medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (11. October) is the feast day of:
1) Philip the deacon (d. 1st cent.). P. immediately follows St. Stephen in the list of apostolically chosen deacons of Jerusalem at Acts 6:5. In Acts 8:51-3 he converts many in Samaria, including Simon Magus. In Acts 8:26-40 he travels on the road to Gaza and before he reaches Caesarea converts and baptizes an Ethiopian eunuch and official of queen Candace. In Acts 21:8-9 Paul and his companions stay at Caesarea with the preacher P. and we learn that he had four unmarried daughters who prophesied. In Jerome's day one could visit P.'s house in Caesarea and see the rooms occupied by his daughters. P. is traditionally said to have died a confessor, either in Tralles or in Caesarea.
In the medieval Latin West P. was commemorated on 6. June along with his daughters, as he also was in the RM until its revision of 2001 (when the daughters were dropped from the elogium and the commemoration was changed to today, P.'s traditional feast day in the Greek church).
2) Nicasius, Quirinus, Scubiculus, and Pientia (d. 1st cent., supposedly). N., Q., and S. (in French, Nicaise, Quirin, and Scuvicule or Egobille) are shadowy saints of the Vexin normand who were treated as martyrs when in 872 they were the subjects of an Inventio at Rouen contemporary with that of St. Audoenus (Ouen, etc.). In the also later ninth-century Martyrology of Usuard Pientia (in French, Pience) replaced S. as one of N.'s companions. Later she was to join them in a sequence of legendary Passiones (BHL 6082, etc.; not attested before the eleventh century) that makes them missionaries sent to the region by pope St. Clement I and martyred there under Domitian. In these accounts, clearly based on the Passiones of St. Dionysius (Denis) of Paris, N. is a bishop, Q. is a priest, and S. a deacon.
At some point during the years 1079-1110 N. was added, in first position, to the catalogue of Rouen's bishops. Most of Q.'s presumed relics had already traveled to Malmedy in today's East Cantons of Belgium, where in 1042 they were accorded a formal elevation. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries N.'s cult spread fairly widely, while the others had more limited veneration. P. was connected legendarily with St. Clarus (Clair) of today's Saint-Clair-sur-Epte (Val-d'Oise) and shared his cult.
Here's a view of N.'s early fourteenth-century statue in the église collégiale Notre-Dame at Ecouis (Eure), showing him as a partial cephalophore (Ecouis' proximity to Rouen and the statue's manufacture from stone from nearby Vernon argue for this being a representation of today's N. and not his better known homonym of Reims):
http://www.collegiale-ecouis.asso.fr/photos/nicaise.JPG
An illustrated, French-language guide to the church itself:
http://www.collegiale-ecouis.asso.fr/htm/B_la_collegiale.htm
And here's an illustrated, French-language guide to the thirteenth- to sixteenth-century église St.-Nicaise at Rouen (expandable views at the foot of the page):
http://tinyurl.com/2pd4pc
This set of views of the frescoes of the église du Béguinage at Saint-Trond includes one of its sixteenth-century fresco of Q. "of Malmedy":
http://tinyurl.com/3bu2t6
This page offers two smallish views of the originally twelfth-century église St.-Denis at Saint-Escobille (Essonne), now the only town in France to be named for S.:
http://catholique.dourdan.free.fr/villages/v-stescobille/page.html
3) Tarachus, Probus, and Andronicus (d. ca. 305, supposedly). T., P., and A. are martyrs of Cilicia, entered under today in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology as martyrs of Anazarbus in Cilicia, under 27. September as martyrs of Tarsus in Cilicia, and on several other days simply as martyrs of Cilicia. Byzantine synaxaries record under 12. October (one of their other days in the [ps.-]HM) that the fifth-century bishop Auxentius of Mopsuestia erected a basilica in their honor outside that city, using relics furnished from Anazarbus. There are testimonies to their fifth- and sixth-century cult in Jerusalem and in Antioch; Constantinople had at least two churches dedicated to them.
T., P., and A. also have a legendary and synthesizing late antique Greek Passio (BHG 1574) that makes them citizens of different cities arrested in the Great Persecution, tortured at Tarsus and at Mopsuestia, and decapitated on 10. October (another of their days in the [ps.-]HM) at Anazarbus. This received at Latin translation (BHL 981) which underlies their elogium in the later ninth-century martyrology of Usuard, who entered them under today.
4) Firminus of Uzès (d. after 552). F. (Firmin) was an early bishop of Ucetia in the Narbonensis, today's Uzès (Gard) in southern France between the Gardon and the Cévennes. A friend of St. Caesarius of Arles, he took part in the councils of Orléans of 541 and 549 and in that of Paris in 552. He was also a contributor to St. Cyprian of Toulon's Life of Caesarius. In or slightly before 544 the Roman subdeacon Arator praised F. in his _Historia apostolica_ (a.k.a. _De actibus apostolorum_) as someone whose fame extended even unto Italy. The year of his death is unknown. Usuard gives today as his _dies natalis_. A cult at his tomb (presumably in the then cathedral of Uzès) is attested from the ninth century onwards.
In 1090 work commenced at Uzès on a new cathedral, dedicated to St. Theodoritus (who now became the town's patron). Badly damaged in the sixteenth century, it was replaced in the seventeenth by the present cathedral, which still houses F.'s relics (most of them, at least). Views of the cathedral's twelfth-century belltower, the Tour Fenestrelle, are here:
http://tinyurl.com/e66cp
http://www.sics.se/~humble/images/france/uzes/IMG_0268.jpg
http://www.armchairfrance.com/images/Snowflakes.jpg
http://www.levieuxmas.co.uk/uzes.jpg
The parish church at Saint-Germain (Gard) possesses relics said to be of F. F. is the patron saint of Gordes (Vaucluse) in the Luberon, whose early eighteenth-century church is dedicated to him. Its medieval predecessor had been dedicated to the BVM.
5) Bruno I of Köln (d. 965). B. was the youngest son of Henry the Fowler and his second wife, queen St. Matilda of Ringelheim. He was educated at the cathedral school of Utrecht and, a few years after his brother Otto had become king of the Germans, at court, where he received the dignity of abbot of Lorsch. In about 940, when B. was fourteen or fifteen years old, Otto made him his chancellor. B. accompanied Otto on the latter's Italian descent of 950. In the following year he became Otto's arch-chaplain. In 953 he exchanged his chancellorial position for the archbishopric of Köln and was made a temporal lord as well with the title of duke (a responsibility and status that through numerous successors evolved into the electorate of Köln). The latter position entailed representing his brother's interests in the western reaches of the kingdom and for a while B. was also regent of the duchy of Lorraine.
B. is said to have reformed ecclesiastical discipline in his diocese; as a metropolitan he was careful to appoint his students to suffragan sees. In the year following Otto's imperial coronation in 962 he was sent to France to resolve a dispute between Lothar III and Hugues Capet. He died at Reims on this day while returning to his archdiocese; in accordance with his wishes his body was brought to Köln and laid to rest in the monastery church of St. Pantaleon. B. quickly became a saint of the abbey, which he had founded in 955. His Vita (BHL 1468) by Ruotger of Sankt Pantaleon lays stress on his piety and his monastic virtues. B.'s cult was papally confirmed in 1870 for the diocese of Köln at the level of Saint; he entered the RM in 2001 with the same designation.
Sankt Pantaleon was rebuilt after B.'s death first under Otto's patronage and then under that of his daughter-in-law the empress Theophano (in western sources usually given the phonetic spelling Theophanu). It was further rebuilt in the later twelfth century. Herewith illustrated accounts of this church (English-language; German-language):
http://tinyurl.com/4j7hxm
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Pantaleon_(K%C3%B6ln)
Other views:
http://tinyurl.com/462g63
http://tinyurl.com/4bkdwl
http://www.sankt-pantaleon.de/bilder-galerie.html
6) Meinhard of Livonia (d. 1196). We know about M. from the chronicles of Henry of Livonia and Arnold of Lübeck. He was a canon regular of Segeberg in Holstein who in the early 1180s accompanied German merchants to what is now Latvia and who there established, probably in 1884, a church at today's Ikšķile (in German, Üxküll) at the mouth of the Daugava. In 1185/86 archbishop Hartwig II of Bremen named him bishop; in 1188 by pope Clement III confirmed his see as a suffragan of Bremen. The mission made some converts but ultimately was not very successful. In the early 1190s local authorities, fearing that M. would return with a German invasion force, prevented him from leaving. M. was buried at Ikšķile; in the late fourteenth century his remains were brought to the cathedral in Riga. His cult was approved papally in 1993.
Herewith some views of Riga's originally thirteenth-century (1211-1270) cathedral:
http://www.galenfrysinger.com/latvia_riga_cathedral.htm
http://tinyurl.com/4epyts
Best,
John Dillon
(Nicasius, Quirinus, Scubiculus, and Pientia, and Firminus of Uzès lightly revised from last year's post)
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