medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (26. June) is the feast day of:
1) John and Paul (?). J. and P. are martyrs of the Caelian Hill in Rome, where a paleochristian church in their memory was succeeded in the early twelfth century by today's Santi Giovanni e Paolo. They have a legendary Passio that exists both as part of that of St. Gallicanus and as an independent narrative (BHL 3236-2237b and 3238-3242e, respectively). This makes them first household officials of Constantine's daughter Constantina, then military officers under Gallicanus, and finally private citizens living in retirement who are martyred under the emperor Julian (for Western saints, at least, this last is a good indication that the account is fictional) and buried in their house in an attempt to keep the deed secret.
Excavations under the the present basilica in the twentieth century revealed 1) fragments of an inscription, similar to those put up by pope St. Damasus, that almost certainly honored J. and P. and 2) a chamber, dated to the fourth century, frescoed with scenes of martyrdom and containing a trench divided into two parts. The presumption is that this area functioned as a confessio and that the trench had served, or at least was shown as, the martyrs' original burial site.
J. and P. are named in the Roman and the Ambrosian Canons of the Mass. They are entered for today in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology and in the early medieval Roman sacramentaries. Differently sized views of their martyrdom as depicted in a late thirteenth-century _Legenda Aurea_ (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 65r) are available near the top of this page:
http://tinyurl.com/l97wfz
An Italian-language account, without illustrations, on medieval aspects of Rome's Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo is here (scroll down to "Ss. Giovanni e Paolo" or use the menu at left):
http://tinyurl.com/3dx28v
And a companion account of the basilica's twelfth-/thirteenth-century belltower is here (scroll down to "Ss. Giovanni e Paolo" or use menu at left):
http://tinyurl.com/3st9nw
An English-language page on this church:
http://www.romeartlover.it/Vasi53.htm
Some expandable views are here:
http://tinyurl.com/ow9fy
Two of those expandable views are of frescoes in the remains of ancient Roman houses underneath the basilica (the Case Romane). A brief discussion of that site is here:
http://www.caseromane.it/en/history.html
A few more illustrations of the frescoes, including a medieval one of the crucified Christ, is here:
http://www.caseromane.it/en/pic.html
Marjorie Greene's views of the Case Romane at medrelart are here:
http://medrelart.shutterfly.com/59
Rome's basilica of J. and P. is a basilica architecturally as well as ecclesiastically. Venice's (San Zanipolo to the locals) is only the latter. The medieval city's Dominican church, in its present form it is mostly of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. An English-language account with expandable views (and with a plan that one can click on to see, inter alia, smallish views of funerary monuments of medieval doges) is here:
http://www.savevenice.org/site/pp.asp?c=9eIHKWMHF&b=67636
Other illustrated, English-language accounts:
http://www.answers.com/topic/basilica-di-san-zanipolo
http://www.wga.hu/database/churches/zanipolo.html
This church's south transept has a noteworthy late fifteenth-/early sixteenth-century glass window (colored glass and grisaille). A brief, English-language account is here:
http://tinyurl.com/m8w9al
An overview is here:
http://www.icvbc.cnr.it/bivi/schede/veneto/venezia/1zanipolo1.htm
And a detailed, Italian-language account with hotlinks to some detail views is here:
http://www.icvbc.cnr.it/bivi/schede/veneto/venezia/1zanipolo.htm
2) Vigilius of Trent (d. 400). V. (In Italian, Vigilio and -- for short -- Vili) was the bishop of Trent who in two surviving letters reported the late fourth-century martyrdom of Sts. Sisinnius, Martyrius, and Alexander (the Martyrs of the Val di Non) to the bishops of Milan and of Constantinople (Sts. Simplician and John Chrysostom, respectively). He has a legendary Passio (BHL no. 8602), whose basic text seems to have been written at some point during the seventh, eighth, or ninth century and which served as the base for his elogium in the mid-ninth-century matryrology of Florus of Lyon. Evidence that V. really was a martyr and reasons for even supposing it likely that he was are nonexistent.
Trent's originally thirteenth-/fourteenth-century cathedral is dedicated to V. A brief, English-language account is here:
http://floc99.itc.it/turism/trento/duomo.htm
The Italia nell'Arte Medievale pages:
http://tinyurl.com/3psesq
http://tinyurl.com/4bd98f
Various views:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Trento_Duomo.jpg
http://www.girovagandointrentino.it/puntate/2003/estate/trento/trento.htm
(scroll about a quarter of the way down the page)
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/60anto/Monumenti/grifoni.htm
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/60anto/Monumenti/Monum.htm
Views of the originally thirteenth-century chiesetta di San Vigilio in Monte San Vigilio (TN) in Trentino - Alto Adige:
http://tinyurl.com/mnk5am
http://tinyurl.com/njtf6a
http://tinyurl.com/lxbxhl
Views of the originally thirteenth- and earlier sixteenth-century chiesa di San Vigilio at Molveno (TN) in Trentino - Alto Adige:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/azzalimatteo/3340796051/sizes/l/
http://www.esperienzatrentino.it/scheda.aspx?id=171,1,1
http://www.molveno.it/start.php?page=arte_e_cultura〈=IT
Two views of the originally late fifteenth-century chiesa di San Vigilio at Tassullo (TN) in Trentino - Alto Adige:
http://tinyurl.com/klbml7
Views of the originally fourteenth-century chiesa di San Vigilio at Pinzolo (TN) in Trentino - Alto Adige, expanded in 1515, and of its earlier sixteenth-century (1519-1539 ) Dance of Death mural are here (in the menu at top, click on Chiesa di San Vigilio):
http://tinyurl.com/n6xas3
and here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/querin/sets/72157612111338968/
3) Deodatus of Nola (d. 5th or 6th cent.). Today's less well known saint of the Regno, also known as Adeodatus, was once thought on the basis of his brief Vita (BHL no. 2135) to have succeeded St. Paulinus (d. 431) as bishop of Nola and to have died in 473. But it is now believed at Nola that Paulinus' immediate successor was a younger relative also named Paulinus. And 1974 it was shown that the bishop of Nola from 442 to 480 was one Aurelian, whose funerary inscription (_CIL_ X, 1366) had previously been misread as furnishing a sixth- or seventh-century date. D.'s sarcophagus, carved out of a single block of marble, survives at Cimitile (the site of Paulinus' basilica honoring St. Felix); this gives him the title of archpriest.
The diocese of Nola no longer considers D. to have been one of its bishops. The RM, its editors perhaps unpersuaded of the episcopacy of the younger Paulinus, still treats D. as Paulinus' immediate successor in the see of Nola.
4) Pelagius of Córdoba (d. 945). According to his tenth-century Passio of Iberian origin (BHL 6617), P. (Pelayo, Paio, Pelaio) was the sister's son of Hermoigius, (arch)bishop of Tuy. The latter, captured in battle by forces of the Muslim king Habdarraman (the caliph Abd-ar-Rahman III), left the approximately ten-year-old P. as a hostage, hoping to redeem him later. P., held as a prisoner at Córdoba, was according to fellow prisoners a model young man who retained his Christian faith. When P. reached the age of thirteen and a half, the king, contrasting the delights of the court to P.'s confinement, attempted to seduce him into apostasy and, it is suggested, into a sexual relationship as well. P.'s refusal earned him torture and a grisly execution: he was gradually dismembered by sword strokes. His body was thrown into a river whence it was later recovered by Christians. Thus far the Passio.
P.'s cult seems to have been almost immediate. His putative relics were in León by 967; later they were translated to Oviedo. P.'s legend spread well beyond Iberia. The tenth-century poet Hrotswitha of Gandersheim wrote a verse Passio of P. (BHL 6618).
The colegiata de San Isidoro at León still has an eleventh-century reliquary created to house relics of P. and of St. John the Baptist:
http://tinyurl.com/5fhlzg
Along with St. Isidore, P. (at right) is one of the flanking figures on that church's twelfth-century portada del Cordero:
http://tinyurl.com/6gs4as
Click on P.'s outline here for better views:
http://www.sanisidoro.de/englisch/cordero/index.html
Some views of the ermita de San Pelayo at Perazancas de Ojeda (Palencia), consecrated in 1076:
http://geo.ya.com/froilan1958/PueblosBoedoPerazancas.html
http://geo.ya.com/froilan1958/susfotos34.html
http://tinyurl.com/6owelr
Some views of the rupestrian ermita de San Pelayo at Villacibio (Palencia), documented from 1155:
http://tinyurl.com/6rlhot
http://www.valentinv.com/romanico/Sampelayoermita.jpg
http://www.valentinv.com/romanico/Sampelayoermita1.jpg
Two illustrated, Spanish-langauge pages on the originally later twelfth-century church of San Pelayo at Diomondi (Galicia):
http://www.arquivoltas.com/11-Galicia/01-Diomondi.htm
http://www.arteguias.com/monasterio/sanpelayodiomondi.htm
Views of the originally late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century ermita de San Pelayo at Bakio (Vizcaya):
http://tinyurl.com/4633mm
http://tinyurl.com/kpdwby
Views of the tower and other remains of the fourteenth-/fifteenth-century church of San Pelayo at Villavicencio de los Caballeros (Valladolid) are here (at left, under Arquitectura civil, click on Torre de San Pelayo):
http://tinyurl.com/mwfc7e
Two more views of the tower:
http://tinyurl.com/3l9gzp
http://tinyurl.com/ndsguo
Exterior views of the originally fifteenth century church of San Pelayo at Olivares de Duero (Valladolid):
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6604202
http://tinyurl.com/5w6nn3
Interior views of the originally sixteenth-century church of San Pelayo martir at Baños de Rio Tobía (La Rioja):
http://tinyurl.com/46or6p
http://tinyurl.com/52ljb2
http://tinyurl.com/4wx7f2
5) Anthelme of Belley (d. 1178). The Savoyard A. (also A. of Chignin) was a priest at today's Belley (Ain) who at the age of thirty became a Carthusian at the order's house at Portes-en-Bugey. Two years later, in 1139, he was named prior of the then dilapidated Grande Chartreuse. He made remarkable progress over the next twelve years both in improving conditions at this house and in elevating the order's profile more generally. In 1152 A. resigned his office to become a hermit. Two years later he was recalled to active service and was briefly prior at Portes-en-Bugey.
In 1163 Alexander III made A. bishop of Belley. A few years later A. excommunicated the count of Maurienne who had imprisoned one of his priests and had another who was attempting free the first put to death. When Alexander annulled the excommunication A. resigned his office and retired to the Grande Chartreuse until persuaded by the pope to stay on. Only when A. was _in articulo mortis_ did the repentant count seek his forgiveness. A.'s contemporary Vita (BHL 560) adds that he was good to the lepers of Belley and to its poor. His relics are said to be in Belley's ex-cathedral of Saint-Jean-Baptiste. As the latter lost its relic of the Baptist during the Revolution and now displays a _former_ châsse of A., one wonders if that's really true. Here's a view of the empty châsse:
http://tinyurl.com/m3kj5y
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post lightly revised)
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