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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (13. October) is the feast day of the following less well known
saints of, or originally from, the Regno:
1) Luke of Demenna (or of Armento; d. late 10th century). L. was a
Greek monk originally from the Val Demone, the northeastern
administrative district of medieval Sicily roughly corresponding to
today's Messina province and to the more northerly parts of today's
Enna and Catania provinces. Whether the 'Demena' of his Vita refers to
the Val Demone as a whole or to a now vanished town near today's San
Marco d'Alunzio (ME) is not clear. L., who will have been born shortly
after the Muslim conquest of this part of the island, grew up at a time
when its Greek Christian religious institutions were under increasing
threat from the area's new masters. To escape these, after training at
the monastery of St. Philip of Agira at today's Agira (EN) he crossed
over to Calabria and there placed himself under the discipline of St.
Elias the Speleote, at this time still living at or near Reggio. As
Muslim raids on coastal Calabria became more common, L. withdrew
further and founded small monastic community at today's Noepoli (PZ)
near the Calabrian border in what is now Basilicata. These views of
Noepoli may give some idea of the terrain (now inside Italy's Parco
Nazionale del Pollino):
http://www.aptbasilicata.it/aeree_pics_temp/pics/682dfd4a2f.jpg
http://www.aptbasilicata.it/aeree_pics_temp/pics/e6e7dba2a7.jpg
Desiring further solitude, L. moved on to today's Agromonte. a _frazione_
of today's Latronico (PZ) in the upper valley of the Sinni, where he
restored a small monastery. L. then moved further east to the upper Agri
valley, where he settled at today's Armento (PZ) and founded a monastic
community that well after his death became known as that of Sts.
Anastasius and Elias at Carbone and that during the kingdom's
Norman-Swabian period was one of its great royal abbeys with many
properties and dependencies elsewhere. But that was all in the future.
In 982, hearing of the advent of Otto II, L. fortified Armento against an
attack (that never came) from the Germans and Lombards who were soon
to be decisively defeated by Sicilian Muslims near Stilo in Calabria. Within
a few years Armento was threatened by Muslim raiders. Gathering and
blessing those of his people (probably both monks and townspeople) who
were both male and fit to fight, the aged L., wrapped in a cloud of fire that
enveloped both himself and the pure white horse on which he rode, led his
little host in an attack upon the infidel camp. Many of the enemy were killed
or captured, while others fled in disgrace, casting away their arms. Gandalf
could not have done it better, though the author of the lost Greek original
of L.'s Vita (BHL 4978) of course did not have Tolkien for a model.
L. died not too long afterwards. His Vita as edited in the _AA.SS._
places his death in 993; current scholarly opinion offers a range of dates
from 984 to 995. His _dies natalis_ is given variously as 5. February or
13. October; today is the day chosen by the editors of the new RM.
Though L. was buried at Armento, in time his remains were removed for
reasons of safety (and, perhaps, of diocesan pride) to the cathedral of
Tricarico (MT), where they are said to remain today in a chapel dedicated
to him. His monastery at Armento suffered two disastrous fires and
changed location several times; its physical remains consist chiefly of
rubble on a hillside in Basilicata and an incomplete archive that was
removed to Rome in the early seventeenth century.
A view of Armento is here:
http://marie.bravepages.com/images/armento.gif
The arms of Armento show L. mounted upon a horse that is anything but
gleaming white:
http://www.araldicacivica.it/comuni/indexc.php?extrac=s&id_comune=2758
Tricarico's originally eleventh-century cathedral has been rebuilt so
often that it preserves virtually nothing of its medieval aspect.
Here's a page of views of it:
http://www.basilicata.cc/paesi_taddeo/t_728/p_monum/728_01.htm
2) Chelidonia of Subiaco (d. 1152 [traditional]). C.'s name appears in
our oldest sources as 'Cleridona' or 'Cleridonia'; the now traditional
'Chelidonia' appears to be a relatively late hagiographical flight of
fancy. According to her Vita, she was born in the Cicolano, a territory
that until its incorporation into Lazio in the great realignment of 1927
was traditionally part of Abruzzo. She is said to have renounced the
world at an early age, to have made a pilgrimage to Rome, and then to
have settled in a cave near the Benedictine monastery complex of
Subiaco. Here she resided as a hermit, engaging in a life or prayer and
fasting and occasionally revealing her sanctity through acts of
thaumaturgy. After her death (sometime before 1183; neither the year
nor the day is known with certainty), C. was buried at the monastery of
St. Scholastica. Within a few years she was reinterred in her grotto
and another women's monastery was founded nearby. Dedicated at first to
St. Mary Magdalene, this later was known as that of Santa Cleridona. In
1578 her remains were translated back to St. Scholastica.
C.'s cult is documented from the late twelfth century onward. Her
Vita's oldest form consists of eight readings for an Office preserved at
Subiaco in a thirteenth-century manuscript written for a women's
monastery, probably the one dedicated to her; as far as I know, it is
still unedited. In 1695 C. was proclaimed the principal patron of
Subiaco. Views of a thirteenth-century fresco of her (by one 'Magister
Conxolus') in the lower church of the Sacro Speco at Subiaco are here:
http://www.benedettini-subiaco.org/benedettini/113.htm
http://tinyurl.com/lf29g
Significant work was done on C. in the last several decades by Sofia
Boesch Gajano, whose often announced book on C. and on her cult is
apparently yet to appear. It was therefore rather appalling to discover
that the _New Catholic Encyclopedia_ (2003) prints only a brief entry on
C. written long ago by Martin R. P. McGuire (d. 1969) and does not add
to it any citations of more recent scholarship.
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post lightly revised)
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