medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (11. April) is the feast day of:
1) Antipas (d. 1st cent.). No, this is not Herod Antipas, somehow miraculously converted to Christianity and venerated as a saint. Rather, it's the A. identified as a martyr at Apocalypse 2:13. His undated legendary Passio (BHG 138; not necessarily the one known to Andrew of Caesarea in the seventh[?] century) makes him bishop of Pergamum and has him arrested in his old age and martyred, after undergoing interrogation and refusing to make the obligatory sacrifice, by being burned in a bronze bull in a temple of Artemis.
A. as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322) in the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, either Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/ycxlqvs
http://tinyurl.com/yed8xtm
TAN (just barely): A. as depicted in the later sixteenth-century frescoes (1560; Cretan school) in the katholikon of the Roussano monastery in Meteora (Trikala prefecture) in central Greece:
http://tinyurl.com/qqsrw5
2) Domnius of Salona (d. ca. 304). D. (also Domnio; in Croatian, Duje) is entered for today, without companions, in the later fourth-century Syriac Martyrology. The _Chronicle of 395_ says that he and Felix suffered at Salona (the late antique capital of Dalmatia; today's Solin in Croatia) under Diocletian and Maximian. The (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology also enters D. under today and identifies him as a bishop. In some of its witnesses the numbered milestone of D.'s reported place of sepulture has been transmogrified into a number of soldiers said to have been his companions in martyrdom. Usuard followed the (ps.-)HM in placing D. on this date and in giving him unnamed soldier-companions.
Late antique inscriptions from Salona give D.'s _dies natalis_ as 10. April. One of these was inscribed on the tomb of D.'s nephew, bishop Primus, at Solin's necropolis of Manastrine. It is likely that D. too found interment there and that the fifth-century basilica at this location that housed the tombs of a number of Salona's early bishops was D.'s martyrion. Here's a view of an open tomb that from its position in this structure has been identified as his:
http://tinyurl.com/5q6rez
An illustrated, English language page on early Christian Salona is here:
http://www.mdc.hr/split-arheoloski/eng/salona-2.html
More views:
http://www.lacroacia.es/images/solin3.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/5z6bqu
http://tinyurl.com/3k8d7d
In the very early seventh century Salona was taken over by Slavs. A few decades later D.'s relics were translated to the nearby Roman town of Spalatum, today's Split, where they were used to consecrate the new cathedral utilizing the emperor Diocletian's mausoleum inside what had been his palace. Herewith some views of Split's katedral Sv. Duje, including its thirteenth-century pulpit and its twelfth- to sixteenth-century belltower:
http://www.find-croatia.com/photos-croatia/split/cathedral2.html
http://www.pmfst.hr/razno/entropy/index_clip_image002_0003.jpg
http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/palace.exhibit/53.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/gdufj
http://www.st.carnet.hr/split/mauzolej.html
http://www.split24.de/foto.php?ort=duje
By this time and perhaps as early as the fourth century a Passio of D. had come into existence. We know it in later texts, chiefly BHL 2269, Thomas the Archdeacon's thirteenth-century version incorporated into his _Historia Salonitanorum atque Spalatinorum pontificum_. Some of the Passio's details ring true, e.g. D.'s being of Syrian and Greek extraction and his execution in the amphitheatre of Salona, shown here:
http://www.lacroacia.es/images/solin4.jpg
But it also includes an assertion of apostolic foundation for the church of Salona through D.'s allegedly having been sent from Antioch to Salona by St. Peter. When, and under what circumstances, this claim arose is controversial. An argument by Vadim B. Prozorov ("The Passion of St. Domnius: the Tradition of Apostolic Succession in Dalmatia") in favor of the sixth century and including a survey of the various positions appeared in _Scrinium_ 2 (2006).
In this view of the seventh-century apse mosaic of the chapel of St. Venantius (or of Sts. Venantius and Domnius) erected by pope John IV (a Dalmatian) at the Lateran Baptistry, D. is the second figure from the right:
http://www.santamelania.it/arte_fede/giovbatt/imgs/img02.jpg
Detail (D. at left):
http://www.jemolo.com/alta/ro430.jpg
A thirteenth- or fourteenth-century image of D. from Split is shown at left here:
http://www.mgst.net/Izlozbe/2002drv.htm
3) Isaac of Spoleto (d. 6th cent.). According to the _Dialogues_ of pope St. Gregory the Great (3. 14), I. (also I. the Syrian, I. of Monteluco) was a Syrian who, late in the fifth century, arrived one day at Spoleto, entered a church, and stayed there praying for three days. A custodian, angered by I.'s obvious unwillingness to leave the premises, called him a fraud and beat him. When the custodian immediately succumbed to diabolic possession, he was cured by his charitable victim (or perhaps he just calmed down a bit and regained his composure). Locals, hearing of this miracle, offered land and money to the holy man that he might build a monastery in the vicinity.
I., whose absolute dedication to the ideal of monastic poverty Gregory emphasizes, refused all these offers and, going out into adjacent uninhabited territory, built for himself a hovel in which he lived as a hermit. In time, adherents collected around him, forming a monastic community which recognized I. as its leader. I. continued to live very austerely; he also performed several miracles by which he confounded people who wished to take advantage of him.
Although Gregory provides no reason to suppose that I.'s hermitage must have been located on the nearby height of Monteluco, a later Benedictine monastery there claimed him as its founder and honored his presumed remains at its church of Santa Giulia. Papenbroeck's _Praefatio_ to the account of I. in the _Acta Sanctorum_ poked numerous holes in the versions of this story known to him. Nonetheless, today's RM continues to commemorate I. as the founder of the monastery at Monteluco.
In 1143 a church in Spoleto proper that had been built over the remains of an ancient temple and adjacent space in what had been the city's Roman-period forum was dedicated to saints Ansanus and Isaac. Its crypt (now called that of saint Isaac), which seems to be of eleventh-century origin and whose floor consists of paving stones from the forum, contained a twelfth-century sarcophagus enclosing I.'s presumed remains said to have been translated from Santa Giulia. The sarcophagus is now located in a museum in Cardinal Albornoz' great fortress above the city (1359-1370); the crypt, which survived when the original church was first reworked in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and then replaced by the present Sant'Ansano at the end of the eighteenth, houses a copy.
A view of Sant'Ansano's cripta di Sant'Isacco is here:
http://tinyurl.com/yapntdz
A different view will be found on this page, which also lists the subjects (insofar as these are identifiable) of the recently restored late eleventh- and/or early twelfth-century frescoes which adorn the crypt:
http://www.conventosantansano.it/cripta_di_sisacco.htm
I.'s sarcophagus is visible (just not very well) at right here:
http://tinyurl.com/3xog54
4) Barsanuphius of Gaza (d. ca. 540). This less well known saint of the Regno is generally referred to simply as Barsanuphius, there usually being little pragmatic need to distinguish him from his homonym (and fellow Egyptian), B. the companion in martyrdom of St. Dabamon. He spent many years as a solitary near a monastery at Gaza, speaking only with a monk named Seridos who became his disciple, functioned as his secretary and messenger, and under B.'s direction supervised the life of the monastery. As B.'s reputation for sanctity grew, others sought his guidance. This he dispensed in the form of written responsa. To dispel doubt in his physical existence he on one occasion came out of seclusion and washed the feet of monks. A collection of over eight hundred letters of advice from B. and from his fellow solitary St. John of Gaza survives.
As far as we know, B. did not receive a cult at his grave. A late twelfth- or very early thirteenth-century Translation account (BHL 1000) from today's Oria (BR) in southern Apulia has B.'s remains brought from Palestine to Oria (long a largely Greek-speaking place) in perhaps the mid-ninth century, lost sight of after a Muslim conquest of the town (there were several of these from the later ninth century into the eleventh), rediscovered there in 1170, and then deposited in Oria's principal church (in whose eighteenth-century successor, now a cathedral, they reside today). B., known locally as San Barsanofio, is Oria's patron saint. His principal feast there falls on 30. August and commemorates his two translations. In Orthodox calendars B. is commemorated on 6. February.
In the absence of views of B.'s putative relics at Oria (an arm is particularly venerated), herewith an illustrated page by Giuseppe Dalfino on the originally ninth(?)-century church Santa Maria di Gallana at Oria:
http://www.mondimedievali.net/pre-testi/gallana.htm
5) Guthlac (d. 715). G. was a Mercian warrior who underwent a religious conversion, spent two years at the monastery at Repton in today's Derbyshire, and then became a hermit in the East Anglian fens before establishing himself at Croyland, now spelled as Crowland, in Lincolnshire. His sister St. Pega opened his grave a year after his death, found his body to be incorrupt, and placed it in a memorial chapel. The latter was soon honored by Æthelbald, king of the Mercians, who before he was king is said to have spent time with G. at Croyland and who clearly had a special devotion to him. Croyland Abbey grew up on the site. In the eighth century G. received a Vita by Felix of Croyland (BHL 3723).
The early thirteenth-century Guthlac Roll in the British Library (Harley Roll, Y.6) commemorates G. pictorially. Here's an expandable view of its depiction of G., aided by St. Bartholomew, preparing to defend himself against demons intent on carrying him off to Hell:
http://tinyurl.com/dzqy8n
A detail from one of this manuscript's roundels, showing Pega and G., and reproductions of two further roundels are here:
http://www.umilta.net/pega.html
An expandable view of the opening of Felix' Vita of G. (London, BL, Cotton MS Nero C VII, f.29v) is here:
http://tinyurl.com/dkdche
An expandable view of the thirteenth-century Crowland Gradual's decorated initial and music for G.'s feast is here:
http://tinyurl.com/cl73mo
6) Stanislas of Cracow (d. 1079). C. was a canon of Cracow cathedral who became bishop there in 1072. He fell afoul of king Boleslas II, whom he is said to have reproached repeatedly for various cruelties and for infidelity in marriage. His assassination was blamed on B., who in one account is reported to have murdered S. himself. S. was canonized by Innocent IV in 1253. He is one of Poland's patron saints.
S.'s chapel in the lower church of St. Francis at Assisi has an earlier fourteenth-century depiction of S.'s martyrdom (expandable view):
http://tinyurl.com/yspxr3
An earlier sixteenth-century depiction, now in the National Museum in Poznań:
http://tinyurl.com/2mg6t9
7) Landuin (Bl.; d. 1116?). Another less well known holy person of the Regno, L. (also Lanuin; in Italian, Lanuino) was one of St. Bruno the Carthusian's early companions at what became the Grande Chartreuse and was that community's prior designate when he accompanied B. to Rome in 1090 at the behest of Urban II. When in 1091 Bruno established a new hermitage deep in the woods of southern Calabria at a place called La Torre that had been given him by Roger I, count of Sicily, L. was back at the first Carthusian settlement. In 1099 L. was at La Torre to consult with Bruno and in 1101, after Bruno's death, he became master of the entire Carthusian community. L. stayed at La Torre; if the highly suspect early Carthusian documents are to be credited, he performed important missions as Paschal II's representative in Roger I's Calabrian and insular Sicilian domains.
The late twelfth-century martyrology of the Carthusian house of Santo Stefano del Bosco outside of today's Serra San Bruno (VV) in Calabria records L.'s death on this day in the year 1116 and styles him _beatus_. Modern historians tend to place his some five years later. L.'s cult was confirmed papally in 1893.
8) Angelo of Chivasso (Bl.; d. ca. 1495). A. (also Angelo Carletti) was a Piedmontese noble who after some years in the practice of law obtained a doctorate in theology and at the age about thirty became an Observant Franciscan in his order's Genoese province. Ordained priest, he taught theology at a convent in the vicinity of Genoa, became acquainted his provincial, Francesco della Rovere (the future Sixtus IV), and occupied various positions of responsibility within the order, e.g. provincial vicar in 1462 and 1467 and vicar general of the Observants in Italy for the triennia 1472-1475, 1478-1481, 1485-1488, and 1490-1493.
In 1480 Sixtus IV put A. in charge of organizing and financing the crusade he had proclaimed against the Turks who had taken Otranto, a time-consuming and unproductive obligation from which A. at least once tried to be released but which the pope continued to place upon him even after the expulsion of the Turks from the Regno in September 1481. In 1491 Innocent VIII put A. in charge of the crusade he had proclaimed against the Valdensians of France and Savoy, an effort A. was able to conclude in 1493 without actually resorting to arms.
A preacher of distinction, A. also served as spiritual director for such north Italian notables as St. Catherine of Genoa, Bl. Paola Gambara, and Carlo I of Savoy. His confessor's manual _Summa casuum conscientiae_ (sometimes differentiated from other bearers of this generic title as the _Summa angelica_) was very popular and went through many printings. Eleven in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (BSB) in Munich that have now been digitized are accessible from here:
http://tinyurl.com/y8mbzah
A.'s cult was confirmed papally in 1753.
A. spent his last days at the Franciscan convent in Cuneo, whose now ex-chiesa di San Francesco, an originally earlier fifteenth-century expansion of a thirteenth(?)-century church of the same dedication, was modified at times in the early modern period and was restored in the twentieth century. Its present facade dates from the late 1920s but preserves a fifteenth-century portal and other elements from a predecessor completed in 1523. Two views:
http://www.comune.cuneo.it/cultura/museo/complesso.html
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/11323822.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post lightly revised and with the additions of Antipas and Angelo of Chivasso)
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