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Yesterday, November 12, was the feast of:
Nilus of Ancyra/-of Sinai (d. c430 or a little later). The standard scholarly view of Nilus for close to a century now is that he was a disciple of St. John Chrysostom who became hegumen of a monastery at Ancyra (now the Turkish capital city Ankara) and who wrote some of the many texts attributed to him in the Patrologia Graeca (rather more of these are now attributed to Evagrius of Pontus).
Early medieval identification of Nilus with the Nilus who wrote accounts of the martyrs of Sinai commemorated on January 14 (BHG 1301-1307 plus later re-workings) led to the creation of a composite figure who in synaxary accounts and in the Historia Ecclesiastica of Nicephorus Callistus (d. c1335) is presented as a high official at Constantinople under Theodosius the Great. In these tellings Nilus gave up his brilliant worldly career and, with her consent, his wife; together with his son St. Theodulus he then became an hermit on Mt. Sinai. His son was kidnapped by Arab raiders and Nilus followed, recovering him at Eleusa. Both he and his son were ordained by the local bishop.
Nilus as depicted in an early thirteenth-century fresco (1208 or 1209), repainted in 1569, in the church of the Presentation of the Theotokos in the Studenica monastery near Kraljevo (Raška dist.) in Serbia: http://tinyurl.com/27wrkf6
Nilus as depicted in a late thirteenth- or very early fourteenth-century fresco, attributed to Manuel Panselinos, in the Protaton church on Mt. Athos: http://tinyurl.com/3654f5d Detail view: http://tinyurl.com/333nu4h
Nilus as depicted in the frescoes (between c1312-1321) in the narthex of the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo: http://tinyurl.com/2un22g2
Nilus (center, betw. Sts. John Climacus and Gerasimus) as depicted in the late fourteenth-century frescoes of the monastery of church of St. Andrew at Matka in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia: http://tinyurl.com/29a422m
Hesychius/Isice (French) II of Vienne (d. after 552). The second bearer of his name to be a sainted bishop of Vienne (his earlier homonym ruled in the later fifth century), Hesychius is known to us from the eleventh-century Liber episcopalis Viennensis ecclesiae of archbishop Leodegarius. He participated in synods at Orléans in 549 and Paris in 552 and was buried by his sister Marcellina at the tomb of St. Avitus. His verse epitaph in six strophes of an unusual form (three hendecasyllables and a quinarius), preserved by Leodegarius, says that prior to being bishop he had been quaestor in the archiepiscopal household.
Hesychius' cult is recorded in a fifteenth-century liturgical calendar from Vienne. It was confirmed papally, at the level of Saint, in 1903.
Emilian/Millan Cucullatus /de Cogolla / Aemilian of the Cowl ((Cucullatus/Cogolla means "with the hood") (d. 574) We know about Emilian (in Spanish, Millán de la Cogolla; in the Latin of the Bollandists, Aemilianus Cucullatus conf. in Tarracone) from his brief Vita by St. Braulio of Zaragoza, written some sixty year's after Emilian's death but drawing on the reminiscences of several who had known him. According to this account, at the age of twenty the shepherd Emilian (one of his attributes is a shepherd's pipe) was called by God to a life of contemplation and penitence. After a period of attachment to the hermit St. Felix, he lived in various places first as a solitary and then as an ascetic priest in his native town of Berceo. There his charity to the poor caused other clerics to slander him to the local bishop, who in turn removed Emilian from office.
Emilian then retired to the countryside in the district of today's La Rioja now known from a Spanish form of his appellation Cucullatus as la Cogolla, where he spent the remainder of his life as a hermit, dying at about age 100. Disciples whom he had attracted buried him and instituted his cult. In short order a monastery arose over his grave; this in time became the great monastic center of San Millán de la Cogolla with its two monasteries, the original de Suso and the later de Yuso ('above' and 'below'). At nearby Berceo the thirteenth-century Spanish poet Gonzalo de Berceo composed among many other works a Spanish-language Vida de San Millán de la Cogolla in honor of his fellow townsman. He is one of the patrons of Spain, and was invoked in wars against the Moors. In art, Emilian is shown on horseback, fighting Moors.
The first and third views here are of ivory panels from Emilian's eleventh-century reliquary (these panels now in the Muso Arqueológico in Madrid), showing scenes from his life: http://www.arteguias.com/romanico_sanmillancogolla.htm
The second of those shows Emilian between Sts. Asellus and Hesperius. Two other panels:
http://www.vallenajerilla.com/berceo/braulio/DVC00088bis.JPG
http://www.vallenajerilla.com/berceo/braulio/DVC00107bis.JPG
A page on reconstructions of this reliquary and that of San Felice: http://cvc.cervantes.es/actcult/camino_santiago/cuarta_etapa/san_millan/marfiles.htm
Emilian's reliquary reconstructed:
Emilian’s twelfth-century cenotaph: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Cenotafio.04.jpg
Machar/ Mauritius, Mauricius or Macharius in Latin/Mochumna/Mocumma of Aberdeen (d. c599, supposedly) is the legendary protobishop of Aberdeen. Our chief sources for him are a Middle Scots life in the late fourteenth-century Scottish Legendary and the hymn and lections for his feast as given in the late fifteenth-/early sixteenth-century Aberdeen Breviary (printed 1507). On the basis of their partial agreement it is thought that these texts derive from a now-lost, episode-rich, and quite legendary Vita of the saint. Machar is supposed to have been the son of an Irish king and his wife; angels were seen singing at his cradle and his parents in gratitude determined that he should live in God's service. When Machar was still a boy a younger brother was born stillborn; a touch from Machar revived him.
When Machar, whose name from birth had been Mocumma, was somewhat older he was given to St. Columba to be raised. Machar was a perfect adept; when at last he was ready for a life in the church Columba give him a new name, Machar. He was first into the boat at the setting off of Columba's first voyage to what now is Scotland and he was with his master at the founding of the monastery on Iona. Afterward, fleeing his growing fame (for he could effect cures), he went off on his own to evangelize among the Picts, both in the Isle of Mull and on the mainland. Divinely prompted to build a church where a river bent around in the shape of a pastoral staff, Machar found such a place on the Don not far from the sea and there established the first church at the site of the future Aberdeen.
Machar did not stay there very long. Instead, he continued his work as an itinerant evangelist. After a while Columba came to him and asked that he accompany him on a pilgrimage to Rome. Machar agreed and the two did go to Rome, though the journey was arduous. There the pope created Machar bishop of the Picts and gave him yet another name, Mauritius. On the return trip Machar and Columba stopped off at Tours to venerate St. Martin. Machar stayed at Tours, where he on account of his exceptional holiness he quickly was made bishop at the behest of the incumbent and where after three years he died, having at his deathbed received a vision of Christ and the Twelve Apostles and also Sts. Martin and Columba ready to receive his soul in heaven. The people of Tours both buried him next to St. Martin and honored his grave with an expensive shrine. Ever since Machar has worked miracles for those who turn to him.
Thus far the legend. Few will be surprised to learn that no record of Machar's time on the continent appears to have survived there, whether at Rome, Tours, or anywhere else. That part of the story is of course an explanation of Aberdeen's not possessing the body of its great saint. If anyone in the later Middle Ages were so impolite as to ask why Machar appears to have no shrine at Tours, one could always answer that the Northmen had destroyed it when they sacked Tours long ago. Water from St Machar's well at Old Aberdeen used to be used for baptisms in the cathedral of Aberdeen.
Machar's hymn and lections in the Aberdeen Breviary begin here: http://digital.nls.uk/pageturner.cfm?id=74628770
Himerius (d. c610) was a hermit in what is now French Switzerland, and also worked in the area as a missionary. The monastery of St-Imier grew up over his grave, and the valley where he lived was later renamed "Val-St-Imier" in his honor.
Martin I, pope and martyr (c. 656) was a native of Todi (Umbria). As pope he incurred the wrath of the emperor Constans II, who imprisoned then exiled him to Kherson in the Crimea, where he died. He was the last of the popes to be venerated as a martyr.
Cunibert/Kunibert/Gumpert of Köln/Cologne (d. 663?) was a member of the Frankish nobility who was educated at the court of Clothar II at Metz. He served kings Dagobert I and (St.) Sigibert III in various capacities. He became archdeacon of Trier and in 623, under Sigibert, was named archbishop of Köln. During Sigibert's minority he was regent of Austrasia. His ecclesiastical activities are not well known, though several unreliable Lives ascribe various foundations to him, including the monastery of Stablo-Malmedy.
An illustrated page on the earlier fourteenth-century (c1330-1340) St. Kunibert window in Köln's cathedral of St. Peter and the BVM:
http://www.koelner-dom.de/17405.html
Cadwaladr (d. 664) was a king of Gwynedd, who won such a great reputation for piety and love of peace that he won the nickname "battle-shunner."
Cumian, abbot (c. 665) was the son of Fiachna, king of West Munster. He founded a house at Kilcummin in Offaly, where he introduced the Roman computation of Easter.
Cadwalladr Fendigaid (d. c682) was king of the Cymri, who fought for his people against the Saxons and was badly defeated. According to legend, he will return to help the Welsh get rid of the Saxon invaders.
Lebuin/Liafwine/Libuinus/Libinus/Lieven/Liévin of Deventer (d. c775) According to his seemingly later ninth-century Vita, Lebuin was an Anglo-Saxon Benedictine from Ripon who, after the death of Boniface in 754 and under the direction of St. Gregory of Utrecht, evangelized among the Frisians of today's Gelderland and Overijssel. An initial success was nullified when Saxons overran the area. Lebuin persevered and died at a small church he had constructed in Saxon territory at a place that became today's Deventer. His cult is attested from the ninth century onward, primarily in the Netherlands but also in Westfalia. An English-language translation of his Vita antiqua, courtesy of Paul Halsall's Internet Medieval Sourcebook, is here: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/lebuin.html
Lebuin in fresco in the mid-fifteenth- to early sixteenth-century Lebuinuskerk (Grote Kerk) of Deventer (Overijssel): http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y203/kingsound/diversen/Lebuinus.jpg
Livinus, bishop and martyr (?) was baptized and ordained by Augustine of Canterbury. He became bishop of Dublin before evangelizing Brabant, where he got his head chopped off at Eschen near Alost. He may be the same person as Lebuin (above).
Paternus the Breton (d. c726) was a monk, first at Cessier and then at Saint-Pierre-le-Vif (near Sens). Legend tells that he was murdered by robbers, who apparently resented him trying to admonish them.
Benedict of Benevento and companions (d. 1003) Benedict is well known in Poland and in Polish communities abroad. A cathedral canon of Benevento, he was ordained priest at the age of eighteen. Regretting an act of simony, he traded in this relatively cushy life for a monastic one, first at Naples and later at Montecassino. In 1001 he had joined Romuald of Ravenna's Camaldolese community at Fonte Avellana, whence in response to a request from Otto III (in response to a request from Boleslav Chrobry of Poland) he was sent in that year along with Johanne of Classe (John of Cervia) to evangelize Slavs in Pomerania. Two years later, at Kazimierz (near Gniezno), these two missionaries together with their Polish novices Matthew and Isaac and their servant Christian were murdered by robbers intent on stealing a gift of silver they were carrying to the pope as a present from Boleslaw the Brave. They were promptly declared saints. Their cult was confirmed in 1508.
The Five Brothers, as these martyrs are called, have Vitae by Benedict's friend St. Bruno of Querfurt (Vita quinque fratrum) and by Cosmas of Prague (whither their relics were removed from Gniezno in 1039). Bruno was supposed to be a member of the group, but had gone to Rome to get license to preach and consecration as a bishop, and was then delayed in his journey to Poland until too late - his guilt, longing, and jealousy at the others attaining "glorious martyrdom" come across clearly in the text.
Astrik/Anastasius of Pannonhalma/of Esztergom (d. c1030-40) Radla, probably a Croat or a Czech, became a monk in Rome, where he took the name Anastasius. When Adalbert of Prague was forced to return to his diocese in 993, Astrik accompanied him. He became first abbot of Brevnov, but was forced to flee to Hungary. There he became an active missionary among the Magyars and first abbot of Pannonhalma (the first monastery in Hungary, founded by Stephen). Astrik then crowned his career as first archbishop of the Hungarian Church, with his see probably at Kalocsa. He is regarded as the "apostle of Hungary."
Helen of Anjou/Jelena Anžujska (Serbian) (d. 1314). The wife of one king of Serbia (St. Stefan Uroš I, r. 1243-1276) and the mother of two others (St. Stefan Dragutin, r. 1276-1282; St. Stefan Uroš II Milutin, r. 1282-1321), Helen was a Roman-Rite Catholic who importantly promoted organized religion throughout a nation that though partly Roman Catholic was majority Orthodox. According to her contemporary hagiographer the Serbian Orthodox archbishop St. Danilo II, Helen was a nobly born Frenchwoman. Her exact parentage is unknown. Her modern appellation "of Anjou" is down to her contemporaries Charles I and Charles II of Sicily having referred to her in letters and documents as a relative by extraction (consanguinea, cognata). The most recent suggestion of note makes Helen the daughter of an Hungarian nobleman and of his wife, a member of the Angevin-connected family of Courtenay and thus also a relative of the Latin emperor of Constantinople Baldwin II (d. 1273).
Helen married Stefan Uroš I in about 1245, when he was already king. In his rhetorically effective Life of Helen (it is transmitted in the collection known as the Lives of the Serbian Kings and Archbishops) Danilo presents her as a pious woman who shortly after the death of her husband suffered a severe illness and who, prompted by this reminder of her own mortality, turned to a life of charity and prayer, encouraged her sons to perform acts of charity, gave generously to the poor, founded monasteries, and provided for the support of the clergy.
Under her sons Helen had the rule of Zeta (essentially today's Montenegro plus the area of today's Albania around Shkodër/Shkodra), an officially Catholic part of the kingdom with a Catholic bishop at Kotor and a Catholic archbishop at Bar. Danilo praises her governance there and we know that she built the monastery church of St. Nicholas at Shkodër, where she spent most of her final years as a nun. Elsewhere in Serbia Helen founded the country's first school for girls at her residence at Brnjaci in today's Zubin Potok in Kosovo, founded the monastery of Gradac, and participated with her sons in other foundations and acts of support for the Serbian Orthodox Church. According to Danilo she was at Brnjaci when she succumbed to her final illness, surrounded by leading nobles and Orthodox clergy of the kingdom.
Helen was buried at Gradac, where three years later she received a formal Elevatio. Like her husband and her two kingly sons (not to mention others of their Nemanjić dynasty), she is a saint of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Like them, she has yet to grace the pages of the RM. Helen's biography by Danilo may be read in an annotated German-language translation in Stanislaus Hafner, tr., _Serbisches Mittelalter: Altserbische Herrscherbiografien (Graz: Styria, 1962-1976), vol. 2, pp. 99-144 (plus notes on pp. 290-297 and important contextual matter in Hafner's introduction).
Helen (at left) as depicted as a nun in a fresco (between c1319-1321/1322) in the narthex of the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica:
http://tinyurl.com/35vsevt , http://tinyurl.com/3yjdfga Detail (Helen): http://tinyurl.com/35tazmm
Helen (at right) as depicted as a nun in a fresco in the church of St. Achilles of Larissa (Sv. Achillius) at Arilje (Zlatibor dist.) in central Serbia, a foundation of king Dragutin: http://tinyurl.com/29myjtr Detail (Helen): http://tinyurl.com/yce744p
Giovanni della Pace (c1332 and 1433) - early this century, S. Barsotti found that there were two holy people of this name who became confused; the first was founder of the Fraticelli della Penitenza at Pisa who died c1332, but about one hundred years later there died a furrier who lived in matrimony all his life. About the latter, we know not more. However, Giovanni Cini (d. c1335) was born in Pisa in c1270. At first he was a soldier, but from 1305 on he became a hermit living in the Porta Pacis in Pisa (thus his nickname "della Pace). He was very active in organizing charity, founding several institutes to care for those in need of help. His cult won formal approval in 1857.
Gabriele Ferretti/d’Ancona (blessed) (d. 1456) Gabriele Ferretti was born in Ancona in c1385, and at the age of 18 entered the Franciscan order. He led a very active life propagating his order and encouraged the use of the devotion called the Seraphic Crown, a type of rosary in honour of the joys of the Blessed Virgin Mary. His cult was approved in 1753.
Happy reading,
Terri Morgan
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“The nice thing about studying history is that you can always find people who are a lot weirder than you are.” – Delia Sherman
