medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

> Surely these are saints of October _25_.
> Best,
> John Dillon

Why, yes they are. They surely are!
On 10/24/11, Terri Morgan   wrote:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
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> Today, October 24, is the feast of:
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> Goueznou (?) A Breton saint whose "vita" (which is lost except some surviving paragraphs here and there) referred explicitly to the one of Crespin and Crespinien, in the way to present saint Goueznou as a martyr (but he wasn't at all).
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>     The story of this lost "vita" is much more interesting than the saint's : there is a long controversy about the date of composition of this text ; the late Hubert Guillotel and I have demonstrated the manuscript has been corrupted and the date changed from 1199 to 1019 (MCXCIX to M.X.IX) ; but, since A. de la Borderie's time, other scholars are still convinced of "the stubborn date of 1019".
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>     Why so many debates and discussions ? because this vita mentioned Conan Meriadec and King Arthur : if the text is as old as 1019, it proves there were traditions about Conan Meriadec and Arthur in Brittany before Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote his "Historia Regum Britanniae" ; if the text is as late as 1199, it proves only the success of Geoffrey's book in Brittany. - Andre –Yves BOURGES, Oct 25, 2004, Medieval Religion email list
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> Minias/Miniato (c250, supposedly) is first recorded in a charter of Charlemagne's from 786 making mention of a "basilica of Minias, martyr of Christ, situated at Florence, where his venerable body reposes." Usuard's Martyrology gives us our first mention of his feast day (today). According to his not entirely confidence-inspiring Passio (multiple versions, none earlier than the ninth century), Minias was a Roman soldier (in some later accounts, also the son of an Armenian king) whose martyrdom at Florence during the Decian persecution culminated in death by decapitation. In one development of the legend, Minias’ execution took place by the Arno, whereupon the saint picked up his severed head, swam across the river with it, and (doughty cephalophore that he was) carried it uphill to a spot that became his final resting place. That spot, of course, is the site of Florence's church of San Miniato al Monte, an early eleventh-century structure with notable decor from the twelfth century onward. 
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>    The west facade has a thirteenth-century mosaic showing (left to right) the BVM, Christ, and Minias. Five expandable views are here: http://tinyurl.com/9y93b .  An altar in the crypt: http://www.mega.it/min/duo/eb.jpg
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>    San Miniato himself (attrib. to Jacopo del Casentino, 14th cent.): on display in the church: http://tinyurl.com/8qbmu . The church contains Minias' putative remains, relics which from at least the eighth century onward have been thought to be those of a local martyr.  That is certainly possible, but the oddness of his name and its Greek-seeming termination have provoked the reasonable counter-hypothesis that these are really relics of the famous St. Mennas of Egypt deposited here in a late antique oratory; over time, and in the absence of any early Life of Mennas, the cult here will, on this view, have been transformed into that of a local saint.    
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>    Minias’ cult has been widespread in Tuscany since at least the central Middle Ages, a well known instance being the town of San Miniato, which, however, no longer has a medieval church dedicated to him. One surviving example of such a dedication is San Miniato a Rubbiana at San Polo in Chianti.
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> Chrysanthus and Daria (d. 283 or 300) Authentic martyrs with legendary frills. Chrysanthus, says legend, was a wealthy Alexandrian who was converted and baptized in Rome. His father got so upset when he heard his son had been baptized, he hired five prostitutes to get the lad to lose his religion; that didn't work so he then arranged for his son to marry a priestess of Minerva, Daria. The husband converted the wife, and they lived in chastity. The pair went on to convert more Romans, but were denounced as Christians. The tribune in charge of their trial was so impressed by Chrysanthus' attitude while being tortured that he converted, along with his wife, two sons, and 70 of his soldiers. The emperor had them all killed. Daria was sent to a brothel, but a helpful lion (?) defended her, so she was then inadequately stoned and buried alive. Some legends have the two of them buried alive together in a sand pit on the Salarian Way (Via Salaria Nova). Their burial site there is attested by St. Gregory of Tours, by the late sixth-century Index oleorum of abbot John of Monza, and by the early seventh-century guidebooks for pilgrims at Rome. They have a sixth- or seventh-century legendary Passio in longer and shorter versions that places their death under Numerian (ruled 283-84); Regino of Prüm (d. 915) places it under Numerian's father, Carus (ruled 282-83). Chrysanthus and Daria are entered for today in the (ps-)HM, in the early ninth-century Marble Calendar of Naples, in the RM and the York & Herford Calendars; in the medieval West they were often celebrated on November 29 (where they are also listed in the (ps)HM and in Florus, while Ado has them on December 1. In the Greek church their feast day is usually March 19. 
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>    In the ninth century relics believed to be those of Chrysanthus and Daria were translated from Rome to today's Prüm (Kr. Bitburg-Prüm) in Rheinland-Pfalz (844, by Prüm's abbot Markward) and to today's Oria in southern Apulia (886, by Oria's bishop Theodosius). Other putative relics of these saints placed by pope St. Paschal I in Rome's Santa Prassede are said to have been translated to the Lateran Sancta Sanctorum by pope Stephen V (885-91). The relics at Prüm were translated to today's Bad Münstereifel (Kr. Euskirchen) in Nordrhein-Westfalen in 848 for the dedication of a newly built monastery of Chrysanthus and Daria. The latter's originally eleventh- and twelfth-century church of Chrysanthus and Daria (restored, nineteenth and twentieth centuries) is now a parish church (Roman Catholic). Their cult was limited to local calendars in 1969.
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>    A fourteenth-century manuscript illumination of the martyrdom of Chrysanthus and Daria (St John's College, Cambridge, MS B.9 f.136r; Vies des saints): http://tinyurl.com/5gykfk
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>    The martyrdom of Chrysanthus and Daria as depicted in the frescoes (between c1312 and 1321/1322) of the nave of the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo: http://tinyurl.com/ygzby3f  ,  http://tinyurl.com/yzq9yuc
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>    The martyrdom of Chrysanthus and Daria as depicted (twice) as in a copy (between 1326 and 1350) of a collection of French-language saint's lives (BnF, ms. Français 185, fols. 77r and 123v): http://tinyurl.com/26p9yb3 , http://tinyurl.com/29kaslv
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>    Chrysanthus as depicted in the frescoes (between 1335 and 1350) in the nave of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć: http://tinyurl.com/ykbgg7h
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>    Chrysanthus as depicted in the frescoes (later 1380s?) in the nave of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Ravanica monastery near Ćuprija in central Serbia: http://tinyurl.com/yjxhjzv
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>    Scenes from the Passio of Chrysanthus and Daria as depicted in a copy (1463) of Vincent of Beauvais' Speculum historiale in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF ms. Français 51, fol. 41r): http://tinyurl.com/26sl9ad
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> Crispin and Crispinian/Crépin et Crépinien (French) (d. later 3d or early 4th century, supposedly) It is unknown whether Crispin and Crispinian are martyrs of Rome, where they are unattested prior to the early 7th-century Itinerarium Malmesburiense's notice of their burial site in the church of St. John and Paul on the Caelian, or of Soissons, where in the sixth century St. Gregory of Tours twice mentions a basilica dedicated to them. They have a legendary, probably later eighth-century Passio, in which they are presented as noblemen who set themselves us as cobblers of Roman origin working at Soissons in order to preach their faith and were martyred by beheading under Maximian for their proselytizing. Supposedly, they preached by day and made shoes by night. Placed in the hands of a Roman agent, they so resisted torture that in a fit of pique the agent himself, out of frustration, jumped into the fire that was not harming the two Christians; he was harmed, mortally. Florus, Ado, and Usuard make them martyrs at Soissons under Diocletian. One legend, by the way, tells that they lived in Faversham, England. 
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>    Crispin and Crispinian are the patrons of Soissons (Aisne), where an extramural abbey was dedicated to them. Medievally, their cult was widespread in northern and eastern France and in Brittany. Relics believed to be theirs are thought to have been brought to Hamburg a little after 830 and to have been placed in the crypt of Osnabrück's cathedral (the predecessor of the present one) in around 850. After Agincourt (October 25, 1415) their cult experienced an uptick in England. The abbot of Crispin and Crispinian at Soissons is recorded as having been among the dignitaries attending the funeral of Charles VI in 1422; we are not told whether he were obliged to dress as a penitent. Expandable views of two fifteenth-century manuscript depictions of Crispin and Crispinian are here: http://tinyurl.com/6lj24p
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>    Charlton Heston & Kenneth Bragnaugh “Henry II’s speech” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSP-uTzBpRk&feature=related
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> Gavinus/Gabinus/ Gavino (Italian)/Ainu [three syllables] (Sardinian) of Porto Torres (d. 303?) One of the genuine ancient martyrs of Sardinia, Gavinus occurs twice in the (ps-) HM, once on May 30 and again today; uniformly supported by the (relatively late) documentary tradition of medieval Sardinia, it is this latter that has become Gavinus' accepted dies natalis. A traditional Sardinian way of referring to October is to call it Gavinus' month, San(c)tu Gavini or San(c)tu Aini.
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>    Gavinus' place of martyrdom is recorded as Turres in Sardinia, i.e. the ancient Turris Libyssonis, medieval Torres, and modern Porto Torres. His Passio is late (early 12th-century) and unreliable; so too an Inventio (13th- or 14th-cent.) that links him to two local saints of October 27; Protus and Januarius. These texts, which make Gavinus out to have been a Roman soldier martyred during the Diocletianic persecution, refer to, and are surely to be associated with, Gavinus' ex-cathedral at Torres (once the capital of the Sardinian judicate of that name), initially built in the eleventh century. A series of predecessor churches on the same site is said to go back as far as the fifth century; the locale itself was a Roman-period cemetery whose pre-Christian and Christian inscriptions are now housed in the antiquarium at Porto Torres.
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>    Gavinus has been and is venerated in several parts of the island. Gregory the Great in a letter of 599 refers to an abbess Gavinia at a monastery of saints Gabinus and Luxorius in the diocese of Cagliari.
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> Martyrius and Marcian/Markianos and Martyrios (d. 351 or358) Martyrius and Marcian, also known as the Holy Notaries, were in the service of Patriarch Paul I of Constantinople, who was persecuted by the Arians. Martyrius was a subdeacon and Marcian a chorister. After Paul's death in exile (353), Martyrius and Marcian were also imprisoned, and eventually killed by their Arian opponents. John Chrysostom built a church over their graves.
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> Fronto/Front (French) of Périgueux, and George of Le Puy (d. 4th or 5th century?) is the saint of the former abbey named for him at Périgueux and that city's fabled protobishop. His cult is thought to be of sixth-century origin at the earliest and he has a rich collection of legendary Vitae from the eighth century onward. The earliest of these underlies Fronto's notices in the ninth-century martyrologists, makes him a Jewish native of what seems to be today's Lanquais (Dordogne) - the toponym has been misinterpreted as Lycaonia in Asia Minor - whose parents were already Christian, and has him a flee local persecution and in Rome be recruited by St. Peter to evangelize in his native land. Back in the Périgord, Fronto destroys temples, converts many, rids the region of a great serpent, and founds in Périgueux a church dedicated to St. Stephen (the city's medieval cathedral). Thanks to an infusion of episodes from a Vita of his homonym the Desert Father St. Fronto of Nitria, the Vitae also give Fronto an eremitic character. 
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>    Other developments make him one of the Seventy (or Seventy-two) Disciples and, before going on to Périgueux, a co-founder of Le Puy (whose legendary founder St. George of Le Puy-en-Velay is in the earliest Vita already associated with Fronto). George and Fronto were sent to preach to the people of Gaul. His cult has spread widely in today's France.
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>    Fronto with several dragons and with the seventy canons whom he is said to have provided to his foundation of Saint-Étienne at Périgueux, as depicted in a later fifteenth-century (1463) copy of Vincent de Beauvais' Speculum historiale in its translation by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 50, fol. 325r): http://tinyurl.com/ygtp6rs
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> Gaudentius of Brescia (d. c410) was educated in Brescia and became so famous for his holiness that he went to Jerusalem to get away from it all. He became a monk at Caesarea in Cappadocia. But in c396, after the death of the bishop of Brescia, he was threatened with excommunication if he refused popular demand that he become their new bishop. So, consecrated by Ambrose of Milan, he became 8th bishop, living very piously and giving sermons (21 of which have survived). He had returned from Jerusalem with the relics of various saints for which he then built at Brescia a church called Concilium Sanctorum. Pope Innocent I sent Gaudentius to Constantinople to speak in favor of the exiled John Chrysostom in 406; he and his fellow ambassadors were imprisoned and finally sent home in a leaky ship, in the hope that they would drown. But Gaudentius returned safely to Brescia and was sent a letter of acknowledgement from John Chrysostom (it was quite tepid). He was one of the most learned churchmen of his time, and left several notable texts. Rufinus called him 'glory of the doctors of his age'. Gaudentius' relics are said to be kept in Brescia's chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista, an originally late medieval successor to his Concilium Sanctorum.
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> Fructus, Valentine, & Engratia (d. c. 715) The patron saints of Segovia (or Sepulveda, Old Castile), these siblings were living a religious life at Sepulveda when the Arabs invaded. Brother Valentine and sister Engratia were killed; their brother Fructus escaped and became a hermit.
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> Theodoric of St-Hubert (d. 1087) became a monk at Lobbes and in time abbot of St. Hubert in the Ardennes (Belgium). He introduced Cluniac customs both there and at Stablo-Malmedy.
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> Heinrich of Bonn (d. 1147) (blessed) was born in c1100 in Bonn. He took part in the Second Crusade, and was killed at the siege of Lisbon. Several miracles occurred at his tomb in St. Vincent's, Lisbon, and a vigorous cult developed.
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> Margrethe, female saint from Sjaelland. (1176) was of Absalon's family and closely related to bishop Peter Suneson and his brothers, killed by her husband Herlog and the body hanged to make it look like a suicide. She was then buried, not on the churchyard, but on an open field where a heavenly light appeared at night as proof of her innocence. Absalon was told about this, and had the phenomenon investigated by trustworthy men; Herlog was interrogated and confessed his guilt. Absalon then went with a large company to Margrethe's grave, digged her body up, and transported it in a solemn procession to the church of Our Lady in Roskilde, where many miracles later occurred. This is the story as told after a manuscript source, which has now disappeared. As Peter Suneson is mentioned as bishop the story was probably written after 1191 (Axel Olrik dates it after the death of Absalon in 1201, Lauritz Weibull, however, to 1178/1188).
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>    A more detailed account of the same story was composed by Heribert of Clairvaux in 1178-1180 (when archbishop Eskil was living in Clairvaux) and is part of a collection of devotional legends: "Liber miraculorum". It has more details than found in the translation account, but the details can be invented: The indulgence of Margrethe and the cruelty of her husband is depicted, his sister is mentioned as an accomplice. The murder and the faked suicide is described in detail. Margrethe is buried on the beach between two robbers. The heavenly light has been exchanged with other common tomb miracles; The body was found to be well-preserved and fragrant. It was then transported to Roskilde and buried in the cathedral (!). Heribert’s legend has left no trace in the Danish historical tradition. Sjaellandske Aarbog mentions the place where the murder took place: Oelsyae / Oelishoeue (i.e. Hoejelse near Koege), and says the body was buried at the far eastern coast. As date for the martyrdom is given 28 Oct. 1176. Other Danish and Icelandic annals has the year 1177.
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>    Margrethe was venerated as saint both in Roskilde and at the place of her first grave near the coast, where a chapel had been erected, of which no [archaeological] trace has been discovered. The church of Our Lady [in Roskilde] was c.1190 enlarged with a new eastern choir, that presumably served as chapel for Margrethe. The church had an attached nunnery, which Absalon reformed after the Cistercian rule, and provided with privileges, among others a third of the donations collected in Margrethe's church at the Baltic Sea, together with a special "Collecta S. Margarete" from twelve counties in the diocese. These privileges were approved by the Pope in 1257. At some unknown occasion an attempt had been made to obtain a formal canonization, proven by two undated papal letters, where the archbishop is asked to make a formal investigation of the miracles said to have occurred at the grave of Margareth.
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>    In the Icelandic World-chronicle from the 13th c. introducing Nikolas Bergssons "Leidarvisir" (AM 194 8vo), Margrethe is mentioned as saint of Roskilde: "In Roeskilde on Sjaelland is a fair maiden Margareta". When Absalon made the dedication of a new church in Gumlosa with a lot of reliquaries of apostles and famous saints, was there also a Margareta-reliquary among them. 
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>    Margrethe was not canonized, and there is no evidence preserved to show a [liturgical] commemoration of her death or translation. But in the psalter Egerton 2652 (British Library), which has been in the possession of the Suneson family, is "Translatio S. Margarete" found on the July 19, an entry which led Ellen Joergensen to the conclusion, that the translation to Roskilde took place on 19 July 1177. It is however uncertain if this not is Margareta of Antioch.
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> Christopher of Romagna (blessed) (d. 1272) was a parish priest who became a Franciscan at about the age of 40, becoming one of Francis' personal disciples. He preached in France against Cathars and founded several Franciscan houses before dying at the age of 100 (says his hagiographer). His cult was approved in 1905.
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> Thomas of Florence / Tomaso Bellacci (blessed) (d. 1447) enjoyed a wild youth but converted and eventually became a lay brother with the 
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> Observant Franciscans at Fiesole. He became a strong supporter of the Observant reform, and his many miracles won many to the cause. He preached to the Moslems, and was ransomed from them at the last minute by pope Eugenius IV; he was so disappointed by this that he tried to return to the Moslems again, so that this time they might finish the job and kill him; but he died en route, at Rieti. So many miracles took place at the tomb that John of Capestrano went there and ordered Thomas to stop it, so that the pope could proceed smoothly in the matter of canonizing Bernardino of Siena; Thomas obeyed, and because of that (?) never got canonized himself. His cult was approved in 1771.
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> Balthasar of Chiavari, OFM (1492) - friend of Bernardino of Feltre, but had to stop accompanying him due to illness (but still remained much in demand by locals who wished to see him or have him as their confessor)
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> Thaddeus MacCarthy/Tadhg Machar (blessed) (d. 1497) was a scion of the royal family of Munster (Ireland). He studied on the Continent, and when he was about 27 the pope appointed him bishop of Ross. He got caught up in political difficulties with Henry VII of England (and Ireland), which led in time to Tadhg's transfer to the diocese of Cork and Cloyne - the people of whom would not accept him. So he went back to Rome to appeal again. He got papal backing and headed for home, but died at Ivrea. The fact that he was traveling on foot as a simple pilgrim had a great appeal to the locals and they decided he was a saint. His cult was confirmed in 1895. 

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