medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Today (25. November) is also the feast day of:

1) Mercurius of Caesarea in Cappadocia (d. 250, supposedly). The great martyr Mercurius (in English also Mercury) had a major late antique cult at the Caesarea that is today's Kayseri in Turkey. His legendary Greek Passio (BHG 1274) makes him a general in the Roman army martyred under Decius. By the early sixth century he was also believed to have been sent from Heaven to slay Julian the Apostate. In this legend (which has Western as well as Eastern variants), St. Basil the Great (not coincidentally, a bishop of Caesarea) is said to have seen in a vision both Mercurius' being charged with this mission and his return to announce its successful completion. The Vatopedi monastery on Mt. Athos has what is believed to be Mercurius' skull:
http://tinyurl.com/cjmqy3a

One of the great military saints of Eastern Christianity, Mercurius became a saint of the Regno in the ninth century when in the principality of Benevento his cult superseded that of a homonym entered in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology under 26. August as having suffered at Aeclanum (in southern Campania). Duke Arichis II, the founder of the autonomous principality, was said to have translated from the ruins of Aeclanum the relics of the Eastern martyr (these supposedly had been deposited there by Constans II in the seventh century) and to have interred them in his newly built church of Santa Sofia at Benevento (so this will have been ca. 768). In the principality Mercurius was celebrated on 26. August, reinterpreted as the date of his translation by Arichis.

Mercurius was a major star in the Beneventan sanctoral firmament. The extent of his literary monuments can be guessed at by looking at nos. 5933-5939 in BHL Suppl.; especially noteworthy is Mercurius' _Passio aucta_ in verse by the early twelfth-century archbishop of Benevento, Landulf II (BHL 5935; a modern edition is badly needed). An only slightly later visual counterpart is the also twelfth-century representation of Mercurius (at right) in military garb in the lunette above the main portal of Santa Sofia:
http://tinyurl.com/blfp3pp
http://tinyurl.com/c8t9jd3
The kneeling figure next to Mercurius is thought to be abbot John IV of Santa Sofia, to whose restoration of the church we owe this relief. Within the Beneventan cultural area, Mercurius is the patron saint of Toro (CB) in Molise and of Serracapriola (FG) in northern Apulia. In both towns his cult appears to be medieval in origin. Another visible token of Mercurius' cult in this part of the world is this fragmentarily preserved, later fourteenth-century fresco in the cattedrale di San Pardo in Larino (CB) in Molise that seemingly depicts Mercurius having just slain Julian:
http://tinyurl.com/ygfxcmq

In 1098 Mercurius appeared along with St. George and St. Demetrius to lift the spirits of the Crusaders issuing from Antioch to destroy a Muslim army that had been besieging them. For a relatively recent discussion of Mercurius in the East, see Christopher Walter, _The Warrior Saints in Byzantine Art and Tradition_ (Ashgate, 2003), pp. 101-08.

Some medieval portrayals of Mercurius:

a) Mercurius slaying Julian as depicted (bottom register) in a full-page illumination in a later ninth-century manuscript of the _Orationes_ of St. Gregory of Nazianzus (Paris, BnF, ms. Grec 510, fol. 409v):
http://tinyurl.com/ykfbhn5

b) Mercurius as portrayed (upper left) on a wing of the mid-tenth-century ivory Harbaville Triptych in the Musée du Louvre in Paris:
http://tinyurl.com/2fxlfnn

c) Mercurius as depicted in the earlier eleventh-century mosaics (restored betw. 1953 and 1962) of the katholikon of the monastery of Hosios Loukas near Distomo in Phokis:
http://tinyurl.com/8en4s35

d) Mercurius as depicted in an earlier eleventh-century fresco (restored betw. 1953 and 1962) in the crypt of the katholikon of the monastery of Hosios Loukas near Distomo in Phokis:
http://tinyurl.com/cbfgw7x

e) Mercurius (at left; at right, a figure that has been identified as St. Mamas) as depicted in a fragmentarily preserved eleventh-century fresco on Crete (formerly in the church of Agia Varvara, Latziana, Kisamos, now in the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Collection of Chania):
http://www.travel-to-crete.com/pages_images/43.jpg

f) Mercurius (very probably; compare his image on Benevento's Santa Sofia) as depicted at right (at left; St. Basil the Great) in the partly preserved later eleventh-century frescoes (ca. 1075) of the church of Agios Merkourios in Agios Markos on Corfu:
http://tinyurl.com/c7bxa8d

g) Mercurius (roundel at lower left; above, St. Theodore the Recruit (T. Tiro) as depicted on an arch soffit in the mid-twelfth-century mosaics of the basilica di Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio (a.k.a. chiesa della Martorana) in Palermo:
http://tinyurl.com/6w2rfqg
http://tinyurl.com/6rsf8tb

h) Mercurius as depicted in a later twelfth-century fresco (betw. 1160 and 1190) in the church of St. Nicholas Kasnitzes in Kastoria in northwestern Greece:
http://tinyurl.com/25wvcyg

i) Mercurius as depicted in an earlier thirteenth-century fresco (1230s) in the nave of the church of the Holy Ascension in the Mileševa monastery near Prijepolje (Zlatibor dist.) in Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/38crny3
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/248qb6k

j) Mercurius as depicted in the later thirteenth-century exterior paintings (betw. 1259 and 1264) of the narthex of the church of the Panagia Mavriotissa in Kastoria in northwestern Greece:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21711359@N08/3943580245/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21711359@N08/3944386152/ 

k) Mercurius as depicted in a later thirteenth-century fresco (ca. 1295) by Michael Astrapas (whose signature is quite legible on Mercurius' sword blade) in the church of the Peribleptos (now Sv. Climent Novi) in Ohrid:
http://tinyurl.com/37ckkzj
http://tinyurl.com/3k9x6ov

l) Mercurius (at left; at right, St. Artemius the Great Martyr) as depicted in the late thirteenth- or very early fourteenth-century frescoes, attributed to Manuel Panselinos, in the Protaton chuch on Mt. Athos:
http://tinyurl.com/3xzbzsl

m) Mercurius as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century fresco (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322) in the nave of the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending upon one's view of the matter, Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo: 
http://tinyurl.com/ygpyhww
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/yjqot8s

n) Mercurius as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1313 and ca. 1320) by Michael Astrapas and Eutychios in the King's Church (dedicated to Sts. Joachim and Anne) at the Studenica monastery near Kraljevo (Raška dist.) in Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/2d48hl2 

o) Mercurius (at left; at right, St. Nicetas the Goth) as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century fresco in the church of St. George in Kritsa (Lasithi prefecture) on Crete: 

p) Mercurius as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (ca. 1319), attributed to the atelier of Michael Astrapas and Eutychios, in the katholikon of the Chilandar monastery on Mt. Athos:
http://www.atlantaserbs.com/web/ikone/dec09/24-01.jpg

q) Mercurius (at far right, after the archangels Uriel and Gabriel) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1317 and 1322) in the church of St. Demetrius in the Patriarchate of Peć at Peć 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/263smlh
Detail view (Gabriel and Mercurius):
http://tinyurl.com/27lr2jl

r) Mercurius as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (1330s) in the nave of the church of the Hodegetria in the Patriarchate of Peć at Peć 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/yemp35v
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/ybcgpbp

s) Mercurius as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) under the dome of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć 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/2doaap6
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/2f25cj3

t) Mercurius' martyrdom (lower right; above, St. Alypius the Stylite) as depicted in a November calendar composition in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) of the narthex in the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć 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/ycgb8ln 

u) Mercurius as depicted in a fourteenth- or fifteenth-century Armenian miniature (location not provided but a good guess would be the Matenadaran in Yerevan):
http://www.armsite.com/miniatures/mnshow.phtml?slide=51

v) Mercurius as depicted in an earlier fifteenth-century fresco in the church of the Holy Trinity at the former Manasija monastery near Despotovac (Pomoravlje dist.) in Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/ya6ezqs

w) Mercurius is a co-patron of Seminara (RC) in southern Calabria, part of the Greek-speaking West in the Middle Ages and the home of the fourteenth-cenury theologian Barlaam of Calabria. A fifteenth-century relief (with an identifying inscription in Latin) showing M. mounted and spearing Julian the Apostate in the neck has been preserved at the municipio of Seminara. Herewith a detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/ybu54kl

x) Mercurius (at left, with the Two Theodores) as depicted in a late fifteenth-century fresco in the old church of the Kremikovtsi / Kremikovski monastery of St. George near Kremikovtsi / Kremikovski in Bulgaria's Sofiya-Grad oblast:
http://tinyurl.com/c8g3jjg

y) Mercurius (image at far right, after St. Lupus of Svishtov and St. Artemius the Great Martyr) as depicted in the earlier sixteenth-century frescoes (1545 and 1546) by Theofanis Stelitzas-Bathas (a.k.a. Theophanes the Cretan) in the katholikon of the Stavronikita monastery on Mt. Athos:
http://tinyurl.com/3h4qdoo 

Some dedications to Mercurius:

a) Two illustrated, English-language pages on the church of St. Mercurius in Cairo, built in the later tenth-century on the foundations of a late antique predecessor and largely rebuilt after a fire in the twelfth century:
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/mercurius.htm
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/egypt/cairo-st-mercurius-church.htm

b) Views of the originally eleventh-century church of Agios Merkourios in Agios Markos on Corfu:
Exterior:
http://tinyurl.com/bldu2ks
http://tinyurl.com/bsorvjh
http://www.flickr.com/photos/millinerd/2999741070/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/millinerd/2999740410/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/millinerd/2999740410/
Interior:
http://tinyurl.com/bubrr6d
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alanaplin/247610803/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alanaplin/247611111/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alanaplin/247610943/

c) Almost equally unprepossessing without, and until recently totally ruinous within, is the originally eleventh- or twelfth-century chiesa di San Mercurio in Campobasso (CB) in Molise, deconsecrated early in the nineteenth century, used for lumber storage, and abandoned as it gradually disintegrated. Its present state of functional repair is down to a Scout troop that took it over as a project. Some exterior views:
http://tinyurl.com/cjgau8u
http://tinyurl.com/cxrgaza
http://tinyurl.com/bm5sqt4
http://tinyurl.com/bve87f7 

For more on Mercurius, including an English-language translation of BHG 1274, see this page at David Woods' 'Military Martyrs' site:
http://www.ucc.ie/milmart/Mercurius.html


2) Peter of Alexandria (d. 311) and other martyrs at Alexandria under Maximinus Daia. The hieromartyr Peter succeeded Theonas of Alexandria as pope (bishop) of Alexandria in Egypt in about 300. At some point after the outbreak of the Diocletianic persecution in 303 he went into hiding. During Peter's absence bishop Meletius (Melitius) of Lycopolis took it upon himself to consecrate bishops for sees whose occupants had been imprisoned, thus laying the groundwork for a schism that troubled the church in Egypt for some time; he also moved to Alexandria, where he replaced church officials whom Peter had appointed. Peter, who continued to exercise authority from his undisclosed location, then excommunicated Meletius; he also issued a set of surviving canons that dealt mildly with _lapsi_ who wished to re-enter the church.

On 30. April 311 the emperor Galerius lifted the persecution of Christians in the East, whereupon Peter resumed his public role in Alexandria. In November of the same year Maximinus Daia renewed the persecution in those parts of the empire under his control. An early victim, Peter was arrested by imperial officials and swiftly executed. A few homilies and letters by him survive, as do also fragments of theological works. Our chief sources for Peter are Eusebius and other late antique church historians. His numerous Passiones in Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Coptic are relatively late; where they add new material they are either legendary or conjectural. Certainly legendary is the vision that Peter is said to have received while awaiting execution and in which he will have seen a very youthful Christ whose linen tunic was rent in two and who foretold the Arian schism.

Commemorated along with Peter in the RM are others at Alexandria who suffered in the same renewed persecution, including the Egyptian bishops Hesychius, Pachomius, and Theodorus.

Some medieval portrayals of Peter of Alexandria:

a) Peter of Alexandria (in this expandable view, next but one to the viewer's left of the niche in the lower register) as depicted in the later twelfth-century mosaics of the basilica cattedrale di Santa Maria la Nuova in Monreale:
http://maik07.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/m-abside1.jpg

b) Peter of Alexandria as depicted in a late twelfth-century fresco (1199) in the church of the transfiguration of the Savior at Nereditsa near Veliky Novgorod:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3414/3446558003_12436e97d2.jpg
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/7gz5kdy

c) Peter of Alexandria as depicted in the perhaps late twelfth-century frescoes by John Iveropoulos in the ossuary church of the Bačkovo monastery near Asenovgrad in south central Bulgaria's Plovdiv oblast (for a slightly clearer view, click on the image):
http://tinyurl.com/9f24l3j

d) Peter of Alexandria's vision as depicted in the late thirteenth- (so E. C. Constantinides; 1992) or earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (1320s; the usual dating) of the church of the Panagia Olympiotissa in Elasson (Larisa prefecture) in Thessaly:
http://tinyurl.com/22rozdd
Detail view (Peter of Alexandria):
http://tinyurl.com/28cgajw
Detail view (Christ):
http://tinyurl.com/29md4rm

e) Peter of Alexandria's vision as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322) of the parecclesion of the Theotokos in the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending upon one's view of the matter, the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija: 
http://tinyurl.com/bwa9tao
Detail view (Peter of Alexandria):
http://tinyurl.com/bopd7mn
Detail view (Christ):
http://tinyurl.com/cppeby5
Detail view (Arius):
http://tinyurl.com/c4huujd

f) Peter of Alexandria 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 at Staro Nagoričane in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://www.eikonografos.com/album/albums/uploads/servia/437.jpg

g) Peter of Alexandria's vision vision as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (1330s) in the prothesis of church of the Hodegetria in the Patriarchate of Peć at Peć 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/y9e767e
Detail view (Christ):
http://tinyurl.com/y8g3ugs

h) Peter of Alexandria as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the prothesis of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć 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/72nvdjb

i) Peter of Alexandria's martyrdom (at right; at left, pope St. Clement I) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the narthex of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć 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/yjvkroz

j) Peter of Alexandria's vision as depicted in a fourteenth-century fresco in a small church in the rupestrian monastery of St. Michael the Archangel at Ivanovo in Bulgaria's Ruse oblast:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/65296793@N00/472316252/
http://i18.servimg.com/u/f18/09/04/27/32/vision10.jpg
 
k) Peter of Alexandria's vision as depicted in the earlier fifteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1406 and 1418) in the church of the Holy Trinity at the Manasija monastery near Despotovac (Pomoravlje dist.) in Serbia:
https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/handle/1811/40931

l) Peter of Alexandria's vision as depicted in a late fifteenth-century fresco (early 1490s) by Philippos Goul in the church of the Timios Stavros tou Agiasmati at Platanistasa (Nicosia prefecture) in the Republic of Cyprus (in this portrait Peter's portrait is remarkably -- and probably designedly -- similar to the standard portraiture of St. Peter the Apostle):
http://tinyurl.com/7472qzg

m) Peter of Alexandria's vision (at right, through the arch; does anyone have a better view?) as depicted in an earlier fifteenth-century fresco (1527) by Theofanis Strelitzas-Bathas (Theophanes the Cretan) in the katholikon of the monastery of St. Nicholas Anapafsas in the Meteora district of Greece's Trikala prefecture:
http://tinyurl.com/6sc35j7

n) Peter of Alexandria's vision as depicted in an earlier sixteenth-century fresco (1546/47) by George / Tzortzis the Cretan in the katholikon of the Dionysiou monastery on Mt. Athos:
http://tinyurl.com/32mtm4h 


3) Maurinus of Agen (d. 5th cent., supposedly). The martyr Maurinus is the local saint of today's Saint-Maurin (Lot-et-Garonne) in Aquitaine and was the saint of its once regionally important abbey named for him. According to his very legendary Vita (BHL 5734; preserved in a single ms. of the eleventh century), he was born at Agen but was educated in Italy at Capua, whither his father, the count of Agen, had sent him to be schooled and where he stayed for seven years and was ordained deacon. His master was that holy friend of St. Benedict, St. Germanus of Capua.

Returning to his native town, Maurinus evangelized in the Agenais. But the pagan governor of Lectoure (a comital seat from at least the tenth century onward), who had forbidden Christian preaching in the region, had Maurinus' father decapitated and Maurinus arrested. Maurinus converted the soldiers who were guarding him and fled with them to a nearby village. There they were captured by other soldiers sent by the governor. Maurinus and his companions were executed on the spot by decapitation. In keeping with a frequent motif in the Vitae of evangelists in France, Maurinus picked up his head and walked to a fountain, next to which, once he had healed a woman of leprosy, the local Christians buried him. Further miracles were reported at his grave, which latter began to draw crowds. A church dedicated to St. Peter was erected over his tomb. Thus far Maurinus' Vita.

The abbey for which this Vita will have been written is first documented from early in the eleventh century. A local lord restored it in about 1040 and in 1082 a son of that lord gave it to the abbey of Moissac. The abbey church (now a ruin) was dedicated in 1097 to the Holy Cross, to the Blessed Virgin Mary, to Maurinus, and to all the saints.

A page of views of the former abbey church of Notre-Dame de Saint-Maurin, many showing some of the church's exterior (into which a modern dwelling has been built):
http://www.romanes.com/Saint-Maurin/
Other views of the tower of that church:
http://www.ffct.org/bcn-bpf/departements/47/st-maurin06.jpg
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/10478200.jpg

After the Albigensian Crusade the abbot of Saint-Maurin became the local lord. In the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century the monastery was fortified. Some views of what's left of the keep of this _château abbatiale_:
http://www.ffct.org/bcn-bpf/departements/47/st-maurin01.jpg
http://www.ffct.org/bcn-bpf/departements/47/st-maurin07.jpg

Best,
John Dillon

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