Today, 4 October, is the feast of...
Ammon, monk (350): After 18 years of continent marriage, he and his wife
separated: he to the desert, she remaining in her house with other
religious women, who were visited and directed by Ammon twice a year.
Became friend of Antony the Great, who saw in a vision Ammon's soul
ascend to Heaven when he died (despite being very far away).
Petronius, bishop of Bologna (445): Built monastery dedicated to Stephen
the protomartyr, and remodeled the city's churches so that they
reproduced (roughly, at least) the holy places of Jerusalem.
Francesco d'Assisi (1226): Noted stigmatist. Founder of Order of Friars
Minor. According to *Journal of Paleopathology* 3 (1991) 133-135, his
blindness was most likely caused by iridocyclitis. (Another
20-century diagnosis.) Francis requested to be buried in the criminals'
cemetery on the Colle d'Inferno, but his body was brought to church of
St George in Assisi, where it remained until 1230 when it was secretly
removed to the great basilica; there it remained hidden until 1818,
after a 52-day search found it deep beneath the high altar of the lower
church. The most beloved of medieval saints?
Last year Gary Dickson added this interesting tidbit:
Several years ago I read an article in *Franciscan Studies* (Ithink it
was), suggesting that Francis died of leprosy. Now a current item in
*Mediaeval Studies* argues that Margery Kempe had a neurological
complaint. The fashion for medicalizing medieval figures goes on.
Bibliog. note: the best very concise chronological-bibliographical
account of Francis's life has now appeared. It is by Roberto Rusconi
and can be found in the latest volume ('F') of the *Diz. Biog. Ital.*,
which, so far as I know, is the best biographical dictionary in the
western world. I do hope that the rumours which I have heard that
publication of this great work is to be suspended through lack if funds
is untrue.
Gary Dickson
University of Edinburgh
****************************
Dr Carolyn Muessig
Department of Theology and Religious Studies
University of Bristol
Bristol BS8 1TB
UK
phone: +44(0)117-928-8168
fax: +44(0)117-929-7850
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
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