btopenworld.com/church.htm
And a plan showing various stages of construction is here:
http://www.solihullparish.org.uk/st_alphege.htm
3) Leo IX, pope (d. 1054). The Alsatian Bruno of Eg(u)isheim and Dagsburg (also Bruno of Toul) came from a comital family with connections to the German kingly house. He was educated at the cathedral school of Toul and at the court of Conrad II. As a young man he commanded the Alsatian contingent on campaign in Lombardy. At the ripe old age of twenty-four he was named bishop of Toul, of whose cathedral he was already a canon, and was exempted from paying the usual cash donation to the king. Thus untainted by simony, B. proceeded to serve as a reforming bishop of Toul for about twenty years. He was elected pope on the nomination of Henry III in 1048 and consecrated in 1049, taking the name Leo.
L. was a very active pope, presiding over numerous synods and repeatedly taking strong stands against simony, lay investiture, and nicolaism. He traveled widely, consecrating many churches and granting privileges to numerous monasteries. L.'s diplomatic dealings with Constantinople were disastrous as were also his interventions in the temporal affairs of the Italian south. Defeated militarily by the Normans at Civitate in northern Apulia in 1053, he became a political prisoner at Benevento for eight months. Already ill upon his release (though his captors had treated him with great respect), the aged pontiff died shortly after his return to Rome. Miracles were reported at his tomb. Bl. Victor III canonized him through elevation in 1087.
There's a not awfully good black-and-white reproduction here of the miniature from Bern, Burgerbibliothek, cod. 292 (pseudo-Wibert's _Vita Leonis_) showing L. consecrating the church of St-Arnaud at Metz (a much better reproduction accompanies L.'s entry in the _Bibliotheca Sanctorum_):
http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/art-30029
There's a view of one of his privileges here:
http://asv.vatican.va/en/dipl/docdaleoIX.htm
This page reproduces a miniature from a fifteenth-century Greek codex now in Palermo illustrating patriarch Michael Cerularius and L.:
http://www.30giorni.it/us/articolo.asp?id=2857
4) Conrad of Ascoli Piceno (d. 1289). C. was an ascetically inclined Franciscan theologian who taught at Rome and who led the first organized Christian mission among Muslims in what is now coastal Libya. He was professing theology at Paris when his longtime friend and colleague Girolamo Masci, now pope Nicholas IV, summoned him to Rome as an advisor in 1288. But the intended cardinal died at Ascoli before he could receive the red hat. L.'s cult _ab immemorabili_ both in his Order and in his native Marche was confirmed in 1783 at the level of Saint.
Best,
John Dillon
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