medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On 11/29/11, Terri Morgan sent:
> Demetrius and Blasius (1st century, supposedly)...
> Demetrius and Blasius appear to have been dropped from the RM in its revision of 2001. Some scholars wish us to believe that the loculi in which they are said to have been found originally contained relics believed to have been those of identically named and widely popular Eastern saints.
>
Previous versions of this notice had 'spoilsports' rather than 'scholars'. And (as reflected in revisions 2009 and 2010) there's no question about these two having left the RM in its revision of 2001: they did.
> About two kilometers outside of Veroli is the chiesetta della Madonna degli Angeli, built on the spot where according to tradition Salome (accompanied of course by Demetrius and Blasius) met the first pagan she was to convert to Christianity, a young man named Maurus who afterwards buried her. This church has frescoes attributed to Antoniazzo Romano (1430-c1508) depicting the principal figures of the legend. On the right wall are Maurus and Demetrius (depicted as a pilgrim): http://tinyurl.com/yjjgb6 and on the left are Blasius (similarly depicted) and Salome: http://tinyurl.com/ykhybm
>
Those links no longer work. Use these instead (courtesy of the Internet Archive):
http://tinyurl.com/7awwugh
http://tinyurl.com/754btrt
Better views of those portraits of Blasius, Demetrius, and the others will be found here:
http://tinyurl.com/2dgofwt
> Paramon and companions (d. 250) Subjects of a popular cult in the eastern church, this is a group of 375 martyrs, according to tradition executed on the same day in Bithynia.
Better: (d. 250 or 251, supposedly). Our only documentation for these saints is a synaxary notice, seemingly based on a now lost legendary Passio, that places their suffering in the Decian persecution and at the hands of an official named Acylinus. Whether though textual corruption or simple confusion (both have probably been operative in this matter), different versions of our surviving legendary Passiones in Greek often sometimes ascribe a particular suffering either to the Decian persecution or to the one unleashed by Diocletian. Similarly, a persecuting official named Acylinus or Aquilinus occurs, with various ranks given for him, in legendary Passiones of both the Decian and the Diocletianic persecutions.
In Paramon's synaxary notice as edited by Delehave in the Synaxary of Constantinople (a.k.a. SynCP) he and his numerous companions (totaling 370, not 375) are presented as having been victims of a roundup in Bisaltia, a part of Thrace, and are not said to have been executed either at Nicomedia (as in some modern accounts) or anywhere else in Bithynia.
The aforesaid synaxary notice occurs in some mss. of the SynCP under 27. November (this is where it will be found in Delehaye's edition) and in others under 29. November. By the later Middle Ages the feast was widely kept on 29. November and had become associated with that of St. Philumenus (see below), as it still is in Orthodox and other "eastern"-rite churches.
Paramon and companions entered the RM under cardinal Baronio and left it in the revision of 2001.
A link to an earlier fourteenth-century depiction of Paramon and companions will be found in the following notice.
29. November is also the feast day of:
Philumenus (d. in the years 270-275, supposedly). Our narrative source for Philumenus (also Philomenus; in Greek, Philoumenos) is another synaxary notice seemingly based on a now lost Passio. This makes him a Lycaonian who furnished bread to towns in Galatia and who, having confessed Christianity under emperor Aurelian (whose persecution seems at least very largely a hagiographic fiction, albeit a commonly occurring one), was fatally tortured at Ancyra (now Ankara) in various unpleasant ways.
From at least the later Middle Ages onward "eastern"-rite churches have commemorated Philumenus jointly with St. Paramon and companions (see above). In editing the early RM cardinal Baronio gave each a separate notice under today. Unlike Paramon and companions, Philumenus still graces the pages of the RM.
Philumenus, Paramon, and companions as depicted in a November calendar scene in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) of the church of the Holy Ascension in 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/7npgjcq
> Walderich (d. 850) was perhaps a member of the Carolingian family. After becoming a priest, at first he was a hermit, then (probably in 817) founded the Benedictine monastery of Murrhadt in Baden-Wurttemberg, which he led as abbot. Up to the modern era, Walderich's chapel in Murrhadt was a pilgrimage site for both Catholics and Protestants on Good Friday.
>
Walderich is also known as Walderic (both are from his Latin name form Waldericus) and Walterich. His date of death is uncertain. Recent accounts put it at ca. 840. He was beatified locally in about 1226/1227 and appears never to have been canonized. In about 1230 a chapel dedicated to him, the (St.) Walterichskapelle, was added to the abbey church at Murrhardt (to give the place's name its correct spelling). Herewith some views of this chapel (restored in the later twentieth century); the last view also shows a Staufer-period (1138-1250) coin found at Murrhardt and bearing Walderich's image:
http://tinyurl.com/cdsona2
http://tinyurl.com/d5zhcvg
> Jutta of Heilingenthal (blessed) (d. c1250) was from Essleben (near Wurzburg, Germany), where she became leader of a group of pious women. In time she went on to found and serve for 18 years as first abbess of the Cistercian convent of Heilingenthal. She seems to have had a particularly neat cult: sick people came to drink from a gold cup that was attached to one of Jutta's arms.
>
Er, Heiligenthal. Jutta is also known as Jutta of Fuchstadt. The Monastic Matrix' Monasticon page on her convent is here:
http://tinyurl.com/7potzmj
A set of views of the convent's originally thirteenth-century church:
http://tinyurl.com/8ab4og7
Best,
John Dillon
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