The Legend of Gordianus and Epimachus

Yesterday, May 10, was the feast of Gordianus and Epimachus.  According to tradition, both saints are believed to have suffered at the same period. As for the the time of this period, sources differ. David Farmer sets the time of their martyrdoms at around 250, which corresponds to the persecutions during the reign of Decius. In Legenda Aurea, however, sets the time to c.360, and their deaths are linked to the reign of Julian the Apostate (361-363).

Although they are usually venerated together, at least in the later medieval period, it is clear from legend that they did not suffer together, and the veneration probably comes from the fact that they were both buried in the same church, although Epimachus was buried first. In the Old English Martyrology, however, only Gordianus is mentioned in the entry for May 10:

On the tenth day of the month is the feast of the martyr St Gordianus, whose body rests in Rome, and his commemoration is to be celebrated with masses in all churches.
- The Old English Martyrology, translated by Christine Rauer, D. S. Brewer, 2013: 103

As suggested by the entry from the Martyrology, very little was known about these saints even in the Middle Ages. A more expansive, but also more unreliable, account can be found in Legenda Aurea.

Gordianus and Epimachus

Avignon - BM - ms. 0136, f.239v, Roman Missal, c.1370

Courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr

Gordianus comes from geos, which means dogma or house, and dyan, which maens bright; hence a bright house in which God dwelt. Thus Augustine says in the book The City of God: "A good house is one in which the parts fit well together, and which is spacious and full of light." So Saint Gordianus was well disposed by maintaining harmony, spacious through charity, and filled with the light of truth. Epimachus comes from epi, above, and machin, king, so a high king; or from epi, above, and machos, fight, so a fighter for the things above.

Gordianus was a commissioner of Emperor Julian. Once he was trying to compel a Christian named Januarius to sacrifice to the gods, but listened to his preaching and, with his wife Mariria and fifty-three tohers, was converted to the faith. When Julian learned of this, he sent Januarius into exile and condemned Gordianus to be beheaded if he refused to offer sacrifice. So blessed Gordianus was beheaded and his body thrown to the dogs, but when it lay untouched for a week, his retainers took it away and buried it with the body of Saint Epimachius, whom the aforestaid Julian had had put to death a short time earlier. They were buried about a mile from the city about A. D. 360.
- Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, translated by William Granger Ryan, Princeton University Press, 2012: 308-09

Gordianus and Epimachus

Limoges - BM - ms. 0002, f. 138, Gradual, Use of Notre-Dame de Fontevrault, c.1250-1260

Courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr

The account by Jacobus de Voragine contains a number of motifs and topoi typical of the early martyr stories. The conversion of an antagonistic pagan and his family, the refusal to offer sacrifice to the pagan gods, the martyrdom of a largely unnamed crowd of Christians, and the saint's body thrown to animals but not devoured, and then buried in secret by other Christians. When these motifs are peeled away, it is evident that little which bears the resemblance of facts remains.

Bibliography

Farmer, David, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Oxford University Press, 2004
Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, translated by William Granger Ryan, Princeton University Press, 2012

Rauer, Christine (ed. and transl.) The Old English Martyrology, D. S. Brewer, 2013

The Martyrdom of Mark the Evangelist

 

Today is the feast of Mark the Evangelist, often believed to have been a disciple of Peter. The shortest and the oldest of the four gospels is attributed to him, and in the Middle Ages a vast repository of legends accrued around him. Most famously, Mark achieved a central position in the mythology of Venice as the city's patron and defender. At a later point I hope to return to the Venetian tradition, whose legitimacy might have been aided by its dissemination through Jacobus de Voragine's Legenda Aurea, but for the present post I will give you the passion of Saint Mark as it is told in the Old English Martyrology.

 

 

The martyrdom of Saint Mark
BL MS Royal 20 D VI, Lives of the saints, Wauchier de Denain, 2nd quarter of the 13th century
(Courtesy of British Library)

On the same day [as Rogation Day] is the passion of St Mark the Evangelist. He was St Peter's godson in baptism, and he learned from him. And what St Peter said to peopel about Christ during the day, that St Mark then wrote down at night. And he first concealed that from St Peter, wherefore his gospel is thus called furtum laudabile, praiseworthy theft. He was the first Christian bishop in the great city of Alexandria; and he first converted to God's faith the province of Egypt and the province of Libya, and Marmarica, and Pentapolis. In these countries there used to be people so unclean that they worshipped devils and ate carrion. This St Mark healed sick people and lepers, and resuscitated dead people from death. But then some impious men became envous of that [and] went to a church on the first day of Easter when he was celebrating mass, and tied a rope around his neck and dragged him out across the stones on the ground, in such a way that his flesh stuck to the ground and the stones were stained crimson with his blood. And then in the evening they put him into prison; there God's angel appeared to him at night and said to him that the next morning he would depart to eternal rest. And finally Christ himself appeared to him and said to him: 'Peace e with you, our Evangelist Mark.' Then in the morning the pagans dragged him with the rope, until he gave up the ghost to God. Then they wanted to incinerate his body. Then came thunder and rain [and] killed many of the pagans, and the others ran away. And devout men buried his body in a great and wonderful church which is in the city of Alexandria.
- The Old English Martyrology, edited and translated by Christine Rauer, D. S. Brewer, 2013: 87-89

Narrative and Saints' Lives, part IV - Saints without their own biographies

In the series of blogposts called Narrative and Saints' Lives I've been exploring how certain features of saint legends affect the narrative. I've talked about how the narrative is affected by a legend's brevity, I've talked about how a narrative deals with a vast number of characters, and I've talked about the use of dialogue, all very briefly and tentatively. In this blogpost I want to address a case where lack of biographical material makes the saints into secondary characters in other legends.

It is not unusual in the history of the cult of saints that the legends of some saints become confused or combined with legends of other saints. In the case of Dionysus the Areopagite he becomes, through a conflation of three historical or semi-historical figures, the French patron saint Denis. In some cases tradition tied legends of different saints together, as happened in Milan after Ambrosius had on two separate occasions unearthed relics of old, near-forgotten saints (which is dealt with here and here).

A similar fate befell the three saints in question, namely Tiburtius, Valerianus and Maximus. In the Oxford Dictionary of Saints, David Farmer summarizes our knowledge of them in the following way: "Roman martyrs who were buried at the cemetery of Praetextatus on the Appian Way. Nothing more is known of them". He then adds that they were given parts to play in the Acts of Cecilia, a hagiographical account of the late fifth century whose historicity is highly dubious, both because it is so removed from the historical Cecilia - whatever can be said of her - and because it merges the legend of the three aforementioned martyrs with her legend. This confusion need not have been deliberate, but it might be seen as a testament to the lack of any independent tradition around Tiburtius, Valerianus and Maximus. As a result of this independent tradition they became subsumed into the legend of Cecilia, but this might also in turn have resulted in their dissemination beyond a merely local cult at Rome.

A testament to this dissemination is found in the Old English Martyrology from the ninth century. Here their story is presented as an independent legend, but their dependence on Cecilia is nonetheless revealed in the inclusion of the antagonist Almachius, who comes from the Cecilia tradition. In the Martyrology the story goes as follows:


On the fourteenth day of the month is the feast of the holy brothers St Valerianus and St Tiburtius; Almachius, the reeve of the city of Rome, forced them under tortures to renounce Christ. When they refused, he commanded them to beheaded. Then the man who was supposed to see that they got beheaded, weeping and swearing an oath - he said that he saw their souls leave the body beautifully adorned, and that he saw God's angels as radiant as the sun, and carried them to heaven with the flying of their wings. And the man then believed in God, and he was beaten to death for Christ, and his name was Maximus.- The Old English Martyrology, translated by Christine Rauer, D. S. Brewer, 2013: 81-83.


We see here that this is a very formulaic summary of their martyrdoms, containing several of the typical elements: A pagan figure of power, an unsuccessful torture session with subsequent beheading, and a convert who then submits to death in turn. The name of Almachius is the only specific element, and that belongs to the legend of a different saint.

Tiburtius, Valerianus and Maximus
Avignon - BM - ms. 0136, f.235v, Roman missal, c.1370
Courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr

Further testament to the three martyrs' dependence on the Cecilia legend can be found in the Legenda Aurea. Unlike the Old English Martyrology, the Legenda does not give Tiburtius, Valerianus and Maximus their own chapter. Instead, they feature as secondary characters in two other chapters, those of Saint Urban and Saint Cecilia, because the pope and the virgin are also connected according to tradition. In the story of Urban, Tiburtius and Valerianus are mentioned only briefly together with Cecilia. This mention comes from the prefect Almachius, and the three are only mentioned as examples of people Urban has led into Christianity.

A more extensive inclusion of Tiburtius and Valerianus is found in the chapter on Cecilia in Legenda Aurea. In this chapter, Valerianus is the betrothed of Cecilia but is turned from paganism to Christianity by Urban, and the young man is given a substantial part in the narrative. He undergoes the change from jealous lover-to-be to a Christian convert who in turn persuades his own brother Tiburtius to receive the faith of Christ. Valerianus himself is converted in the following way:


Valerian, guided by God's will, said: "If you want me to beleive you, show me this angel of yours, and if I see for myself that he is really an angel, I will do as you are exhorting me to do; but if I see that you love another man, I will finish off both of you with my sword." (...) Valerian set out and, following the directions given to him, found his way to Saint Urban the bishop, who was hiding among the tombs of the martyrs. (...) And now there apepared to them an aged man clothed in garments as white as snow, holding a book written in gold letters. When Valerian saw this, he was so afraid that he fell as if dead, but was raised to his feet by the old man and read in the book: "One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all, who is above all and through all and in all of us." When Valerian had read those words, the old man asked him: "Do you believe that this is so, or do you still doubt?" Valerian exclaimed: "There is nothing else under heaven that could be more truly believed!"
- Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, translated by William Granger Ryan, Princeton University Press, 2012: 705


The passage in the book is from Paul's letter to the Ephesians 4:5. In this account we see Valerianus as a passionate young man easily swayed by emotion, and he does appear as an individual character with an interior life of his own. However, this lively depiction is made possible because the Valerianus of history is forgotten and only his name remains to be applied at will. The story is a fiction, and the legend of Cecilia becomes in a way a replacement biography for Valerianus and his brother Tiburtius, and also the later convert Maximus.

The hagiographical adoption of Tiburtius, Valerianus and Maximus is not a unique occurrence in the legends of the saints. Because all saints were seen as members of a holy collegium, it was only to be expected that there were crossovers between the legends, either by way of two saints being contemporaneous, or by way of some senior saint posthumously extending his or her care to another saint. This shows the malleability of the legends of the saints, and also how narratives about saints can change significantly over time. 


Bibliography


Farmer, David, Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Oxford University Press, 2004

Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, translated by William Granger Ryan, Princeton University Press, 2012

Rauer, Christine (ed. and transl.), The Old English Martyrology, D. S. Brewer, 2013

When September Ends

 As September draws to a close I'm putting up the final blogpost for this month, and in the spirit of transition I give you three items from the Old English Martyrology which marks the change from September to October. All translations are by Christine Rauer and taken from her edition of The Old English Martyrology, D. S. Brewer. 2013: 195. As will be seen, the transition is marked by the feast of Saint Jerome (c.341-420), one of the most formative Christian writers of one of the most formative periods in the shaping of Catholic theology. His most notable contribution to Christian culture was his translation into Latin of the Old and the New Testament, but also his letters were of great importance as they lent his authority to a range of theological matters. For instance, in his letter to Vigilantius, a Christian from Aquitaine, Jerome strongly defended and expounded the orthodoxy of the cult of relics, which no doubt help garner an intellectual acceptance of this aspect of the nascent cult of saints.

September, the month of sowing
MS Additional 21114, French psalter, betewen 1255 and 1265
Courtesy of British Library

Jerome
Cambrai - BM - ms. 0965, f.001, Chronicle of Eusebius of Caesarea, 1155
Courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr

On the thirtieth day of the month is the feast of the priest and noble scholar Jerome, who lived in the Jewish city of Bethlehem. St Arculf says about him that he saw a small church outside the city of Bethlehem, in which the body of Jerome was placed, covered with stone, and above that a lamp was placed which burned day and night.

Jerome writing, inspired by the Holy Spirit
Avranches - BM - ms. 0003, f.001, Bible, between 1200-1210
Courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr

When the month which we call Haligmonað ['Holy Month'] comes to an end, the night is twelve hours long and the day likewise.

Jerome and the lion, defaced by pious kisses
Besançon - BM - ms. 0172, f.001, Epistulae, 15th century
Courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr

There are thirty-one days in the tenth month of the year. In Latin it is called Octember, and in our language Winterfylleð ['Winter Full Moon'].

October, the time for wine-making
MS Additional 21114, French psalter, betewen 1255 and 1265
Courtesy of British Library

Saint Bartholomew and the devil - the legend of Bartholomew in the Old English Martyrology

Today is the feast of Saint Bartholomew the Apostle, who is famous for his grisly method of execution, namely being flayed alive. For this reason his attribute is a flaying knife, and his saintly patronage extends to tanners and other craftsmen in skin and hide. For the feast of Bartholomew I will here give the legend as it was rendered in the Old English Martyrology, translated and edited by Christine Rauer. Here the date is given as August 25, but that is either a mistake made by the scribe or evidence of a different practice in tenth-century England.

Bartholomew with his knife

MS Harley 2449, prayers for saints' vigils with calendar, Netherlands, c.1276-c.1296

Courtesy of British Library

On the twenty-fifth day of the month is the feast of the apostle St Bartholomew; he was Christ's missionary in the country of India, which is the outermost of all regions, on whose one side lies the dark land, on whose other side lies the world ocean [or 'Oceanus'], that is Garsecg. In this country he cast out idols which they had previously worshipped there. And an angel of God came to them there and revealed to the people what their god was, whom they had worshipped previously. He showed them an enormous Egyptian whose face was blacker than soot, and his beard and hair reached down to his feet, and his eyes were like hot irons, and spakrs came from his mouth, and a foul stench came out of his nostrils, and he had wings like a Thorny broom, and his hands were tied together with fiery chains, and he cried out with a terrible and loathsome voice and fled away and never appeared again anywhere. that was the devil, whom the people had earlier worshipped for themselves as a god, and they alled him Astaroth. Then the king of that people received baptism and his queen too, and all the people who belonged to his kingdom. Then the pagan bishops went and complained about that to the king's Brother; he was in another kingdom, and he was older than he was. He therefore ordered Bartholomew, the servant of Christ, to be flayed alive. Then the believing king came with many people and took his body and transported it away with great splendour, and put it in a fantastically large church. And the king became insane, who wanted him killed, and all the pagan bishops became insane and died, who had reported him.
- From The Old English Martyrology, edited and translated by Christine Rauer, D. S. Brewer 2013

The flaying of Bartholomew

Valenciennes - BM - ms. 0838, f.104, Martyrology, Notre-Dame des Prés de Douai, 13th century

Courtesy of enluminures.cultures.fr

The story of Bartholomew is an exciting and intersting story for many reasons, but perhaps especially its solid portion of exoticism and gore. From an academic point of view, this tale provides another set of details that are worth commenting. To me, for instance, it is interesting to note the geographical setting which places India as the outermost realm, and as a neighbour to the dark land, which is possibly meant to be Ethiopia which was confused with India all they way up to the sixteenth century. Bartholomew is placed in India already by Eusebius and in the Roman martyrology, although the latter gives Armenia as his place of of martyrdom.

Another significant thing here is the appearance and description of the devil. That the devil is said to be worshipped by the Indians as Astoreth harkens back to an old Christian tradition which claims that the old pagan gods were in reality fallen angels who had taken up residence on earth as gods, a treatment which is beautifully summarised in John Milton's Paradise Lost. Although it is an angel of God rather than Bartholomew in person who casts out the devil, he is associated with conquering the devil. This is something we find in the tradition around Saint Guthlac of Croyland, who came to his wild fens and established his hermitage on the feast of Bartholomew and henceforth dedicated himself to Bartholomew's patronage. Guthlac's vita was written by Felix already in the eight century, but the story was expanded by a local tradition at Croyland in the twelfth century which had Guthlac chastise demons with a scourge given to him by Saint Bartholomew.

A final point I want to comment on here is the appearance of the devil, described as a black Egyptian. The portrayal of the devil as a black man as an old tradition in Christian hagiography, and can be found already as early - and perhaps earlier - as Athanasius' Life of Antony, written in the fourth century. Here Antony struggles with his fight against a demon, and after a heavy bout of prayer, the demon finally gives in and materialises for Saint Antony:

he appeared, as was fitting, in a form that revealed his true nature: an ugly black boy prostrated himself at Antony's feet, weeping loudly and saying in a human voice, 'Many have I led astray, many have I deceived, but now I have been defeated by your efforts as I was by other holy people.' When Antony asked him who it was who was saying this, he replied, 'I am the friend of fornication. I have used many different kinds of shameful weapon to attrack young people and that is why I am called the spirit of fornication (...)'.
- Life of Antony, translated by Carolinne White, Penguin Classics, 1998

The flayed Bartholomew

Valenciennes - BM - ms. 0838, f.104, Martyrology, Notre-Dame des Prés de Douai, 13th century

Courtesy of enluminures.cultures.fr

For similar blogposts, see these:

Antony and Guthlac compared

Guthlac using liturgy as a weapon against demons

The bearded women of the far East



Bibliography

Farmer, David, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Oxford University Press, 2004

Rauer, Christine, The Old English Martyrology, D. S. Brewer, 2013

White, Carolinne, Early Christian Lives, Penguin Classics, 1998

Cosmas and Damian in Anglo-Saxon Literature

 

 In a recent blogpost I introduced the legend of SS Cosmas and Damian, and their place in the Collegiate Church in Covarrubias. In this blogpost, however, I want to revisit the two twin-brother physician saints and look at how they appeared in Anglo-Saxon literature. The summary of their legend in the earlier blogpost relied chiefly on the version in Legenda Aurea, written in the 1260s by Jacobus de Voragine. As with all legends, the story of Cosmas and Damian was constantly in development, some elements being added, others subtracted and yet others altered.

The main story remains the same, however. Cosmas and Damian lived during the persecutions of Diocletian. The two brothers – two out of five born by a devout Christian woman in the city of Egea – were doctors who took no fee for their work as it was seen as unchristian to charge for help. Once Cosmas was told that his brother had accepted a fee from a grateful man, and although this was in reality a gift which the man had pressed Damian to receive, Cosmas thought this to be a breach of their principles and declared that he did not want to be buried next to his brother in death. After a while all the five brothers were summoned, tortured and – when the torture proved unfruitful – beheaded. After the beheading, the bodies of the martyrs were taken by the Christians and prepared for burial. They then remembered that Cosmas had said he did not want to share the burial site of his brother, but as they were discussing what to do there entered a camel on the scene and, in a human voice, spoke to them and told them to bury all the brothers jointly.

Cosmas and Damian

Avignon - BM - ms. 0136, f.273, Roman missal, c.1370

Courtesy of Enluminures

The cult of Cosmas and Damian was long-lived and seems to have been very successful, although the extent of their cult is – as far as I know – not thoroughly mapped. In the following, I will present two renditions of the story from two Anglo-Saxon texts. The oldest of these is the prose De Virginitate by Aldhelm of Malmesbury (d.709/10), abbot of Malmesbury and bishop of Sherborne, who wrote a two-fold work on virginity with exempla from virgin saints intended as educational literature for a community of nuns at Barking Abbey. Aldhelm was an influential figure in Anglo-Saxon literature, and I have written about his prose De Virginitate elsewhere.

XXXIV. But I think it worthwhile that we do not in any way exclude from (our) historical account of virgins – as if unworthy of the company of the others – COSMAS and DAMIANUS, the most famous warriors of spiritual warfare and arch-physicians of celestial medicine. We confidently trust that these two, predestined to citizenship in the heavenly Jerusalem and inscribed in the register of celestial writing, will rejoice with their aforementioned colleagues. For in the times of Diocletian and Maximian , at the two hundred-and-sixty-seventh Olympiad, when as a result of cruel edicts the followers of the catholic faith, whom they called ‘Christians and ‘cross-worshippers’, were compelled to burn incense at the petty little statues of the pagans, and those not wishing to apostatize, that is, to revert to (wallowing in) the more of apostasy, were compelled to undergo capital punishment – at this time a devout mother gave birth to twins, the aforementioned novices of Christ (Cosmas and Damianus). (These twins), gradually instructed in medicinal treatments from the beginnings of their adolescence, were able to cure by means of celestial poultices both the diseases of dropsical persons and (other) internal discomforts and spiritual disorders as well: imparting sight, that is, to the blind and emollients to the one-eyed, opening the door of silence in the dumb, renewing the harmonies of the outside world in the ears of the deaf, granting correctness of speech to stutterers and stammerers, restoring the lame and the maimed to their former healthiness, reviving through the grace of their merits those possessed by devils and the short-sighted, and even recalling to earthly life those overthrown by the accidents of fortune. Nevertheless, enriched by the munificence of powers of this kind, they conferred the wished-for health on the infirm, not for the traffic of avarice but out of a freely-given generosity, (thus) conforming to the message of the Gospel: ‘Freely have you received; freely give’ [Matth. X. 8]. Meanwhile, at the time of the aforementioned persecutors (Diocletian and Maximian), when holy martyrs were being sacrificed ‘like sheep for the slaughter’ [Psalm. XLIII. 22] by the bloody swords of butchers, and these athletes of church in no sense terrified were struggling, as if they were in a wrestling-arena, who would be able to describe the many great instruments of punishment with which the aforesaid confessors were tortured at the jurisdiction of the tribune Lysias? Since indeed, with their arms bound and the shanks of their legs tied together, they were cast into the depths of the sea; but, sustained by angelic intervention, the wild ferocity of the waves, not daring to touch them, returned them unharmed to the shore. Again the savage governor, confounded and put to silence by so brilliant a triumph by the holy soldiers, orders them to be cruelly thrust into a furnace which was stoked up by much tinder of brushwood and crackling with diverse flaming logs. But in no way did the conflagration of the raging furnace burn (the twins), who were as salamanders which, by nature, burning lumps of coal are unable to scorch or consume. Next, the patronage of angels protected them (while they were) tormented by the anguish of the rack and suspended from the fork of the gallows, and in addition buried under the dreadful blows of arrows. In the end they were sentenced to be beheaded: with their palm of virginity they earned a martyr’s triumph.
- De Virginitate, Aldhelm of Malmesbury (translated by Michael Lapidge and Michael Herren, D. S. Brewer, 1979: 95-96

Cosmas, Damian and an unknown beast

Chambéry - BM - ms. 0004, f.624, Franciscan breviary, c.1430

Courtesy of Enluminures

Châteauroux - BM - ms. 0002, f. 343v, Breviary, Use of Paris, c.1414

Courtesy of Enluminures

We don’t know which text was the basis for Aldhelm’s account, but there are some significant differences when compared with the story as rendered in Legenda Aurea. Since the latter is a very conservative body of work, it is not sufficient to ascribe these differences solely to the near half-century that separates these two books. Although we have no clear-mapped account of the legend’s development and therefore must be alert to changes in texts separated by so many centuries, it is also important to note that the authors had different purposes with their respective texts. Aldhelm wrote to educate a specific nunnery, and it is interesting to note that the story of Damian’s gift and the consequent confusion concerning their burial, the intermediation of the camel, and their posthumous miracles are not included. It might of course be that these elements were unknown to Aldhelm, but the explanation might rather be sought in Aldhelm’s focus on their healings – emphasised with great detail and with overt references to the Gospels through the nature of the cures (cf. Matthew 8) – and his emphasis on their fervour for Christ. Aldhelm portrays these saints as champions of Christ, athletes of Christ, confessors and martyrs, typical sobriquets that are here applied with great frequency. Interestingly, Aldhelm calls them virgin saints, although this is not specified anywhere in the legends as far as I know. It might be, therefore, that Aldhelm emphasises their holy works to persuade his audience that the holiness of their works – and the miracles surrounding their martyrdom – is evidence for their virginity.

MS Royal 19 B XVII, Legenda Aurea translated by Jean de Vignay, Central France, 1382

Courtesy of British Library

The next rendition of the story is found in The Old English Martyrology, written c.900 and containing the stories of the saints according to the calendar. As in the case of Aldhelm, we don’t know exactly which texts provided the compiler with material.

On the twenty-seventh day of the month [i.e. September] is the feast of the holy brothers St Cosmas and St Damian; they were expert doctors and they cured any human illness, and they received nothing from anybody, neither from the wealthy nor from the poor. When they cured a woman of a great illness, she secretly brought St Damian a small gift; the texts say that it was three eggs. And she begged him for God’s sake to accept them. He then took them. Then [his] brother Cosmas was very sad because of that, and therefore he asked that their bodies should not be buried together at the end of their lives. Then during the same night our Lord appeared to Cosmas and said: ‘Why would you talk like that about the gift which Damian received? He did not receive it as payment, but because he was asked in my name.’ These brothers suffered a great martyrdom in the days of the emperor Diocletian at the hands of the governor Lysias. They were stoned, and the stones turned back and hurt the ones who were stoning the saints. They were shot at with arrows, but the arrows turned around and killed the pagans. But through beheading they gave up the ghost to God. Then the men who collected their bodies were wondering whether they should be buried together, because Cosmas had earlier prohibited that. Then a camel came running there, and said in a human voice: ‘ Do not separate the saints’ bodies, but bury them together.’ Then they did as the dumb animal had told them, and yet heavenly miracles happened after that through the saints’ power.
- The Old English Martyrology, translated by Christine Rauer, D. S. Brewer, 2013: 193

Cosmas and Damian carrying their palms of martyrdom

Orléans - Musée hist. et arch. - inv. 6988, liturgical fragment, c.1440

Courtesy of Enluminures

 

As we see, the dramaturgical focus is different here than in Aldhelm’s De Virginitate. We might speculate on the reason for this, but although we know the addressees of Aldhelm’s book, the audience of the Martyrology is a slightly more difficult matter. Aldhelm wrote an educational book, while the Martyrology probably had as its main purpose to provide material for the homilists when writing the texts of the days, so that they could address topical problems, such as suspicion against brothers, or perhaps the miraculous intervention of dumb animals speaking like humans. We can’t say for sure, especially since so much uncertainty still surrounds the genesis of the Martyrology, but the shift in focus is interesting as should not merely be ascribed to the possibility of Aldhelm and the martyrologist working from different sources, or that the legend had changed that radically in just two hundred years (a short period in the evolution of saints’ cults before c.1050). The martyrologist refers moreover to a plurality of texts, suggesting that these elements are found in at least two sources available at the period. Although we can’t say much about these differences, we see at least that the legend of Cosmas and Damian were known in the Anglo-Saxon literature, and that there were several sources available.

Alexandria the martyr-queen - or, a sequel to the martyrdom of George

and whanne they had receiued holy bapteme Seint George drewe oute his suerde and slowe þe dragon and comaunded that he shuld be born oute of the citee
- The Gilte Legende

George and the dragon

Chambéry - BM - ms. 0004, Franciscan brevairy, c.1430

Courtesy of Enluminures

In my previous blogpost I presented the legend of St George as it is rendered in The Old English Martyrology, a version which appears to antedate the slaying of the dragon, which today is the most famous episode in his story. The Old English narrative focusses instead solely on his martyrdom and on his ability to posthumously bring about miraculous cures. However, an important part of the legend of St George is that he was a missionary saint, and the story of the dragon follows - as shown in the epigraph - a mass conversion. This motif is well-known in Christian hagiography and pits the power of God funnelled through the saint against the image of the arch-enemy Satan. A similar story is known of Pope Sylvester, for instance, who faced the pestiferous dragon beneath Rome. The dragon is thus an important aspect of the George story, since it is tied up to his feats as an apostle.

In The Old English Martyrology, as stated, nothing is said of George as a missionary, at least not in the text for his feast-day, April 23. Curiously enough, however, an allusion to this aspect of George's vita is in fact mentioned in the martyrology, but in another story, the story of Queen Alexandria. Alexandria is here said to be the wife of the (non-historical) pagan emperor Datianus, who is the main antagonist in the story of St George, as he is in the legend of his newly-converted wife. Why there is no reference to the other story in either of these texts is not clear, but may support Christine Rauer's suggestion that the compiler of the martyrology wrote the texts not chronologically but according to what sources he had available at a given time (Rauer 2013: 11ff). Hence, it is possible that although the stories of George and Alexandria are related, they have reached the martyrologist through different texts.

Alexandria is not a well-known saint in the high-medieval west, and she is not included in Legenda Aurea. Below I will give her story as rendered in The Old English Martyrology.


On the twenty-seventh day of the month is the feast of the holy queen St Alexandria; she was the queen of the pagan emperor Datianus, who was the head of all earthly Kings. But she believed in God through the teaching of the martyr St George. When the emperor realised that, that she believed in God, he said: 'Woe is me, Alexandria; you are bewitched by the tricks of George. Why are you destroying my authority. Or why are you leaving me?' When he could not change her mind with his words, he had her suspended by her hair and punished with various tortures. When he could not overcome her with those, he had her led away to be beheaded. Then she asked her executioners that they should giver her a little more time. Then she went to her palatium, that is to her hall, and lifted up her eyes to heaven and said: 'See, Lord, that I now leave my hall open with all my treasures for your holy name. But you, my Saviour, open now your paradise to me.' And then she fulfilled her martyrdom with faith in Christ.

St George in the Old English Martyrology

St George with his banner and palm of martyrdom

Avignon - BM - ms. 0136, Roman missal, c.1370

Courtesy of Enluminures

Today is the feast of St George, the patron saint of England since 1350 and famous for his liberation of a city from a man-eating dragon. The historical George, if he ever existed at all, was believed to have been a Roman soldier who met his martyrdom at Lydda in Palestine. His cult was immensely popular in the Middle East, and he became a protector of the Byzantine army, presumably out of some collegial bond. This image of George as an aid in battle, a saint-type called "Schlachtenhelfer" (fight-helper) in modern, German scholarship, also entered into the mythology of the crusades, as is described in this beautiful little blogpost. Through the crusader ideology and its iconography, George acquired his chivalric shape for which he is best know today here in the West and through crusaders he re-entered England as a knight in the twelfth century. As a crusader, or rather as a knight, George became a powerful symbol for soldiers, and thus it was that in the 14th century he was adopted by King Edward III as England's patron, and gained an importance in the national iconography that surpassed even that of Edward the Confessor or Edmund Martyr as figureheads of the English kingdom. I have described this trajectory in greater detail here.

But even though it was the crusades that brought St George as a knight into the English sphere, he had already been known from the early days of British Christianity. George is mentioned in the martyrology of Bede, and he is also included in the Old English Martyrology which was most likely written sometime in the 9th century. This is a text that antedates the chivalric George, and which serves as a nice reminder of some of the other aspects of his legend, especially his martyrdom which tends to be underplayed in favour of his battle with the dragon in much of the iconography. Here follows, therefore, the life of St George as rendered in the Old English Martyrology, translated by Christine Rauer and taken from her edition from 2013.

George slaying the dragon

Auch - BM - ms. 0020, Ruralium commodorum opus by Petrus de Crescentiis, c.1330-1340

Courtesy of Enluminures

On the twenty-third day of the month is the feast of the noble man St George; emperor Datianus forced him for seven years with unspeakable tortures to renounce Christ, but he could never overpower him; and then after seven years he ordered him to be beheaded. When he was being led to the execution, fire came from heaven and burnt the pagan emperor to death, and all those who had earlier tortured the holy man with him. And he, St George, prayed to the Lord and spoke Thus: 'Saviour Christ, receive my spirit. And I ask you that whichever man may celebate my memory on earth, remove then from thisman's dwellings every illness; let no enemy harm him, nor hunger, nor pestilence.And if anyone mentions my name in any danger, either at sea or on a journey, may he obtain your mercy.' And afterwards the powers of this holy man were often made widely known; anyone who reads St Arculf's book will realise that, [namely] that the man who dishonoured George's image was severly punished, and he who sought it for intercession was protected from his enemies in great danger.
- The Old English Martyrology, edited and translated by Christine Rauer, D. S. Brewer, 2013: 85

The martyrdom of St George

Besançon - BM - ms. 0054, Cistercian psalter, c.1260

Courtesy of Enluminures

There are many interesting things to look at here. First of all we see no trace of the famous dragon story, which is presumably a somewhat later addition, or at least belonging to other sources than those accessed by the martyrologist. Christine Rauer herself, in her commentary to the text, refers to De Locis Sanctis by Adomnán as one of the sources, and also draws attention to the George story as rendered in two passion stories, Passio S. Georgii (BHL 3363) and Passio S. Georgii (BHL 3379). Whether these version have provided the martyrologist with material remains unknown.

Another point of interest is the martyrdom itself, whose consummation is elided and whose prologue is summarised as unspeakable. The dramaturgical apex is the death of the Emperor, the non-historical Datianus, who is consumed by a fire intended for the martyr. This is a motif we find early in Christian martyr stories. Already in the Martyrdom of Polycarp (c.200) do we find it, and it reappears with even more force in the legends of St Catherine and St Agnes. In sum, this brief rendition from ninth-century England allows us to catch a glimpse of the legend of St George in its early development, and also to trace parallels - even possible connections - to other martyrs.


Other relevant blogposts can be found here:

St George and Edward the Confessor compared

A carol for St George

St Ladislas of Hungary rendered as St George

Perseus rendered as St George

St George in Odense, Denmark