medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Today (6. February) is the feast day of:

1)  Silvanus of Emesa (d. ca. 311) and companions.  According to Eusebius (_Historia ecclesiastica,_ 9. 6), the elderly S. had been bishop for forty years when he was martyred along with other Christians by being exposed to wild beasts at Emesa (today's Homs in Syria) during the persecution of Maximian.  His named companions are St. Luke the deacon and St. Mocius the lector.


2)  Vedastus (d. ca. 540).  According to Alcuin, whose brief Vita of V. (Vaast, Waast; BHL 8508) one may read in English translation here:
http://tinyurl.com/2p895v
, V. tutored Clovis in the elements of the faith prior to the king's baptism by St. Remigius of Reims.  He worked miracles and was advanced by R. to the see of Arras.  Here's an earlier fourteenth-century manuscript illumination from a collection of French-language saint's Lives depicting V.'s consecration as bishop (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 185, fol. 201v):
http://saints.bestlatin.net/images/gallery/vedast_bnfms.jpg
V.'s putative relics are kept in Arras' cathédrale Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Vaast.  He is the principal patron of the diocese of Arras.

Some views of the mariners' chapel at Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue (Manche), a reworked survivor of an eleventh-century church dedicated to V.:
http://tinyurl.com/c723j9
http://passionsdeserge.over-blog.com/article-11378577-6.html
http://www.vacanceo.com/albums_photos/fiche-album_2544.php
http://www.vacanceo.com/albums_photos/voir-photo_37923.php
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/2615999.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/dy4mpj

In the ninth-century martyrologies of Florus, Ado, and Usuard, V. shares his elogium with another Frankish missionary in Flanders, Amandus of Maastricht (no. 3, below).  Many medieval Uses give them a joint feast either on this day or, in fewer instances, tomorrow.


3)  Amandus of Maastricht (d. ca. 676).  As is also the case with Vedastus, A. is in his largely fictional Vitae subordinated to a figure of central authority in west Francia (V. to St. Remigius of Reims, A. to king Dagobert I).  Numerous monasteries, mostly in today's Belgium, claimed foundation by him.  For an analysis of these claims, see Walter Mohr, _Studien zur Klosterreform des Grafen Arnulf I. von Flandern: Tradition und Wirklichkeit in der Geschichte der Amandus-Klöster_ (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1992).

V.'s hagiographic tradition begins with a brief Vita by Alcuin.  A.'s as presented in the _Acta Sanctorum_ begins with a late seventh- or early eighth-century Vita whose author is now considered anonymous.  Episodically rich (such as the youthful, terrified, but quick-thinking A.'s driving away with the sign of the cross a huge, threatening, and clearly diabolic serpent), it was once ascribed to Baudemund, abbot of St. Peter's at G(h)ent/Gand, one of several major houses A. is said to have founded.  This so-called Vita prima (BHL 332), which was re-edited in 1910 by Bruno Krusch in the MGH (SRM 5), was preceded by a Vita antiqua fragments of which have been discovered in an eighth-century manuscript.  A.'s Vita was reworked by other talented writers (Milo, the author of A.'s verse Vita; Heriger of Lobbes; Philip of Harvengt).  Parts of his dossier can thus be a real pleasure to read.

A. is said to have died at Elnon (near Tournai).  The abbey there, which also claimed to have been his foundation and which came in time to be named Saint-Amand, had what were said to be his remains.  A fictitious testament of A. made it clear that these were not to leave Elnon.  A.'s reliquary shrine conjecturally from Elnon is now in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore (whose transcription, now in the Additional Information, of its identifying inscription seems to have been made by someone ignorant of basic Latin grammar):
http://art.thewalters.org/viewwoa.aspx?id=22284
A brief, interesting, English-language video on this reliquary's restoration at the Walters:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYwLD0b0AyA

A twelfth-century illumination with scenes from A.'s Vita (Valenciennes, Bibliothèque de Valenciennes, ms. 500):
http://www.eulalie.fr/IMG/jpg_invisible1.jpg
Another (also twelfth-century) showing A. dictating his will (Valenciennes, Bibliothèque de Valenciennes, ms. 501):
http://www.eulalie.fr/IMG/jpg_invisible2.jpg
An earlier fourteenth-century illumination of A. and the serpent (for which latter Philip of Harvengt uses the term _draco_):
http://saints.bestlatin.net/gallery/amandus_bnfms.htm

A view of the originally thirteenth-century manorial chapel dedicated to A. at East Hendred, Berkshire (restored in 1687):
http://www.berkshirehistory.com/churches/st_amands_chapel.html

Also dedicated to A. is the twelfth- to fifteenth-century église de Saint Amand at Saint-Amand-sur-Fion (Marne).  Herewith an illustrated, French-language account of different phases of its construction:
http://membres.lycos.fr/molecule/stamand/eglise.html
Other exterior views:
http://tinyurl.com/yswffg
Interior view of the choir (at the bottom of this page):
http://tinyurl.com/yvs9rb


4)  Guarinus of Palestrina (d. 1158 or 1159).  Although his signature appears on a few papal bulls from the years 1145 to 1155, very little is actually known about G., cardinal bishop of Praeneste (the Latin name of the hilltown of Palestrina near Rome).  He enjoyed a later medieval cult among central and north Italian canons regular.  Directly or indirectly, later accounts of G. depend very heavily on his brief, late fifteenth-century Vita (BHL 8816) by the canon regular Agostino da Pavia (Augustinus Ticinensis).

According to this obviously very late Vita, whose accuracy in matters of detail is difficult to guage, G. was a nobly born priest of Bologna who became a canon regular at the monastery of the Holy Cross at today's Mortara (PV) in southern Lombardy, who spent a few years as a canon of St. Frigidian (Frediano) at Lucca -- the house from which the Larteran canons are said to have taken their Rule -- before returning to Mortara and acquiring the fame that led in time to his election as bishop of Pavia.  When G. refused to accept, he was forcibly detained and shut up in a room from which he was able to escape (through a window) with the aid of an archdeacon who was himself eager for the post; he then hid until another had been elected.

Not long afterward, G.'s growing fame led the also Bolognese pope Lucius II to call him to Rome and to create him bishop of Palestrina.  G. sold off the expensive gifts he had received on this occasion from the pope and used the proceeds for the poor.  He lived ascetically, died on this day, and was buried in his diocese's cathedral of St. Agapitus.  Miracles at his tomb confirmed his sanctity.  Thus far the Vita.  Documentary evidence for the frequently encountered statement that G. was canonized by his fellow canon regular Alexander III appears to be lacking.  

G.'s cathedral was an earlier form of Palestrina's present cattedrale di Sant'Agapito.  Consecrated by Paschal II in 1117, it utilizes remains of an ancient Roman hall thought to have been connected with the massive ancient Roman temple complex of Fortuna Primigenia now visible higher up the hill occupied by the town's older portion (this complex had been largely buried until it was revealed by bombing in World War II) and has been rebuilt many times.  Its unlovely facade, pitted and scarred by the removal in 1957 of an early nineteenth-century external loggia, has at least the merit of revealing some of the building's medieval stonework:
http://tinyurl.com/lo42e2
http://tinyurl.com/nmepuh
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/13678664.jpg
Views showing the cathedral's position below the temple complex:
http://tinyurl.com/ycbkzoj
http://tinyurl.com/ybh2c8m
The cathedral retains from its late antique predecessor this engaged tufa column and travertine capital:
http://tinyurl.com/z2o8v
A closer view of that capital:
http://www.lenovemuse.it/galleria_file/FOROCAP.jpg
Similar capitals have been found in Palestrina's Republican Forum (second-century BCE):
http://tinyurl.com/orhgfx


5)  Brynolf Algotsson (d. 1317).  B., a son of a noble of Västergötland who served as its lawspeaker (_lagman_), was educated at the cathedral school of Skara and at the university of Paris, where he studied theology and canon law.  He was dean of the cathedral chapter at Linköping when he was named bishop of Skara in 1278.  As bishop he codified the statutes of his diocese.  B. was a liturgical poet of note: among the products of his pen are the prosimetric Offices of St. Eskil and of St. Helen (Elin) of Skövde.

A canonization process was held for B. in Skara and Vadstena in 1417 by the then bishop of Skara; its acts and a Vita of B. (BHL 1477) were published in 1492 in a renewed attempt by Skara to secure papal authorization for his cult, which latter seems not to antedate the fifteenth century.  Never formally canonized, B. is entered in the RM as a Saint.  For details and more information on B.'s cult, see Anders Fröjmark, "The Canonization Process of Brynolf Algotsson," in Gábor Klaniczay, ed., _Procès de canonisation au Moyen Âge: aspects juridiques et religieux = Medieval Canonization Processes: Legal and Religious Aspects_ (Roma: Ecole française de Rome, 2004; Collection de l'Ecole française de Rome, vol. 340), pp. 87-100.

Some visuals pertaining to B. are here:
http://www.wadbring.com/historia/sidor/algot.htm
and here:
http://historiska-personer.nu/min-s/p71bbe724.html


6)  Angelo of Furci (Bl.; d. 1327).  According to tradition (which is all we have for A.'s early life), today's less well known holy person of the Regno was born at today's Furci (CH) in Abruzzo.  As a youth he was schooled at the then Benedictine abbey of St. Michael the Archangel (Sant'Angelo) at nearby Cornaclano in what's now Fresagrandinaria (CH), where an uncle was the abbot.  After the uncle's death, A. returned home.  His father dying not long afterwards, A. again entered a religious house, this time that of the Augustinians at Vasto, the chief coastal town of the area.  There he made his profession, furthered his studies, and was ordained priest.  For the relative locations of these places, see the map here:
http://www.abbey.org/furcimaps.html
A page of expandable views of the remains of the monastery at Cornaclano is here:
http://tinyurl.com/2al537
Probably fairly early in his career A. was sent to Paris, where he will have studied under Giles of Rome.  After a period as lector at an unidentified convent in Italy he was posted to his order's _studium_ at Naples, where he served as professor of theology and where, in or shortly before 1291, he was elected prior provincial.  A. retired in ill health at the age of eighty-one and, already viewed as a living saint, died shortly afterward on this day at the Neapolitan convent popularly known as Sant'Agostino alla Zecca (the royal mint and the convent's main entrance were both on the same small square).

A. had a popular cult in Naples and later also at Furci, whither his remains were translated in 1808.  He was beatified in 1888.  A church outside of Furci was dedicated to him in 1968; in 1990 his relics were translated to it and in 1993 this became the church of a new sanctuary named for him.

Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised and with the addition of Guarinus of Palestrina)

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