As
I mentioned in my previous blogpost, I am currently working as a member of a
research project which, among other things, involves identifying which saints have
been celebrated in medieval calendars. While this might sound straightforward
and fairly simple, it is very often anything but. Certainly, a lot of saints
are easily identifiable because they were widely venerated, because they were
famous, because they came into being late enough for us to have a good
understanding of their cult, or because they have names that are not easily
confused with the names of other saints. But there are also others: Saints
whose cults began in obscure circumstances, or who never attained great popularity,
or whose names are shared by a wide number of saints – some of whom perhaps
more famous – and whose identities can therefore be difficult to ascertain, especially
in the modern world where material has been lost to the Protestant Reformation,
or where cults of doubtful authenticity have either been removed from
catalogues by church councils, or relegated to the status of curiosities.
Luckily, there are plenty of resources for scholars who try to make sense of obscure
saints, but even these resources might sometimes not be sufficient (as I
learned the hard way earlier today).
For all my frustrations about the time spent chasing down details that can
carry the definitive proof in an identification, and for all my teeth-grinding
annoyance about the number of saints called Maximus or Felix, my exposure to
the minutiae of medieval liturgical calendars have reminded me that I do
actually have a deep fondness for these minor saints, and that I find them
utterly fascinating. In part, I believe this fondness stems from a kind of
sympathy with neglected materials – things that have been either discarded or
overlooked because they would only yield limited results research-wise, or
because researchers sometimes are drawn to more shiny things. I know from my
own experience that it can be much more tempting to engage with a breadth of
material that keeps you occupied for years on end, especially when a saint’s
cult has had a tangible impact on historical events and inspired, or been the
centrepiece of, tomes of writing, impressive architectural projects, or art of an
outstanding and impressive quality.
Yet despite the limited amount of knowledge that can be ascertained about the
cults of minor saints, they do offer some valuable methodological challenges,
and for this reason, my fondness for small things becomes entwined with some of
the most fundamental aspects of being a historian. For instance, how do we use
these minor saints to understand the general history of the cult of saints? How
do these half-forgotten, confusing, obscure holy figures teach us something about
the way that the cult of saints was disseminated in the early history of a
newly-Christianised region? What does it tell us that some names are shared by
calendars followed in Italy, Spain, Ireland, Norway, Poland, yet appear to be
equally unknown in all these places? It is because of these questions, as well
as others, that the minor saints can be important tools in assembling a better understanding
of the historical development of medieval religion.
Some of these questions might appear easy enough at first. For instance, the
popularity of saints often tends to wax and wane over longer periods, and a
failure to regain lost popularity might be explained by a lack of miracles, the
appearance of a new cult that eclipses an older cult, or the absence of written
material sometimes needed to keep the momentum of trust going when dealing with
a saint whose role as intercessor and advocate appears to have become less
efficacious in later years. That such ebbs and tides are typical of the cult of
saints is well established, as exemplified by bouts of textual production, the
main aim of which is to reignite the popularity of an old but seemingly dormant
saint. After all, such reignition, or perhaps rediscovery, became a topos of
hagiographical writing in its own right already in the fourth century. The idea
that saints could be recovered from oblivion – perhaps of their own volition or
in response to their own hints – is the very starting point of the cult of
Gervasius and Protasius in Milan (for more on this cult, see this blogpost). We know from one of Ambrose of Milan’s
letters to his sister, Marcellina, that the archbishop actively started digging
in the ground in search for saints when he needed relics for the consecration
of his new church. The basis for this was some vague stories he had heard, and
which he decided to put to the test, and the result was the unearthing of two skeletons
who were named after the protagonists of one such vague, half-forgotten story.
In other words, we know something of the broader mechanics of how popularity
ebbs and surges in the cult of saints. Yet the finer mechanics might bring us
closer to questions about specific historical moments, or transitions of cult
material from one region to the next, or remind us that the less-celebrated
names of a calendar once commanded great devotion and received the attention of
hosts of faithful flocking to a cult site in hope or in thanksgiving. And while
much about the histories of these minor saints and their cults remain obscure
to us, we are reminded that we cannot remain content with the broader understanding.
Yes, we do know the circumstances by which the cult of Gervasius and Protasius underwent
a resurgence at the turn of the fourth century. And yes, we do know, for
instance, why Saint Sebastian’s association with plague caused a great boost
for his cult in the course of the fourteenth century. But there are other cults
whose endurance remain puzzling.
For instance, we have the case of Abdon and Sennen (see this blogpost). These two saints are of
particular curiosity to me, since their feast day, July 30, is the day after the feast
of Saint Olaf of Norway, on whom I have worked a lot since starting my PhD back
in 2014. In the calendars of medieval Norway, Abdon and Sennen were included,
and a commemoration of them was most likely performed following the
grander liturgical celebrations of Norway’s patron saint, which, in the case of the metropolitan see, was one of the liturgical high points of the year. We do not know
whether the legend of Abdon and Sennen was known to the Norwegian clergy, or whether their feast
was simply a collateral detail when the cult of saints was introduced to Norway
and materials from England and Germany served as the basic start-up kit for the
Norwegian churches. And to cast a wider perspective: We do now know exactly why
it was that these two saints of uncertain historicity came to occupy such a secure
place in the collective memory of Latin Christendom that their names continued
to be celebrated – however perfunctorily – more than a thousand years after
their supposed existence, and in geographies more or less completely unknown to
those who first put their names into writing.
Minor saints, such as Abdon and Sennen, and also such as Gervasius and Protasius, or Felix and Adauctus, or Maximus the abbot whose identity I still have not ascertained, are important figures when researching the cult of saints, because they pose impossible but productive questions. They provide insights into the mechanics of canon formation, about the balance between endurance and oblivion, about the strength of memory despite a very meagre foundation. They also force us to speculate about the reception of such seemingly empty names in newly Christianised regions, and their continuity centuries thence. It is perhaps especially useful to be exposed to the place of these minor saints in the religious life of Latin Christendom when otherwise spending most research time delving into the better known, larger cults. We are reminded that the cult of saints was a framework of many pieces great and small, and that the small pieces could have functions that we do not yet quite understand, and that they could prove important to our understanding of the structure as a whole.
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