medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Pelinus (d. 4th cent., supposedly) is said in his probably eleventh-century Vita or Passio (BHL 6620) to have been a Greek-speaking monk from Dyrrachium (today's Durrės in Albania) who together with his Syrian companions Gorgonius and Sebastius and his disciple Cyprius crossed the Adriatic in flight from Julianic persecution and arrived at Brundisium (today's Brindisi in Apulia). There he is said to have been welcomed by bishop Aproculus, who made him archdeacon of the cathedral and whom he succeeded as bishop some years later, the now elderly Aproculus having accompanied Pelinus to Rome to insure his consecration by pope Liberius.
Pelinus then returned to Brundisium and took up his office. When ordered by civil authorities to sacrifice at the temple of Jupiter he had only to set foot on the lintel and an earthquake brought down the whole structure. At Julian's command the evil tribune Maximus had Pelinus and his companions arrested and brought to Rome where they were paraded prior to being executed. Pelinus was handed over to the judge Cornicularius who brought him to Corfinium, the city of the Paeligni, and there had him killed on a 5. December variously estimated as being in 361 or 362. Gorgonius and Sebastius were executed on the following day but Cyprius was spared on account of his youth. Returning to Brundisium, he succeeded Pelinus as its bishop. Thus far the Vita (or Passio).
Apart from Julian (r. 361-63) and Liberius, none of these people is otherwise attested, not even the saintly Aproculus. Indeed, although Pelinus and Cyprius now figure in Brindisi's _series episcoporum_, their names are strikingly absent from the indices of the _Codice diplomatico Brindisino_; other medieval evidence for Pelinus' having had an early cult there is apparently also lacking. The archdiocesan view in Brindisi-Ostuni is that these events really transpired in the reign of Constans II (641-68) and that Pelinus' Vita -- which survives in an eleventh- or very early twelfth-century passionary (Vat. lat. 1197) seemingly of south central Italian origin -- is based on an account by a seventh-century contemporary. See its account here:
http://www.cattedralebrindisi.it/public/sezione.asp?s=4&id_p=25
That said, Brindisi's chiesa di San Pelino though presumed to have had a seventh-century origin is not documented prior to 1223.
To others (including the great historian of the early dioceses of Italy, Francesco Lanzoni) the story of Pelinus et socc. is a fiction from beginning to end, created in the diocese of Valva in the eleventh century in connection with Pelinus' cult at Corfinium, today's Corfinio (AQ) in Abruzzo. A concatenation of suspicious elements, it is devoid of any verifiable early connection with Brindisi and may even (depending on its real date) have been written in connection with abbot-bishop Transmundus' erection, starting in 1075, of the cathedral complex of St. Pelinus. It would certainly have been an extraordinary coincidence for a bishop of far-away Brundisium to have borne this unusual name so suggestive of the P(a)eligni, the ancient Roman name for the people inhabiting the area around Corfinium.
Dropped from the Roman Martyrology in its revision of 2001, Pelinus is still celebrated locally in Brindisi and in Corfinio. He is a co-patron of this honourable list.
Consecrated in 1124 as one of the cathedrals of Valva (the other is San Panfilo in Sulmona), rebuilt after a fire in 1229, and still a co-cathedral of the modern diocese of Sulmona-Valva, the basilica cattedrale di San Pelino (a.k.a. basilica Valvense) with its adjacent mausoleum of pope St. Alexander is a major architectural monument in the Paelignian basin.
Three exterior views:
http://tinyurl.com/q32at6p
http://tinyurl.com/o764dwf
http://tinyurl.com/p6pxvqk
Three interior views:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/32949167@N07/4303273145
http://tinyurl.com/nsajvqs
http://tinyurl.com/z2ellpw
The Italia nell'Arte Medievale page on this church:
http://tinyurl.com/yhv2ttl
Three illustrated accounts (one in French, the other two -- rather better -- in Italian):
http://tinyurl.com/ayyre
http://tinyurl.com/5e7cd4
http://www.inabruzzo.it/corfinio-basilica-valvense.html
A couple of brief videos with views of the exterior, the second including the archaeological area behind the mausoleum of pope St. Alexander (where the remains of a large rectangular structure are interpreted as belonging to the early medieval bishop's residence):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV2XK6RVNc4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80gn3zeLGgk
Two period-pertinent images of St. Pelinus:
Pelinus (at left flanking his church; at right, the BVM and Christ Child) as depicted in a thirteenth-century fresco inside the main entrance to the basilica cattedrale di San Pelino in Corfinio:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/federilli/2163934868/
Pelinus (at left; at right, St. Pamphilus of Sulmona) as portrayed in a statuary niche flanking the late fourteenth-century main portal (commissioned, 1391) of Sulmona's basilica cattedrale di San Panfilo:
http://tinyurl.com/jtnsuw4
Detail view (Pelinus):
http://tinyurl.com/qafky9k
Best,
John Dillon
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