medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (24. September) is the feast day of:
1) Anatolius of Milan (d. late 2d cent. ?). A. (also Anatelon; in Italian, Anatolio, Anatalone) is the traditional first bishop of Milan. According to Paul the Deacon, writing in the _Gesta episcoporum Mettensium_, he was sent by St. Peter to evangelize the city. In the eleventh century, after the legend of the Milanese church's apostolic foundation by St. Barnabas had arisen, A. was said to have been B.'s disciple, to have been the protobishop not only of Milan but also of Brescia, and to have been laid to rest (place unspecified) on this day. The anniversary of his laying to rest was celebrated in Milan's church of San Babila. In 1269 a Milanese liturgical calendar, _Beroldus novus_, added that A. had been buried in Brescia's chiesa di San Floriano. In 1472 that church was the scene of an Inventio of A.'s putative remains; these were then translated to Brescia's cathedral, where they are said to remain today.
2) Terentius of Pesaro (d. 247 or 251, supposedly). T. is the patron saint of today's Pesaro (PU) in the northern Marche. His cult is attested both in the dedication of Pesaro's (should you not know, the name is a proparoxytone) originally thirteenth-century cathedral, where in 1447 his putative relics were placed under the main altar, and in that of a now vanished monastery near today's Bellaguardia di Fossombrone (PU) first recorded in the subscriptions to the tithe records of the diocese of Urbino for the year 1299.
T. may be the bishop portrayed in a sixth- or seventh-century fresco discovered in 1752 in the crypt of Pesaro's extraurban abbey church of San Decenzio. The bishop portrayed in the fresco wears a pallium and is identified by name as Terencius. Here's a view of the pertinent section of the fresco in what I'm guessing is the copy that was made in 1777 and that now is displayed in Pesaro's Museo diocesano (the original fresco was dismounted and is now in Pesaro's Musei civici):
http://tinyurl.com/y9u9qj2
The figure to T.'s right is the local saint Decentius; the nimbed figure to his left is an emperor Constantine, identified by the archdiocese as "Costantino Pogonato" (by whom is meant Constantine IV, 668-685, who is so nicknamed by Byzantine historians, rather than his father Constans II, who was also so nicknamed and who ruled as Constantine). Whether this T. when depicted was thought of as a bishop _of Pesaro_ is not altogether clear (the number of central Italian saints Terentius is rather large).
In the fifteenth century T. appears on the seal of one of Pesaro's bishops as a young man not dressed in clerical garb. This accords with the saint's construction in his very late, legendary Passio (BHL 8007; thought to be based on a vernacular original) preserved in his Office published in 1592 and making him a young layman and thaumaturge of Pannonian origin who is arrested in Aquileia as a Christian but miraculously is able to escape his prison, who then goes to Rome, and who on the way from Rome to Pesaro is slain by brigands on this day in 247 [sic] in the papacy of St. Cornelius and in the reign of the emperor Decius (which if true would instead make the year 251). Post-mortem miracles confirm his sanctity. Thus far the Passio. T. is considered a martyr. Celebrated today in Pesaro, he has yet to grace the pages of the RM.
This predella panel of an altar from the early 1470s by Giovanni Bellini now in the Musei civici di Pesaro depicts T. as a youthful soldier:
http://tinyurl.com/y8f9kwb
Pesaro's cattedrale di San Terenzio had late antique predecessors on the same site. Rebuilt in the later nineteenth and very early twentieth centuries, it retains a seemingly thirteenth-century portal and facade:
http://www.italyheaven.co.uk/lemarche/images/pesaro2.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/4krzs8
http://tinyurl.com/yade4xm
Parts of two late antique mosaic floors, the latter reworked in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, have been discovered in this church. Herewith two Italian-language accounts, the second one illustrated (views expandable):
http://tinyurl.com/28t2b28
http://tinyurl.com/23tctns
More views are available via this site in Italian or in English (keep following the menus):
http://www.pesaromosaici.it/
Still more views (fewer but larger):
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2296/2379231863_d78b55593c_o.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3166/2379231539_15c12a43c1_o.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3171/2379232171_2db760f03e_o.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3276/2379231729_ce1a4eb4fe_o.jpg
3) Andochius, Thyrsis, and Felix (d. ca. 272, supposedly). A. (in French, Andoche), T., and F. are martyrs of Saulieu (Côte-d'Or) in Bourgogne recorded in a legendary Passio thought to be of the fifth century (BHL 424-426; no witness earlier than the ninth century) and in later manuscripts of the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology. The Passio makes them martyrs under Aurelian. They are entered in the ninth-century martyrologies of Florus, St. Ado, and Usuard.
An illustrated, French-language page on the originally earlier twelfth-century basilique Saint-Andoche at Saulieu:
http://saulieu.chez-alice.fr/saint_andoche..htm
A companion page on the capitals:
http://saulieu.chez-alice.fr/les_chapitaux.htm
The Paradoxplace page on this church:
http://tinyurl.com/4p9t5y
The romanes.com page on this church:
http://www.romanes.com/Saulieu/
The Structurae images page for this church:
http://tinyurl.com/44mmxl
Six pages of black-and-white images of the church and of its decor begin here:
http://tinyurl.com/4g9kqu
A nave capital (earlier twelfth-century) at Vézelay's basilique Sainte-Marie-Madeleine depicting A.'s martyrdom:
http://tinyurl.com/y8676nd
http://www.art-roman.net/vezelay/vezelay73.jpg
4) Rusticus of Clermont (d. ca. 446?). According to St. Gregory of Tours (_Historia Francorum_, 2. 13. 16), R. was a diocesan priest of Clermont whose divine selection as that city's bishop was made clear in a vision to a holy woman who had previously announced that none of the people then considered candidates met with God's favor. He is entered under today in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology and in the historical martyrologies of Florus of Lyon, St. Ado of Vienne, and Usuard.
5) Gerard of Csanád (d. 1046). The Venetian G. (in Hungarian, Gellért) was abbot of the monastery of St. George in Venice before becoming tutor to St. Emeric/Imre, son of king St. Stephen/István of Hungary. As bishop of Csanád he played some role in the Christianization of the kingdom. During the troubled reign in Hungary of his unbeloved fellow Venetian Peter Orseolo G. was killed at Pest by pagan adherents of a native claimant to the throne. Christians treated him as a martyr for his faith rather than as a victim of nationality-based hatred. G. was canonized along with Stephen/István and Emeric/Imre in 1083. He is one of Hungary's patron saints.
The hill (Gellért-hegy; Gellért Hill) in Budapest at which G. is said to have been killed after having crossed the Danube:
http://tinyurl.com/4qvcxw
Two illuminations in the fourteenth-century Hungarian Angevin Legendary showing scenes from G.'s _gesta_ in Hungary as well as his murder and his laying to rest:
http://tinyurl.com/3uuyer
http://tinyurl.com/4nuh5q
In the fifteenth century G.'s relics were transported to Venice, where they remained in Murano's originally twelfth-century chiesa di Santa Maria e San Donato until they were returned to Hungary in 2002. A few views of that church and of its belltower:
http://tinyurl.com/25w7qmw
http://www.viaggiaresempre.it/003ItaliaVeneziaMurano.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/3dvpj3
http://tinyurl.com/2jpzxu
http://www.flickr.com/photos/castrovalva/1771569418/
6) Isarnus (d. in the years 1043-1047). We know about the holy abbot I. (also Ysarnus; in French: Ysarn and Isarn) from a probably later eleventh-century Vita (BHL 4477) and from a very few mentions in charters. Educated by the canons of St. Antoninus at Pamiers, he entered religion at Agde but soon became a monk of the abbey of St. Victor at Marseille where after a few years he was prior. In 1021 the abbot of St. Victor died, the brethren could not agree on a successor, and the abbot of Montmajour, who was overseeing the election, approved I. as the monks' new head (according to the Vita, he asked the newest oblate to suggest a name, the oblate named I., and the abbot of Montmajour accepted this choice).
I. is said to have been very prayerful, to have exercised many virtues, to have been a friend of St. Odilo of Cluny, and to have operated various miracles. In the last months of his life he traveled to Spain to ransom some monks of Lérins who had been captured by Muslims; he returned ill and died not long afterwards. His cult was immediate or nearly so.
Some views of I.'s late eleventh-century inscribed gravestone in the crypt of Saint-Victor at Marseille:
http://www.fcscjfrance.net/images/victor2006_2w.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/26umg99
http://tinyurl.com/27nyhtf
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Isarn2.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/332g2hj
http://tinyurl.com/377ad5h
7) Hermann the Lame (Bl.; d. 1054). Completely paralytic since at least early childhood and barely able to speak, the young H. (also Hermann of Reichenau; in Latin Hermannus and Herimannus, often with the added designation _contractus_), a scion of the Swabian comital house of Altshausen, was oblated at Reichenau at the age of seven. There, despite his always having to be moved in a litter, he became one of the leading scholars of his age, learned in mathematics, astronomy, and music, and a prolific writer whose work includes often innovative treatises in all these areas as well as an universal chronicle, saint's lives, the sequence _Ave praeclara maris stella_, and a revision of Notker's martyrology.
We know about H. from his own writings, from a brief, highly laudatory Vita in the chronicle of his student Berthold of Reichenau (d. 1088?), and from other documentation of that house. H. was ordained priest when he was thirty and died on this day at the age of forty-one. He was buried at Altshausen; relics were later taken from his tomb, whose location now is known but to God. H. has been styled Venerable in the Benedictine Martyrology but is usually referred to as Blessed. His very local cult (said to have been confirmed papally in 1863) is apparently of early modern origin. H. has yet to grace the pages of the RM.
A cranium said to be H.'s on display in the Schloßkirche at Altshausen (Lkr. Ravensburg) in Baden-Württemberg:
http://tinyurl.com/2fu2htv
Berthold of Reichenau's Vita of H.:
http://www.flaez.ch/hermannus/vita.html
Best,
John Dillon
(matter from last year's posts revised and with the additions of Rusticus of Clermont, Isarnus, and Bl. Hermann the Lame)
**********************************************************************
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
|