medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (2. October) is the feast day of:
1) Modestus, (once) venerated at Benevento (d. ca. 304, supposedly). This less well known saint from the Regno has a brief but fulsome Passio (BHL 5983d) by the eleventh-century rhetorician Alberic of Montecassino that makes him a deacon of Sardinian birth and of noble parentage and ancestry, possessed of many virtues, and martyred (somewhere) under Diocletian. It is apparent that Alberic knew either nothing or next to nothing about M. Assuming for the nonce that tradition rather than Alberic made our saint a deacon, a Sardinian, and a martyr, we have no means of ascertaining that tradition's age or accuracy.
M.'s Passio was written for the Beneventan monastery of San Modesto, founded under Arichis II between 758 and 774. Early modern ecclesiastical historians purveyed a legendary translation account whereby the future pope St. Gregory I persuaded Pelagius II to send M.'s remains to a Beneventan monastery of Santa Maria ad Olivolam where subsequently an altar was erected to him; for the sources of this one, see Franco Bartoloni, ed., _Le più antiche carte dell'abbazia di S. Modesto in Benevento (secoli VIII - XIII)_ (Roma: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 1950; Regesta Chartarum Italiae, v. 33), pp. vii-xii. The monastery of San Modesto lasted in practice until 1820 (in 1926 the title of abbot was granted to the pastor of the successor parish of the same name). Its church was destroyed in the USAmerican aerial bombardment of Benevento in 1943.
After the war, a new church of San Modesto was erected south of the old city. At some point, it was decided that the M. of this parish was the saint of this name from the legends of St. Vitus (15. June). When that M.'s cult was suppressed in 1969, the church retained its historic name. But it no longer celebrates any St. M. The archdiocese of Benevento does not include M. among its numerous saints profiled on its website:
http://tinyurl.com/mpavn
(where such worthies as St. Arthellais and St. Cassian of Benevento are also among the missing).
But the monastery had many holdings and was otherwise influential over a broad area. Consequently, M.'s cult was disseminated fairly widely. In some of these places (e.g. Morrone del Sannio [CB] in Molise, where he is the principal patron saint), M. is still commemorated today. The church of Santa Maria Maggiore at Mirabella Eclano (AV) in Campania is said to hold a relic of him. In 1480, remains said to be those of M. were discovered at the abbey of Montevergine (near Mercogliano [AV]) along with those of Januarius and other Beneventan saints. Whereas Januarius was subsequently translated back to Naples (where his presumed remains had lain prior to his early ninth-century "repatriation" by prince Sico of Benevento), Montevergine managed to hold onto M., who has an altar and a display reliquary in the crypt of that abbey's "new" basilica (opened to the public in 1961).
Alberic's _Passio sancti Modesti levitae et martyris_ is at _Analecta Bollandiana_ 51 (1933), 369-74.
In the absence of any decent visuals for M., herewith some views, etc. of the restored thirteenth- or fourteenth-century church of the former monastery of Santa Maria di Casalpiano situated on a ridge outside of the aforementioned Morrone del Sannio in Molise:
Front:
http://tinyurl.com/2w8etc
http://tinyurl.com/2ran9q
Rear:
http://tinyurl.com/2waoja
Interior:
http://tinyurl.com/4yv3lt
Plan of the church:
http://tinyurl.com/2vaubd
Plans of the monastery:
http://tinyurl.com/2r4amx
Next to this church is the apse of what seems to have been an eleventh-century structure identified by some as one or the other of the two churches documented as having existed in this locale in 1017:
http://tinyurl.com/3peena
2) Leodegar of Autun (d. ca. 678). According to his two early Vitae (BHL 4849b-4850; 4851-4852b), both of which are thought to derive from a common source, L. (in Latin, Leodegarius; in French, Léger) came from the great nobility of Alsace and was educated in the palace school of Chlotar II (584-629). At the age of twenty he was archdeacon in the diocese of Poitiers, where an uncle was bishop. After his ordination to the priesthood he was abbot of the monastery of St. Maxentius in today's Compiègne, where he introduced the Benedictine Rule. The regent St. Bathild made him bishop of Autun in about 663. Still according to these Vitae, L. was banished to Luxeuil by Childeric II, was restored under Theoderic III, and was imprisoned, tortured, and killed on the orders of his enemy, Ebroin, master of the palace. He was remembered as a martyr and as a great supporter of the monasteries in his diocese.
After a contest for his body among the dioceses of Arras (in whose territory he had been executed), Autun, and Poitiers, L. was buried at St. Maxentius, where in about 682 a church was erected in his honor. His cult spread rapidly in the aforementioned dioceses, in the Franche-Comté (because of his association with Luxeuil), and in his native Alsace. The Sacramentary of Autun (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Hs. Phillipps 1 05; ca. 800) has a Mass for him. L. entered the historical martyrologies with Florus of Lyon, who recorded him under today.
A view of the originally eleventh- to fourteenth-century église Saint-Léger at Cheylade (Cantal) in Auvergne:
http://tinyurl.com/3vbfq3
Expandable views of the originally twelfth-century église abbatiale Saint-Léger at Murbach (Haut-Rhin) in Alsace:
http://tinyurl.com/3k38da
A view of the the originally late twelfth- to fourteenth-century église Saint-Léger at Guebwiller (Haut-Rhin) in Alsace:
http://tinyurl.com/542o6g
Two views of the originally twelfth- to fourteenth-century église collégiale Saint-Léger at Marsal (Moselle) in Lorraine:
http://tinyurl.com/4lf728
http://tinyurl.com/4a66bk
A view of the originally twelfth- to fifteenth-century église Saint-Léger at Monthermé (Ardennes) in Champagne-Ardenne:
http://tinyurl.com/4zbsfd
Two views of the earlier sixteenth-century église Saint-Léger at Saint-Léger-en-Bray (Oise) in Picardy are here:
http://pagesperso-orange.fr/saintleger1/region3/60b.htm
Expandable views of two fifteenth-century manuscript illuminations of L. are here:
http://tinyurl.com/3wxdbu
The fifteenth-century wooden statue of L. in the église Saint-Léger at Cheylade (Cantal) in Auvergne:
http://tinyurl.com/54dqy8
Best,
John Dillon
(Modestus lightly revised from last year's post)
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