medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture



Leonard of Noblac (also Leonard of Limoges; d. 6th cent., supposedly) is first heard from in the early years of the eleventh century.  A little before 1028, St. Fulbert of Chartres received through an intermediary a request from the bishop of Limoges to write a Vita of Leonard; very shortly after that, Adémar of Chabannes (not yet notorious for his historical falsifications) wrote in his _Historiae_ that in 1017 Leonard, a confessor in the Limousin, had become popular for his miracles.  By a little after 1030, Leonard had a legendary Vita (BHL 4862; not by Fulbert) that made him a Frankish noble who was both a close friend of Clovis and a disciple of St. Remigius.  Clovis was said to have given Leonard the power, which he used liberally, to obtain from him the release of prisoners.  This trait made Leonard a natural recourse for ordinary people who had fallen afoul of the justice of local lords; before the century was out, it would also make him popular with pilgrims and with Crusaders.



Still according to the legend, Leonard declined the offer of a bishopric and instead became a monk at Micy and later an hermit in the Limousin, where he founded his subsequently famous abbey at Noblac (today's Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat [Haute-Vienne]).  The land for this foundation is said in the Vita to have been given to Leonard in recompense for his having obtained through his prayers an easy childbirth for Clovis' queen.  Aid to pregnant women was an element of Leonard's construction that drew many to this abbey and to his later cult sites.



The abbey at Noblac lay on one of the pilgrim routes across France toward Compostela and benefited mightily from this.  An Italian-language account is here:

http://www.chiesainrete.it/arciconfraternita/libro/cap_15.htm

And a brief French-language one, with expandable views, is here:

http://architecture.relig.free.fr/noblat.htm

Other views:

http://www.chiesainrete.it/arciconfraternita/vedo-citta.htm

http://tinyurl.com/66jd6h

http://tinyurl.com/34k2ted

http://tinyurl.com/2g9mhvk

http://tinyurl.com/5rzwzv

http://tinyurl.com/65gk5f

Leonard's tomb:

http://tinyurl.com/66sokf



Today (6. November) is Leonard's feast day in Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat and his day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology.





Some period-pertinent images of St. Leonard of Noblac:



a) as depicted (freeing a prisoner) in an eleventh-century fresco in the nave of the église St.-Christophe in Montferrand-du-Périgord (Dordogne):

http://tinyurl.com/q9wclto



b) as depicted (lower right, after Sts. Lawrence of Rome and Martin of Tours) in a twelfth-century icon of Byzantine origin or inspiration in the Holy Monastery of the God-trodden Mount Sinai in St. Catherine (South Sinai governorate):

http://sinai.princeton.edu/sinai/files/original/6157/0352.jpg

Detail view (lower register) in different light:

http://sinai.princeton.edu/sinai/files/original/6157/3609.jpg



c) as depicted (in the six-o'clock position) in the early twelfth-century mosaics (ca. 1100-1120; restored, earlier nineteenth century) in the cupola di San Leonardo in Venice's basilica cattedrale patriarcale di San Marco:

http://www.wga.hu/art/zgothic/mosaics/6sanmarc/2cusouth.jpg

Detail views:

http://www.mosaicocidm.it/Mosaico/images/immagini_scheda/ve_sm_252-med.jpg

http://www.mosaicocidm.it/Mosaico/images/immagini_scheda/ve_sm_253-med.jpg



d) as depicted in the mid- to slightly later twelfth-century mosaics in the Cappella Palatina in Palermo:

http://tinyurl.com/osmofqe

http://tinyurl.com/2xc8x3



e) as portrayed (protecting a donor-sized prisoner) in a worn relief on the later twelfth-century ornamental portal (ca. 1170-1180) from the chiesa di San Leonardo al Frigido at Massa (MS) in Tuscany in The Cloisters Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York:

http://tinyurl.com/qe7grhe

The portal:

http://tinyurl.com/osuo7au



f) as portrayed (at upper right, with two prisoners) in a late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century polychromed sandstone relief from Zamora in The Cloisters Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York:

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/472278

http://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/cl/original/cdi16-142.jpg



g) as depicted in a thirteenth-century glass window of the Pfarrkirche Hl. Michael at St Michael im Lungau (Land Salzburg):

http://www.burgenseite.com/faschen/st_michael_faces_6.jpg



h) as depicted (at left in the central panel, flanking the BVM; at right in that panel, St. Peter) by the Master of the Magdalen in a later thirteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1270) in the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT:

http://tinyurl.com/23gd7ko



i) as depicted in a late thirteenth-century copy of French origin of the _Legenda aurea_ (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 144r):

http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/ds/huntington/images//000907A.jpg



j) as portrayed in an early fourteenth-century partly gilt sandstone statue (ca. 1310) in the Dom St. Kilian in Würzburg:

http://tinyurl.com/j39xvxt



k) as depicted (second from right; holding manacles) in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (ca. 1326-1350) of the crkva Sv. Marije Magdalene in Šorići, a locality of Kanfanar (Istarska županija) in Croatia:

http://tinyurl.com/ne4cgz2



l) as depicted (two scenes) in an earlier fourteenth-century copy of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (ca. 1326-1350; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 185, fol. 126r):

http://tinyurl.com/2fsskvp



m) as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century French-language legendary of Parisian origin with illuminations attributed to the Fauvel Master (ca. 1327; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 183, fol. 188v):

http://tinyurl.com/yentmo3



n) as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century copy, from the workshop of Richard and Jeanne de Montbaston, of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (1348; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 241, fol. 278v):

http://tinyurl.com/yj6v6to



o) as depicted in a later fourteenth-century copy of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language translation by Jean de Vignay (ca. 1370-1380; Paris, BnF, ms. Nouvelle acquisition française 15944, fol. 37v):

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8449708p/f82.item.zoom



p) as portrayed in a late medieval statue on the Stadtpfarrkirche zum Hl. Leonhard in Bad Sankt Leonhard im Lavanttal (Land Kärnten):

http://tinyurl.com/23swl3



q) as depicted (at left, preaching) in a late fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century copy of the _Legenda aurea_ (Rennes, Bibliothèque de Rennes Métropole, ms. 266, fol. 290r):

http://tinyurl.com/j8sk538



r) as depicted (at left; at right, St. Christina of Bolsena) in a fifteenth-century fresco in the basilica di Santa Cristina in Bolsena:

http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Christina11.jpg



s) as depicted in a fifteenth-century fresco in the chiesa di San Michele in Isnello (PA) in Sicily:

http://tinyurl.com/qh85drp



t) as depicted in a fifteenth-century fresco in the chiesa di Santa Maria a Piazza in Aversa (CE) in Campania:

http://tinyurl.com/pp2q452



u) as portrayed on a fifteenth-century pilgrim's badge of French or English origin in The Cloisters Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York:

http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/469900



v) as depicted (at far left) on the fifteenth-century rood screen of the Church of St John the Baptist in Ashton (Devon):

http://tinyurl.com/asrtmqv



w) as depicted (at right; at left, the BVM and Christ Child) in a fifteenth-century fresco (restored, 1981) in the cattedrale di San Pietro apostolo in Mantua:

http://tinyurl.com/phmll96



x) as depicted in an early fifteenth-century colored block print from Salzburg (ca. 1410-1420) in a later fourteenth-century copy of Bartholomaeus de Sancto Concordio, _Summa Pisana_ and other texts (Graz, UB, Ms. 243):

http://sosa2.uni-graz.at/sosa/katalog/katalogisate/1703/druckfrag/Ms%20243%20SPH.jpg



y) as depicted by the Master of Sir John Fastolf in an earlier fifteenth-century book of hours of French or English origin (ca. 1430-1440; Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, ms. 5, fol. 43v):

http://tinyurl.com/pyqjlfe



z) as depicted (at left, with prisoners) in the earlier to mid-fifteenth-century Hours of Jean Dunois (betw. 1436 and 1450; London, BL, MS Yates Thompson 3, fol. 269v):

http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=yates_thompson_ms_3_f269v



aa) as depicted (at right, freeing a prisoner) by the court workshop of Frederick III in a mid-fifteenth-century copy of the _Legenda aurea_ (1446-1447; Vienna, ÖNB, cod. 326, fol. 260v):

http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7006895.JPG



bb) as depicted (at left; at right, St. Catherine of Alexandria) in a mid- or later fifteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1450-1470; from a rood screen in St John's Church, Maddermarket, Norwich) in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London:

http://tinyurl.com/nab983p



cc) as depicted (refusing Clovis' offer of a bishopric) in panels from a mid-fifteenth-century altarpiece (ca. 1455; formerly in the Filialkirche zum Hl. Leonhard in Bad Aussee [Land Steiermark]) in the diocesan museum in Graz:

1) performing an exorcism:

http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7000769.JPG

2) easing the queen's childbirth:

http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7000771.JPG

3) refusing Clovis' offer of a bishopric:

http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7000783.JPG

4) building his monastery near Limoges:

http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7000774.JPG

5) freeing a young man from demonic possession:

http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7000780.JPG

6) releasing prisoners:

http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7000766.JPG

7) releasing prisoners:

http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7000777.JPG

8) venerated by those he had assisted:

http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7000767.JPG



dd) as depicted (at right, freeing two prisoners) on a detached bifolium illuminated by Johann Bämler (1457; New York, The Morgan Library and Museum, Morgan Ms. M.45, fol. 2r):

http://ica.themorgan.org/manuscript/page/2/77489



ee) as depicted by Simon Marmion in the later fifteenth-century Hastings Hours (ca. 1480, London, BL, Add MS 54782, fol. 39r):

http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_54782_f039r



ff) as depicted (right margin, second image from top) in a hand-colored woodcut in the Beloit College copy of Hartmann Schedel's late fifteenth-century _Weltchronik_ (1493; _Nuremberg Chronicle_), fol. CXLVIr:

https://www.beloit.edu/nuremberg/book/6th_age/right_page/49%20(Folio%20CXLVIr).pdf



gg) as portrayed in a late fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century polychromed and gilt statue (ca. 1500) in the Augustiner-Museum in Rattenberg (Land Tirol):

http://tinyurl.com/hjla44g



hh) as portrayed in relief (at center, betw. Sts. Vitus and George at left and Sts. Aegidius / Giles and Dionysius / Denys at right) on the early sixteenth-century tomb of the Kurfürstin Anna (1512) in the Münster St. Marien und Jakobus Heilsbronn (Lkr. Ansbach) in Bayern:

http://tinyurl.com/335896j



Best,

John Dillon



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