medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Verissimus, Maxima, and Julia are ancient martyrs of Lisbon (persecution unknown) whose oldest surviving record seems to be their entry under today in the second edition of Usuard's martyrology (written after his trip to Córdoba in 858). Their undated but stylistically early medieval Mozarabic hymn (_Iucundum nobis hunc diem_) presents Julia as a sister either of Verissimus or of Maxima and has them tried before a persecuting judge, tortured on the _eculeus_, submerged in the sea with stones weighting their necks, and finally executed on the shore. Their likewise legendary Passio (several versions: BHL 8544-8546b), whose earliest witness is of the eleventh century, makes all three siblings, increases the varieties of the martyrs' torment prior to their decapitation, and has their weighted bodies cast into the sea in a fruitless attempt to prevent recovery of the corpses. In 1475 king João II built for the nuns of St. James in Lisbon a church into which he translated putative relics of these three saints.
In later medieval Mozarabic calendars today (1. October) was the feast of Verissimus, Maxima, and Julia. This is still their feast day in the Mozarabic Rite. In the Roman Rite, their feast day in the Patriarchate of Lisbon is 3. October and today is their day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology. Byzantine-Rite churches in Spain and Portugal also celebrate them today.
Verissimus, Maxima, and Julia as depicted by Garcia Fernandes in two of four earlier sixteenth-century panel paintings (ca. 1530) of scenes from their Passio in the Museu Carlos Machado in Santa Bárbara (Azores):
http://tinyurl.com/hd9zgsm
http://tinyurl.com/jokg67v
Best,
John Dillon
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