medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Herewith a link to an earlier (2010) 'Saints of the day' for 20. September (including Sts. Eustachius / Eustathius Placidas [Eustace], Theopista, Theopistus, and Agapius; St. Dorymedon; Bl. Adelpretus [Albert] of Trent; Bl. Thomas Johnson):
http://tinyurl.com/8edr7wx
Further to Eustachius Placidas, Theopista, Theopistus, and Agapius:
In that earlier post's notice of these saints, add after the views of Eustachius and the stag as depicted in the rupestrian cripta di Sant'Eustachio at Matera (MT) this view of the martyrdom of Eustachius and his family as portrayed in stone in a late twelfth- or earlier thirteenth-century sculpture, now rather worn, on the left pillar of the left portal of south porch of the west face of the cathedral of Chartres:
http://tinyurl.com/d3ql3x3
In the same notice, Eustace's head reliquary in the British Museum (previously said to be of the late twelfth century) is dated by that institution to ca. 1210. The first of the three links to views of this object no longer functions. Use this instead:
http://tinyurl.com/8edr7wx
In the same notice, the first of the two links to views, by different photographers, of the St. Eustace window in the cathedral of Chartres no longer functions. Use this instead (photographer: Philip Maye):
http://tinyurl.com/9hhhjwm
In the same notice, add to the view of Eustachius as depicted in ca. 1300 in the Protaton church on Mt. Athos this detail view of the same fresco:
http://tinyurl.com/d44no2v
In the same notice, the link to the video on the return of panels from the late fourteenth-century altarpiece of Eustachius stolen from Campo di Giove (AQ) no longer functions.
In the same notice, add after the link to a view of Eustachius as depicted by Albrecht Dürer on a panel of the Paumgärtner Altarpiece this view of him (at right, after St. Procopius of Caesarea / of Scythopolis and St. Nicetas the Goth) as depicted in a late fifteenth- or earlier sixteenth-century Novgorod School icon now in the State Russian Gallery, St. Petersburg:
http://www.icon-art.info/masterpiece.php?lng=de&mst_id=814
In the same notice, none of the links to plans or views of the remains of the chiesa di Sant'Eustachio alla Posterga in Matera (MT) still functions.
In the same notice, the first link to the views of the église Saint-Eustache at Mosles (Calvados) no longer functions. Use this instead:
http://tinyurl.com/c6df5oq
In the same notice, add this to the links to views, etc. of the église Saint-Eustache in Paris:
http://www.nicolaslefloch.fr/Lieux/SaintEustache.html
Further to Adelpretus (Albert) of Trent:
In that earlier post's notice of this Beatus, the link to a view of his former tomb cover with its portrayal of his being run through by a lance wielded by his enemy Aldrighetto da Castelbarco no longer takes one there. Use this instead:
http://www.ora-et-labora.net/image016.jpg
Today (20. September) is also the feast day of:
Eustathius of Thessaloniki (d. ca. 1195). We know about this prominent churchman and major literary scholar chiefly from his surviving letters and sermons, from remarks and observations in his numerous other writings, and from closely posthumous memorial speeches by his fellow bishops Euthymius Malakes , the metropolitan of Neai Patrai (a friend from Eustathius' student days in Constantinople), and Michael Choniates (the historian and a former student of Eustathius'), the metropolitan of Athens. A member of the Constantinopolitan intellectual elite, he had been a private teacher of grammar before becoming one of the deacons of Hagia Sophia and, in the later 1160s or early 1170s, Master of Rhetors in the patriarchal school. During his time in the capital he wrote the very learned commentaries on Homer's _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ for which he is famous (two of our manuscripts of the commentary on the _Iliad_ are at least largely in Eustathius' own hand, making this perhaps the earliest long work for which which an autograph witness survives) as well as commentaries on other ancient authors, speeches for the imperial court, and a variety of lesser works.
Senior clerics of Hagia Sophia often capped their careers with a bishopric. In 1174 Eustathius was named metropolitan of Myra, a once great see in Lycia that by this time had fallen on hard times. There is no evidence that Eustathius ever traveled to Myra. In the late 1170s he exchanged this see for that of Thessaloniki, the second city of the empire. As metropolitan there he delivered sermons castigating the socially prominent for lax morals and urging greater charity -- which he wished to have funneled through the metropolitan church -- for the city's poor. He introduced from Constantinople the feasts of the Elevation of the Holy Cross and Holy Monday and made monetary distributions during the attendant festivities. Eustathius had to fight off attempts by civic authorities to tax church income. He also had to deal with monastic institutions that resisted his efforts to bring them under the bishop's control. His treatise _On the Improvement of Monastic Life_ has a lot to say to the discredit of the monks of Thessaloniki.
In 1185 military forces of the kingdom of Sicily briefly invaded the empire in the hope of putting a puppet on the throne after the assassination of Andronicus I. One of their successes in this campaign was the seizing of Thessaloniki, which they then held for several months to the great disruption of the city's economy. Eustathius' engaging account of this civic disaster, _The Capture of Thessaloniki_, presents him in a largely positive light as the spokesperson for the citizenry during this foreign occupation (the imperial governor having fled) and may, along with the concern for the people's well-being expressed in his sermons, have fostered post-mortem impressions of his saintliness. During his last years (which included a period of exile in 1191 and 1192) Eustathius wrote another major work, his commentary on the iambic Canon on the Pentecost traditionally attributed to St. John of Damascus.
Eustathius' popular cult was immediate: Euthymius Malakes speaks of the collection of healing drops of moisture from his tomb. It is unknown when he was formally glorified but by the early fourteenth century he had definitely achieved the status of official sainthood. Eustathius is one of Thessaloniki's four sainted bishops whose portraits appear in the prothesis of the katholikon of the Vatopedi monastery on Mt. Athos and he is portrayed in no fewer than four of the churches endowed by Serbia's king Milutin (d. 1321). Views of these portraits follow:
a) Eustathius of Thessaloniki as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (1312) of the katholikon at Vatopedi:
http://tinyurl.com/3e5yabf
b) Eustathius of Thessaloniki as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1308 and ca. 1320) by Michael Astrapas and Eutychios in the church of St. Nicetas the Goth (Sv. Nikita) near Čučer in today's Čučer-Sandevo in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://tinyurl.com/65yjmh5
c) Eustathius of Thessaloniki (at left; at right, probably St. Niphon of Cyprus) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1313 and 1318; conservation work in 1968) by Michael Astrapas and Eutychios in the church of St. George in Staro Nagoričane in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://tinyurl.com/3bc3wux
Detail view (Eustathius of Thessaloniki):
http://tinyurl.com/3bkevue
d) Eustathius of Thessaloniki as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322) in the parecclesion of St. Nicholas in the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending upon one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/3j4v22u
e) Eustathius of Thessaloniki (second from left) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1313 and ca. 1320) in the altar area of the King's Church (dedicated to Sts. Joachim and Anne) in the Studenica monastery near Kraljevo (Raška dist.) in Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/2a7ksqu
Two complementary, English-language assessments of this Eustathius, both published in 1995, are Michael Angold, _Church and Society in Byzantium under the Comneni, 1081-1261_ (Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1995), ch. 8 ('Eustathius of Thessalonica'; pp. 179-196), and Robert Browning, 'Eustathios of Thessalonike Revisited', _Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies_ 40 [= n.s., vol. 2] (1995), 83-90. Orthodox churches (especially Greek ones) celebrate Eustathius of Thessaloniki today. He has yet to grace the pages of the RM.
Best,
John Dillon
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