medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Lambert of Zaragoza is a very poorly documented saint whose previously unrecorded tomb was found in Zaragoza's iglesia (now: basilica) de Santa Engracia in 1389 along with those of the ancient Martyrs of Zaragoza (16. April).  The late antique and early medieval sources for those saints are silent about him and his Frankish name suggests a rather later existence.  Who he was and when he lived are unknown.  Most of the skeletal remains said to be his were lost when his tomb was destroyed in an explosion in the crypt of Santa Engracia in August 1808 as the French withdrew from their positions in and at the monastery at the end of their first siege of Zaragoza in that year; the remaining fragment is in a reliquary and is not known to have been sampled for isotope dating.

Because of the proximity of his tomb to those of attested martyrs, Lambert too is traditionally accounted a martyr.  The aforementioned bone fragment (a piece of jaw) is said to have to have emitted blood when it was touched by the future pope Adrian VI, a native of Utrecht who served in Spain during the years 1515-1522 (his awareness of his own city's St. Lambert may have sparked an interest in this Spanish homonym).  Lambert is represented as a cephalophore on Santa Engracia's early sixteenth-century ornamental portal (1512-1519) and in his legendary lections in Zaragoza's breviary of 1573.  This latter text (BHL 4673), thought to be of early modern origin, makes him a martyr under Diocletian.

Today is Lambert's feast day in the diocese of Zaragoza and in other dioceses in Aragon.  It is also his day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology.

Lambert as portrayed on the early sixteenth-century portal of the basilica de Santa Engracia in Zaragoza:
http://tinyurl.com/28gt2sv
Two distance views:
http://tinyurl.com/y28awfb
http://tinyurl.com/2drzey9

Best,
John Dillon

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