medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today's Gordian -- he has at least one homonym in the sanctoral firmament, Gordian of Cappadocia -- is a Roman martyr traditionally linked with a saint named Epimachus. Seemingly they had nothing to do with each other until they came to be celebrated jointly. Probably they were buried near each other, though the indications of their resting places vary and sometimes Gordian alone is mentioned. Epimachus in particular has numerous homonyms in the sanctoral firmament and it is sometimes thought that the saint whose name is coupled with Gordian's was an Alexandrian martyr whose relics had earlier been brought to Rome.
Early medieval constructions of Gordian of Rome differ greatly. A probably mid-sixth century inscription in eleven dactylic hexameters, formerly ascribed to pope St. Damasus I, records the restoration of the tomb of a child martyr named Gordian who is presumed to have been today's saint. More influential for later understandings of Gordian and Epimachus is a legendary Passio (BHL 3612; Greek-language version: BHG 2165) whose basic outlines were already formed by the early eighth century, when St. Bede the Venerable drew on them for his martyrology. This makes Gordian a highly placed subordinate of Julian the Apostate who after slaying many Christians is himself baptized, suffers martyrdom, and is buried in a place on the Via Latina where Epimachus had already been laid to rest. Seventh-century lists of the resting places of Roman martyrs note Gordian's burial in Epimachus' church on that site; in the eighth century this was referred to as the church of Gordian and Epimachus. The originally eighth-century abbey of Kempten in the Allgäu, whose co-patrons after the BVM were Gordian and Epimachus, claimed to have received many relics of these saints from Hildegard, the wife of Bl. Charlemagne. The martyrs' joint feast on this day was a staple of Roman-rite calendars from the early Middle Ages until its removal from the Roman Calendar in the latter's revisions promulgated in 1969. The revised Roman Martyrology of 2001 commemorates Gordian on this day while noting in his _laterculus_ that he was buried in a crypt where previously St. Epimachus had been venerated.
Some period-pertinent images of St. Gordian of Rome:
a) as depicted (with St. Epimachus) in a mid-thirteenth-century gradual for the Use of the abbey of Notre-Dame at Fontevrault (ca. 1250-1260; Limoges, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 2, fol. 138r):
http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht1/IRHT_043497-p.jpg
b) as depicted (martyrdom) in a late thirteenth-century copy of French origin of the _Legenda aurea_ (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 63r):
http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/ds/huntington/images//000874A.jpg
c) as depicted (martyrdom) 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. 231v):
http://tinyurl.com/2bkaljt
d) as depicted (martyrdom) in a mid-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. 133r):
http://tinyurl.com/2bgkfhv
e) as depicted (martyrdom; over the corpse of the martyred St. Epimachus) in the later fourteenth-century Breviary of Charles V (ca. 1364-1370; Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 1052, fol. 373v):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84525491/f756.item.zoom
f) as depicted (with St. Epimachus) in a later fourteenth-century Roman missal of north Italian origin (ca. 1370; Avignon, Bibliothèque-Médiathèque Municipale Ceccano, ms. 136, fol. 239v):
http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht2/IRHT_055307-p.jpg
g) 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. 143r):
http://tinyurl.com/jeyezj8
h) as twice depicted (martyrdom) in an early fifteenth-century copy of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay followed by the _Festes nouvelles_ attributed to Jean Golein (ca. 1401-1425; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 242, fols. 115r, 310r):
1) fol. 115r (miniature at left):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8426005j/f245.item.zoom
2) fol. 310r:
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8426005j/f637.item.zoom
i) as depicted (martyrdom; over the corpse of the martyred St. Epimachus) in an early fifteenth-century copy of the _Elsässische Legenda aurea_ (1419; Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Pal. germ. 144, fol. 377r):
http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cpg144/0777
j) as depicted (right margin at bottom; with St. Epimachus) in a hand-colored woodcut in the Beloit College copy of Hartmann Schedel's late fifteenth-century _Weltchronik_ (_Nuremberg Chronicle_; 1493) at fol. CXXXIIv:
https://www.beloit.edu/nuremberg/book/6th_age/left_page/36%20%28Folio%20CXXXIIv%29.pdf
k) as depicted (at left; at right, St. Epimachus) in an early sixteenth-century illumination (1510) in volume 1 (1460-1567) of the matriculation register of the rectorate of the University of Basel (Basel: Universitätsbibliothek, cod. AN II 3, fol. 126v):
http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/ubb/AN-II-0003/126v
Best,
John Dillon
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