medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
One of Augsburg's principal patron saints, Afra (also Affra, Aphra; d. ca. 304, supposedly) has been venerated there since at least 565, when St. Venantius Fortunatus visited her tomb. Her originally seventh-century legendary Passio in multiple versions (BHL 107b-f) makes her a prostitute who having been converted to Christianity was martyred by decapitation before she could be baptized. A competing early ninth-century _Conversio et Passio_ (BHL 108, 109) makes her a courtesan of higher status and has her baptized along with her mother Hilaria and the latter's slaves (who also figure in the Passio and who were celebrated too when this was a feast of Afra _et socc._) before they are all martyred by being burned alive.
The oldest witness of the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology enters Afra under today (7. August), as does also in his verse martyrology the earlier ninth-century Wandalbert of Prüm. The mid- and later ninth-century martyrologies of St. Ado of Vienne, Usuard of Saint-Germain, and St. Rabanus Maurus all enter her rather under 5. August. So did the Roman Martyrology prior to its revision of 2001, at which time Afra's commemoration was moved to today in accordance with the revised edition's frequent practice of using the earliest recorded festal date. Today, moreover, is Afra's feast day in the diocese of Augsburg.
Afra's putative relics are in Augsburg's Basilika St. Ulrich und Afra, an originally late fifteenth-century (with baroque overlay) former monastery church, whose Sacred Destinations page is here:
http://tinyurl.com/nska94
An illustrated, German-language page with expandable interior and exterior views:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilika_St._Ulrich_und_Afra
Afra's late antique sarcophagus in the lower church:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Augsburg_Afra_11.jpg
Some period-pertinent images of St. Afra of Augsburg:
a) as probably depicted (at right; at left, probably St. Ulrich) in a full-page drawing in the late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century Claricia Psalter from the diocese of Augsburg (Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, Walters Ms. W.26, fol. 131v):
http://tinyurl.com/zmj5r9f
b) as depicted (martyrdom by burning at the stake) in an earlier fourteenth-century copy of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language translation by Jean de Vignay (ca. 1335; Paris, BnF, ms. Arsenal 5080, fol. 275v):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55000813g/f556.item.zoom
c) as depicted in semi-grisaille (martyrdom by burning at the stake) in a late fourteenth-century copy of part of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (1396; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 313, fol. 260r):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84557843/f525.item.zoom
d) as depicted (at right; at left, St. Ulrich) in a fresco of ca. 1400 in the Filialkirche St. Martin in St. Martin im Lungau (Land Salzburg):
http://tinyurl.com/lzt84e
e) as depicted (at right; at left: St. Ulrich) in a mid-fifteenth-century fresco (1449) in the Stadtpfarrkirche zu unserer lieben Frau in Donauwörth (Lkr. Donau-Ries) in Bavaria:
http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7016509.JPG
f) as twice depicted (lower register at right: with fellow prostitutes in a scene from the _Conversio_; upper register at center: martyrdom by burning at the stake, with companions) in a later fifteenth-century copy of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (1463; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 51, fol. 91r):
http://tinyurl.com/32kcucr
g) as depicted (foreground, at right; foreground, at left: St. Ulrich) in a later fifteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1480) in Augsburg's Basilika St. Ulrich und Afra:
http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Ulrich_von_Augsburg5.jpg
h) as depicted (being burned at the stake), probably by Conrad Wagner, in a late fifteenth-century antiphoner (1490) from the abbey of St. Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg:
http://tinyurl.com/3blc58p
i) as depicted (at right, being burned at the stake; at center: the BVM and Christ Child; at left: St. Ulrich) as depicted in a late fifteenth-century (ca. 1490-1500) hand-colored woodcut offered for sale in March 2011 at Sotheby's London:
http://tinyurl.com/3mmgdy8
j) as depicted (being burned at the stake) in a hand-colored woodcut in the Beloit College copy of Hartmann Schedel's _Weltchronik_ (_Nuremberg Chronicle_; 1493) at fol. CXXVr:
http://tinyurl.com/3wgkjed
k) as depicted (being burned at the stake) by Leonhard Wagner in a late fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century gradual from the abbey of St. Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg (ca. 1500, Augsburg, Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg 2° Cod 248, fol. 199r):
http://tinyurl.com/jzju8z3
l) as portrayed by Tilman Riemenschneider in a very late fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century polychromed limewood reliquary bust (ca. 1500-1510) from the monastery of St. Afra in Würzburg, now in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich:
http://tinyurl.com/hq362bz
m) as depicted (martyrdom by burning at the stake) by the Master of Messkirch in an earlier sixteenth-century panel painting (between 1536 and 1540; from a dismantled altarpiece) in the Kunsthalle Würth in Schwäbisch Hall:
http://tinyurl.com/3vbmajl
Best,
John Dillon
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: subscribe medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: unsubscribe medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/medieval-religion
|