medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (24. September) is the feast day of:
1) Virgil of Salzburg (d. 784). The Irishman Virgil (whose name in Irish will have been Fearghal _vel sim._) had been in Francia for two years at the court of Pepin the Short before P.'s brother in law Odilo, duke of Bavaria invited him to succeed a recently deceased incumbent as abbot-bishop at Salzburg. The learned V. served at first as abbot only while a fellow Irishman whose name was latinized as Dobdagrecus exercised episcopal functions. But in 749, it is now thought, V. was consecrated bishop and served until his death on 27. November 784. He is remembered for St. Boniface's attacks upon him for treating as valid a baptism in which the formula had been badly garbled and for some doctrine which Boniface seems to have interpreted as involving a belief in a separate antipodean world. V. also founded several monasteries in Bavarian territory including the newly conquered Carinthia, in which latter he also directed missionary work. He was canonized in 1233.
V.'s feast on this day (in the Austrian diocese of Gurk - Klagenfurt he is celebrated on his _dies natalis_) commemorates his translation of the remains of St. Rupert (27. March in the General Roman Calendar) for the consecration of Salzburg's new cathedral dedicated to him and to St. Peter, the dedicatee of the monastery from which Salzburg's bishops had previously operated.
A thirteenth-century subterranean chapel in Vienna once had an altar in it dedicated to V. and for that reason is known as the Virgilkapelle. Two views:
http://leo.skyar.com/stationen/images/atw05.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2v4zv8
In this pair of bishops from ca. 1520 originally in the Rupertikirche at Stainach-Niederhofen (Steiermark) but now in the diocesan museum of the Diocese of Graz-Seckau the figure on the right is recognizable from his salt bucket at St. Rupert. The general assumption is that the figure on the left is V.:
http://www.niederhofen.at/bilder/popups/erf/virgil_rupert_gr_05.jpg
2) Gerard of Csanád (d. 1046). The Venetian G. (in Hungarian, Gellért) was abbot of the monastery of St. George in Venice before becoming tutor to St. Emeric / Imre, son of king St. Stephen of Hungary. As bishop of Csanád he played some role in the Christianization of the kingdom. During the troubled reign in Hungary of his unbeloved fellow Venetian Peter Orseolo G. was killed at Pest by pagan adherents of a native claimant to the throne. Christians treated him as a martyr for his faith rather than as a victim of nationality-based hatred. G. was canonized along with Stephen and Emmerich in 1083. He is one of Hungary's patron saints.
In the fifteenth century G.'s relics were transported to Venice, where they remained in Murano's twelfth-century Chiesa di Santa Maria e San Donato until they were returned to Hungary in 2002. A few views of that church and of its belltower:
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/2617682
http://tinyurl.com/34xh6x
http://tinyurl.com/3dvpj3
http://tinyurl.com/bu8v8
http://tinyurl.com/2jpzxu
Best,
John Dillon
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