medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

From older notice, now somewhat revised:

Today (7. December) is the feast day of: 
1) Savinus of Spoleto (d. ca. 304, supposedly). S. (whose name in this form is a late antique pronunciation spelling of _Sabinus_, to which latter it is often normalized) is a saint of the Via Flaminia whose cult spread widely in central and in northern Italy during the Middle Ages. His veneration is first recorded from Spoleto, where a basilica housing his remains is mentioned in the sixth century by Procopius and by pope St. Gregory the Great and in the eighth century by Paul the Deacon, and from Ravenna, where, labeled SABINVS, he comes last in the later sixth-century procession of male martyrs in the basilica di Sant'Apollinare Nuovo. Gregory also mentions dedications to an S. in the vicinity of Fermo and in the diocese of Ascoli Piceno, both in the more southerly portion of today's Marche; the former evolved into a Benedictine house of the same name (home in the thirteenth century to Bl. Adam of Fermo). The undoubted later presence of our S.'s cult in the central Marche has reinforced the assumption that these two early dedications were also to him and not to some other saint bearing one or another form of this rather common name.

By the early ninth century S. had received a legendary Passio (BHL 7451-7455; an earlier sixth-century origin has been hypothesized) that makes him a bishop of an unspecified town who is arrested at Assisi along with the deacons Exuperantius and Marcellus (or Marcellinus). When these three refuse to sacrifice to the gods of the Roman state the local magistrate Venustianus has S.'s hands cut off and has the deacons tortured to death. A miraculous cure attributed to S.'s severed hands causes V. to convert along with his family. The emperor Maximian sends to Assisi his minion the tribune Lucius, who has V. and the latter's family put to death and S. transported to Spoleto, where he is whipped severely and then executed on this day. Thus far the Passio.

St. Ado of Vienne, followed by Usuard and by the RM until 2001, entered S. and his companions under 30. December. The revised RM of 2001 dispenses with the companions and commemorates S. today (also his feast day in the archdiocese of Spoleto - Norcia).

Inventions and translations of relics of S. are reported from the late tenth century onward to many places, perhaps most notably a translation in 956 to Ivrea (TO) in Piedmont, where S. is still co-patron (celebrated on 7. July); an Inventio in 1266 in Ravenna's Sant'Apollinare Nuovo; and, perhaps in the early fourteenth century and certainly by 1367, a translation to Fusignano (RA) in the diocese of Faenza but not far from Ravenna. From Faenza itself we have a late medieval revised Passio of S. that makes him a native of Sulmona who before his arrest at Assisi and death and burial at Spoleto is an hermit near Fusignano and whose body is later translated back to Fusignano at the behest of an angel. S.'s feast day in the diocese of Faenza is 6. December.

Today's chiesa di San Savino at Fusignano (a successor to its later medieval one of the same dedication) houses a late antique sarcophagus that once contained S.'s putative remains:
http://www.romagnadeste.it/en/8-fusignano/i646-chiesa-parrocchiale-di-s-savino.htm
At some time between 1438 and 1441 those relics were translated from Fusignano to Faenza, whose originally later fifteenth-century cathedral houses them in a tomb sculpted during the years 1468-1471 (_aliter_: 1474-1476) by Benedetto da Maiano. A page of views of this tomb (the Arca di San Savino; the views of individual reliefs are better than those of the monument as a whole):
http://tinyurl.com/ycbzfds
There are better views in the _Bibliotheca Sanctorum_, vol. 11, cols. 707-08 and 711-12.

Savinus / Sabinus (at right, after Sts. Protus and Hyacinth) as depicted in the heavily restored later sixth-century procession of male martyrs in Ravenna's basilica di Sant'Apollinare Nuovo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33563858@N00/4691651883

Savinus / Sabinus and companions before Venustianus as depicted in a later fifteenth-century copy (1463) of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 51, fol. 61v):
http://tinyurl.com/ljsjqba

Best,
John Dillon


On 12/30/14, Matt Heintzelman wrote:
> 
> https://www.facebook.com/604882972899463/photos/a.624764970911263.1073741830.604882972899463/757183811002711/?type=1&theater 
> 
> One of several saints by this name. This appears to be the same as Sabinus of Spoleto (Wikipedia) or Assissium (Butler). Wikipedia only lists Dec. 7 as his feast day, but Butler gives December 30.
> 
> [From Wikipedia:] “While in prison, he healed a man born blind. Venustian heard of the cure and sought a cure for his own eyes from Sabinus. Sabinus healed the governor and converted him to Christianity. Venustian then sheltered Sabinus. Maximianus Herculius, hearing of this, ordered the tribune Lucius to address the matter. Lucius had Venustian, his wife, and his two sons beheaded at Assisi, and he had Sabinus beaten to death at Spoleto.”
> 
> Peace,
> 
> 
> 
> Matt H.

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