medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Today (19. December) is the feast day of:

1) Anastasius I, pope (d. 401). A native of Rome, Anastasius succeeded pope St. Siricius in late November 399. His brief pontificate is remembered chiefly for his actions in the Origenist controversy, in which he 1) convened a synod that condemned Origen's positions that had already been condemned in Alexandria and 2) wrote to St. Simplicianus of Milan in an attempt to obtain the north Italian bishops' co-operation in this regard, the Latin translation of Origen's _Perì Archōn_ having been written by the north Italian Rufinus of Aquileia, but 3) took no action against Rufinus himself. Anastasius also declined to authorize the church of Carthage to accept Donatist clergy into its ranks.

While on pilgrimage in Rome in 845/846 the Saxon count Liudolf obtained from pope Sergius II permission to bring back with him body relics of 
pope St. Anastasius I and of Innocent. These he gave to a community of canonesses that he had founded and that became known, from the location 
of its second home, as the abbey of Gandersheim. In 881 the aforementioned relics were brought in procession to the still unfinished church at Gandersheim for its consecration (with a dedication to Anastasius, Innocent, and John the Baptist) and were laid to rest therein. The principal source for all this is Hrotswitha of Gandersheim's later tenth-century _Carmen de primordiis coenobii Gandersheimensis_. Herewith some views of the originally mostly twelfth-century (consecrated, 1168; nineteenth- and twentieth-century restorations) Stiftskirche St. Anastasius und St. Innocentius in Bad Gandersheim (Lkr. Northeim) in Niedersachsen: 
http://tinyurl.com/7nohlsq
http://tinyurl.com/7uw3otl
http://tinyurl.com/7fmmkxs
http://www.flickr.com/photos/martin-m-miles/5704583681/
http://www.fotocommunity.de/pc/pc/display/21098009
http://tinyurl.com/6vbswnf
http://tinyurl.com/7zz24u3


2) Gregory of Auxerre (d. ca. 530-540). Gregory is the traditional twelfth bishop of Auxerre. He is said to have been bishop for thirteen years and to have been aged eighty-five at his death.


3) Berardus of Teramo (d. 1123). Today's less well known saint of the Regno is said to have belonged to the family of the counts of Pagliara, a territory in the vicinity of the Gran Sasso. After entering monastic life at Montecassino Berardus became abbot of the not yet Cistercian monastery of San Giovanni in Venere near Chieti in today's Abruzzo. Supposedly against his will, late in 1115 Berardus was elected bishop of Teramo (TE; also in Abruzzo). His Vita (BHL 1175), attributed to an early thirteenth-century successor, credits him with great piety, charity, and simplicity of spirit; perhaps not surprisingly, given its probable authorship, it also lauds Berardus' administrative ability and reforming zeal. Berardus has yet to grace the pages of the RM.

Teramo's late antique to mid-twelfth-century cathedral (therefore Berardus' cathedral church) was destroyed by fire at the end of 1155 or the beginning of 1156. Known today as the chiesa di Sant'Anna and outfitted with a very plain modern facade, it has few remains above ground but is functional beneath:
http://tinyurl.com/7ovgocs
http://tinyurl.com/bs3d6
http://www.contidimonteverdebasso.it/ChiesaSantAnna.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/23yavf9

Its successor, begun in 1158, is dedicated to Our Lady of the Annunciation and to Berardus. His relics are retained there. Increasingly brief Italian-language accounts of this building, which was restored in the early 1930s, are here (several also illustrated):
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duomo_di_Teramo
http://www.inabruzzo.it/teramo-duomo.html
http://www.abruzzoheritage.com/magazine/2002_05/a_it.htm
http://www.cesn.it/patrimonio%5Farchitet/abruzzo/teramo.htm
An English-language account:
http://tinyurl.com/28el4mw

This cathedral is in two main parts, one from the twelfth century and the other, attached to the former at a slight angle, from the thirteenth. Here's a plan:
http://tinyurl.com/3wbyvh
There are two facades, both of which are composites evidencing different periods of construction.
A view of the older facade (on Piazza Martiri della Libertà):
http://tinyurl.com/3pon8c
A view showing the newer facade (on Piazza Orsini):
http://tinyurl.com/3v3jng
The figure in the niche on the viewer's right represents Berardus:
http://flickr.com/photos/ligmas/2764181758/sizes/l/
The Italia nell'Arte Medievale page on this building:
http://www.medioevo.org/artemedievale/Pages/Abruzzo/Teramo.html
Five pages of views are here, interior as well as exterior, showing sculptural details, wall painting, and works of art (the latter including a very important earlier fifteenth-century altar frontal in silver by Nicola da Guardiagrele and workshop and a noteworthy altarpiece from slightly earlier in the same century by Jacobello del Fiore):
http://tinyurl.com/bu6rg8y
The last of those pages has views of Berardus' bust and arm reliquaries:
http://tinyurl.com/bm9j8cz

The cathedral's altar frontal (_paliotto_):
http://duomoteramo.comunite.it/pag/arte/ant.htm
http://tinyurl.com/ybn7jmv
Illustrated, Italian-language pages on this object (the second has a few expandable detail views at bottom):
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antependium_di_Teramo
http://tinyurl.com/4mzm3q
A noteworthy exhibition catalogue on the frontal's creator: Guido Sante, ed., _Nicola da Guardiagrele. Orafo tra Medioevo e Rinascimento. Le opere. I restauri_ (Todi: Tau, 2008; xxv, 638 pp.). An illustrated, Italian-language page on the frontal's restoration of 2002:
http://www.arpai.org/teramo-duomo-cattedrale-di-santa-maria-2002/

The cathedral's interior emerged in September 2007 from an extensive campaign of restoration that had gone on for about three years. Some views taken while the restoration was in progress:
http://www.lucafalconi.it/?p=293
The restorer's presentation of the completed work (with other views):
http://tinyurl.com/25rpg2

Finally, some views of the abbey church of San Giovanni in Venere at Fossacesia (CH):
http://www.abruzzovacanze.net/vr.php/it/95
http://www.abruzzoverdeblu.it/?id=28
http://www.medioevo.org/artemedievale/Pages/Abruzzo/Fossacesia.html
An English-language account of the abbey is here:
http://www.abruzzoheritage.com/magazine/2000_12/200012_a.htm


4) William of Fenoglio (Bl.; d. before 1224). William of Fenoglio (in Italian, Guglielmo di Fenoglio) has a cult that originated at the former charterhouse of Casotto in today's Garessio (CN) in Piedmont. The latter had his reputedly incorrupt remains and received donations in his name, the earliest known being dated 2. February 1224. According to tradition he was a local hermit, not in Holy Orders, who became an early member of the community of Casotto at a time before it became Carthusian (this house's early history is very poorly documented). Modern historians of the order hesitantly place William's death in the period 1200-1205.

According to a legend that already existed in some form in the fifteenth century, when attacked by bandits William removed a leg from his mule, used it to drive off the miscreants, and then replaced the leg. Giovanni Mazzucco's depiction of William holding the leg in his recently restored late fifteenth-century fresco cycle (1491) of the life of the BVM in the Santuario della Madonna dell'Assunta (a.k.a. Santuario del Brichetto) at Morozzo (CN) in Piedmont can be seen at center in the first image in this brief video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=1J0zZwXQrkk 
TAN: Too recent for this list but too good to pass up is this earlier seventeenth-century depiction of William by Daniele Crespi in his portraits of Carthusian worthies (1629) in Milan's chiesa della Certosa di Garegnano:
http://tinyurl.com/2cyoce6

William of Fenoglio's cult was confirmed papally in 1860 at the level of Beatus.


5) Urban V, pope (Bl.; d. 1370). The nobly born Guillaume de Grimoard was a well educated Benedictine who had made his profession at Saint-Victor in Marseille and who had been abbot first of Saint-Germain at Auxerre and then of Saint-Victor as well papal legate in Italy intermittently during the ten years prior to his election as pope in 1362, succeeding Innocent VI. Urban cut the rate of tithes in half, supported students through bursaries and the foundation of colleges, and sponsored many building projects, especially in Rome, to which he returned in 1367. Many of the Eternal City's churches were in great disrepair and the basilica of St. John in the Lateran had to be largely rebuilt after succumbing to a fire in 1360.

The move to Rome was motivated both by a desire on Urban's part to effect a reunion with the Greek church and by his perception that Rome, rather than Avignon, was a better stage from which to promote the crusade against the Turks that he had proclaimed in 1363. The latter was not a success and the Greek policy resulted in the personal conversion, in Rome, of the emperor John V but not in any greater Eastern adherence to Latin Christianity. Disappointing many Italians and also St. Birgitta of Sweden, Urban returned to Avignon in 1370 and died within a few months of his return. He was buried in Avignon; two years later his remains were moved to the abbey church of Saint-Victor in Marseille. Urban V was beatified in 1870.

A seal from Urban V's pontificate:
http://tinyurl.com/yendt2x
A _bolognino_ (coin of the papal state) issued by Urban V:
http://tinyurl.com/4mff7x
A gold florin issued by Urban V:
http://tinyurl.com/53jd6h

The ciborium in St. John Lateran, sculpted by Giovanni di Stefano and erected in 1370:
http://flickr.com/photos/annoysius/2937878704/sizes/l/
http://flickr.com/photos/annoysius/2937030761/sizes/l/

Urban V's _gisant_ from Avignon, now in the Musée du Petit Palais in Paris:
http://tinyurl.com/479dp5

Urban V as depicted in a panel painting of ca. 1375 by Simone dei Crocifissi (Simone de Filippo), now in the Pinacoteca nazionale in Bologna:
http://tinyurl.com/3zvy82

Urban V going by ship toward Rome as depicted _in margine_ in a later fourteenth-century historical miscellany (Avignon, Bibliothèque-Médiathèque Municipale Ceccano, ms. 1348, fol. 96v):
http://tinyurl.com/298vzx3
Mis-en-page:
http://tinyurl.com/28n7awl

Urban V (holding miniature busts of St. Peter and St.Paul) as depicted in a remounted, late fourteenth-century fresco in the chiesa di Santa Maria della Croce (a.k.a. chiesa di Casaranello) at Casarano (LE) on southeastern Italy's Salentine Peninsula:
http://lytos.altervista.org/italiano/urbano.jpg

An illustrated, French-language page on the fortified collégiale Notre-Dame de l'Assomption at Bédouès (Lozère), built by Urban as a burial church for his family, _seigneurs_ of nearby Grizac:
http://tinyurl.com/cu4oaul
Other views:
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/7096655.jpg
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/12610758.jpg
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/2217176.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/yejlaxh
http://tinyurl.com/yfetbko
http://cdn.fotocommunity.com/photos/16500930.jpg
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/y0uOqfyIVWwFFtpEVbsEAQ
http://tinyurl.com/ya5qtml
A brief video on Urban V and on this church:
http://www.youtube.com/user/images48#p/u/1/mE4hRs11SJ4 
A brief video on the church's relatively recently restored chapelle Saint-Saturnin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GkX2VQF0H8

Urban V was born at Grizac. Here's a distance view:
http://tinyurl.com/c6g86vk
A view of Grizac's restored, originally thirteenth-century _château_:
http://tinyurl.com/yeox2re

Best,
John Dillon

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