medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (9. October) is the feast day of:
1) Dionysius of Paris, Rusticus of Paris, and Eleutherius of Paris (d. later 3d cent., supposedly). D. (Denis, etc.) is the fairly legendary protobishop of Paris, named by Gregory of Tours (_Historia Francorum_, 1. 30) as one of seven missionaries sent to evangelize Gaul during the reign of the emperor Decius (249-251) and as one of two of these who later were martyred (in D.'s case, by decapitation). He is entered for today, along with the priest Eleutherius and the deacon Rusticus, in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology and in the martyrologies of Florus of Lyon and of St. Ado of Vienne. D.'s numerous Passiones (BHL 2171 ff.) make Rusticus a priest and Eleutherius a deacon and in this they are followed both by Usuard and by the RM.
BHL 2171 claims an apostolic origin for the churches of the various early missionaries (D. of course included) by placing their mission in the first century under pope St. Clement I. This tradition was known to the author of the first Vita of St. Genovefa of Paris (BHL 3334; ca. 520). Genovefa, in turn, is said to have erected at some time in the later fifth century a church over D.'s tomb at Catulliac in Parisian territory some miles north of the city proper and close to the royal villa at Clichy. In the sixth century Venantius Fortunatus knew both of D.'s church there, which was beginning to receive important burials, and of another dedicated to him in Bordeaux. In the early seventh century the church at Catulliac was being tended by a monastic community that would evolve into the famous abbey of St.-Denis. It was also drawing pilgrims in such numbers that Dagobert I (the first king to be buried there) founded an adjacent fair on D.'s feast day.
The identification of D. with Dionysius the Areopagite begins with his eighth-century Passio BHL 2178, a product of the abbey that also presents D. as a cephalophore. His ninth-century Passio by abbot Hilduin elaborates D.'s legend and uses matter from the late antique philosopher pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, thus making D. also a theologian. By this time D. had become a "national" saint and his cult was beginning to spread beyond Francia. In the twelfth century abbot Suger translated relics believed to be those of D., R., and E. from the crypt of his rebuilt abbey church to underneath its main altar. In the later Middle Ages D. was one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, invoked in cases of illness of or injury to the head.
Two English-language multi-page sites on the abbey of St.-Denis and on its church:
http://tinyurl.com/4r5kol
http://tinyurl.com/3hfcg6
Another, in French:
http://tinyurl.com/5yml7d
Various representations of the martyrdom of D., R., and E. (eleventh-century to thirteenth-century):
http://tinyurl.com/4suedc
Views of the eleventh- to fifteenth-century collégiale Saint-Denis / Sint-Denis kerk at Liège / Luik, restored in 1987:
http://tinyurl.com/3gvd24
http://tinyurl.com/54ggfd
Views of York's twelfth- to fifteenth-century church of St Denys, Walmgate:
http://tinyurl.com/4vckbn
http://www.achurchnearyou.com/album.php?V=18965
http://www.yorkstories.co.uk/york_walks-4/walmgate.htm
D. (at center) in the jambs of the left portal of the south porch (betw. 1194 and 1230), Notre-Dame de Chartres:
http://tinyurl.com/4o6rjl
Detail (D.'s head):
http://tinyurl.com/4zncmm
D. in the sculptures of the Portal of the Virgin (ca. 1210-1230), Notre-Dame de Paris (Constantine at left):
http://tinyurl.com/49t5mw
http://www.pbase.com/image/38550992
D. (at left) in a window (1228-1231) of the south transept clerestory, Notre-Dame de Chartres (not to miss the important bibliography cited on this page):
http://tinyurl.com/3v5epn
D.'s window (1280) in the Stadtkirche St. Dionys in Esslingen (Kr. Esslingen) in Baden-Württemberg:
http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Dionysius.jpg
Some views of this greatly composite church, part of which is said to go back to the late eighth century:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arenate/580224763/
http://stadt.cityreview.de/images/fotos/f6/f6948a.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/4u8agy
http://flickr.com/photos/binehh51/2391463745/
Statue of D. (ca. 1320), Schnütgen-Museum, Köln (larger images at bottom of page):
http://tinyurl.com/3pnard
D. in the fourteenth-century rood screen of St Andrew, Hempstead (Norfolk):
http://tinyurl.com/4q7jgt
D. in the Vendôme Chapel window (c. 1415), Notre-Dame de Chartres:
http://tinyurl.com/4vu3v2
Statue of D. (fifteenth-century) in the Musée National du Moyen Âge, Paris (Musée de Cluny):
http://tinyurl.com/3sgqcg
Views, etc. of the fifteenth-century (ca. 1457) iglesia de San Dionisio at Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz):
http://tinyurl.com/45zrjs
http://tinyurl.com/3svh9d
Statue of D. (ca. 1460-1470), Bode-Museum, Berlin:
http://tinyurl.com/4gvkeg
2) Domninus of Fidenza (d. ca. 304, supposedly). D. is the martyr and patron saint of Fidenza (PR) in Emilia, anciently Fidentia and for most of the Middle Ages (and indeed until 1927) Borgo San Donnino. His legendary Passio (several versions; BHL 2264, etc.), certainly older than the ninth century, makes him a chamberlain (_cubicularius_) of Maximian who crowns him daily, converts to Christianity, flees Milan, is pursued by the emperor's servants, is arrested and executed by decapitation on a bank of the river Stirone, picks up his severed head, crosses the river, and lies down at his burial site a stone's throw away from the bank on the other side. Miracles follow and a cult arises. Later versions speak of a period of neglect followed by an Inventio and Translatio.
D. now reposes in the crypt of the twelfth- and thirteenth-century archipretal church of Borgo San Donnino (a cathedral since 1601). An English-language account of this building, which has some very fine sculptural decoration by Benedetto Antelami and others, is here:
http://tinyurl.com/2w924g
Some exterior views:
http://tinyurl.com/382xos
http://www.museidelcibo.it/allegato.asp?ID=50411
http://web.tiscali.it/italfilatel/cattre.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2jkeuc
http://tinyurl.com/2regcq
http://www.cattedrale.parma.it/allegato.asp?ID=209118
http://www.pedrosite.it/images/003/File0128.JPG
Some interior views:
http://www.clonline.org/image/20anniFrat/fidenza/fidenza1.jpg
http://www.clonline.org/image/20anniFrat/fidenza/fidenza2.jpg
Two pages of (mostly) expandable views of the exterior sculpture are here:
http://tinyurl.com/2snehd
http://tinyurl.com/2q96k2
Here's a view of the relief showing D. as cephalophore (at right, crossing the river):
http://tinyurl.com/2wea52
On those two pages the sculptures are described in Italian. An English-language summary of the scenes of D.'s Passio (shown in two places on the second of the foregoing pages) will be found here:
http://tinyurl.com/37flb8
3) Deusdedit of Montecassino (d. 834). Today's less well known saint of the Regno became abbot of Montecassino in 828. Reputed for learning and for piety, he was ejected a mere six years later by the then prince of Benevento, Sicard, who coveted the abbey's lands and revenues. Sicard also had him imprisoned. D. did not last long, dying on this date from what is said to have been a combination of abuse and starvation. He was buried at the abbey, where -- as reported by the late ninth-century Cassinese monk Erchempert in his history of the southern Lombards -- his tomb soon became a site of miraculous cures.
Best,
John Dillon
(Domninus of Fidenza and Deusdedit of Montecassino lightly revised from last year's post)
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