medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (3. December) is the feast day of:
1) Cassian of Tangier (d. 298, supposedly). In a survey of towns and their martyrs in Prudentius' _Peristephanon_, 4 C. figures (lines 45-49) as the representative of Tangier. The (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology enters him under today. By the later ninth century C. had a legendary Passio that draws on the Passio of St. Marcellus the Centurion (several versions: BHL 5253-5255), a saint venerated at León who in these texts is said to have been martyred at Tangier. In C.'s Passio (BHL 1636) he is the court recorder at M.'s trial; when M. is convicted he angrily throws away his stylus and tablets, noisily protests the court's decision, and is arrested forthwith. Tried on a charge of insubordination, C. is convicted, condemned to death, and executed on this day.
2) Lucius of Chur (?). The patron saint of the once very large diocese of Chur and of the city of the same name in Switzerland's canton Graubünden, L. (also Luzius, Luzi) first comes to light in the late eighth and early ninth centuries. Between 780 and 818 he received a largely legendary Vita (BHL 5024); in 800 relics believed to be his were translated from Chur's late antique church dedicated to St. Andrew into its recently expanded cathedral church now named for L. and outfitted with what is believed to be the oldest surviving ring-crypt north of the Alps. In 831 a church dedicated to L. is recorded for the the area now known as the St. Luzisteig between Chur and Liechtenstein. Along with Florin (17. November), L. is one of Liechtenstein's patron saints.
The Vita, which identifies L. with the nonexistent British king Lucius whom the _Liber Pontificalis_ and Bede in his _Historia Ecclesiastica_ make the author of a letter to pope St. Eleuther(i)us (ca. 175-189) asking to be made Christian, has that pope send St. Timothy from Bordeaux to Britain to convert L., who in turn gives up his throne, proceeds to Raetia as a missionary, makes converts, is thrown into a well by enraged pagans but is saved by members of his Christian flock, performs many healing miracles, and dies a confessor.
The British element in this story is usually explained as building upon a tradition that L. came from the Pritanni, a people of the nearby Prättigau. Other details point to a late fifth-/early sixth-century existence for the historical L., who on this view will have preached in rural areas of a diocese already attested in 451. Relics of L. (perhaps not those in the tomb but only contact relics at an altar in his church) were reported stolen in 823. From the tenth century onward he has been the patron saint of both the diocese and the city of Chur; later invention made him a martyr and its first bishop. In 1108 bodily remains proclaimed to be L.'s were the subject of an Inventio in same church, which after ceasing to be the cathedral was given in the 1140s to the Premonstratensians. The latter accorded L. a formal Elevatio in 1252, when his relics were placed in the gilded shrine shown here:
http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Lucius.jpg
A German-language account of today's much rebuilt Kirche St. Luzi in Chur is here:
http://tinyurl.com/2ft8t2
Exterior views:
http://www.kath-dietikon.ch/foto/full_diakonenweihe_001.jpg
http://www.priesterseminar-thc.ch/
Crypt:
http://tinyurl.com/ysasuk
A German-language account of the Late Gothic "Steigkirche" St. Luzius in Maienfeld (Graubünden) is here:
http://www.gasthof-luzisteig.ch/geschichte.html
Views:
http://tinyurl.com/35uyc2
http://tinyurl.com/3y8s85
3) Birinus (d. ca. 647). We know about B. (also Berinus, Berinius) from St. Bede the Venerable's _Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum_, 3. 7. A missionary bishop sent by Honorius I and consecrated at Genoa in 634 by bishop Asterius of the church of Milan in exile, he is presented as the apostle of the West Saxon tribe of the Gewisse, converting their king Cynegils and other members of his family during a period when the Northumbrian king St. Oswald was their overlord and receiving from them the town of Dorcic (today's Dorchester-on-Thames) as his seat. Relics believed to have been B.'s are reported to have been translated in the late seventh or very early eighth century from Dorchester to the Old Minster at Winchester. In 980 bishop St. Æthelwold translated these into his newly built cathedral and renewed B.'s cult.
B.'s eleventh-century Vita (BHL 1360) probably was written at Winchester. Its author knew nothing about him apart from what Bede has to say and from two miracles that appear to have been traditional. From the early thirteenth century onward the canons regular of Dorchester Abbey (founded in 1140) claimed to possess the saint's miraculously re-discovered relics, maintaining vigorously that these had been in Dorchester all along and welcoming the faithful to his shrine in their church of St Peter and St Paul. The shrine was destroyed in 1536. An illustrated, English-language account of this church (itself often referred to informally as Dorchester Abbey) is here:
http://tinyurl.com/6x67tn
An expandable view of the church's St Birinus Window (ca. 1250):
http://tinyurl.com/62fx97
More views of the medieval colored glass windows are here:
http://tinyurl.com/5cupbk
An expandable view of the church's East Window and several of its Tree of Jesse Window (so called after its tracery) start here:
http://tinyurl.com/6pzhy4
Another view of the Tree of Jesse Window:
http://tinyurl.com/5ws2fl
4) Galganus (d. 1181). G. was a native of today's Chiusdino (SI) in southern Tuscany who turned to religion from a life of soldiering and dissipation and who shortly before his death founded a hermitage on the nearby hill of Montesiepi. These places were then in the diocese of Volterra, whose bishop promoted G.'s cult by consecrating, in 1185 and with papal approval, a small commemorative church at the site of the hermitage. G.'s canonization trial of the same year is the oldest whose acta are known. He has several thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Lives, whose earliest, the _Vita sancti Galgani_, was written probably before 1227 by a Pisan monk of the Cistercian abbey at Montesiepi (founded in 1218). According to this account, G., wishing to plant a cross at the site chosen for his hermitage, thrust into the earth a sword whose cruciform upper portion served the purpose. Later, more entertaining versions have G. miraculously driving his sword into solid rock.
The _Vita sancti Galgani_ was edited by Eugenio Susi on pp. 177-213 of his _L'eremita cortese: San Galgano fra mito e storia nell'agiografia toscana del XII secolo_ (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull'Alto Medioevo, 1993). G.'s canonization trial (whose documentation survives in a sixteenth-century transcription) was edited by Fedor Schneider as "Analecta Toscana, IV. Der Einsiedler Galgan von Chiusdino und die Anfänge von S. Galgano," _Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken_ 17 (1914-24), 61-77. For more on G. and his Lives, see Sharon Dale, "To the Victors Goes the Hagiography: the Cistercian Frescoes at San Galgano and the Vitae Galgani," _Citeaux_, fasc. 3-4 (1997), 231-259, and R(oberta) Mucciarelli, "Galgano, santo," _Dizionario biografico degli Italiani_, vol. 51 (1998), pp. 450-51.
The _Vita sancti Galgani_ dates G.'s death to 30. November 1181, but a slightly later Life used for G.'s Office changes this to today in accordance with the needs of the local calendar for Siena. That in turn was followed by the RM. G. is celebrated on 5. December in the diocese of Volterra and in the archdiocese of Siena, Colle di Val d'Elsa, and Montalcino.
What is said to be G.'s skull is displayed in this modern container in the chiesa di San Michele at Chiusdino:
http://tinyurl.com/6syhxj
The hermitage on top of the hill (restored in 1924 and containing both G.'s gravestone and -- who could doubt it? -- G.'s sword sticking out of a rock in the church's center) and the ruined Cistercian abbey below are major tourist attractions. Views, etc. will be found at these websites (among many others):
http://tinyurl.com/666gbq
http://www.italiantourism.com/news03.html
http://tinyurl.com/vjnzt
http://www.sangalgano.info/eremo_en.html
http://www.bluedragon.it/non_fantasy/misteri/galgano.htm
http://tinyurl.com/65moew
http://www.flickr.com/groups/337399@N25/pool/
A few single views of the remains of the abbey:
http://tinyurl.com/35bugk
http://photo.net/photo/pcd0787/san-galgano-19.4.jpg
http://www.nicolamenicacci.com/galgano/ab005.jpg
G. in a panel painting on an altarpiece attributed to Ugolino Lorenzetti (Bartolomeo Bulgarini; active between 1320 and 1360), now in the Pinacoteca nazionale in Siena:
http://santiebeati.it/immagini/Original/90493/90493B.JPG
A view of the altarpiece as as a whole (St. Ansanus at left):
http://tinyurl.com/yfjq3sx
G. at right in a panel painting of ca. 1331-1345 by Niccolò di Segna, now in the Pinacoteca comunale if Faenza:
http://tinyurl.com/yftpvtq
G. in a panel painting of 1445 by Il Vecchietta on a set of reliquary cabinet doors, now in the Pinacoteca nazionale in Siena:
http://tinyurl.com/ygcdqk4
An expandable view of the doors themselves (G. at lower right):
http://www.wga.hu/art/v/vecchiet/arliqui1.jpg
G. at right in a panel painting of ca. 1475-1480 in an altarpiece by Giovanni di Paolo, now in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore:
http://art.thewalters.org/viewwoa.aspx?id=14988
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised)
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