JiscMail Logo
Email discussion lists for the UK Education and Research communities

Help for MEDIEVAL-RELIGION Archives


MEDIEVAL-RELIGION Archives

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION Archives


MEDIEVAL-RELIGION@JISCMAIL.AC.UK


View:

Message:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Topic:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Author:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

Font:

Proportional Font

LISTSERV Archives

LISTSERV Archives

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION Home

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION Home

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION  November 2009

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION November 2009

Options

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Log In

Log In

Get Password

Get Password

Subject:

saints of the day 25. November

From:

John Dillon <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious culture <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 22:15:41 -0600

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (73 lines)

medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Today (25. November) is also the feast day of:

1)  Mercurius of Caesarea in Cappadocia (d. 250, supposedly).  M. (also Mercury) had a major late antique cult at the Caesarea that is today's Kayseri in Turkey.  His legendary Greek Passio (BHG 1274) makes him a general in the Roman army martyred under Decius.  By the early sixth century he was also believed to have been sent from Heaven to slay Julian the Apostate.  In this legend, St. Basil the Great (not coincidentally, a bishop of Caesarea) is said to have seen in a vision both M.'s being charged with this mission and his return to announce its successful completion.  The Vatopaidi monastery on Mt. Athos has what is believed to be M.'s skull:
http://tinyurl.com/6hdn4s

One of the great military saints of Eastern Christianity, M. became a saint of the Regno in the ninth century when in the principality of Benevento his cult superseded that of another Mercurius entered in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology under 26. August as having suffered at Aeclanum (in southern Campania).  The founder of the principality, duke (as he then was) Arichis was said to have translated from the ruins of Aeclanum in 768 the relics of the Eastern martyr (supposedly deposited there by Constans II in the seventh century) and to have interred them in his newly built church of Santa Sofia at Benevento.  In the principality M. was celebrated on 26. August, reinterpreted as the date of his translation by Arichis.

M. was a major star in the Beneventan sanctoral firmament.  The extent of his literary monuments can be guessed at by looking at nos. 5933-39 in BHL Suppl.; especially noteworthy is M.'s _Passio aucta_ in verse by the early twelfth-century archbishop of Benevento, Landulf II (BHL 5935; a modern edition is badly needed).  An only slightly later visual counterpart is the also twelfth-century representation of M. in military garb in the lunette above the main portal of Santa Sofia:
http://tinyurl.com/5zaocm
The kneeling figure next to M. is thought to be abbot John IV of Santa Sofia, to whose restoration of the church we owe this relief.  Within the Beneventan cultural area, M. is the patron saint of Toro (CB) in Molise and of Serracapriola (FG) in northern Apulia.  In both towns his cult appears to be medieval in origin.  Another visible token of M.'s cult in this part of the world is this fragmentarily preserved, later fourteenth-century fresco in the cattedrale di San Pardo in Larino (CB) in Molise that depicts M. seemingly having just slain Julian:
http://tinyurl.com/ybu54kl

In 1098 M. appeared along with Sts. George and Demetrius to lift the spirits of the Crusaders issuing from Antioch to destroy a Muslim army that had been besieging them.  For a recent discussion of M. in the East, see Christopher Walter, _The Warrior Saints in Byzantine Art and Tradition_ (Ashgate, 2003), pp. 101-08.

Herewith some medieval representations of M. in art works of Eastern origin:
a)  The bottom register in this full-page illumination in a later ninth-century manuscript of the _Orations_ of St. Gregory of Nazianzus (Paris, BnF, ms. Grec 510, fol. 409v) depicts M.'s slaying of Julian:
http://tinyurl.com/ykfbhn5  
b)  Upper left in the Harbaville Triptych (mid tenth-century):
http://tinyurl.com/ych3lz
c)  Fresco in the Protaton on Mt. Athos (ca. 1300, attributed to Manuel Panselinos; M. at left):
http://tinyurl.com/688tbt
Detail (M.):
http://www.eikastikon.gr/xristianika/panselinos/51.jpg
d)  Fresco in the katholikon of the Chelandari monastery, Mt. Athos (ca. 1319, atelier of Michael Astrapas and Eutychios):
http://www.sv-luka.org/Chilandar/images/StMercurius.jpg
e)  Fresco in the church of the Theotokos, Graèanica monastery, Graèanica, located, depending on one's view of recent events, either in Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or in the Republic of Kosovo (ca. 1320):
http://tinyurl.com/ygpyhww
f)  Armenian miniature (fourteenth-/fifteenth-century):
http://www.armsite.com/miniatures/mnshow.phtml?slide=51

M. is co-patron of Seminara (RC) in southern Calabria, part of the Greek-speaking West in the Middle Ages and the home of the fourteenth-cenury theologian Barlaam of Calabria.  A fifteenth-century relief (with an identifying inscription in Latin) showing M. mounted and spearing Julian the Apostate in the neck has been preserved at the municipio of Seminara.  A thumbnail view of that is here:
http://www.seminaraonline.it/images/Bd.036-Bassorilievo%20Comune.jpg
A much better image in black and white:
http://tinyurl.com/ybu54kl

For more on M., including an English-language translation of BHG 1274, see:
http://www.ucc.ie/milmart/Mercurius.html


2)  Maurinus of Agen (d. 5th cent., supposedly).  The martyr M. is the local saint of today's Saint-Maurin (Lot-et-Garonne) in Aquitaine and was the saint of its once regionally important abbey named for him.  According to his very legendary Vita (BHL 5734; preserved in a single ms. of the eleventh century), he was born at Agen but was educated in Italy at Capua, whither his father, the count of Agen, had sent him to be schooled and where he stayed for seven years and was ordained deacon.  His master was that holy friend of St. Benedict, St. Germanus of Capua.

Returning to his native town, M. evangelized in the Agenais.  But the pagan governor of Lectoure (from at least the eleventh century an important comital seat), who had forbidden Christian preaching in the region, had M.'s father decapitated and M. arrested.  M. converted the soldiers who were guarding him and fled with them to a nearby village, where they were captured by other soldiers sent by the governor.  M. and his companions were executed on the spot by decapitation.  In keeping with a frequent motif in the Vitae of evangelists in France, M. picked up his head and walked to a fountain, next to which, once he had healed a woman of leprosy, the local Christians buried him.  Further miracles were reported at his grave, which latter began to draw crowds.  A church dedicated to St. Peter was erected over his tomb.  Thus far M.'s Vita.

The abbey for which this Vita was surely written is first documented from early in the eleventh century.  A local lord restored it in about 1040 and in 1082 a son of that lord gave it to the abbey of Moissac.  The abbey church (now a ruin) was dedicated in 1097 to the Holy Cross, to the Blessed Virgin Mary, to St. M., and to all the saints.  A distance view is here (the church is to the left of center):
http://pagesperso-orange.fr/fouyssac/photos/IMG_0344.jpg
A page of views of the former abbey church of Notre-Dame de Saint-Maurin, many showing some of the church's exterior (into which a modern dwelling has been built):
http://www.romanes.com/Saint-Maurin/
Other views of the tower of that church:
http://www.ffct.org/bcn-bpf/departements/47/st-maurin06.jpg
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/10478200.jpg

After the Albigensian Crusade the abbot of Saint-Maurin became the local lord and the monastery was fortified.  Some views of what's left of the keep of this _château abbatiale_:
http://www.ffct.org/bcn-bpf/departements/47/st-maurin01.jpg
http://www.ffct.org/bcn-bpf/departements/47/st-maurin07.jpg

Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised)

**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html

Top of Message | Previous Page | Permalink

JiscMail Tools


RSS Feeds and Sharing


Advanced Options


Archives

March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
December 2019
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
June 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
February 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
May 2003
April 2003
March 2003
February 2003
January 2003
December 2002
November 2002
October 2002
September 2002
August 2002
July 2002
June 2002
May 2002
April 2002
March 2002
February 2002
January 2002
December 2001
November 2001
October 2001
September 2001
August 2001
July 2001
June 2001
May 2001
April 2001
March 2001
February 2001
January 2001
December 2000
November 2000
October 2000
September 2000
August 2000
July 2000
June 2000
May 2000
April 2000
March 2000
February 2000
January 2000
December 1999
November 1999
October 1999
September 1999
August 1999
July 1999
June 1999
May 1999
April 1999
March 1999
February 1999
January 1999
December 1998
November 1998
October 1998
September 1998
August 1998
July 1998
June 1998
May 1998
April 1998
March 1998
February 1998
January 1998
December 1997
November 1997
October 1997
September 1997
August 1997
July 1997
June 1997
May 1997
April 1997
March 1997
February 1997
January 1997
December 1996
November 1996
October 1996
September 1996
August 1996
July 1996
June 1996
May 1996
April 1996


JiscMail is a Jisc service.

View our service policies at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/policyandsecurity/ and Jisc's privacy policy at https://www.jisc.ac.uk/website/privacy-notice

For help and support help@jisc.ac.uk

Secured by F-Secure Anti-Virus CataList Email List Search Powered by the LISTSERV Email List Manager