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  March 2010

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION March 2010

Options

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Log In

Log In

Get Password

Get Password

Subject:

saints of the day 3. March

From:

John Dillon <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

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

Date:

Wed, 3 Mar 2010 14:52:43 -0600

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (159 lines)

medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Today (3. March) is the feast day of:

1)  Cleonicus and Eutropius (d. ca. 306, supposedly).  According to their legendary Passio (two versions: BHG 656a and 656b) the brothers C. and E. were companions in arms of St. Basiliscus (said in these texts to have been a nephew of St. Theodore the Recruit), were martyred at Amasea (today's Amasya in Turkey) under Maximian, and were entombed there.  Byzantine synaxaries record all three saints jointly under today, as do modern Orthodox churches.  The RM followed suit until its revision of 2001, when it dropped from today's commemoration the better attested B. (also and still entered in the RM under 22. May).

E. and C. as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322) frescoes in the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, either Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
E.:
http://tinyurl.com/yjxnwpp
C.:
http://tinyurl.com/yfedjeh
B. is depicted on a pendentive of the same dome:
http://tinyurl.com/yl8wyjb

E. and C. (in that order in the upper register; B. beneath) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century (betw. 1335 and 1350) frescoes in the narthex of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/yfpsf          


2)  Arthellais (d. ca. 560, supposedly).  Today's less well known saint of the Regno (also Artellais and forms with single 'l') has an incident-laden, highly legendary Vita that survives in at least three versions of differing length (BHL 718-720).  A high-born, youthful virgin forced to flee her native Constantinople for the safety of her uncle Narses' Italy, she and her retinue of eunuch attendants have a series of adventures en route.  After crossing the Adriatic and visiting the sanctuary of St. Michael on Monte Gargano where she makes a generous donation, A. arrives in Benevento, makes a major donation to its central church of the BVM, performs miracles, and in short order dies of an illness.

By the late eleventh century Benevento had a church of St. A.  This still existed in 1370.   At some point after that A.'s relics were moved to Benevento's medieval cathedral (a later version of the church of the BVM mentioned in the Vita), where in the eighteenth century they were said to repose below the main altar.  With any luck they will have survived the terrible bombing of the cathedral by American warplanes on 12. September 1943.  The website of the Archdiocese of Benevento omits A. from its section on _Santi, Beati e Testimoni Beneventani_.


3)  Winwaloe (d. 6th cent.?).  The Breton W. (in French, Guénolé; in Latin, Winwaloëus, Guingaloëus, etc.; in English also Winnol) is the saint and reputed founder of the abbey at today's Landévennec (Finistère).  His dates are conjectural; the earliest texts of his hagiographic dossier, most notably three Vitae written in different forms and with different aims by Landévennec's ninth-century abbot Wrdisten (BHL 8957-8959), come from the ninth century.  These provide a history of the abbey's founding that is more likely to be accurate in its reference to Landévennec's adoption of the Benedictine Rule in 818 than it is in its portrayal of W. as a disciple, in what would be the fifth century, of St. Budoc and a contemporary of king Gradlon (Grallon), both by this time very largely figures of legend.

Still in the ninth century, an abridgment of Wrdisten's longer prose Vita of W. reached the abbey of Sts. Flora and Lucilla outside of Arezzo in Tuscany and W. was entered in that house's litanies.

In 914 the abbey was sacked by Northmen.  It seems quickly to have recovered and W.'s cult continued to spread beyond Brittany: directly from the abbey into Cornwall, via Blandigny near G(h)ent/Gand in today's Belgium into various places in southern England in the tenth century, and via Montreuil-sur-Mer in the Pas de Calais to Norfolk in the wake of the English regime change of 1066.

Here's an illustrated, French-language page on the abbey at Landévennec:
http://www.infobretagne.com/landevennec-abbaye.htm
Images of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Auct. D. 2. 16, a late ninth-/early tenth-century Gospels executed at Landévennec and given in the eleventh century by bishop Leofric of Worcester to Exeter Cathedral:
http://tinyurl.com/yh8vcvp
A page on W.'s cult in Brittany:
http://pays.carnac.free.fr/culte_saint-guenole.php?cont=st

Views of the originally fifteenth-century Church of St Winwalloe in Gunwalloe (Cornwall):
http://flickr.com/photos/ocifant/2523973302/sizes/l/
http://tinyurl.com/are6nz
http://tinyurl.com/dzxg3g
http://www.pbase.com/ogohogoh/image/57878928
http://flickr.com/photos/kernowseb/2277719595/sizes/o/
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/6854320.jpg

A page, with a greatly expandable view, on the originally twelfth(?)-century, much rebuilt St Wynwallow's (Winwalloe's) Church at Landewednack (an anglicisation of a Breton form of Landévennec) on Cornwall's Lizard peninsula:
http://tinyurl.com/yzwyqon
An aerial view of this church, said to be the southernmost parish church in mainland Britain:
http://tinyurl.com/yfca9xe

A page on the history of the originally twelfth-/early thirteenth-century, much rebuilt St Winwaloe's Church in East Portlemouth (Devon):
http://www.eastportlemouth.org.uk/Church/History.htm
Views of the church and its fifteenth-century rood screen (the latter restored in 1934):
http://www.eastportlemouth.org.uk/Church/Church.htm
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3261/2760102762_63fa1f1799_b.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3070/2759257461_9fcfb14760_b.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3146/2760103128_92065ce6be_b.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3165/2759266489_b77082e2de_b.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3282/2760109912_eb7302bee8_b.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3177/2759268685_c27d916fd6_b.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3001/2760111114_17a683434a_b.jpg
Details of the rood screen:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3089/2759265123_ecfe4f4952_b.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3280/2760106012_7a96fe3078_b.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2140/2759265563_f2f3a170a7_b.jpg
W. (at left, obviously):
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3010/2760106448_e3360c8723_b.jpg


4)  Anselm of Nonantola (d. 803).  We know about A. chiefly from Paul the Deacon's _Historia Langobardorum_.  Duke of Friuli and brother-in-law of the Lombard king Aistulf, he became a cleric and with Aistulf's support founded, a couple of years after the Lombard conquest of Ravenna in ca. 750, a monastery in southern Emilia near Bologna along the main road from the Lombard capitals in the north.  This later became the great abbey of (pope) St. Sylvester at today's Nonantola (MO), whose reconstruction of its early history included an imagined papal donation of S.'s remains to abbot A.

A.'s abbatial tenure saw the creation of several dependencies.  It was interrupted for the entirety of the reign of king Desiderius, when another abbot was appointed and A. lived in exile at Montecassino.  A. was restored after Charlemagne's conquest of the Lombard kingdom in 774.  He assisted in reconciling the count and the bishop of Brescia (both nephews of Desiderius) with their new overlord, the king of the Franks.

This panel from the twelfth-century sculptures of the main portal of the abbey church, the basilica di San Silvestro, at Nonantola seems to show Aistulf endowing A. with the possession of the land on which his monastery would be built:
http://tinyurl.com/yk8aako
This one shows the completed monastery with a founder's portrait of the now tonsured and beardless A. (looking a great deal like a more recent _duce_):
http://tinyurl.com/yl7ymub
Here A. receives the pope's blessing:
http://tinyurl.com/ykp7ruf
Other views of sculptures on this portal are here:
http://tinyurl.com/ycbz8sf
The Italia nell'Arte Medievale pages on the abbey church are here (or would be, were this site not down again):
http://tinyurl.com/yzz8pu
An illustrated, English-language page on the abbey and its church:
http://tinyurl.com/ygop39f
The abbey's Italian-language page on its church:
http://tinyurl.com/yh3sxln


5)  Kunigunde of Luxemburg (d. 1033 or 1039).  Daughter of count Siegfried I of Lützelburg (Luxemburg), K. was married in about the year 1000 to duke Henry III of Bavaria (the future emperor Henry II).  In June 1002, six months after the death of his cousin Otto III, Henry had himself crowned king of the Germans at Mainz.  A separate coronation of K. as queen took place in early August in the cathedral of Paderborn.  In 1014 they were jointly crowned as emperor and empress by Benedict VIII.  Most of K.'s official acts have to do with support for churches and monasteries.  In 1017, the imperial couple used her dowry to found the diocese of Bamberg.  After Henry's death in 1024 K. exercised a brief regency.  In 1025, after the accession of Konrad II, she retired to the monastery of Kaufungen near Kassel and lived there until her death as a simple nun.

A black-and-white view of a charter of Henry II from 1019 granting properties to the monastery at Kaufungen:
http://tinyurl.com/2c4avd
The monastery is gone but its church remains.  Herewith some views:
http://tinyurl.com/ydv8lul
http://tinyurl.com/2kyq8f
http://tinyurl.com/y8mjtb3
http://tinyurl.com/ydljwfo
http://tinyurl.com/yadmn8g

K.'s cult seems to have begun after Henry's canonization in 1146.  A partly legendary Vita surviving in several versions (BHL 2001-2002b) preceded her canonization in 1200 by Innocent III; in 1201 her remains were translated to the cathedral of Bamberg.  In 1513 the pair was translated within that church to the great tomb sculpted by Tilman Riemenschneider (K. at left):
http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Kunigunde-Grab.jpg
K. (at right) in a relief on the same tomb, showing an incident from her Vita in which she is said successfully to have defended herself, by walking barefoot over red-hot ploughshares, against an accusation of adultery:
http://tinyurl.com/yzmhwcn
Herewith two illustrated, German-language pages on the cathedral:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamberger_Dom
http://tinyurl.com/2szkw4
And one in English:
http://tinyurl.com/yzqfaf8
K. and Henry may be seen, in recent replacement copies (mounted, 2002), on the cathedral's Adamspforte (Adam's Portal; variously dated to ca. 1225 or to ca. 1237).  The original statues are now in the diocesan museum.
http://tinyurl.com/3a3z5w
http://tinyurl.com/ygabfrd
They are shown as founders in this representation of them on the fourteenth-century tomb (1340) of bishop St. Otto of Bamberg (d. 1139) in the crypt of Bamberg's St. Michelskirche:
http://tinyurl.com/l9c65p
http://tinyurl.com/ykrx3se
K. (at right) and H. in the upper register of an originally early fifteenth-century (ca. 1414) window from the Andreaskapelle in the cathedral cloister, now in the diocesan museum:
http://tinyurl.com/yjfcxjr
Here, from the website of the Diocese of Bamberg, are expandable views of panel carvings of them, each holding half of the Bamberger Dom:
http://tinyurl.com/2whxrq
They, and that building, are united in this representation of them in the Beloit College copy of the _Nuremburg Chronicle_:
http://tinyurl.com/c3hpqf

The Antependium of Basel, a piece of early eleventh-century gold repoussé work now in the Musée National du Moyen Age (Musée Cluny) in Paris, shows Henry and K. at the feet of its central figure of Christ (for a better view of them, click on the thumbnail over "Altar Face of"):
http://www.musee-moyenage.fr/ang/pages/page_id18362_u1l2.htm
A better view of the piece as a whole:
http://www.art-sacre.net/images/Bale.jpg
Detail (Christ, with H. and K. in proskinesis):
http://tinyurl.com/bvhx25
K. and H. in statues from ca. 1290 on Basel's ex-cathedral, the Basler Münster, whose rebuilding Henry initiated and which later medieval tradition in Basel held had been consecrated in the couple's presence in 1019:
http://www.altbasel.ch/pic/doss_heinrich1.jpg
Here they are again, flanking the BVM in a sculpture of ca. 1511 on the facade of Basel's city hall:
http://www.altbasel.ch/pic/doss_heinrich3.jpg
And here they are in a window from 1520 in the same building's Saal des Regierungsrates:
http://www.bs.ch/heinrich-gross.jpg


6)  Peter Geremia (Bl.; d. 1452).  The Palermo-born P. belonged to one of the numerous originally knightly families ennobled under Frederick III (the prevalent numeration for Sicily's second monarch of this name) who formed the core of the Sicilian capital's nobility in the fourteenth century.  While studying law at Bologna he is said to have been visited one night by the spirit of a deceased relative, also a lawyer, who lamented that his own worldly success had led to sins that cost him entry into Heaven.  Thus prompted by an early fifteenth-century predecessor of Marley's Ghost, P. chose a life of religion.  In 1424, without informing his father, he entered the Order of Preachers.  After a period of training at Fiesole under St. Antoninus of Florence, P. was ordained priest and began a brilliant career of preaching and teaching at the papal court and at various places in the north of Italy.

Sent to Sicily as his order's vicar, P. led a program of Observant reform and encouraged the founding of schools and hospitals by Dominican houses.  In 1444 he was in Catania to reorganize the convent of Santa Maria La Grande when lava flowing from Mt. Etna threatened the city.  Carrying St. Agatha's funerary veil in the traditional apotropaic procession, P. assisted her in halting the flow at today's Sant'Agata Li Battiati (CT).  On 18. October 1445 P. delivered the inaugural address, _De laude scientiarum_, at the opening of Catania's university, the Siculorum Gymnasium.  The island's first university, this had been authorized in 1434 by king Alfonso but only began operation now, on the basis of a papal bull issued in 1444 by Eugenius IV and entrusted to Peter for execution.

P. died in Palermo at his Order's convent of Santa Cita (Zita) several years before its completion of a new church of that name that was replaced by yet another in the 1580s.  The latter, now bearing a late eighteenth-century facade and rebuilt after suffering severe damage in World War II, houses a spectacular collection of late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century religious art, including several pieces by Antonello Gagini and the Pietà by Giorgio da Milano shown here:
http://www.entasis.it/grandtour/Pasantacita1.htm
P.'s cult was maintained by the Dominicans of his province and was confirmed papally in 1784.  P. is a civic patron of the city of Palermo.

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

**********************************************************************
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