medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (11. June) is the feast day of:
1) Barnabas, apostle (d. 1st. cent.). According to Acts 4:34-36, B. was a Levite from Cyprus who had been named Joseph until the apostles gave him his present appellation, said to signify "son of encouragement" (there are other interpretations), after he had sold a field and given them the proceeds. In some Bible traditions his name is rendered as Barnabus. B. was especially close to St. Paul and accompanied him on many of his travels, some recorded in Acts and others occurring only in New Testament apocrypha. The epistle that goes under his name was considered authentic by Clement of Alexandria and by Origen but not by Jerome or by Eusebius (and is not so considered by modern scholars).
B.'s apocryphal Acta (BHG 225) have him martyred by Jews on Cyprus. (You can't go home again!). He is said to have been buried there at Salamis. In 478 the Cyprian archbishop Anthemios, prompted by a dream vision, found what he said were B.'s grave and relics, with a manuscript of the Gospel of Matthew resting on B.'s chest. A monastery dedicated to B. grew up on the spot; like nearby Famagusta (the successor to ancient Salamis) it's within Turkish-dominated northern Cyprus and is now a museum, the monks having left two years after the partition of 1974. The buildings are for the most part early modern and modern. Here's a view of the subterranean rock-cut tomb revered as B.'s resting place:
http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2036641920047195031XDLtRD
B. is the legendary evangelist of Milan. Visitors to that city's cathedral of Santa Maria Nascente -- a largely medieval structure, so let's have a quick look:
http://www.mapseeing.com/2007/04/18/il-duomo-di-milano/
http://tinyurl.com/6jlhqr
http://www.pbase.com/amlobcas/image/85614701
http://tinyurl.com/njg6u
http://tinyurl.com/p9q8q
-- will see an assertion, untrammeled by any qualification, that B. was the founder of the Milanese church:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Milano_Vescovi.jpg
More recently, though, the archdiocese has been willing to refer to B. as its founder _according to tradition_.
Some views of the Hermitage of St. Barnabas at Gamogna (FI) in Tuscany, founded by St. Peter Damian in 1053:
http://www.zoomedia.it/Nomya/Nomyapict/Eremo01.jpg
http://www.circolocubo.it/immagine.php?key=294
http://tinyurl.com/ytmafr
http://www.appenninoromagnolo.it/itinerari_trek/gamogna.asp
B. as figured on Tournai cathedral's thirteenth-century (1247) châsse of St. Eleutherius of Tournai:
http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Barnabas.jpg
Florence's much redecorated chiesa di San Barnaba is said to have been founded in 1309, with work on its construction first documented from 1322. Here's a view of the facade:
http://tinyurl.com/5j4qdh
A detail of the portal showing an early sixteenth-century sculpture by Giovanni della Robbia and the arms of the City, of the Captain of the People, and of the Guelph Party:
http://www.sanlorenzo.firenze.it/news/o25.jpg
The church honors the Guelph victory at the battle of Campaldino on B.'s day in 1289.
In this polyptych by Giovanni da Milano of the Madonna with saints (ca. 1355; Prato, Galleria Comunale), B. is at the upper right:
http://www.wga.hu/art/g/giovanni/milano/polyptyc.jpg
B. as depicted in a later fourteenth-century (ca. 1370) Roman missal of north Italian origin (Avignon, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 136, fol. 242r):
http://tinyurl.com/ma6xry
B. as depicted in an earlier fifteenth-century (ca. 1430) Franciscan breviary (Chambéry, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 4, fol.. 494v):
http://tinyurl.com/knsrn9
B. as depicted in a later fifteenth-century (after 1482) Roman breviary (Clermont-Ferrand, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 69, fol. 454r):
http://tinyurl.com/m4ghzl
The central panel of Sandro Botticelli's Barnabas Altarpiece (ca. 1487; Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi), with B. at left after Sts. Catherine of Alexandria and Augustine of Hippo:
http://www.wga.hu/art/b/botticel/3barnaba/10barnab.jpg
2) Maximus of Naples (d. 361, perhaps). The anti-Arian tract known as the _Libellus precum Faustini et Marcellini_ (383 or 384; part of the so-called _Collectio avellana_) informs us that today's less well known saint of the Regno was an orthodox bishop of Naples sent into exile after the Council of Milan in 355 and replaced by an Arian bishop, Zosimus; it further asserts that M., delicate in appetite and in physique, succumbed to bodily illness in exile and died a martyr. After purveying briefly another account of a persecuted bishop with a Neapolitan connection, the _Libellus precum_ then adds an increasingly unbelievable story about M.'s having condemned Zosimus from exile and about the obstinate Z.'s divine punishment.
Neapolitan tradition differs considerably from this. According to the early ninth-century portion of the _Chronicon episcoporum s. neapolitanae ecclesiae_, M., the city's tenth bishop, soldiered strenuously and entirely moderately on behalf of the Holy Church; his episcopate is undated and his exile is not so much as mentioned. He is followed in this catalogue by an even less informative entry for Zosimus, here the (apparently orthodox) eleventh bishop, said to have lived in the time of Constantine and pope Sylvester. Though this entry notes that it was at this time that the Arian heresy arose, it does not associate Zosimus therewith other than temporally. The _Chronicon episcoporum_ says both that M. was buried in the basilica honoring his predecessor Fortunatus and that the latter was constructed by the twelfth bishop, Severus; this allows but does not require the inference that an interregnum of some sort had occurred.
M.'s late antique sarcophagus, bearing on its marble lid the inscription _MAXIMUS EPISCOPUS QUI ET CONFESSOR [Chi/Rho]_ (no indication of martyrdom there!), was discovered under today's cathedral in 1872; reburied, it was dug up again in 1957, examined, and then incorporated in the altar of of the cathedral's Galeota chapel (formerly the chapel of St. Athanasius). In 1872 the sarcophagus was reported to have contained human remains. But perhaps it had merely been re-used, as in 1589 the Capuchins of Naples claimed to have found M.'s remains, along with those of his fellow bishops, saints Ephebus/Euphebius and Fortunatus, under their church of Sant'Efremo (today's Sant'Efremo Vecchio). All three were then formally translated to that church's high altar. When, in 1872, M.'s cult was papally confirmed, celebrations took place both in the cathedral and in Sant'Efremo Vecchio.
The early ninth-century Marble Calendar of Naples records under 11. June the laying to rest of an M. not identified there either as a bishop or as a martyr. That date is said to be given for our M. in other medieval calendars, e.g. the Montecassino calendar of 1332. In modern times he was long celebrated on 10. June.
3) Rimbert (d. 888). The Fleming R. (also Rembert) was educated at the monastery of today's Turnhout in Belgium, where he made his profession and whence he was chosen by archbishop St. Anskar of Nordalbing (later known as Hamburg and Bremen) to accompany him in missionary work in Sweden. Though apparently only a deacon, he succeeded Anskar as archbishop in 862. Soon thereafter R. entered the monastery of Corvey, of which A. had been abbot during his episcopate and through whose Benedictine connections he and R. supported their missions. In 865 R. obtained from Corvey the services of St. Adalgar, who became his coadjutor as bishop in 875 and who succeeded to the archbishopric upon his death.
R. continued his apostolate in Sweden and in Denmark until the Norman invasions of Francia (880 and following) caused him to concentrate on the needs of co-religionists there. In 884 he organized a military defense of Frisia. R.'s Vita by a monk of Corvey (BHL 7258) tells us about his life of prayer. R.'s own Vita of St. Anskar (BHL 544) is much more informative about its author. An English-language translation of it is here:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/anskar.html
4) Aleydis of Schaerbeek (d. 1250). According to her near-contemporary Vita (BHL 264), at the age of seven A. (Aleyde, Aleidis, Alice, etc.), a native of today's Schaarbeek (Dutch)/Schaerbeek (French) in Belgium entered the Cistercian convent of Camera Sanctae Mariae (in Dutch, Abdij Ter Kameren; in Frenche, Abbaye de la Cambre) outside of Brussels. She was educated there, was blessed with a miracle while still a girl (an extinguished candle burst back into flame while she was hastening to relight it), and took the habit. A model nun, she was struck with leprosy and spent the remainder of her days in virtual isolation in the convent, bearing her affliction with great fortitude and consoling herself with love for her divine spouse, who gave her the grace of radiantly visiting her in her chamber.
A.'s final year was spent in great agony; during this time she also lost first one eye and then the other, offering the second to God for the success of Louis IX, then on crusade. Alerted by her guardian angel, she was vouchsafed a vision of Christ showing his five wounds. When she died on St. Barnabas' day her soul was seen to be received by an angelic choir. A.'s cult was confirmed for her congregation in 1702, for the Cistercian order as a whole in 1870, and for all Belgian dioceses in 1907.
Herewith some views of the originally fourteenth-century church of the Abdij Ter Kameren / Abbaye de la Cambre, badly damaged by fire in 1919 and reopened for religious services in 1926:
http://tinyurl.com/lccsyo
http://tinyurl.com/d4b565
http://tinyurl.com/nxchth
http://tinyurl.com/m49s5u
http://tinyurl.com/klwwst
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post lightly revised)
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