medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Today (6. May) was until 1962 the feast day of:

John before the Latin Gate (ca. 95, supposedly).  The legend that the apostle John had been boiled in oil at Rome under Domitian (81-96) and had emerged unscathed is at least as old as the end of the second century, as it occurs at Tertullian, _De praescriptione_ 36.3.  Neither that passage nor the one of very similar import at Jerome, _Adversus Jovinianum_ 1.26, specifies a particular locale in or near the Eternal City.  A Johannine feast associated with the Porta Latina on the south side of the city is first recorded in the Gregorian Sacramentary (not attested before ca. 786, when Hadrian I sent a copy to Charlemagne), which lists for 6. May a _natale Sancti Johannis ante Portam Latinam_.

There was at that time already one church in the immediate vicinity dedicated to a saint John: the late fifth- or early sixth-century basilican church of St. John the Baptist that the _Liber pontificalis_ says was rebuilt by Hadrian I and that in the Einsiedeln Itinerary of ca. 800 is listed simply (as it has been ever since) as the church of Saint John at the Porta Latina.  And there may have been another: the presumed late antique circular forerunner of today's oratory of San Giovanni in Oleo, although a predecessor on that site is not mentioned until ca. 1300.  In Ado's Martyrology (late ninth-century) John's feast on 6. May at the Porta Latina is for the first time connected explicitly with his having been being boiled in oil before that gate.

The church of San Giovanni a Porta Latina was rebuilt by Celestine III in 1191, the first year of his papacy.  A renovation in 1940-41 returned it to an approximation of its twelfth-century self, though its interior frescoes are no longer vibrant.  The church is now undergoing restoration yet again.  An English-language account is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Giovanni_a_Porta_Latina
and an Italian-language one is here:
http://www.romasegreta.it/celio/s.giovanniaportalatina.htm

Exterior views:
http://tinyurl.com/mp8x3
http://www.sangiovanniaportalatina.com/Hist_Bell-Tower_Exterior_Eng.htm
Much of the rear of the building formed part of the late antique basilica.  For details, see R[ichard] Krautheimer, "An Oriental Basilica in Rome: S. Giovanni a Porta Latina", _American Journal of Archaeology_ 40, no. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1936), 485-495.

Columns of the portico:
http://www.romaspqr.it/ROMA/Foto/s_giovanni_a_porta_latina3.htm
The well in the forecourt:
http://www.romaspqr.it/ROMA/Foto/s_giovanni_a_porta_latina1.htm
http://www2.siba.fi/~kkoskim/rooma/kuvat/170_021c.jpg

Interior views:
http://www.sangiovanniaportalatina.com/Basil_1a.jpg
http://www.promessisposi.com/esecuz/chiese.idc?m_codice=23
http://www.romaspqr.it/ROMA/Foto/s_giovanni_a_porta_latina2.htm
http://www.romaspqr.it/ROMA/Foto/s_giovanni_a_porta_latina5.htm
An Italian-language key to the frescoes is here (about halfway down the page):
http://tinyurl.com/3dx28v

Views of the early modern oratory of San Giovanni in Oleo (on the reputed site of J.'s torment) and of the Porta Latina will be found in the upper portion of this page:
http://www.romacivica.net/tarcaf/storarc/lat_i.htm

An expandable view of an English illumination (ca. 1255-1260; in the Dyson Perrins Apocalypse at the Getty) of Domitian in colloquy with John in the tub is here (use the Zoom feature for better magnification):
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=3322
An expandable view of J. in oil as depicted in the 1260s by Margaritone of Arezzo is here, in the upper register of his The Virgin and Child Enthroned, with Scenes of the Nativity and the Lives of Saints (about halfway down the page):
http://bepi1949.altervista.org/vasari/vasari14.htm

This feast is still observed in various "traditional Roman Catholic" bodies, e.g. the Transalpine Redemptorists.

Today (6. May) is the feast day of:

1)  Marian and James, martyrs of Lambesa (d. 259).  James the deacon and Marian(us) the lector are the protagonists of BHL 131, the Passio of the Martyrs of Lambesa written by a contemporary at the outbreak of the Decian persecution.  While they and the Passio's author were traveling, seemingly from Africa proconsularis, across Numidia they halted for a while at a villa in a suburb of Cirta (today's Constantine in Algeria).  Staying at the same place were the Numidian bishops Agapius and Secundinus, who left shortly afterward.  A few days later J., M., the author, and others were arrested and taken for interrogation to Cirta, where they were all imprisoned and M. was tortured.  During his imprisonment J. learned in a dream that the two bishops and others had already been martyred.  J. and M. were soon taken to the provincial capital of Lambaesis (today's Lambesa in Algeria), where they were decapitated.

Prior to its latest revision (2001) the RM listed M. and J. on 30 April.  Their transfer to today accords with their feast on this date in the early sixth-century Calendar of Carthage.

Here's a view of a structure, built just after Decian persecution, that was part of the Roman legionary headquarters at Lambesa:
http://museums.ncl.ac.uk/roman_africa/LAMBFH.HTM

The originally later thirteenth- to mid-fourteenth-century cathedral of Gubbio (PG) in Umbria is dedicated to M. and J. and houses their putative relics.  Some views of this church, whose predecessors are referred to in early diocesan documents as having been dedicated to M.:
Exterior:
http://www.argoweb.it/gubbio/cattedrale.jpg
http://www.bellaumbria.net/Gubbio/cattedrale_duomo.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/o3o7y
http://tinyurl.com/3vyskt
http://tinyurl.com/4gtvhf
Interior:
http://tinyurl.com/3qdmgw
http://www.msg.ku.edu/~dave/images/gubbio-duomo1.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2ggttw
http://tinyurl.com/yp6gnl
http://tinyurl.com/2chjvb


2)  Eadbert (d. 698).  E. (also Eadberht) succeeded St. Cuthbert as bishop of Lindisfarne a year after the latter's resignation.  Bede speaks highly of his scriptural learning and of his spirituality.  He seems to have modeled himself on Cuthbert, for he spent Advent and Lent in solitude at the coastal location favored by C. before the latter's removal to Inner Farne.  In 698 he elevated C.'s remains to a new shrine in the abbey church of St. Peter.  When he died not long afterward he was buried in the grave that had been intended for C.  Alcuin attributed a miracle to E.  His feast today is already recorded in the ninth-century Old English Martyrology.


3)  Petronax (d. 750?).  In about 718 P., a native of Brescia in today's Lombardy, and a group of comrades settled in as hermits at the site of St. Benedict's monastery at Montecassino, destroyed by invading Lombards in about 584.  With assistance from Rome, they gradually rebuilt the place and turned it into a functioning abbey.  P. was its first abbot.  In 742 pope St. Zachary handed over to him a manuscript of the Rule of St. Benedict that, it was said, had been brought to Rome by refugees from the original community.  Today's less well known saint of the Regno, P. is considered Montecassino's second founder.


4)  Markward of Wilten (Bl.; d. 1142).  The Swiss-born M. (also Marquard) was a Premonstratensian at Rot an der Rot near Biberach in Württemberg.  In 1138, at the bidding of St. Norbert of Xanten, he became the first abbot of his Order's house at Wilten (today's Wilten in Innsbruck).  His chief concerns are said to have been the care of souls and preaching the Gospel.  Since their elevation in 1638 his remains have reposed in a shrine behind the high altar of the abbey church of Sts. Lawrence and Stephen.


5)  Peter Nolasco (d. 1249/56 or 1258).  A Spanish layman who had been born near Carcassonne in France, P. was the earthly founder of the Order of Our Lady of Ransom (the Mercedarians).  Its celestial founder, P. maintained, was the BVM.  P. was canonized in 1628.

Best,
John Dillon
(older posts lightly revised)

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