medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Almost nothing is known about the Carolingian-period Frederick, bishop of Utrecht (d. perh. 835 or 836). His earlier eleventh-century Vita (BHL 3157) by Odbert of Utrecht declares itself to have been written without the assistance of any predecessor. Odbert supposes that there had been one but that it had perished in the destruction wrought by Northmen. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to know how much of the Vita derives from earlier documentation and how much belongs rather to an imaginative reconstruction of the past. It is usually assumed that Frederick is not an invention, that, as Odbert says, he already had a tomb and a cult, that he was remembered as having been murdered, and that by Odbert's time he was being celebrated on this day, the one indicated by Odbert as having been Frederick's _dies natalis_. Much of the rest, including Frederick's early life, his exemplary conduct of his episcopate, his having promoted missionary activity among his fellow Frisians, and the various instances of his holiness, seems to be an idealizing portrait created out of whole cloth. Similarly, it is unclear whether Odbert's account of Frederick's having been caught up in the struggle between Louis the Pious and his sons, of his having urged Louis to divorce the empress Judith and to punish her immorality (presumably this refers to her rumored affair with Bernard of Septimania), and of his having been slain by Judith's agents (now widely disbelieved) were already traditional in Utrecht.
In the numeration of Utrecht's bishops, Frederick is Frederick I. Odbert's construction of him as a martyr was standard in the later Middle Ages and survived in his elogium in the Roman Martyrology until the latter's revision of 2001. Today (18. July) is Frederick's feast day in Roman Catholic dioceses in the Netherlands (in the diocese of Utrecht he is also celebrated on 8. November in a feast of all its sainted bishops) and his day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology.
In 1362 the cathedral chapter of Utrecht rebuilt Frederick's tomb in the crypt of the then cathedral church (the Oudmunster). At that time his skull relics were placed in the parcel-gilt silver reliquary bust by Elias Scerpswert shown here:
http://www.wga.hu/art/s/scerpswe/reliquar.jpg
http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/aria/aria_assets/BK-NM-11450
Best,
John Dillon
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