medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
The Frisian Ludger (or Liudger; d. 809) was educated in the missionary school at Utrecht and became a disciple of Alcuin. He conducted missions on Helgoland, in Frisia, and in Saxony. In 804/05 he became the first bishop of the newly founded diocese of Münster in Westphalia. Ludger has an extensive dossier with several Vitae and several Miracula from different stages of his cult. The most informative for his own life is the early Vita prima (BHL 4937) by his second successor at Münster, bishop St. Altfrid, composed between 839 and 849. A brief, German-language account of the growth of Ludger's legend is here:
http://kirchensite.de/bistumshandbuch/l/liudger-legenden/
In about 800 Ludger founded the imperial abbey at Werden (modern Werden an der Ruhr, now Essen-Werden, a _Stadtteil_ of the city of Essen), whose church, in which he was later buried, was consecrated in 804. Its originally thirteenth-century successor, the Basilika St. Ludgerus, is shown here:
http://tinyurl.com/yrc34g
http://tinyurl.com/ytq5at
and here (click on links at lower right for further views):
http://tinyurl.com/l8bhb
A page of Ludger's musically notated twelfth-century Office from Essen-Werden:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Liudger_Offizium.jpg
The Basilika St. Ludgerus keeps in its treasury a late medieval oaken portable altar on which are mounted walrus ivory plaques from a later eighth-century predecessor from southern Italy. This object is traditionally associated with Ludger. Two views of it are here:
http://www.kulturwest.de/typo3temp/GB/Tragaltar_2eb0c30dfe_13745c819f.png
http://www.schatzkammer-werden.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/5ABB01.jpg
Also in this church's treasury, and also traditionally associated with Ludger, is this probably tenth- or eleventh-century chalice that came to the abbey in 1547 from a monastery in Helmstedt in Niedersachsen (said to have been one of Ludger's foundations):
http://tinyurl.com/jxgj2ab
The inscriptions on this object read (abbreviations resolved): _AGITUR HAEC SVMMVS POCLA TRIVMPHVS_ and _HIC CALIX SANGVINIS DNI NRI IHV XPI_. See the detailed description here:
http://www.inschriften.net/helmstedt/inschrift/nr/di061-0001.html
The same treasury also has a fifth- or sixth-century ivory pyxis, also traditionally associated with Ludger:
http://tinyurl.com/hhoat57
http://tinyurl.com/zya2utj
Also in the treasury of the Basilika St. Ludgerus in Essen-Werden and venerated as a relic of Ludger is a leather belt from ca. 1500 (enclosing a belt of much older leather) that according to an inventory of 1512 was used to encircle pregnant women seeking success in childbirth:
http://www.schatzkammer-werden.de/guertel-des-hl-liudger/
Ludger is considered the founder of Münster, the town of his _monasterium_ at this site. It has its own St. Ludgerikirche (originally late twelfth- and early thirteenth-century) in the city centre:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Ludgeri_%28M%C3%BCnster%29
http://www.heits.de/fotos/P2171905.JPG
http://www.heits.de/fotos/P2171902k.JPG
Some period-pertinent images of St. Ludger:
a) as depicted in a late eleventh- or early twelfth-century copy of his Vita secunda (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Ms. theol. lat. fol. 323):
1) being taken by his parents to the school in Utrecht (fol. 5v):
http://tinyurl.com/jsveofa
2) receiving from Charlemagne the monastery of Lothusa in Brabant (fol. 8v):
http://tinyurl.com/za3easq
3) arriving at Helgoland as a missionary and driving off the devil:
http://tinyurl.com/zvstdqs
4) his consecration as bishop:
http://www.unitas-ruhrania.org/images/content/Liudger.jpg
https://www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Liudger1.jpg
b) as portrayed in relief on a reliquary shrine (the latter not further identified by Sacred Destinations, the source of this image) in the cathedral treasury at Münster:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sacred_destinations/2284006750/sizes/o/
Another view of that shrine (the saints portrayed are Felicitas of Rome and her sons Januarius and Felix):
http://tinyurl.com/yagdunu
c) as depicted (at upper right) by Friedrich Hugenpoet in a late fifteenth-century psalter (ca. 1490) in the treasury of the Basilika St. Ludgerus in Essen-Werden:
http://tinyurl.com/zb8ae88
Detail view (Ludger):
http://tinyurl.com/hklqym2
Best,
John Dillon
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