medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Saturninus of Toulouse (also Sernin, Cernin, etc.; d. later 3d cent., supposedly) is that city's legendary protobishop. According to his seemingly originally early fifth-century Passio (BHL 7495-7496), he arrived in Toulouse in the consulship of Decius and Gratus (i.e. in the year 250) and through his activity as bishop caused the demons who inhabited its temples to withdraw and their statues to stand mute with the cessation of their oracles. Unhappy pagans were preparing a propitiatory sacrifice of a bull on the city's capitolium when Saturninus happened to pass by. The crowd seized him and attempted to force him to perform the sacrifice. When Saturninus refused they bound him to the bull, which latter they then first enraged by wounding and then allowed to run free down the slope (later versions: the steps) of the capitolium, dragging the bishop to his death.
Other early witnesses to Saturninus' cult are Sts. Sidonius Apollinaris, Caesarius of Arles (who includes Saturninus in the claim, promoted by Arles, of Petrine discipleship for early bishops of Gaul), and Gregory of Tours. It spread widely both in Gaul and in Iberia (where he has a Mozarabic Mass). In the central and later Middle Ages Saturninus acquired even greater prominence from Toulouse's being on a major pilgrimage route to Compostela.
Today (29. November) is Saturninus' feast day in Toulouse and his day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology. Though neither the day of his martyrdom nor its year appear in his early Passio, his celebration on this particular day is recorded in the earliest witness of the seemingly very late seventh- or early eighth-century (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology. This copy (the codex Epternacensis; fols. 2-33 of the early eighth-century Paris ms. Latin 10837), which transmits an older state of the text than those found in other manuscripts, preserves a localization _In spanis civit[ate] tolosa_ whose initial part will already have been out of date when the (ps.-)HM as we have it was put together, Toulouse having been Frankish from 507 onward. The _In spanis_ portion of this entry must go back to a predecessor from the fifth or very early sixth century when the city in question was the capital of the Visigothic kingdom. In all likelihood, the particular day does as well.
Some period-pertinent images of St. Saturninus of Toulouse:
a) as portrayed in relief (martyrdom) on a very late eleventh-century capital (no. 55) devoted to him in the cloister (consecrated, 1100) of the abbey of Saint-Pierre at Moissac:
http://architecture.relig.free.fr/images/moissac/cloitre/saturnin.jpg
http://www.toursud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/moissac-cloister-st-sernin.jpg
b) as four times depicted in relief by the Master of Cabestany (attrib.) on the late twelfth-century so-called Sarcophagus of St.-Sernin -- in fact a reliquary -- in the church of the former abbey of St.-Sernin (later, St.-Hilaire) in Saint-Hilaire (Aude):
1) side panel (at center, betw. Sts. Honestus and Papulus):
http://tinyurl.com/gly97vz
2) front (at right, being seized at the capitolium; at left, martyrdom) :
http://tinyurl.com/zdjzg6d
2a) detail view (being seized):
http://tinyurl.com/zxoqs34
2b) detail view (martyrdom):
http://tinyurl.com/hnqzfx4
3) side panel (his funeral):
http://tinyurl.com/jdtnkxv
c) as portrayed in relief (martyrdom) on the left pillar of the left portal of the late twelfth- or earlier thirteenth-century south facade (ca. 1195-1230) of the basilique cathédrale Notre-Dame in Chartres:
http://tinyurl.com/yzmlsx2
The question mark in the caption is perplexing. Can anyone suggest another bishop-saint customarily said to have been dragged by a bovid down a set of steps?
d) as depicted (martyrdom) in the late twelfth-century Navarre Picture Bible (1197; Amiens, Bibliothèque Louis Aragon, ms. 108, fol. 214v):
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht3/IRHT_060354-p.jpg
e) as portrayed in relief (lower register) on the very late thirteenth- or very early fourteenth-century tympanum (before 1306) of the main portal of the iglesia de San Saturnino in Artajona (Navarra):
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/19452147.jpg
f) as depicted (martyrdom) in an historiated initial "S" in a fourteenth-century copy, from the diocese of Girona, of a Catalan-language version of the _Legenda aurea_ (Paris, BnF, ms. Espagnol 44, fol. 242v [continue clicking on the image for increasingly higher resolution]):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b52506309k/f490.item.zoom
g) as depicted (martyrdom) in an earlier fourteenth-century copy of the _Legenda aurea_, from the workshop of Richard and Jeanne de Montbaston, in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (1348; Paris: BnF, ms. Français 241, fol. 319r):
http://tinyurl.com/yg7z7ay
h) as depicted in semi-grisaille 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. 101r):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84557843/f207.image.zoom
i) as depicted (martyrdom) in a late fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century copy of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Rennes, Bibliothèque de Rennes Métropole, ms. 266, fol. 329v):
http://tinyurl.com/ztczghp
j) as depicted in an historiated initial "D" in the early fifteenth-century Châteauroux Breviary (ca. 1414; Châteauroux, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 2, fol. 429v):
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht2/IRHT_054287-p.jpg
k) as depicted (martyrdom; no bull) in a later fifteenth-century copy from Bruges of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay followed by the _Festes nouvelles_ attributed to Jean Golein (ca. 1460-1470; Mâcon, Médiathèque municipale, ms. 3, fol. 78r):
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht6/IRHT_095333-p.jpg
l) as depicted (martyrdom; preparation for burial) in a late fifteenth-century copy of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (ca. 1480-1490; Paris: BnF, ms. Français 245, fol. 193r):
http://tinyurl.com/yj3q8gj
Best,
John Dillon
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