medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (5. May) is the feast day of:
1) Euthymius of Alexandria (?). E. is a martyr entered under today in the later fourth-century Syriac martyrology and in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian martyrology. His entry in the latter identifies him as a deacon. The Carolingian-period martyrologies of Florus of Lyon, St. Ado of Vienne, and Usuard add that he died in prison.
2) Irene the Great Martyr (?). I. (in modern Greek: Eirini/Irini, Rini) is a saint widely venerated on this day in Eastern-rite churches. She has a brief, legendary Passio in the so-called Menologium of Basil II (late tenth- or early eleventh-century) that makes her the noble daughter, somewhere, of a prince named Licinius, who at the age of six was so keen to hide her physical beauty from the eyes of men that she shut herself up in the top of a tower along with thirteen servants. God himself instructed her in Christianity and St. Timothy, the Pauline disciple, baptized her. When I. destroyed her household idols Licinius attempted to have her dragged to death by a horse he had enraged: she survived but L. died of a bite the horse had given him. I. obtained both L.'s resurrection and his conversion, along with that of his wife and three thousand others, to Christianity. A Roman governor named Ampelius, failing to get I. to apostasize, had her martyred by decapitation.
Later synaxaries offer several Passiones of I. (BHG 952y - 954c) preserving her miraculous conversion of multitudes but making her an early fourth-century martyr in Persia. In some versions, including the Latin BHL 4467, she is the daughter of the pagan emperor Licinius and Ampelius becomes her preceptor and narrator Ampellianus (also Apellianus). I.'s cult branched out geographically: there is a version in which she dies peacefully at Ephesus, another in which she is a martyr of the Balkans, and yet another in which she is a martyr of today's Lecce (LE) in southern Apulia.
In that last persona I. is of course a saint of the Regno, often called Herina in Latin -- literally 'Little Mistress', but the etymology may really lie in some form of '(H)irene' -- and Erina or Rina in Italian and in the Italo-Romance dialects of the Salentine Peninsula. Though her present church at Lecce dates from 1589, she was the city's late medieval patron saint, overshadowed only in the seventeenth century by the plague-averting St. Orontius/Oronzo, and is still venerated there today. I. is also the patron saint of Veglie (LE), whose fifteenth-century principal church is dedicated to her and to St. John the Baptist, of San Pietro in Lama (LE), and of Altamura (BA) further north in Apulia, where as in Lecce she is the focus of a major festival.
Prior to her removal in 2001 the RM followed St. Ado and Usuard in entering I. under this day with two companions as a martyr of Thessalonica, all of whom perished by fire. The manner of death appears to be a Carolingian-period addition but the remainder is already in an entry, also under today, in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology: _In Thessalonica, natalis sancti Herenei, Peregrini et Herenae_. The latter is now thought probably to be a garble, with I. entered under masculine and feminine name forms.
Some views (all thumbnails, unfortunately) of the originally fourteenth- or fifteenth-century church of Agia Irini in Axos, a village in the municipality of Kouloukonas (Rethymnon prefecture) on Crete:
http://www.yakinthos.gr/img/axos/agirini1.jpg
http://www.kouloukonas.gr/files/6/141/axos_02.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/28a3m5u
Rini can be short for Ekaterini (Catherine) as well as for Eirini. Does anyone on the list know which Rini is the titular of the originally eleventh- or twelfth-century (with later modifications) church of Agia Rini outside of Sougia (Chania prefecture) on Crete? Some views:
http://tinyurl.com/239yzwf
http://tinyurl.com/2c6ugc2
http://tinyurl.com/27hm8wo
3) Hilarius of Arles (d. 449). H. was a member of the Gallo-Roman aristocracy who at a young age was persuaded by his older relative St. Honoratus, the founder of the monastery of Lérins, to sell off his inheritance and to enter that community. When in about 426 Honoratus was named bishop of the metropolitan see of Arles he brought H. with him as secretary. In 429 Honoratus died and H., then only twenty-nine years old, succeeded him as bishop. His principled but impolitic exercise of his metropolitan powers (he sacked two bishops, both of whom were reinstated by Rome) caused pope St. Leo I to transfer that authority to Fréjus (it was restored to Arles in the year following H.'s death).
H. is the author of a well-written _laudatio_ of Honoratus (BHL 3975). This provides most of our little personal information about him. He has two Vitae of his own (BHL 3882, 3882b) emphasizing his asceticism and his care for his clergy.
4) Godehard (d. 1038). G. (also Gotthard) was born in the vicinity of what at the time was the canonry of St. Moritz at today's Niederalteich (Lkr. Deggendorf) in Bavaria. After schooling there he spent three years of administrative training at the archdiocesan court in Salzburg, travelled to Italy, came back, continued his studies at the cathedral school of Passau, and then returned to Niederaltaich (this older spelling is still conventional for the canonry/monastery) where he swiftly became provost. When that house was subsequently transformed into a Benedictine abbey G. stayed on as a novice. He made his monastic profession in 990, was ordained priest in 993, and in 996 was elected abbot.
As abbot, G. steered Niederaltaich in the direction of Cluniac reform and also established there a school to train scribes and illuminators. Upon the nomination of the future emperor Henry II, he reformed Tegernsee in 1001-1002 and Hersfeld from 1005 until his return to Niederaltaich in 1013, when he began work on rebuilding that abbey and its church. In 1022 he was named bishop of Hildesheim in today's Lower Saxony. G. was canonized in 1131. On 4. May 1132 his body was translated from the abbey church to the cathedral and on the following day his liturgical feast was celebrated for the first time. Miracles occurring at that event laid the foundation of what became his ongoing reputation as a healing saint. St. Gotthard pass takes its name from a hospice erected to him there in the thirteenth century.
A few views of the mostly later medieval abbey church at Niederalteich:
http://tinyurl.com/27kk92
http://tinyurl.com/27xz9o
http://tinyurl.com/ysmnd5
http://www.dva.cz/vs/img/fv/01niederalteich.html
As you might suppose from that last view, something has happened to the choir. The latter is very prominent in this engraving from 1687:
http://tinyurl.com/ysj2y9
Hildesheim's abbey church of St. Michael was begun very early in the eleventh century by bishop Bernward and was completed by G. in 1033 Here's an illustrated, English-language page on it:
http://tinyurl.com/7lgyx
Further views:
http://tinyurl.com/3bte4v
http://tinyurl.com/2jms2j
http://tinyurl.com/2v65gw
An illustrated, English-language page on the originally eleventh-century cathedral of Hildesheim (the Hildesheimer Dom) is here:
http://tinyurl.com/2brefn
A German-language one is here:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildesheimer_Dom
A view of G.'s twelfth-century shrine:
http://tinyurl.com/2equ6e
That's from a page of views of objects in the cathedral treasury:
http://tinyurl.com/24lc2j
G., above the north portal:
http://tinyurl.com/24ufw9
Many other views here:
http://tinyurl.com/accpt
Single views of the exterior ("Gothic" chapels and a transept):
http://www.peterkamin.de/Reisen/hildesheim.dom.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2gscs6
Hildesheim is also the home of a church dedicated to G., the originally twelfth-century Basilika Sankt Godehard. Multiple views here:
http://tinyurl.com/yvnao3
More here (expandable):
http://tinyurl.com/2t94hv
Single views of the exterior:
http://tinyurl.com/2err9d
http://tinyurl.com/2935zn
http://tinyurl.com/2z3dtr
Portal, with G. at right in the tympanum (image expandable):
http://tinyurl.com/yp4aaa
South of the Alps, G. has an extensive cult in Lombardy. Herewith some originally medieval examples:
Exterior views of the originally later twelfth-century (restored, 1969) ex-abbey church of Santi Colombano e Gottardo at Arlate (LC) in:
http://tinyurl.com/27x29xs
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arlate_chiesa.JPG
http://tinyurl.com/299t9vn
http://tinyurl.com/27eedr3
http://tinyurl.com/2cxkt89
Exterior views of G.'s originally earlier fourteenth-century church in Milan, San Gottardo in Corte, built as a court chapel by the city's lord, Azzone Visconti, in the years 1330-1336:
http://tinyurl.com/2evaetc
http://tinyurl.com/267gyfy
http://tinyurl.com/2fans9p
Inside is Azzo's tomb from the earlier 1440s:
http://tinyurl.com/26o7jwm
An even better view of the tomb itself is accessible from here (last item on the page):
http://tinyurl.com/2c7jpmp
Views of G. as depicted in the late medieval frescoes of the chiesa di San Tommaso di Canterbury in Corenno Plinio, a _frazione_ of Dervio (LC):
http://www.dervio.org/qd/luoghi/visite/affr5.htm
http://www.lonelyplanetimages.com/images/668439
Views of the recently restored convent church of San Gottardo in Brescia, originally built in 1469:
http://tinyurl.com/2g8aj6j
http://tinyurl.com/24mtrvt
5) Leo of Africo (d. late 12th or early 13th cent., perhaps). According to our earliest source, the sixteenth-century local historian Gabriele Barrio, this poorly documented saint of the Regno was a Greek-rite monk who was born in today's Africo Vecchio (RC) in the Aspromonte. His relics were in Barrio's day preserved in the cathedral of relatively nearby Bova (the chief town of this mountainous district in southern Calabria) and he was celebrated on this day. Bova (RC) still has relics said to be those of L. and he is still celebrated there today. A relic said to be his, formerly preserved at the originally medieval church dedicated to him at Africo Vecchio, is now kept in its modern successor at coastal Africo Nuovo (RC), whither Africo's population was moved after the disastrous floods of 1951 and 1953.
At Africo Nuovo L. is now celebrated a week from today (12. May), thus giving the faithful time to recover from their pilgrimage (in part on mountain paths) to L.'s church at Africo Vecchio, where his traditional procession and liturgical celebration are maintained today (complete with the relic, which into recent times, at least, was used during the festivities to treat persons possessed by an evil spirit). Herewith a view of L.'s church at Africo Vecchio:
http://locride.altervista.org/africo_chiesa_san_Leo.jpg
L. has a fairly rich early modern tradition that makes him a hermit who extracted resin from the pines of the Aspromonte, who sold his product in Messina, and who distributed the proceeds to the poor. Later, it is said, he founded a monastery that was enriched by donations from Calabria's Norman and Swabian overlords. These aspects of his story have caused persons skilled at distinguishing nuggets of inherited truth from nuggets of invention to date L. to at least the Norman period (1071-1194) if not also to the beginning of the Swabian one (1194-1266). He is the probable founder of a monastery of St. Leo in the diocese of Bova that paid tithes in 1310. L. is the patron saint of Africo and of Bova and a co-patron of the archdiocese of Reggio Calabria-Bova.
6) Angelus the Carmelite, venerated at Licata (d. ca. 1220). Little is known about A. (A. of Sicily, A. of Jerusalem). His late medieval Vitae (BHL 464, 466) tell us that he was born in Jerusalem, that he became a Carmelite in Palestine, that he was ordained priest at the age of twenty-five, that he was sent to Italy, where he preached successfully at St. John Lateran, and that he was sent to Sicily to preach against "cathars", one of whom stabbed him fatally at today's Licata (AG) in the southwestern part of the island. Veneration as a martyr ensued and a church was erected to house A.'s remains. The Carmelite Order is said to have adopted his cause in 1456, with confirmation of his cult by Pius II coming in 1459.
A. has a major sanctuary at Licata, whose illustrated website (for those not afraid of early modern splendors) is here:
http://www.santuariosantangelo.it/
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post lightly revised and with the addition of Euthymius of Alexandria)
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