medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Today (30. June) is the feast day of:

1)  Martial of Limoges (d. later 3d cent.?).  M. is the protobishop of Limoges.  Our first written evidence of his existence comes from St. Gregory of Tours in the later sixth century, who tells us that M. was a member of the group of missionaries sent to Gaul from Rome in the third century that also included Sts. Saturninus of Toulouse, Trophimus of Arles, and Dionysius (Denys) of Paris.  Together with two priests of eastern origin (Sts. Alpinianus and Austriclinianus) he evangelized the Limousin.  His extramural tomb became a cult site for pilgrims as well as townspeople.  In the early Middle Ages the in time famous abbey of St-Martial arose on the site.

In the late ninth or early tenth century and again at the beginning of the eleventh M. received new Vitae making him a relative of St, Peter present for various lifetime miracles of Christ.  After the Ascension M. followed Peter to Antioch on the Orontes where he met his aforementioned companions and after proceeding to Rome was sent with them by Peter himself to evangelize in Gaul.  Arriving at Limoges, M. converted the population.  One of those converted was a young virgin named Valeria who was betrothed to the duke of Aquitaine and who now made a vow of chastity.  The enraged duke had V. decapitated and M. erected a church over her tomb.  When M. died he was buried by his successor, St. Alpinianus.

The eleventh-century historian and forger Adémar of Chabannes, a monk of St-Martial, was a major proponent of M.'s apostolicity.  Here's a view of the plaque he is thought to have placed on M.'s tomb in about the year 1030:
http://www.ac-limoges.fr/hist_geo/photo.php3?id_document=255  
At the bottom of this page is a view of a later thirteenth-century reliquary once shared by M. and by St. Valeria and now in Limoges' musée municipal de l'Evêché:
http://www.premiumwanadoo.com/sahl/document.htm
 
2)  Bertrand of Le Mans (d. ca. 623).  B. is said to have come from a wealthy family in the vicinity of Rouen, to have received the tonsure at Tours, and to have been ordained priest at Paris, where St. Germanus made him archdeacon.  In 568 he was named bishop of Le Mans.  An adherent of the Neustrian king Lothar II, B. was twice deprived of his see and imprisoned at least once by the Austrasian king Theudebert.  He regained his see permanently in 613.   B. enriched his diocese, founded monasteries, and in the year 616 dictated a will that one can still read in the MGH. 

Today is B.'s _dies natalis_.  His remains repose in the crypt of Le Mans' église de la Couture:
http://tinyurl.com/2alf4m
http://tinyurl.com/2z5fke
where a cloth that was once used to wrap them is preserved under the name of le suaire de St Bertrand ('St. Bertrand's sudarium').

3)  Theobald of Provins (d. 1066).  T. was a scion of the counts of Champagne who became a Camaldolese saint.  According to the traditions of this order, at the age of twenty he opted for a life of rural asceticism.  Taking with him his squire Walter (even desert fathers have needs, no?), he retreated into the Ardennes, where the two of them eked out a living by begging and by making and selling charcoal.  T. attracted other followers, got too popular once he had caused a spring to emerge to slake his companions' thirst, and moved on to the woods of Pettingen in today's Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, where he hired himself out to a peasant who for two years treated him and Walter very brutally.

T. next went on pilgrimage to Compostela and then settled in the diocese of Trier.  His father having discovered his whereabouts, T. fled to Italy to avoid a reconciliation and ultimately settled in the territory of Vicenza.  The faithful Walter died there within a few years but T. lingered on to the ripe old age of thirty-three, when, having finally reconciled with his parents. he succumbed to a disease that was called leprosy.  His cult was immediate and in 1073 Alexander II proclaimed him a saint.  T.'s relics are preserved in the abbey of Polesine in today's Rovigo province of the Veneto.

Best,
John Dillon

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