medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I found the shrine of the martyrs exceptionally moving, in part because
their bones were collected by people who had known them. Also, you can
work out various ages, injuries, & with a little effort, some facial
features An interesting aspect of this story is the round numbers --
600 or 900 or 800 or 700. In incident after incident in the 15thC, when
a lot of men are executed by Turks in Greece, the number is consistently
reported, such as 700 at Tabia or 800 at Negroponte.
DW
John Dillon wrote:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> Today (14. August) is the feast day of:
>
> The martyrs of Otranto (Bl.; d. 1480).
>
> In late July 1480 the little port city of Otranto on the Salentine
> peninsula (the heel of Italy's boot) was besieged by a Turkish invasion
> force that had crossed the Adriatic from Valona in today's Albania.
> Only lightly garrisoned and poorly provisioned for a siege (an expected
> invasion in the vicinity of Brindisi had drawn northward most of the
> Kingdom of Sicily's defense forces in the region), the city held out
> behind its walls for about two weeks before being taken on 11. August.
> Most of Otranto's civic and religious leadership perished either in the
> final assault or during the sack that followed.
>
> Three days later, the captors took the bulk of the city's surviving
> adult males (perhaps 600 in all; unreliable accounts from long afterward
> put the number at about 900 and make it include virtually the entire
> population regardless of sex or age) to a hill outside of town and there
> executed all of them, supposedly by decapitation, one by one, all day
> long. A few wealthy people had been allowed to convert to Islam and
> were therefore spared. The remainder, said to have been martyred for
> their faith (though whether they were really offered a choice remains an
> open question), are today's less well known holy persons of the Regno.
>
>
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|