medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (14. June) is the feast day of:
1) Protus of Aquileia (d. ca. 304, supposedly). By the middle of the fourth century the martyr P. was being venerated at a _memoria_ in the great necropolis at today's San Canzian d'Isonzo (GO) in Friuli - Venezia Giulia on the Via Gemina about twelve Roman miles to the east of Aquileia. Also venerated there were the remains of Sts. Chrysogonus (24 November) and Cantius, Cantianus, and Cantianilla (31 May), all of whom were said to have been martyred early in the Great Persecution. Those saints have legendary Passiones in which P. appears the tutor of the Cantiani and as the companion in martyrdom of Cantius and Cantianus at that locale (then called Aquae Gradatae). Who he really was and when he suffered are unknown.
Web-based visuals of the important surviving monuments of P.'s early veneration are as difficult to find as are those of the Cantiani. Does anyone on this list have views to share of P.'s sarcophagus with its inscription BEATISSIMO MARTYRI PROTO or of the stela also incised with those words (both at San Canzian d'Isonzo) or of P.'s representation in mosaic in the sixth-century procession of male martyrs in Ravenna's Sant'Apollinare Nuovo? Absent those, herewith an exterior view of San Canzian d'Isonzo's fifteenth- or sixteenth-century chiesa di San Proto, built over the spot where P.'s fourth-century _memoria_ and a later, two-chambered structure had been:
http://www.isonzo.com/sancanzian/PAGE7.HTM
2) Valerius and Rufinus (d. ca. 304, supposedly). According to their perhaps eighth-century legendary Passio (BHL 7373; ninth-century expansion by Paschasius Radbertus: BHL 7374), R. (also Ruffinus) and V. were keepers of a Roman imperial granary on the river Vesle who were pursued and martyred under Diocletian and Maximian by the the same official who had previously persecuted St. Quentin (and who is also the villain of other, related Passiones) and whose bodies were later translated to Reims. The ninth-century martyrologies of Ado and Rabanus Maurus list V. and R. (also Ruffinus) for today as martyrs of Soissons. Florus and Usuard, who give highly abbreviated versions of the Passio, speak of the martyrs as having come from Rome and place their death merely somewhere in the territory of Soissons. The tenth-century Flodoard of Reims relates various of their miracles. Later it was said that V. and R. had been executed at or near Bazoches.
The cult of V. and R. spread widely across northern France. Here's thumbnail view of their originally thirteenth-/fourteenth-century church at Bézu-le-Guéry (Aisne):
http://tinyurl.com/6cc22z
3) Fortunatus of Naples (d. ca. 345?). Today's less well known saint of the Regno was, according to the _Chronicon episcoporum s. Neapolitanae ecclesiae_, Naples' ninth bishop, the immediate successor of St. Ephebus/Euphebius (23. May) and the immediate predecessor of St. Maximus (11. June). Readers of the _Chronicon_ will remember that some of its stylish little elogia are tricked out with an initial anaphoric keyword: Paul's (the fifth bishop) is 'mirabilis', Ephebus' is 'pulcher', and F.'s is 'sanctissimus'. We are told nothing about him other than that he lived a very holy life and engaged unceasingly night and day in very holy prayers that he might attain the kingdom of heaven.
F. was buried in a basilica dedicated to him near the catacombs of St. Gaudiosus. This church was ruinous in the early seventeenth century when the ecclesiastical historian Bartolomeo Chioccarelli saw in it frescoes, painted in what he called a Greek manner, depicting F. and his successor Maximus in their episcopal vestments. The Marble Calendar of Naples gives today as the date of his deposition. In the first half of the ninth century F. was translated to the Stefania, an episcopal basilica replaced at the end of the thirteenth century by the present cathedral. The Neapolitan _Ordo ad unguendum infirmum_ used in the tenth and eleventh centuries includes F. in its litany of the city's sainted bishops.
In 1589 the Capuchins of Naples found under their church of Sant'Efremo (now Sant'Efremo Vecchio) what they announced as F.'s remains, along with those of Sts. Ephebus/Euphebius and Maximus; in this they were guided by a now lost inscription (our sources differ as to whether this were on a marble tablet or a lead plaque) proclaiming two of these sets of relics as those of F. and of M. deposited by a bishop Paul who has not been securely identified. A formal recognition was followed by a reburial under this church's main altar. When F.'s cult was confirmed in 1872, celebrations took place both in the cathedral and in Sant'Efremo Vecchio.
4) Methodius I, patriarch of Constantinople (d. 847). M. is Sicily's only ecumenical patriarch. He moved early to New Rome, became a monk, and entered the service of patriarch Nicephorus I, going into exile with him in 815 because of their opposition to iconoclasm. For the next six years M. was in the West, mostly at Rome. Specimens of his scribal activity survive from this period. See Paul Canart, "Le patriarche Methode de Constantinople copiste a Rome," in _Palaeographica, diplomatica et archivistica. Studi in onore di Giulio Battelli_ (Roma: Ediz. di storia e letteratura, 1979), vol. 1, pp. 343-53.
Also during this period M. journeyed to Reichenau, where his name was inscribed in the monastery's _Liber confraternitatum_. The entry can be seen in the digital MGH (http://www.dmgh.de/) presentation of Johanne Autenrieth, Dieter Geuenich und Karl Schmid, hrsg., _Das Verbrüderungsbuch der Abtei Reichenau_ (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1979; MGH, Antiquitates, Libri mem. N. S., 1), facsimile p. 4 (the facsimiles are at the end of section V: Nachweis der nicht von den anlegenden Händen geschriebenen Texte). It's in column A, two lines below NOMINA.
M. returned to Constantinople only to run into serious difficulties with the emperor Michael II, who had him exiled to an island (where he was badly treated) for seven years. He was recalled by the emperor Theophilus (829-42). In 843 T.'s _de facto_ successor, the regent Theodora, deposed the last iconoclast patriarch, John VII, and elevated M. to the patriarchate in his stead.
There's a brief notice of M. with bibliography in the Dumbarton Oaks Hagiography Database at:
http://www.doaks.org/hagiointro.pdf
That account does not mention M.'s religious verse. For that, see Enrica Follieri, _Initia hymnorum Ecclesiae graecae_ (Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, 1960-66; Studi e testi, 211-215 bis), vol. 5, pt. 2 (index), p. 293.
Nor does the account mention Elpidio Mioni, ed., "L'encomio di S. Agata di Metodio patriarca di Costantinopoli", _Analecta Bollandiana_ 68 (1950), 58-93 [text on pp. 76-93]. There is a Latin version of this encomium in Migne, _Patrologia Graeca_, vol. 100, cols. 1271-92.
Best,
John Dillon
(Fortunatus and Methodius revised from last year's posts)
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