medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (15. June) is the feast day of:
1) Vitus (d. ca. 304, supposedly). We know nothing about the historical V. (Vito, Veit, Vid, Gui, Guy, etc.). His cult is ancient: there is evidence of a church in Rome in the fifth century dedicated to him and from the correspondence of Gregory the Great we learn that in the sixth century there were monasteries dedicated to him in Sicily and in Sardinia.
V. has a legendary Passio (BHL 8711-8716) whose earliest version is thought to be of the seventh century. According to this, he was a boy of seven years (in some versions, twelve years) at Lilybaeum in Sicily (today's Mazara del Vallo [TP]), a professed Christian, and a miracle-worker. His pagan father had him tortured and thrown in prison in an attempt to get him to renounce his faith. But an angel freed him together with his nurse Crescentia and his tutor Modestus (in some versions, Crescentia's husband), whereupon V., together with these surrogate parent figures, removed to Lucania and continued to profess Christianity and perform miracles.
Still according to the legend, V.'s fame reached the ears of the emperor Diocletian, who called him to Rome to cure his demonically possessed son. V. obtained this cure but refused to sacrifice to Rome's pagan gods. Diocletian had V. tortured anew and then imprisoned along with the always faithful Crescentia and Modestus. But again they were liberated by an angel, who now brought them back to Lucania near the river Sele (in an area now in Campania, thus making them saints of the Regno). From there they were called not long afterward to their eternal reward. The very late seventh- or early eighth-century (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology appears to be following the legend when it says of V. only _In Lucania, Viti_ ("In Lucania, Vitus") without naming a specific cult site. In the Roman rite Modestus and Crescentia were celebrated jointly with V. from at least the ninth century through 1969.
Here's a fourteenth-century illumination of all three (Crescentia, in the middle, appears to have received a stain making her seem bearded) in which, contrary to the standard legend, they are depicted as being martyred by decapitation:
http://saints.bestlatin.net/gallery/modestus_bnfms.htm
In a German version, abbot Fulrad of Saint-Denis outside Paris had V.'s relics translated thither in the mid-eighth century, whence in turn abbot Hilduin gave them to the monastery at Corvey on the Weser in today's Niedersachsen. The latter, a daughter house of Corbie, became a major medieval and early modern cult center for V., especially in the western empire. During the Thirty Years' War (or perhaps earlier; account differ) relics of V. wound up in Prague, where they are housed in the medieval cathedral already dedicated to V. At about the same time V. was declared patron of Mazara del Vallo (TP), whose cathedral houses one of V.'s arms along with other of his relics and where there is a major annual celebration in his honor. V.'s former abbey church at Mönchengladbach in the Rheinland has among its relics a head said to be that of V. from which as recently as 1962 a sliver was given to the Catholic parish church dedicated to him at Dörpen (Kr. Emsland).
A few views of the Carolingian-period Westbau of the abbey church at Corvey:
http://www.schau-mal-einer-an.com/Lndsch/Weser/Corvey_Westwerk_4.jpg
http://www.wege-durch-das-land.de/2000/images/11_Corvey_Westwerk.jpg
http://www.schau-mal-einer-an.com/Lndsch/Weser/Corvey_Kaiserkirche.jpg
http://www.ib.hu-berlin.de/~wumsta/Milkau/180-2.jpg
also (click on the links):
http://www.brynmawr.edu/Acads/Cities/wld/01070/01070m.html
An English-langiage page on the late tenth- to twelfth-century Klosterkirche St. Vitus at Drübeck (Kr. Wernigerode) in Sachsen-Anhalt:
http://tinyurl.com/3owa87
A page of views:
http://tinyurl.com/4uyq8f
An illustrated, German-language page (many expandable views at bottom) on the Münster-Basilika St. Vitus at Mönchengladbach in the Rheinland (begun after 974; consecrated 1275; rebuilt after massive damage in World War II):
http://www.baukunst-nrw.de/index.php?oid=756
Other sets of expandable views:
http://tinyurl.com/664k2e
http://tinyurl.com/543utd
Various views of Prague's fourteenth- and fifteenth-century cathedral of St. Vitus (Katedrála sv. Víta):
http://www.ivanweb.net/images/Mondo/Praga/22.jpg
http://www.ivanweb.net/images/Mondo/Praga/23.jpg
http://www.ivanweb.net/images/Mondo/Praga/25.jpg
And a few views of its famous Last Judgment mosaic:
http://tinyurl.com/psof5
http://www.meritoviaggi.com/praga/immagini/city/mosaic_sanvito.jpg
An illustrated, Slovenian-language page on the twelfth-century cerkev sv. Vida in Dravograd (formerly Unterdrauburg):
http://www.ntz-nta.si/default.asp?id=5488
That page has an English-language version:
http://tinyurl.com/6mumem
Another view:
http://tinyurl.com/6hu2bz
Moving down to Croatia, three expandable views of the late eleventh-century crkva sv. Vida near Dobrinj are at the top here:
http://kulturna-dobra-pgz.posluh.hr/dobrinj/sela.htm
Views of the crkva sv. Vida (ca. 1300) at ®rnovo on the Croatian island of Korčula:
http://tinyurl.com/55bpbr
http://tinyurl.com/6yw7rb
(for enlargement, click on VEĆA FOTOGRAFIJA)
The highest elevation on the Croatian island of Pag is named for V. (sv. Vid; ca. 345 m.). Some views of his chapel (kapelica sv. Vida) at the summit:
http://tinyurl.com/4f4xgd
http://www.8ung.at/pag/slike420/jezerce.JPG
http://tinyurl.com/4grz2h
http://www.8ung.at/pag/slike420/kapelica_otok.JPG
http://www.8ung.at/pag/slike420/kapelica.JPG
V. is the patron saint of Serbia, where he is celebrated secularly on 28. June (Gregorian calendar) and liturgically on 15. June (Julian calendar) in commemoration of the Battle of Kosovo, reputed to have occurred on V.'s day in 1389. He is also one of the late medieval and early modern Fourteen Holy Helpers.
2) Landelin of Lobbes (d. ca. 686). According to his very late ninth- or early tenth-century Vita (BHL 4696) written at Crespin in today's département du Nord in Franch Hainaut, the ascetically inclined repentant sinner L. founded the monastery of Lobbes and then two others in today's Belgian Hainaut. After Lobbes had become rich from royal patronage L. and two disciples departed for a simpler life and ultimately founded the abbey of Crespin. The place had been without water but L., like so many medieval Moseses in the wilderness, struck the earth with his staff and lo! a spring arose. L. was buried at Crespin, _non sine miraculis_. Herewith a page of views of the remains of the abbaye St-Landelin (as that house came to be called):
http://www.crespin.fr/articles.php?lng=fr&pg=95
An illustrated, French-language page on the abbey of Lobbes:
http://users.skynet.be/bk342309/Lobbes/page2.html
A view of Lobbes' former abbey church of St-Ursmer, dedicated to L.'s immediate successor there:
http://tinyurl.com/38pll4
3) Bernard of Menthon (d. 1008 or 1081). B. (also B. of Aosta) is the reputed founder of the hospices after which the Great and the Little St. Bernard passes are named. His Vitae differ on when he lived. Tradition makes him a priest at Aosta active in the eleventh century and has him dying at the abbey of St. Lawrence at Novara. B. has had a cult at Novara from the twelfth century onward. He was papally canonized in 1681 (his legend has him canonized ca. 1120). The cathedral of Novara claims to have his remains. In 1923 Pius XI** proclaimed B. patron of skiers and of alpine residents.
Thanks to a belief that B. belonged to the family of the former lords of Menthon, today's Menthon-Saint-Bernard (Haute-Savoie) takes its name from him. Here's a schedule of its present millenary celebrations of B. (clearly, they're not waiting for 2081):
http://www.rivepleinsoleil.com/chapitre1_fr_6.html
Elsewhere in the Jura, B. is the dedicatee of the now much rebuilt église Saint-Bernard-de-Menton at Ferrette (Haut-Rhin). Herewith a few views showing its originally twelfth-century belltower:
http://tinyurl.com/6kj8s3
http://www.maison5temps.com/img/ferrette_3.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/49d3f8
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised)
** Or somebody else. In what one may hope is a machine translation, one reads on the "ST-BERNARD" subpage of the English-language version of the Chateu de Menthon's website:
http://www.chateau-de-menthon.com/enindex.htm
the following:
"Saint Bernard de Menthon proclaimed, by Magpie XI, holy for the mountaineers and all those which travel in the mountains,..."
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