medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Thank you for taking this on again, John! The format of a link to older
notices, with new annotations and info when available, seems extremely
sensible.
Genevra
On 1/1/2012 12:47 PM, John Dillon wrote:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> Dear All,
>
> Happy New Year!
>
> At list-papal request I am continuing to produce the daily Feasts-and-Saints column that I took over from Terri Morgan when she withdrew last month for reasons of health and that I had been producing for several years previously. The pressures on my time that caused me to stop doing those posts on a daily basis have not diminished; hence the new format of a link or links to a previous year's post accompanied at times by updates and corrections and, somewhat less often, entirely new notices.
>
> A few general observations may be in order. In the context of these posts, the term 'feast' is used in a broad sense to denote a recurring commemoration; the latter need not take the form a liturgical celebration. Both the Roman Martyrology (abbreviated here as RM) and the Synaxary of Constantinople (abbreviated here as SynCP) are expanded calendars with entries not only for persons and events celebrated liturgically on a given day but also for others whose commemorations do not take the form of a liturgical celebration (at least not on the day in question). 'Saints' include recognized holy persons active before 1551 (the list considers 'medieval' to end in 1550) even if they were pre-medieval but were commemorated medievally or if they were ancient or medieval but only post-medievally recognized officially with a sanctoral title or otherwise given recurring commemorations; they also include a few others of later date but of some pertinence to this column (e.g. Bl. Cesare Baronio).
>
> Reasons of the compiler's time make it advantageous to draw on some compendious and calendrically organized source both in identifying saints and in assigning them to a particular day or, very rarely, particular days (assigning most saints to but a single day permits the inclusion of more saints than would otherwise be the case when one is also providing annotations of a more than skeletal nature and, often, links to pertinent visuals). The largest such source is the RM; I draw upon it for its volume rather than as a matter of doctrinal or cultural preference. And, as a matter of convenience, I follow the calendrical order of its most
> recent edition even in the rather limited number of instances when a particular saint who _was_ commemorated during the Middle Ages is not known to have been
> then commemorated on the day in question. The selection of saints not included in the RM is perforce limited to persons of whom I have become aware and for whom I can provide an annotation that is at least somewhat critically informed. That latter consideration tends to rule out saints whose sources I cannot begin to evaluate (Celticists, Slavicists, and Orientalists, take note! It would be nice too to have some holy persons from medieval Judaism noticed on days that seem appropriate). Better informed -- or more widely informed -- contributors to this list are always welcome to add not only observations of a supplementary or corrective nature but also fresh notices of their own.
>
> That's enough for now. Tomorrow to fresh saints and typos new!
>
> Best,
> John Dillon
>
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