medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Today, April 18,  is the feast of:

Eleutherius, bishop of Illyricum, and his mother, Anthia (d. c125, supposedly) An Eleutherius celebrated on 18 April occurs in 5th and 9th century records and, it is said, in the Mozarabic Calendar. Medieval dedications to a saint of this name are widespread in central and southern Italy. Some of these are to our Eleutherius, though others commemorate the pope of this name and still others (in a much later-arising cult centered on southern Lazio) honor a pilgrim celebrated in late May. 
   By the middle of the fourteenth century the Eleutherius of April 18 had also joined the pantheon of local saints at Porec (Italian: Parenzo) in Croatia, where he shared a tomb with the local martyr-bishop Maurus (this is the same Maurus whose presumed remains had by this time been in the Lateran Baptistery for centuries) and where of course he was remembered as a bishop of Illyricum.  In 1354 this tomb and its contents became spoils in the Genoese sack of Porec; they stayed in Genoa until 1933, when they were returned to Porec. RM listed Messina as the place of martyrdom for our Eleutherius and Anthia.  
   “Eleutherius was a deacon at sixteen, a priest at eighteen, and then consecrated bishop of Illyricum at the age of twenty. After converting and then baptizing an imperial official sent to arrest him, Eleutherius was brought before the Emperor Hadrian, who had him bound upon a red-hot iron bedstead. The martyr's bonds, however, broke spontaneously and he stood up and harangued the emperor. Hadrian then sent for a large grid, and after many threats he offered Eleutherius the alternative of either recanting or being roasted to death. Eleutherius chose death, but the fire went out and could not be rekindled. Thereupon he was shut up in a hot oven from which he emerged two hours later entirely unscathed. The enraged emperor ordered him to be tied by the feet behind a wagon drawn by wild horses. He was dragged up a mountain and into a forest. There he was released by angels, and the beasts of the forest gathered round him like lambs. He remained there until he was discovered by hunters and delivered to the imperial soldiers. During the public games he was exposed in the amphitheatre, but a lion and lioness, let loose upon him, only licked his hands and feet. Eventually he and eleven companions were clubbed to death.”

Apollonius the Apologist (d. c185) was a Roman senator (despite his Greek name) who was renowned for his learning and wisdom. Legend tells that Apollonius became a Christian but was denounced by one of his slaves. The slave was executed as a traitor to his master, but Apollonius was ordered to renounce his newfangled religion. He refused and his case was remanded to the Senate. He defended his faith eloquently in that forum, but was still sentenced by Perennis the judge, who ordered his limbs to be broken, and then that he should be decapitated. Prior to his arrest, he wrote against the Phrygian heresy and before he died, wrote a defense of Christianity ("apologia") that is still extant in an Armenian version. In the Middle Ages this A. was confused with the Apollonius who died with St. Philemon and with the Apollos who is connected with Paul in Acts and 1 Corinthians. His feast day is modernly celebrated on April 21.

Alexander of Alexandria (d. 328) became patriarch of Alexandria in 312; one source says that the failed candidate for the job was Arius. Certainly the big problem of Alexander's patriarchate was the growing Arian controversy; he got "Arianism" condemned at several councils.

Eusebius of Fano (d. after 525) is one of the four traditional sainted bishops and protectors of today's Fano in the Marche. As bishop of that town he subscribed to the acts of a Roman synod of 503. Since a Vitalis signed the acts of the preceding synod of 499 as bishop of Fano, it appears that in 503 Eusebius had not been in office very long. According to the Anonymus Valesianus, Eusebius accompanied Pope St. John I on his mission to Constantinople on behalf of king Theoderic in 526. In the twelfth century Eusuebius' relics, labeled as such (Corpus Sancti Eusebi), were rediscovered in Fano's cathedral when that building was being rebuilt after a fire.

Laserian/Molaisse (d. 639) Molaise is a pet form of the name Laissren (Mo Laisse = "my Laissren"). Laserian, born to a royal Ulster family, was a monk at Iona for several years. Legend tells that he then went to Rome, where he was ordained by no less a person than Gregory the Great. He then went to Ireland, where he was a staunch supporter of Roman practices against native Irish ones. Legend, getting even more improbable, tells that he was sent to Rome with a group of monks in 635 after a council trying to solve the Roman/Celtic dispute reached an impasse; they were supposed to get the pope to resolve the matter. While there, he was consecrated as bishop and sent back to Ireland as papal legate. Apparently He settled in Leighlin (Co. Carlow), which he made a center of Roman-style observance. He also founded and also that strangely desolate and well-preserved monastery, Inishmurray (Co. Sligo). He promoted the celebration of Easter in accordance with Roman practice. An interesting legend reports that Molaise brought soil from Rome to hallow his monastery at Devenish.

Aya, countess of Hainault (7th century) was the wife of S. Hydulph, and related to SS. Aldegund and Waltrudis. She gave all her possessions to the chapter of canonesses founded at Mons by S. Waltrudis.

Cogitosus of Kildare (8th century)  Tradition names Cogitosus as a monk of Kildare and author of the important early vita of St. Brigid. According to Kim Mccone, Cogitosus’ Life of St. Brigid was written around 664 which would indicate that Cog lived at least most of his life in the 7th century.  There has been some debate about the dating of Brigit's early lives. 

Ursmar (d713) According to the tradition of the monastery at Lobbes (in today's Hainaut in southern Belgium), Ursmar became its abbot in 689. He introduced the Benedictine Rule into this house and, in 697, consecrated its church of Sts. Peter and Paul. He is said to have been bishop of Lobbes as well and to have built outside the monastery a second church dedicated to the BVM. He expanded his monastery and is believed to have founded a number of other monastic communities, besides evangelizing Flanders. His cult at Lobbes produced a tenth-century Vita by Rather of Verona, a late tenth- or eleventh-century one formerly ascribed to abbot, a metrical Vita by Heriger of Lobbes, and several miracle collections.

Wicterp/Wikterp/Wigbert/Wiggo (d. 771) is the first historically attested bishop of Augsburg. His cult in this diocese is documented starting in the central Middle Ages. Wicterp was abbot of Ellwangen, and instrumental in founding the important monasteries of Fussen, Wessobrunn, and Kempten. Relics believed to be his were first kept at his supposed birthplace of Epfach an der Lech, south of Augsburg, and then in Augsburg itself, winding up in the church of Sts. Ulrich and Afra.

Perfectus (d. 851) was a priest of Cordoba who spoke publicly against Islam and was beheaded on Easter Sunday.

Athanasia of Aegina (d. c860, supposedly) The monastic founder and thaumaturge Athanasia is said in her Bios (BHG 180) to have been married twice, first to a man who was killed in battle shortly after their wedding and then to another who accommodated her desire for sexual abstinence and who later became a monk. Athanasia then gathered a group of female disciples and founded a religious community on the island with herself in charge. She is said to have been summoned to the court of the empress Theodora in Constantinople and to have stayed there for nearly seven years before being allowed to return, whereupon she died very quickly.
   For those with access to Google Books, Lee Francis Sherry's English-language translation of Athanasia's Bios begins here:
http://tinyurl.com/5glxzq

Herluka/Herluca of Bernried/-of Epfach (blessed) (d. 1127) has a Vita (BHL 3835) by Paul of Bernried, known to many on this list as the early biographer of pope St. Gregory VII.  Herluka was probably born in Bavaria, in c1060. After a series of both bodily and spiritual sufferings she dedicated her life to prayer and asceticism. She became a semi-recluse at Epfach an der Lech, where she had arrived in her mid-twenties and for 36 years where she performed acts of charity and promoted the cult of St. Wicterp (see above), who had appeared to her in a vision. Herluka was at this time in correspondence with the also well educated Benedictine recluse Bl. Diemut (Diemoth) at nearby Wessobrunn.  Becoming unpopular at Epfach for her strong support of Gregory VII, she fled in c1122 to the Augustinian house at Bernried on the Starnberger See in today's Landkreis Weilheim-Schongau in southern Bavaria. There she was befriended by Paul and lived out the brief remainder of her life.  H. has yet to grace the pages of the RM.

Idesbald (blessed) (d. 1167) was a Flemish courtier who became a canon of St. Walburga's church in Furnes (Flanders), but he left and became a Cistercian at Dune, becoming their third abbot in 1155. By the time of his death, Idesbald had a great reputation for sanctity. He made the monastery thrive.

Galdinus della Sala (d. 1176) The Milanese city noble Galdinus was archdeacon of Milan when the emperor Frederick I (Barbarossa) seized and burned Milan in 1162, exiling its archbishop who, like Galdinus, was anti-imperial in his politics and a supporter of pope Alexander III (against whom Barbarossa had in 1159 set up the first of three sequential antipopes). In 1165 Alexander called him to Rome and created him cardinal priest of Santa Sabina. In March of the following year the exiled archbishop died, whereupon Alexander got sympathetic Milanese clergy to elect Galdinus to that see and then consecrated Galdinus himself on 18 April 1166.  Under these circumstances Galdinus became the first cardinal archbishop of Milan. 
   In September 1167 Galdinus and other exiles returned to a devastated Milan, where in addition to leading the newly founded Lombard League he undertook the physical and emotional rebuilding of his diocese. He organized charitable distribution of bread to a needy populace, restored the cathedral, and he supported the then newly formed Ospedale del Brolo, a charitable institution destined to play an important role in the city's social history. Galdinus was also a great preacher and a rare and useful peacemaker in a very unsettled time. According to the undated Vita sancti Galdini, on 18 April 1176, ten years to the day after his consecration, although too weak to celebrate Mass, he succeeded in delivering an impassioned sermon against heresy. But the effort was too much for him: he lost consciousness before he could leave the pulpit and died as the mass was ending in the then cathedral of St. Thecla. He reposes under the altar of the confessio in the city's present cathedral, begun in 1386.

Amedeo degli Amidei (d. 1266) was one of the seven founders of the Servite order. He and his co-founders were canonized in 1888.

James of Lodi, Franciscan tertiary (1404): As a young man James loved to paint, to sing, to play the lute, and most of all, to dance. He married a woman named Catherine who was equally addicted to amusement. A severe epidemic of plague destroyed the amenities of the town, and James went to stay with his father-in-law in the country. Happening to enter a local church which contained a reproduction of the Holy Sepulchre, James said to a companion: "Let's see who is taller - Christ or I." With these flippant words he lay down at full length on the tomb - but when he stood up again he was a changed man. From that moment he shunned all former pleasures, he scourged himself, spent hours in church, painted sacred pictures, and undertook the care of a sick priest who taught him Latin. Catherine also converted to a spiritual life. They took a vow of continence, converted their house into a church and became Franciscan tertiaries.

Andrew of Montereale (d. 1479) was an Augustinian Hermit attested in his order's brief, late fifteenth-century chronicle by its prior general Ambrogio Massari (d. 1485). He has a brief, earlier sixteenth-century Vita first published in Italian that focuses on his learning, his preaching, and his practices of self-denial and mortification of the flesh. A native of today's Mascioni in Abruzzo, he entered the Augustinian house at nearby Montereale when he was fourteen. Ordained priest at the age of twenty-five, he studied theology at Rimini, at Padua, and at Ferrara before being transferred to Siena where he obtained his master's degree in that discipline. Sent to France, he preached at Bourges. Returning to Italy, he continued to preach and was also several times provincial for Umbria, where he aroused enmity by his attempts to reform several houses. Named prior at Siena and head of his order's studio there, A. withstood accusations lodged against him in Rome. His behavior in that matter led Massari to call him an example of holiness. His last years were spent at Montereale, where he is said to have prophesied the day and hour of his death. In 1581 his remains at Montereale were said to be just as they were at his death.

John (d. 1526) was a tailor of Janina. He was buried alive at Constantinople "for upholding his faith”.




Happy reading,
Terri Morgan 
--
From the Book of Kerric: 
"It requires great strength to be kind, whereas even the very weak can be brutal. Likewise, to speak hard truths fearlessly is often the hallmark of greatness. Bring me one who is both gentle and truthful, ...and I will show you an iron oak among hawthorns, a blessing on all who know them."

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