medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (1. October) is the feast day of:
Bavo (d. ca. 655). Little is known about the historic B. (Flemish: Baaf), a local saint of G(h)ent/Gand after whom one of its medieval monasteries was named and who is the the dedicatee of that city's late medieval cathedral. According to his first Vita (BHL 1049; thought to have been written ca. 825), he was a member of the Frankish great nobility who after the death of his wife attached himself to St. Amand, by whom he was instructed in the religious life. When A. had founded the monastery of St. Peter at G(h)ent/Gand B. (whose baptismal name was Allowin or Adlowin) made his profession there and stayed in that community. Later he became a recluse on the site, immured in a tiny cell. There he resisted diabolic temptation, experienced celestial visions, and died on this day in an unspecified year. Miracles accompanied his burial and a cult arose. Thus far this Vita. Later Vitae, starting with a fairly lengthy metrical one (BHL 1050) in leonine hexameters, elaborate
upon this account.
Herewith three illustrated pages outlining the history of the church at G(h)ent/Gand that in the early fifteenth century came to be called after B. and that in the 1560s became that city's cathedral:
http://www.trabel.com/gent/gent-saintbavo.htm
http://tinyurl.com/2zvhzb
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Bavo_Cathedral
More views:
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/arch/st_bavo.html
This cathedral is home to Jan van Eyck's celebrated Ghent Altarpiece, finished in 1432. An illustrated page on that is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghent_Altarpiece
and a better view of open front is here:
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/eyck/ghent/ghentopn.jpg
Another architecturally interesting dedication to B. is the originally fourteenth-century (with some remains from an eleventh-century predecessor) Sint Baafskerk at Aardenburg in Sluis (Zeeuws-Vlaanderen). An illustrated, Dutch-language page on this church, considered the most complete example of the local building style called Scheldegotiek, is here:
http://www.aardenburg-cultuurstad.nl/
(in the menu at left, click on 'Sint Baafskerk')
A different view of one of the painted sarcophagi noted towards the bottom of that page (some of these are from another church):
http://data.tumblr.com/4640159_500.jpg
Some single views (exterior):
http://tinyurl.com/ywpgj4
http://tinyurl.com/2gzt9n
An illustrated discussion of the originally late fifteenth- or very early sixteenth-century Sint Bavokerk at Zingem (Oost-Vlaanderen) is here:
http://www.zingem.be/html/index.php?selectie=urbanus
And here's one on the Sint Baafskerk at Zellik in Asse (Brabant):
http://www.pajotseparels.be/2007/02/09/sint-baafskerk/
Both these churches and the one at Aardenburg began as dependencies of B.'s abbey at G(h)ent/Gand.
Moving on to The Netherlands, some views of the fourteenth- to early sixteenth-century St. Bavokerk in Haarlem:
Exterior:
http://home.pi.net/~marcel.tettero/Bavo.html
http://tinyurl.com/2ac63x
http://www.zylstra.org/foto/archives/001819.html
Interior:
http://www.bavo.nl/bladen/welkomkerk.htm
http://tinyurl.com/25x9kt
A seventeenth-century view by Pieter Saenredam:
http://tinyurl.com/2cdlop
Another, by Gerrit Adriaenszoon Berckheyde
http://tinyurl.com/23hyph
A statue of B. from the northern Netherlands, ca. 1460:
http://tinyurl.com/2356ju
Best,
John Dillon
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