medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (16. March) is the feast day of:
1) Hilarus and Tatianus of Aquileia (d. 283 or 284, supposedly). H. (also Helarus; later, Hilarius) occupies the second place in the oldest list of bishops of Aquileia. The (pseudo-)Hieronymian martyrology records him and T. under today as martyrs of that city, giving their names in this form: _Hilari Tasiani Datiani_ (_Tasiani_ and _Datiani_ are presumably two versions of T.'s name that have been pulled together from different sources).
The ninth-century _carmen de Aquilegia numquam restauranda_ (MGH Poetae, vol. 2, pp. 150-153) lists in its sixth strophe H. and his companion T. among the early martyrs of Aquileia and has them follow, seemingly immediately, the protobishop Hermagoras and his companions Marcus and Fortunatus. H. (now called Hilarius), his deacon T., and companions named Felix, Largus, and Dionysius have a legendary Passio (two versions: BHL 3881, 3881a; earliest witness is of the eleventh century) that has them martyred on this day under Numerian (r., 283-284; also the usual reigning emperor in Istrian Passiones) and buried outside the city.
Venetian chronicles (the _Chronica de singulis patriarchis Nove Aquileie_ and the _Chronicon Gradense_) record a translation of the remains of H., T., and unnamed companions to Grado when in consequence of the Lombard threat the patriarchate was moved there in the middle of the sixth century.
2) Julian of Anazarbus (d. early 4th cent., supposedly). We know about J. (also J. of Antioch, J. of Cilicia, and J. of Tarsus) from two legendary Passiones (BHG 966 and 967e), two encomia -- one in Greek, one in Syriac -- by bishops of Antioch (the Greek one, BHG 967, is by St. John Chrysostom), and from Byzantine synaxary accounts. These make him a native of Anazarbus (today's Anavarza in Turkey's Adana Province) who came from a family of senatorial rank and whose mother raised him as a Christian. Still according to our dubious tradition for him, J. was arrested during the Great Persecution, steadfastly refused to apostasize, and was displayed as a prisoner in several cities of Cilicia before being martyred by being tied up in a bag also containing sand (for weight) and poisonous snakes (for certain death) that was then thrown into the sea.
In this tradition, J.'s body is said to first have been miraculously carried by currents to Alexandria (if the origin of this is Syrian, perhaps Alexandretta is meant). Later, relics said to be his were translated to Antioch on the Orontes where a martyrial church was erected to house them and where by the late fourth century he certainly had an active cult. J. appears in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology under 14. February as well as under today. The later fourth-century Syriac Martyrology, which draws on sources also used by the (ps.-)HM, is silent about him.
A J. (not certainly this one) as depicted in a late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century fresco in the santuario di Maria SS. Regina (a.k.a. Santa Maria d'Anglona) at Tursi (MT) in Basilicata:
http://tinyurl.com/yahec8d
3) Valentine and Damian of Terracina, venerated at San Valentino in Abruzzo Citeriore (d. ca. 362, supposedly). Today's less well known saints of the Regno are a bishop of Terracina (LT) in coastal southern Lazio, V., and his adoptive son D., whom he educated from boyhood and elevated to the diaconate. Unknown to early martyrologies or to other early ecclesiastical history, they are documented by a fabulous and in places entertaining Passio (BHL 8467) preserved in their mid-sixteenth-century Office from today's San Valentino in Abruzzo Citeriore (PE) in Abruzzo and giving an account of their lives, martyrdom, invention, and translation to that town.
The Passio seems originally to have been written in the twelfth century, as it aligns the town with its new Norman lords (to the first of whom the saints' translation is ascribed) rather than with its former owner, the great Benedictine abbey of San Clemente a Casauria. It draws upon the originally fifth-century legend of Constantine's persecution of pope St. Sylvester I, ascribes the martyrdom of V. and D. to persecution under Julian the Apostate (for western martyrs, this is usually an evidence of fiction), locates their execution at Civitas Zappina (thought to have been an early medieval successor to Roman-period Ceio, a baths and market town in the vicinity), and places their inventio in the "time of the Lombards" when all Italy was finally Christian.
When at this time their bodies were discovered --- along with an inscription proclaiming them those of the holy martyrs V. and D. -- the fact that these were indeed the remains of saints was confirmed by the sudden resurrection of a dead man whose corpse had just been brought to the burial church where V. and D. were found. Thus far their Passio. V. and D. have yet to grace the pages of the RM.
The eighteenth-century church of saints Valentine and Damian dominates the skyline of San Valentino in Abruzzo Citeriore. Its design is attributed to the distinguished Neapolitan architect Luigi Vanvitelli (of Dutch extraction; his father's name was van Wittel). The present facade is an early twentieth-century reconstruction after an earthquake. Some expandable views:
http://web.tiscali.it/sanvalentinoac/vostrefoto.htm
4) Heribert of of Köln (d. 1021). H. was educated first at Worms and then at the monastery of Gorze. After a brief stint back in Worms he entered imperial service and in 994 he became Otto III's chancellor for Italy. In 995 he was ordained priest and in 998 he was made Otto's chancellor for Germany. In the following year he was elected archbishop of Köln and was present in Aachen for Otto's opening of Charlemagne's tomb. H. returned to Italy with his short-lived imperial sponsor, whose body and insignia he brought back to Germany in 1002. Leaving the chancery, he founded the abbey of Deutz, across the Rhine from Köln as the latter was then. H. accompanied Henry II to Rome in 1004 but spent most of his remaining time in his diocese, where he was especially remembered for his charity to the poor.
H. was buried at the recently consecrated (1020) abbey church at Deutz. He has a brief Vita (BHL 3827-28) by Lambert of Deutz and an expanded one (BHL 3830) by the theologian and abbot Rupert of Deutz (d. 1129). Scenes from his life adorn his later twelfth-century shrine, formerly in the abbey church and now in the neo-romanesque church of Neu Sankt Heribert in Köln-Deutz. Some views of it are here:
http://tinyurl.com/2qqgb7
http://www.romanische-kirchen-koeln.de/uploads/pics/687.jpg
detail (H. enthroned):
http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Heribert_von_Koeln.jpg
The abbey church, an octagon (as at Aachen) with later additions, was destroyed in 1376 and then was rebuilt in 1382-1387. A woodcut of 1530 depicting it is here:
http://tinyurl.com/3xqsyl
That church in turn was largely destroyed and then rebuilt in the seventeenth century. It is now known as Alt Sankt Heribert (the original dedication had been to the BVM). Since 1994 it has served Köln's Greek Orthodox community.
5) Benedicta of Assisi (Bl.; d. 1260). According to the traditions of her order, A. was a native of Assisi who in 1253 succeeded St. Clare as abbess of her monastery there, St. Damian's. It is thought that she is the Benedicta recorded as abbess of the Damianite house at Siena in 1227 and of that at Vallegloria from 1240 to 1248. She is said to have been a prudent person and an example to others in her community. B., who oversaw the move of the sisters at Assisi from St. Damian's to their new monastery next to the church of St. George in 1260, will have had some role in the initial construction of the Basilica of St. Clare in 1257. Herewith two pages of views of the completed structure, where B. has reposed since early in the seventeenth century (previously she had been in St. George's):
http://www.assisiweb.com/assisi_chiara_it.html
http://tinyurl.com/2ju9jw
The Italia nell'Arte Medievale page on this church is here (or would be, were the site not off-line again):
http://tinyurl.com/2r6hcf
B., who has yet to grace the pages of the RM, is recorded visually in her donor's portrait (facing that of St. Clare) on the lower crossbar of the painted crucifix above the main altar in the Basilica of St. Clare (not to be confused with the Crucifix of San Damiano, also housed in this church and shown on the page last linked to, this is called the Crucifix of Abbess Benedicta):
http://tinyurl.com/c9t9uh
http://tinyurl.com/33hky3
6) Torello of Poppi (Bl.; d. 1282, traditionally). T. has a very engaging Vita that exists in very similar Latin and Italian versions and whose core is thought to be from the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century. This tells us that T. was a young man of Poppi in Tuscany's rugged Casentino region who became a local hermit, who lived a very austere life blessed by various miracles, and who after his death at age eighty continued to produce many more for the benefit of his fellow townspeople. Perhaps that doesn't sound so engaging, but the rooster who flew onto the young T.'s arm and crowed three times to recall him from the sinful life into which he had fallen, the wolf who upon T.'s command obligingly released from its jaws the young boy it had been carrying away, and many other details lift this Vita above the ordinary.
T. has been claimed both by the Vallombrosans, whose monastery in very nearby Strumi on the right bank of the Arno is evidently the one at Poppi where in the Vita T. is said to have made his confession before going off to be a hermit, and by the Franciscans, with whom he has no known connection but whose very early members practiced a lifestyle similar to that recorded for him. The monastery of La Verna, where St. Francis received his stigmata, is also in the Casentino and is mentioned in the Vita. The Vallombrosans of Strumi got T.'s body after his death and his remains are still kept in the crypt of their abbey church of San Fedele (now within the bounds of Poppi proper). An illustrated, Italian-language account of this church is here:
http://www.toscanainsolita.it/local/ploc2.php?epid=24
Other views:
http://www.fototoscana.it/gallerie/poppi17.jpg
http://www.fototoscana.it/gallerie/poppi16.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/rbrov
http://wiedenhoff.nu/umbrie/poppi2.jpg
Some views of the originally fourteenth- and fifteenth-century chiesa maggiore at La Verna and, extending from that church at ca. 90-degree angle, the originally thirteenth-century chiesetta di Santa Maria degli Angeli:
http://tinyurl.com/ct864f
http://tinyurl.com/cw22z8
http://rete.comuni-italiani.it/foto/2008/69803/view
The bell on the chiesetta was cast in 1257 and is named for St. Bonaventure:
http://tinyurl.com/d96c9p
http://tinyurl.com/cpqluo
The two churches have some stunning della Robbia altarpieces (later fifteenth-century) in enamelled terra cotta. There are views of these on this page:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sanctuary_of_La_Verna
T. is the patron "saint" of Poppi (AR) in Tuscany. Read the postmortem miracles, especially those about protecting people of Poppi from wolves, and you can see why. He is said to have been beatified by Benedict XIV. The year of this act is apparently not recorded. T. has yet to grace the pages of the RM. The Latin Vita (_Hystoria beati Torelli de Puppio_; BHL 8305) and its Italian-language counterpart (_Vita di Torello da Poppi_) are edited by Luigi G. G. Ricci, _Le "Vite" di Torello da Poppi_ (Tavarnuzze: SISMEL / Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2002) with a lengthy historical introduction by Marco Bicchierai.
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised and with the addition of Hilarus and Tatianus of Aquileia)
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