medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (28. August) is the feast day of:
1) Hermes of Rome (?). H. is a martyr of the Via Salaria vetus, recorded under this date in the _Depositio martyrum_ of the Chronographer of 354 and in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology, both of which give his resting place as the cemetery of Basilla. In 1932 and in 1940 fragments of the original marble plaque of his epitaph by pope St. Damasus I (Ferrua no. 48), previously known only from an incomplete copy in a manuscript sylloge, were found in an underground chamber of this very cemetery. This merely tells us that H. was a martyr who had come to Rome from Greece and that he was long dead when the epitaph was written. In late antiquity the legendary Passio of pope St. Alexander (BHL 266) made H. a Roman city prefect converted by A. and martyred under Trajan (well before the cemetery of Basilla came into use).
In the late fourth century H.'s gravesite was already monumental. Two centuries later, pope Pelagius I (579-90) erected a subterranean basilica there. That church is recorded in the late sixth-century _Index oleorum_ of abbot John at Monza and in the seventh-century itineraries for pilgrims at Rome; in the eighth century it was restored by pope Adrian I (772-95). In the early fourteenth century the church was no longer in use. Rediscovered in the early seventeenth century, it forms part of what is now referred to as the catacomb of Hermes. An intermittently mentioned above-ground monastery serving the site is not recorded after 1188.
Both this catacomb church and H.'s entries in early medieval sacramentaries and martyrologies contributed to the diffusion of his cult throughout western Europe. Here's H. as depicted in the late eighth-century Sacramentary of Gellone (Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 12048, fol. 106r):
http://tinyurl.com/2ar9kwz
H. being imprisoned, as depicted in a late fifteenth-century (after 1482) Roman Breviary of French origin (Clermont-Ferrand, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 69, fol. 537v):
http://tinyurl.com/2ekrr4o
Three places where H. has been venerated especially are Ronse (Renaix) in Belgium's Oost-Vlaanderen province, Acquapendente (VT) in northern Lazio, and the city of Salzburg in Austria. Herewith some views of Ronse's Hermeskerk (Renaix' église Saint-Hermès), consecrated in 1129, whose claim to have relics of H. is documented from 1160 onward:
http://www.carillon.org.au/usyd/renaix/
http://tinyurl.com/23k8b4m
http://tinyurl.com/245jptz
http://tinyurl.com/2cz48h9
http://tinyurl.com/22mve78
crypt (later eleventh-century):
http://tinyurl.com/37cyp3j
http://tinyurl.com/36v46os
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dirkvde/2328842840/
H.'s shrine in the crypt:
http://tinyurl.com/2drkwox
H.'s processional shrine:
http://tinyurl.com/2gx64py
Acquapendente's basilica cattedrale del Santo Sepolcro houses what are said to be relics of H., the city's patron. The present building, originally of the eleventh and twelfth centuries with an eighteenth-century facade, was badly damaged in World War II and has since been rebuilt. Herewith an Italian-language account of this monument:
http://tinyurl.com/n8lbjp
Some exterior views (in the rear only the central apse is medieval):
http://tinyurl.com/ysd34t
http://tinyurl.com/ywcd3h
http://tinyurl.com/2hj9dz
http://tinyurl.com/2d8znsq
and views of its tenth-/eleventh-century crypt, housing a Holy Sepulchre:
http://tinyurl.com/28mn6h8
http://tinyurl.com/2bjwt4l
http://tinyurl.com/2gyr9bk
http://tinyurl.com/lrd4nj
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33416825@N00/3333138583
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33416825@N00/3373929958/
The capital at left here is in the crypt:
http://www.romeartlover.it/Francig4.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2fybkar
Detail view (ram's head):
http://tinyurl.com/38d8we
Anther capital in the crypt:
http://tinyurl.com/24do3cs
http://www.fabiopiferi.it/escur/Francigena/acq_mo3.jpg
Salzburg's Museum Carolino Augusteum houses a panel from an altarpiece of 1449 by Conrad Laib showing H. in what is said to be a Bürgermeister's (mayor's) costume, appropriate in its way for a supposed city prefect of ancient Rome:
http://www.aeiou.at/aeiou.history.data.jpg/001474.jpg
Detail view:
http://www.salzburg-city.com/history/got1.jpg
The originally eleventh-century église Saints-Hermès-et-Alexandre (the tower is twelfth-century; the choir is from ca. 1500) at Theux in Belgium's province de Liège is said to be the only surviving example of a "romanesque" hall church between the Loire and the Rhine. Herewith two illustrated, French-language pages on this church (restored from 1977 to 1982) and some other views:
http://www.sitheux.be/L-Eglise-Saint-Hermes-et-Alexandre
http://www.sitheux.be/L-eglise-halle-carolingienne-de
http://tinyurl.com/2c77o5t
http://tinyurl.com/24dg9oz
This church's baptismal font (pieces from different periods):
http://act.liege.catho.be/theux4.JPG
The village church of Warbeyen (Stadt Kleve) in Germany's Land Nordrhein-Westfalen is dedicated to the BVM and to H. but is usually referred to simply as Sankt Hermes. Its choir and nave are said to be from the earlier and mid-sixteenth centuries respectively (a predecessor is first recorded from 1368). Here's a distance view:
http://tinyurl.com/5t8nve
Exterior views (the tower is modern):
http://tinyurl.com/nro68j
http://tinyurl.com/mtrplf
http://www.helmut-verhuelsdonk.de/warb4.jpg
2) Julian of Brioude (?). The martyr J. (also J. of Auvergne) is commemorated in an early Passio (BHL 4540), in poems by St. Sidonius Apollinaris and by St. Venantius Fortunatus, in the _Miracula_ of St. Gregory of Tours, and in a legendary Passio (BHL 4542) once ascribed to Gregory of Tours. From this ensemble of posthumous acclaim, it would seem that he was a Christian of Vienne in military service who during a persecution fled to today's Brioude (Haute-Loire), where he was hunted down and decapitated. Whereas the soldiers who performed this execution are said to have brought J.'s head back to Vienne after washing it in a fountain, his body -- so the story goes -- was taken and buried nearby by pious Christians. In the later fourth century J.'s cult was renewed and a memorial basilica was erected over what was believed to have been his grave.
In the later fifth century J. was credited with a local victory over Burgundian raiders and his church was rebuilt. At about the same time divine providence ordained the finding of J.'s head by St. Mamertus of Vienne, who will have discovered it at Vienne in the tomb of J.'s former military commander, the martyr St. Ferréol. J.'s annual feast is said to have been fixed for today by St. Germanus of Auxerre when he was passing through Brioude; less legendarily, it appears under this day in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology and in the martyrologies of St. Ado of Vienne (quelle surprise!) and of Usuard.
The present basilique Saint-Julien at Brioude is a later eleventh- to thirteenth-century structure built over the remains of several predecessors. It was a major pilgrimage church; dust from the saint's tomb and water from a nearby fountain at today's St-Ferréol-d'Auroure (Haute-Loire) were considered _materia medica_. Herewith some views, etc.:
http://tinyurl.com/2jngmy
http://tinyurl.com/5nnfaz
http://www.route-romane.net/default_fr.php?gzev=st_bk_190
Four pages:
http://www.art-roman.net/brioude/brioude.htm
Relics said to be of J. are kept here:
http://tinyurl.com/6znryj
J. is also the titular of the originally early fourteenth-century collégiale Saint-Julien at Tournon-sur-Rhône (Ardèche). Herewith an illustrated, French-language account of this church and some other views of it:
http://tinyurl.com/2gxaawg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38490142@N05/4645359133/
http://wikimapia.org/9308369/fr/%C3%A9glise-Saint-Julien
3) Vicinius (d. 4th cent.?). The legendary protobishop of Sarsina (FC) in the Romagna, V. is known chiefly through his late eleventh- or early twelfth-century Vita et Miracula (BHL 8557). This brief but elegantly written document tells us that V. came from Liguria, by which could be meant today's Emilia, the latter having in late antiquity been joined with ancient Liguria in a single province, or today's Lombardy (most of which formed the main part of ancient Liguria). Ordained bishop by divine providence, he preached the Gospel to the people of the _urbs Saxenata_ (i.e. Sassina, Sarsina's ancient name form) and engaged in the full range of virtuous behaviors typical of a saintly bishop.
Especially effective at driving out demons, V. is said to have used a collar and chain to subdue the possessed whilst effecting their internal release. This very restraint (who could believe otherwise?), traditionally referred to as V.'s "chain" though today it is represented only by a collar, was preserved in Sarsina's cathedral, where remains believed to be those of V. were interred, and was employed medievally in various post-mortem miraculous cures. Here's a view:
http://tinyurl.com/6a79ug
Sarsina's originally tenth-/eleventh-century basilica cattedrale di Santa Maria Maggiore e San Vicinio (now a co-cathedral of the diocese of Cesena-Sarsina) is shown here:
http://tinyurl.com/6ybky7
http://tinyurl.com/5qrjzf
and in more detail here:
http://www.irisversari.it/pievi/pievi3/sarsina.htm
One of its treasures is this twelfth-century marble ambo bearing emblems of the four evangelists:
http://www.lemaschere.it/sarsinagallery10.html
The Italia nell'Arte Medievale page on this church:
http://tinyurl.com/2e8qqph
In the late eighteenth century the right aisle was converted into a chapel of San Vicinio:
http://www.lemaschere.it/sarsinagallery5.html
That's the putative V. himself in an effigy reliquary behind the grate beneath the altar. A detail view (though V.'s skull is said not to have been preserved):
http://tinyurl.com/6myzeh
4) Moses the Ethiopian (d. early 5th cent.). We know about this desert monk of Lower Egypt chiefly from ch. 19 of Palladius' _Historia lausiaca_ and from the _Collationes patrum_ of St. John Cassian. A collection of sayings ascribed to a Moses in the _Apopththegmata patrum_ may include some genuinely deriving from today's M. According to Palladius, M. was an Ethiopian thief and reputed murderer who repented and joined the monastic community of Skete (Sketis). He is said to have overcome his old habits with great difficulty, to have obtained the conversion of four of his former associates who had come to Skete with larcenous intent, and, after having been tormented mightily by demons, to have achieved a reputation for power over such evil spirits. M. was made priest, died at the age of seventy-five, and left seventy disciples. Thus far Palladius.
M. preaching, as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century (ca. 1326-1350) collection of French-language saint's Lives (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 185, fol. 271v):
http://tinyurl.com/26tr6zu
M. (top register at right; at left, yesterday's St. Poemen) as depicted in an August calendar scene in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) of the narthex in 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/24boxqj
M. afflicted by demons, as depicted in a later fifteenth-century (third quarter) copy from Bruges of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 310, fol. 34v):
http://tinyurl.com/26u6yoh
Scenes of M., as depicted in a later fifteenth-century (1463) copy from Paris of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 51, fol. 275r):
http://tinyurl.com/36eq6cj
5) Augustine of Hippo (d. 430). A.'s career and major writings are too well known to warrant a summary here. But for a brief refresher, try the 'Context' section of Michael Mendelson's entry on him in the _Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy_:
http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/stanford/entries/augustine/
The archeological site of the former Hippo Regius lies outside of today's Annaba in Algeria. Here's a page of expandable views:
http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/algeria/hippo-scenes.html
Further views of the basilica and baptistery at Hippo Regius and of remains of Roman-period Madaura (where A. was schooled before going to Carthage; now M'Daourouch in Algeria) are linked to at bottom here (NB: left-click only):
http://people.vanderbilt.edu/~james.p.burns/chroma/index.html
Some views of A.'s later fourteenth-century monument (1362) in Pavia's church of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro in which (in a much earlier state) the Lombard king Liutprand was said to have deposited relics of A. brought from a previous resting place in Sardinia early in the eighth century. The tomb now houses human remains discovered in 1695 beneath the floor of said church's crypt that in 1728 were adjudged papally to be those of A.:
http://tinyurl.com/n786cj
http://tinyurl.com/lcq4ft
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/12186338.jpg
Many detail views are here (scroll down to Masters of Campione):
http://snipurl.com/rg08u
In 1842 an elbow from A.'s putative relics in Pavia was brought to Annaba and placed in a reliquary statue of A. intended for the then not yet built modern church dedicated to A. on a hill overlooking the site of Hippo Regius. Here's a view of that reliquary with its embedded relic in the completed church:
http://tinyurl.com/mjmd8n
6) Angelo of Pesche (Bl.; d. 1460). This less well known holy person of the Regno (also A. delle Pesche) became a Franciscan lay brother at the order's monastery of Sant'Onofrio at today's Vasto (CH) in Abruzzo, where he was recorded as being from today's Pesche (IS) in Molise. A. served as a gardener (perhaps also as an alms-gatherer) at Franciscan houses in southern Italy, acquiring a reputation as a deeply prayerful contemplative. In a tradition that seems to be post-medieval in origin, he is said to have been consulted on spiritual matters by grandees of the realm and on one such occasion to have been stimulated by a musical performance to levitate in ecstasy and to have remained aloft for some time.
A. died at his order's convent at Lucera (FG) in northern Apulia. Herewith some views of its originally thirteenth-century chiesa di San Francesco (restored 1936-1942) and of some of its fourteenth- to sixteenth-century frescoes:
Exterior views:
http://fujiso3.hp.infoseek.co.jp/hna6hp/pna558.html
http://tinyurl.com/6bdb5x
Interior views:
http://tinyurl.com/6bvzvd
http://tinyurl.com/dhodv
http://tinyurl.com/7obbd
http://www.fotografieitalia.it/foto.cfm?idfoto=769
http://www.fotografieitalia.it/foto.cfm?idfoto=770
The glass-encased effigy reliquary beneath the main altar is that of Lucera's saint Francesco Antonio Fasani (Francis Anthony of Lucera; 1681-1742), to whom the church is now dedicated. A.'s resting place is unknown. At least, that is what people of Pesche were told in 2006 when, having recently become aware of his existence, they began to celebrate him in his home town and made inquiries in Lucera about possible relics.
Best,
John Dillon
(matter from older posts revised and with the addition of Moses the Egyptian)
**********************************************************************
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
|
