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  June 2010

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION June 2010

Options

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Log In

Log In

Get Password

Get Password

Subject:

saints of the day 24. June

From:

John Dillon <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

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

Date:

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 12:49:35 -0500

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (139 lines)

medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Today (24. June) is the feast day of:

1)  The Nativity of John the Baptist, Forerunner of the Lord (d. 1st cent.).  Spanning our period, herewith a late antique portrait of J. and a late medieval and Renaissance church dedicated to him:

a)  An icon (encaustic; sixth-century) of J. the Forerunner from St. Catherine's, Sinai, now in the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko Museum of Arts in Kyiv/Kiev:
http://tinyurl.com/2aurbx4

b)  A French-language page, with expandable views, on the originally fifteenth-/sixteenth-century église Saint-Jean-Baptiste at Saint-Jean-de-Losne (Côte-d'Or) in Bourgogne:
http://www.saintjeandelosne.com/affiche.asp?num=21&arbo=1
Other views:
http://tinyurl.com/3tkweq
http://tinyurl.com/4s2ksa
http://tinyurl.com/44sn8p

Some depictions of J.'s nativity:

a)  in the ninth-century Gospels of Louis the Pious (Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 9388, fol. 102r):
http://tinyurl.com/37pas65

b)  at bottom left in an eleventh -or twelfth-century menologium of undetermined origin (Paris, BnF, ms. Grec 1528, fol. 197r):
http://tinyurl.com/35tavpd

c)  in a later twelfth-century (1178-1190) Coptic-language Gospels from Damietta (Paris, BnF, ms. Copte 13, fol. 138v):
http://tinyurl.com/244bpzk

d)  in a late thirteenth-century copy of the _Legenda aurea_ (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 65r); differently sized views are accessible from the top of this page:
http://tinyurl.com/l97wfz

e)  in the earlier fourteenth-century vault frescoes (1330s) of the diaconicon in the church of the Hodegetria in the Patriarchate of Peć at 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/2frj7qk

f)  in an earlier fourteenth-century (ca. 1326-1350) French-language collection of saint's Lives (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 185, fol. 72r):
http://tinyurl.com/3xuyoo2

g)  in an earlier fourteenth-century copy (1348) of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 241, fol. 141r):
http://tinyurl.com/395754j

h)  in a fourteenth-century gradual from an unidentified Dominican house (Karlsruhe, Badische Bibliothek, cod. St. Peter perg. 49, fol. 81v):
http://tinyurl.com/2fc6kk9

i)  in a panel of Rogier van der Weyden's St. John Altarpiece (ca. 1455-1460) in the Staatliche Museen in Berlin:
http://tinyurl.com/37w87qy
The altarpiece's three panels (views greatly expandable):
http://tinyurl.com/3amauub

j)  in a late fifteenth-century copy (ca. 1480-1490) of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 244, fol. 174r):
http://tinyurl.com/284prg2

And here's the naming of J. as depicted by Beato Angelico in a fresco (ca. 1434-1435) in the Museo nazionale di San Marco in Florence:
http://www.wga.hu/art/a/angelico/13/03naming.jpg

According to the later second-century infancy gospel generally known as the _Protevangelium Jacobi_ (22. 3), at the time of the Massacre of the Holy Innocents Herod sought to kill J. as well but was prevented by St. Elizabeth, who hid with her son in a mountain cave while an angel watched over them.  Representations of this legendary event are called the Flight of Elizabeth.  Some instances:

a)  on a later sixth-century pyx in the Musée du Louvre in Paris:
http://www.bluetravelguide.com/oeuvre/O0007904.html
http://www.bluetravelguide.com/oeuvre/photo_ME0000021908.html

b)  in a wall painting neither whose location nor whose date are known to me:
http://tinyurl.com/2fmuya4
I can guess but can anyone say with certainty where this painting is to be found?

c)  in an earlier fourteenth-century mosaic (betw. 1315 and 1321) in the exonarthex of the Chora Church in Istanbul:
http://tinyurl.com/38hheg9
http://tinyurl.com/2vk8sl6
http://tinyurl.com/325nbau

In recent years "saints of the day" has used the feast of J.'s decollation (29. August) as a collecting point for medievally pertinent visuals of J.  But today too provides an opportunity for subscribers to this list to chip in with favorite images of J. or with views of buildings dedicated to him, as Marjorie Greene did two years ago with a French-language virtual tour of the primatiale Saint-Jean-Baptiste in Lyon:
http://cathedrale-lyon.cef.fr/visite_guidee/index.html

Did you know that John the Forerunner T-shirts are available?  Herewith some views:
http://www.zazzle.com/forerunner+tshirts


2)  John and Festus (?).  J. and F. are poorly attested Roman martyrs mentioned in the legendary Passiones of Marcellus, Bibiana, Pigmenius, and John and Paul and whose first clearly datable testimonia appear in earlier seventh-century sources (the catalogue of lamp oils gathered for queen Theodolinda from the tombs of the martyrs; the itineraries prepared for pilgrims to Rome).  At that time they had a martyrium on the Via Salaria vetus in a cemetery identified both as _ad Septem Palumbas_ and _in Clivum cucumeris_): this had a surface-level church called _ad caput s. Iohannis_ because it contained what was said to be J.'s head, whereas F.'s relics were in an underground chamber.


3)  Simplicius of Autun (d. late 4th or early 5th cent.).  A bishop of Autun of this name is recorded from 374 and again in 418.  One of these is today's saint, recorded in St. Gregory of Tours' _In gloria confessorum_, cap. 75, where we learn that S. was living in complete chastity with his wife when he was elected bishop, that they continued thereafter to live together, and that he evangelized among pagans in his diocese.  The seemingly very late seventh- or early eighth-century (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology gives today as the commemoration of S.'s laying to rest.


4)  Rumold (d. ca. 775).  According to his probably late eleventh-century Passio (BHL 7381) by Theodoric of Saint-Trond, R. (also Rombout) was an Irishman who was ordained priest at Rome and whom divine providence then sent to the vicinity of Mechelen/Malines, where he performed miracles, converted many to Christianity, and founded a monastery before being captured by barbarians and slain at Saint-Trond (where, says Theodoric, his relics truly are).  Later legend made him the son of a Scottish king who before his arrival in Flanders had been an archbishop in Ireland.  Modern opinion is divided between R.'s having been an insular missionary or simply a local hermit.  When in 1775 the skull said to be his was examined it was found to have sustained what was considered a lethal blow to the cranium.

R.'s putative relics were translated at some point in the central Middle Ages to Mechelen/Malines, where they were preserved at a collegiate church dedicated to him.  This building, begun in the thirteenth century, became the city's cathedral in 1559. Herewith a few views:
http://tinyurl.com/2t5saw
http://www.kerkeninvlaanderen.be/pages/kerk_00377.htm
http://www.belgiumview.com/belgiumview/tl2/view0001646.php4
A view of R.'s early nineteenth-century reliquary shrine behind the main altar:
http://tinyurl.com/leh2pn
An expandable view of a panel painting from the 1490s depicting R. baptizing his successor, St. Libertus:
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/c/coter/baptism.html


5)  Theodulf of Lobbes (d. 776).  In about the year 750 T. became the fifth abbot-bishop of Lobbes in today's Belgian Hainaut.  During his roughly a quarter century in office he greatly increased the abbey's possessions.  It was at his behest that Anso of Lobbes (who succeeded him as abbot) wrote his Vitae of his recent predecessors the sainted abbots Ursmar and Ermin.  T. was the last abbot of Lobbes to have been _chorepiscopus_ as well.

According to Folcwin's tenth-century _Gesta abbatum Laubiensium_, when at some later date the abbey was importuned to transfer to Laon its relics of St. Ermin it elected to send instead the body of abbot-bishop T., who was not yet recognized as a saint.  At Laon T. was venerated as St. Ermin but when after a while the pseudo-Ermin had produced few or no miracles he was returned to Lobbes.  On the return trip T. performed miracles at Valenciennes and so was finally recognized as a saint under his own name.

Today is T.'s _dies natalis_.  Though he is entered for this date in some medieval martyrologies, competition from St. John the Baptist caused late medieval Lobbes to celebrate him on 25. June.


6)  Gohard (d. 843).  Several chronicles record the slaying of G. (in Latin, Gunhardus and Gohardus), bishop of Nantes, by Northmen who raided that city and the surrounding area on St. John's day in 843.  Today, being his _dies natalis_, is his day of commemoration in the RM; at Nantes, competition from St. John the Baptist has caused him to be celebrated liturgically on 25. June.  Here's an illustrated, French-language page on his chapel in a later fifteenth-century section of the cathedral of Nantes:
http://tinyurl.com/m5ahxg
Links to the chapters of the cathedral's own illustrated guide to this mostly fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century building are here:
http://nantescathedrale.free.fr/chapitres.htm


7)  Theodgar (d. 11th cent.).  T. (in Latin, Thugarus; in Danish, Thøger) is the saint of Vestervig Abbey and the fairly legendary apostle of North Jutland.  Venerated in the former diocese of Vendsyssel (later, Børglum) from at least the twelfth century onward, he is first attested in the historical record by an incompletely preserved miracle collection from ca. 1200 (BHL 8069b).  A legend making him a missionary from Thüringen who worked in Denmark and who built the first church in a town whose name is not provided occurs in the Vita (BHL 8068) in T.'s probably thirteenth-/fourteenth-century metrical Office.  A Vita in a somewhat later Office (BHL 8069)  has him go first to England and then to Norway, where he is said to have been chaplain to king (St.) Olaf, and localizes his settlement at Vestervig.

T.'s principal feast day is 30. October.  This too is first attested from the thirteenth century, when it was kept in the diocese of Ribe (and, presumably, in that of Vendsyssel); by the end of the Middle Ages it was kept in all the dioceses of Denmark.  It is a translation feast that seemingly commemorates an Elevatio at Vestervig, where according to a sixteenth-century chronicle T. underwent a translation in 1117.   Today is T.'s day of commemoration in the RM and the anniversary of a medieval and early modern popular celebration associating him with healing springs.

The originally thirteenth-century Vestervig kirke in Thisted (Nordjylland) is a former abbey church (Canons Regular) and a former cathedral of the diocese of Vendsyssel.  Here's a view:
http://tinyurl.com/5wk25s
Its late eleventh-/early twelfth-century predecessor (generally called T.'s church) lay some 200 meters to the west.  The first view on this page is of that church's foundations:
http://tinyurl.com/6a44c8
The other two views on that page are of a holy well on the site associated with T. (there were once many of these in Jutland) and of his depiction, said to be his earliest surviving one, in an early sixteenth-century vault painting in Skive Gamle kirke (Skive Old Church -- but you knew that!!) at Skive (Midtjylland).


8)  Bartholomew of Farne (d. 1193).  B. was a Yorkshire lad of apparent Scandinavian descent whose parents lived in the vicinity of Whitby.  Slow to grasp the onomastic implications of the Norman Conquest (or perhaps deeply unreconciled to the changes that were under way), they named their son Tostig.  Later, prompted by not entirely friendly animadversions from members of T.'s peer group, they took to calling him William.  W. seems still to have thought of himself as at least partly Scandinavian, for later still, after repeated visions in which Christ, the BVM, St. Peter, and St. John the Evangelist urged him as a young man to reform his dissolute life, he moved to Norway where over the course of three years he was ordained deacon and then priest.  When William became Bartholomew is not clear from B.'s near-contemporary Vita (BHL 1015) by G., a monk of Durham.

Returning to England, B. served very briefly (_aliquot diebus_) as a priest in Northumbria before becoming a monk of Durham.  He been there less than a year when in a vision St. Cuthbert brought him to Inner Farne, showed him his oratory there, and told him that this was his destined abode.  B. was allowed to take up residence on the island as an hermit.  He spent the remainder of his life in solitude there, joined only briefly by a retired prior who had been given like permission.  B. lived very ascetically, fought with demons, experienced visions, fed a small bird from his table, and protected the eiders that nested on the island and whose kind had also been dear to St. Cuthbert.

B. was buried at the oratory in the sarcophagus he himself had carved.  Miracles were reported at his grave.  Thus far the Vita.  Like that of his contemporary Godric of Finchale, his memory was preserved initially by Durham Priory.  B. has yet to grace the pages of the RM.

Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised)

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