medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (19. June) is the feast day of:
1) Epaphras (d. 1st cent.). A not-so-familiar saint of the New Testament, E. is considered the likely founder of the church of Colossae in Phrygia and probably of those of nearby Laodicea and Hierapolis (Col. 1:7; 4:12-13). At Philemon 1:23 he is named as St. Paul's "fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus". Ado's elogium of E. has Paul make him bishop of Colossae and adds that E. was martyred for his flock and buried in the same city.
Colossae has yet to be excavated. Laodicea has visible remains and is currently being excavated in part. Here are some views:
http://www.bibleplaces.com/laodicea.htm
http://tinyurl.com/lmr6cy
http://tinyurl.com/mhfxbo
http://tinyurl.com/mpozbl
http://arcimaging.org/GeisslerRex/LaodiceaSheep20001.jpg
http://arcimaging.org/GeisslerRex/LaodiceaHippodrome20002.jpg
And here's how it is imagined in the Bamberg Apocalypse:
http://tinyurl.com/2dakxd
An illustrated page (most images expand) on Hierapolis is here:
http://tinyurl.com/yo67um
Another (all images expand):
http://tinyurl.com/ku2yu6
2) Macrina the Younger (d. 379). M. was A) a granddaughter of St. Macrina the Elder, B) the oldest daughter of St. Basil the Elder and of St. Emmelia, and C) the elder sister of St. Basil the Great, of St. Gregory of Nyssa, and of St. Peter of Sebaste. We know about her from her brother Gregory's Bios of her in epistolary form; she is also one of the interlocutors in G.'s dialogue _De anima et resurrectione_. Spared marriage by the premature death of her betrothed, the young M. remained at home and assisted in the education of her numerous brothers and sisters. When these were grown M. convinced St. Emmelia to join her in founding a monastery on the banks of the Iris in Pontus. After E.'s death in about 373 M. succeeded to the headship of this community, where, having given away virtually all her possessions, she lived very austerely. She was buried in the nearby church of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste.
Paul Halsall's _Medieval Sourcebook_ presentation (with bibliography extending into the mid 1990s) of Gregory's Bios of M. as translated by W. K. Lowther Clarke is here:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/macrina.html
3) Symmachus, pope (d. 514). The Sardinian S. was archdeacon of the Roman church under pope Anastasius II, whom he succeeded in November 498. His reign is remembered chiefly for the Laurentian schism, named for his rival Lawrence, archpriest of Santa Prassede, elected pope by _his_ supporters and an off-and-on claimant of the see of Rome for close to ten years (for some of which he occupied the Lateran palace while S. operated from an episcopal residence on the Vatican). During his papacy S. erected the round chapel dedicated to St. Andrew next to old St. Peter's as well as a martyrial basilica over the grave of St. Pancras of Rome in the cemetery of Octavilla.
S. is the figure on the right in the apse mosaic of Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura:
http://www.romecity.it/Santagnesefuorilemura02.htm
http://www.flickr.com/photos/federilli/490245739/sizes/o/
Here's a detail showing S. alone (but the color is awful):
http://tinyurl.com/32c8p8
4) Ambrose Autpert (d. 784). Of Provençal origin, today's less well known saint of the Regno is best known for his ten-book _Expositio in Apocalypsin_, written between 758 and 769 and still quoted from today (especially, because of its Marian content, on the Feast of the Purification of the BVM). A monk of San Vincenzo al Volturno in today's Molise, he became its abbot in 777, shortly after the Frankish conquest of most of the Lombard kingdom. But the abbey was situated in the still Lombard-ruled duchy of Benevento and in the following year A. was forced to yield to an anti-Frankish Lombard. A. withdrew to Spoleto; he died while on his way to Rome in an attempt to regain his position. Venerated by his fellow Benedictines, he has yet to grace the pages of the RM.
San Vincenzo al Volturno became an imperial abbey in 787. Its ninth-century "golden age" came to an end with the Muslim sack of 881. The abbey experienced a second period of prosperity in the late tenth and earlier eleventh centuries; in the earlier twelfth century (which is also when our primary historical source for A., the _Chronicon Vulturnense_, was written by a monk of the abbey named Iohannes) it opened a new complex across the Volturno and ceased to maintain the Carolingian and Ottonian structures at the original site. An Italian-language virtual tour begins here (NB: illustrated subordinate pages may be reached by clicking on the map and on the plans):
http://www.sanvincenzoalvolturno.it/pg/sez3_0.htm
More views here:
http://web.tiscali.it/aptvolturnia/page12.html
Some expandable views of illuminated pages from manuscripts of A.'s Apocalypse commentary:
http://tinyurl.com/5a4x9m
One of the benefits for a medievalist of having a former professor of theology as pope is that the latter may be inclined, as Benedict XVI certainly is, to bring contributions of much earlier theologians to public attention through his General Audiences. His Holiness' General Audience of 22. April 2009 focused on A. (other recent General Audiences have introduced Sts. Isidore of Seville, Bede the Venerable, and Rabanus Maurus). Here are links to the official English-language version and, as that is a bit rough in spots, to the official Italian-language version as well:
http://tinyurl.com/mxqtjp
http://tinyurl.com/mm8fe8
5) Aurea of Córdoba (d. 856). We know about A. from St. Eulogius of Córdoba's _Memoriale sanctorum_. She was the daughter of a Christian widow in Muslim-ruled Córdoba who some thirty years before A.'s travails had retired to the convent of the BVM at suburban Cuteclara where A. then lived as a nun. Her father had been a Muslim from Seville and two of her brothers had been executed in the 820s for apostasy from Islam. After the initial wave of the Cordoban martyrdoms in the early 850s some of A.'s Muslim relatives brought her before a judge who gave her the opportunity of renouncing Christianity. In a moment of weakness A. did so; repenting, she secretly reverted to Christianity. When this apostasy from Islam was discovered her family denounced her. A. was imprisoned, maintained her Christian faith, and was executed on this day.
6) Bernulf of Utrecht (d. 1054). B. (also Bernold) succeeded Adalbold II as bishop of Utrecht in 1027/28. Close to the emperor Conrad II, who appointed him, and to Henry III, he was rewarded with lands and with a comital title and is considered the founder of the temporal lordship of the bishops of Utrecht. Like his friend St. Poppo of Stablo/Stavelot, S. promoted monastic reform in his diocese.
B. inherited from Adalbold a new cathedral (the predecessor of the present one) and in 1040 decreed that new churches should be built in Utrecht to the north, east, south, and west of the cross formed by it. Three of these were built in his lifetime: the abbey church of St. Paul and the collegiate churches of St. Peter and St. John. Though much rebuilt, the latter two still show elements surviving from B.'s day. English-language accounts and galleries of views for each are here:
Pieterskerk:
http://www.kerkenkijken.nl/church.aspx?ID=11
http://utrechtchurches.tripod.com/utrechtpieter.html
http://tinyurl.com/2p49nr
Janskerk:
http://www.kerkenkijken.nl/church.aspx?ID=8
http://utrechtchurches.tripod.com/utrechtjan.html
In Deventer B. rebuilt the church of St. Lebuinus. Damaged by fires in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, this structure was the predecessor, on the same site, of Deventer's present later fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century St. Lebuinuskerk (or Grote Kerk). Here's a schematic view of it in relation to its successor:
http://www.wilmakarels.nl/images/lebuinus.gif
Portions of B.'s church survive in both the choir and the crypt of its replacement. A page of views of the latter church is here:
http://overijsselchurches.tripod.com/deventerlebuinus.html
Further views of the crypt:
http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2188540620085201464qDjctV
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/4335489.jpg
http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2748383850085201464uDZzgy
Deniers (silver pennies) of Deventer and of Groningen struck under B.'s rule:
http://tinyurl.com/57uq68
http://tinyurl.com/58yez4
7) Peter Crisci (Bl.; d. 1323). According to his Vita by the Dominican Giovanni Gorini (BHL 6709; dated 1364), at the age of thirty the well-to-do Umbrian P. sold off his paternal inheritance and became a day laborer for poor households in Foligno, dressing as a penitent and living eremitically in the belltower of that town's cathedral. Bl. Angela of Foligno (d. 1309) is said to have regarded P. with amusement until she recognized that she was sharing her town with a genuine holy fool. P. lived to the age of eighty, performing small works of charity and making the occasional pilgrimage to Rome or to Assisi. His cult was immediate.
At some point during the fourteenth century P. was made a civic patron, commemorated on this day (the date of an already existing town fair). In 1385 he was translated to the chapel dedicated to him in Foligno's cathedral of San Feliciano. That building is shown here with its two facades and with palaces concealing most of the belltower:
http://tinyurl.com/nfjyxv
http://www.greengrape.net/mori/foligno/foligno_04.jpg
The Italia nell'Arte Medievale page on this building:
http://tinyurl.com/ln2vyb
P.'s cult was recognized papally in 1400. In local parlance he is referred to as a Saint.
Best,
John Dillon
(matter from last year's post lightly revised)
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