medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (26. March) is the feast day of:
1) Castulus (d. 3d cent. ?). C. is a martyr of the Via Labicana, entered for this date in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology. According to the legendary Acta of St. Sebastian (BHL 7543), he was a high official in the imperial palace who looked after the welfare of Christians and who converted many to the faith. C., the legend goes on to say, was denounced, tortured, and then placed in a pit and suffocated by having "sand" poured over him (probably pozzolana, the compacted volcanic ash quarried locally for use in cement).
By the year 809 relics believed to be those of C. had reached the monastery at Moosburg in southern Bavaria (today's Moosburg an der Isar). Moosburg's present collegiate church of St. Castulus / Kastulus (begun in 1171) was the monastery's church until the latter's closing in the early seventeenth century. The second image here shows the BVM and C. flanking Christ in the tympanum over its main entrance (ca. 1175):
http://www.moosburg.org/info/tour/castulus.html
A closer look:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2365/2153682675_a6138790c1_o.jpg
Illustrated, English-language and German-language pages on this much rebuilt church:
http://www.moosburg.org/info/tour/alteng1.html
http://tinyurl.com/yfmo2tu
A view of the church's choir stalls from 1475:
http://tinyurl.com/yj2nml3
The same church has a striking Castulus-altarpiece from 1511-1514:
http://tinyurl.com/yklcpue
A view of the altarpiece's central portions (C. at left; emperor St. Henry II at right):
http://www.moosburg.org/jpg/altar2.jpg
One of the side-panel reliefs may be seen here in an expandable image:
http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/kultdoku/kataloge/36/html/2739.htm
In 1604 C.'s relics were translated to the monastery of St. Martin (now of Sts. Martin and Castulus) at nearby Landshut, where most of them still remain in the "gothic" church of St. Martin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Martin,_Landshut
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martinskirche_(Landshut)
http://www.erzbistum-muenchen.de/EMF076/EMF007527.asp
http://tinyurl.com/2szxfx
http://www.smertenko.de/eltern/fotos/kirchen/landshut.JPG
2) Montanus and Maxima (d. ca. 304?). M. and M., a priest and his wife, are entered for today in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology as martyrs of Sirmium in Pannonia (today's Sremska Mitrovica in Serbia) with the added detail that Montanus was killed by being thrown into a river (presumably the Sava). Florus, followed by Ado, asserted that both had met their fate in this fashion. In this they were followed by Usuard, who, however, has them both thrown into the sea (a neat trick at landlocked Sirmium!). The RM (rev. 2001) fudges by calling the body of water in question _aequor_, a word usually denoting the sea but occasionally -- when the context if not the water is crystal clear -- denoting a river. If Shakespeare could set an action on the seacoast of Bohemia, it's surely all right for the RM to suggest two martyrdoms at Sirmium-on-Sea.
3) Peter of Sebaste (d. 391). The ascetically inclined P. was the youngest child of Sts. Basil the Elder and Emmelia and a brother of Sts. Macrina the Younger, Basil the Great, and Gregory of Nyssa. The little we know of him comes primarily from the writings of his brothers Basil and Gregory. He assisted his mother and sister in the foundation of their monastery on the banks of the Iris in Pontus. As bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia Basil ordained him priest. In 380 or 381 P. became bishop of Sebaste (Sebasteia) in Armenia minor, today's provincial capital of Sivas in Turkey. His cult is said to have begun within a few years of his death.
4) Ludger (d. 809). The Frisian L. (also Liudger) was educated at Utrecht and became a disciple of Alcuin. He conducted missions on Helgoland, in Frisia, and in Saxony. In 804/05 he became bishop of Münster in Westphalia. Here he is, in a manuscript painting dated to ca. 1100, being consecrated bishop of Münster:
http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Liudger1.jpg
That's from the illuminated manuscript of L.'s Vita secunda, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Ms. theol. lat., fol. 323. L. has an extensive dossier with several Vitae and several Miracula from different stages of his cult. The most informative for his own life is the early Vita prima (BHL 4937) by his second successor, bishop St. Altfrid, composed between 839 and 849. A brief, German-language account of the growth of L.'s legend is here:
http://kirchensite.de/bistumshandbuch/l/liudger-legenden/
In about 800 L. founded the imperial abbey at Werden (modern Werden an der Ruhr, now incorporated into the city of Essen), whose church, in which he was later buried, was consecrated in 804. Its originally thirteenth-century successor is shown here:
http://tinyurl.com/yrc34g
http://tinyurl.com/ytq5at
and here (with expandable thumbnails):
http://jemolo.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?lang=&keyword=Werden&insieme=
and here (click on links at lower right for further views):
http://tinyurl.com/l8bhb
L.'s relics (less those now in other places) are kept in this shrine in its crypt:
http://tinyurl.com/ru37y
http://tinyurl.com/dgubcs
In 2005 L.'s shrine was brought upstairs for a special commemoration of his consecration as bishop in 805. Here's a view with bishops and acolytes for scale:
http://kirchensite.de/image/aktuell/2005_03/ludgerus440.jpg
The Basilika St. Ludgerus (to give it is proper name) in Essen-Werden keeps in its treasury a late medieval oaken portable altar on which are mounted walrus ivory plaques from a late eighth-century predecessor from southern Italy. This object is traditionally associated with L. A view of it is here:
http://kirchensite.de/index.php?myELEMENT=86236
And a German-language press account of it from 2005 is here:
http://tinyurl.com/cnl4uk
Also in that church's treasury, and also traditionally associated with L., is this ninth- or tenth-century chalice that came to the abbey in 1547 from a monastery in Helmstedt in Niedersachsen (said to have been one of L.'s foundations):
http://tinyurl.com/dgm35j
http://www.museumimgoldschmiedehaus.de/ludgeruskelch.jpg
According to the account on this page:
http://tinyurl.com/cnkjjh
, the inscriptions on this object read _AGITUR HAEC SVMMVS POCLA TRIVMPHVS_ and HIC CALIX SANGVINIS DNI NRI IHV XPI_
While we're here, the same treasury also has a fifth- or sixth-century ivory pyx:
http://tinyurl.com/crehpf
L. is considered the founder of Münster, the town of his _monasterium_ at this site. It has its own Ludgerikirche in the city centre:
http://enkiri.com/europe/germany/nordrhein_westfalen/munster033.html
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/55/107286999_b81a271cf6_b.jpg
http://www.eutropia.com/fotos/fotos-8181.html
L. is considered the founder of Münster, the town of his _monasterium_ at this site. It has its own Ludgerikirche in the city centre:
http://enkiri.com/europe/germany/nordrhein_westfalen/munster033.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gedankenstuecke/107286999/
http://www.eutropia.com/fotos/fotos-8181.html
Here's L. on a reliquary shrine (the latter not further identified by Sacred Destinations, the source of this image) in the cathedral treasury at Münster:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sacred_destinations/2284006750/sizes/o/
Another view of that shrine (the saints portrayed are Felicitas of Rome and her sons Januarius and Felix):
http://tinyurl.com/yagdunu
Here's a snippet view of L.'s thirteenth-century Office from Münster with musical notation:
http://www.uni-muenster.de/Musikwissenschaft/
In 2005 L.'s relics in Essen made a rare return trip to Münster, as documented in these photos (some showing his late eighteenth-century processional shrine in which he is paraded annually at Essen-Werden):
http://www.muensteralbum.de/events/gallery/liudger05
A view of, and an illustrated, German-language page on, the originally twelfth-century tower of the St.-Liudger-Maternus-Kirche in the locality of Unterrißdorf in the city of Eisleben in Sachsen-Anhalt (the tower was restored when the building was re-roofed in 2004):
http://www.luther-in-unterrissdorf.de/startdeu.shtml
http://www.luther-in-unterrissdorf.de/gebaude.shtml
As one of the church's two former titulars, L. is figured on this church's late Gothic altar. His is the first figure shown in this illustrated, German-language page on the altar's sculptures:
http://www.luther-in-unterrissdorf.de/versammlung.shtml
A not awfully good view of the altar in its entirety is here:
http://www.luther-in-unterrissdorf.de/madonna.shtml
Finally, some views of L.'s church (famous for its seventeenth-century organ by Arp Schnitger) in the East Frisian town of Norden (Lkr. Aurich) in Niedersachsen:
http://www.nordwestreisemagazin.de/kirchtuerme/norden/
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised)
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