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The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity


from its origins to circa AD 700, across the entire Christian world


The 6th/7th c. recension of the Latin Martyrologium Hieronymianum, as transmitted in 8th c. manuscripts, records the feasts of a number of saints on 14 June.

Evidence ID

E04851

Type of Evidence

Liturgical texts - Calendars and martyrologies

Major author/Major anonymous work

Martyrologium Hieronymianum

The Martyrologium Hieronymianum is preserved in a number of early manuscripts which share much in common, but also diverge, making it impossible to reconstruct from them a single authoritative text. Below, we therefore offer separate English translations of each important early manuscript. By clicking 'Latin Text' (above), you can view these different versions in their original Latin, set side-by-side for ease of comparison, with also the editions and interpretations of the text suggested by the scholars Quentin and Delehaye. For a full discussion of the Martyrologium, click 'Discussion/Bibliography.'


The
Martyrologium Hieronymianum commemorates on 14 June the following feasts:


*Artemon,
martyr of Laodicea in Phrygia, (S02484),
Possibly
*Afra, martyr of Augsburg, (S01797),
*Cantius, Cantianus and Cantianilla, martyrs of Aquileia, (S01552),
*Protus, tutor of Cantius, Cantianus and Cantianilla, martyrs of Aquileia, (S01552),
The translation of
*Anianus, bishop of Orléans, ob. 453, (S01206),
*Valerius and Rufinus, Roman missionaries, martyred at Soissons (Gaul), 4th cent., (S02700),
*Other saints, on 14 June in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum: in Africa, Asia Minor, and Gaul, (S02701).



BnF 10837:


'On the eighteenth day before the Kalends of July, in Frigia, in Laodicea (Asia Minor), [the feast of] Artheo.

And in Ephesus, [the feast of] Miggenis, Gallianus, Iuvinus.

And in Africa, [the feast of] Quintianus, Tecla, Theodolus, and Festiva.

In Specia (Frigia?), [the feast of] Antonus, Afra, Cantianella.

In the city Aquileia, [the feast of] Protus.

In Orléans (Gaul), the translation of bishop Anianus.

In the city Soissons (Gaul), the passion of Valerus, Rufinus.'




Bern 289:


'On the eighteenth day before the Kalends of July, in the city Laodicea in Frigia, the feast of Anteo, Afra.

In Africa, [the feast of] Quintianus, Theodola, Festiva, Cantianella.

In Aquileia, [the feast of] Protus.

In the city Orléans (Gaul), the translation of the body of Anianus, bishop and confessor, and the liberation of the same city [...].

In the territory of the city of Soissons (Gaul), the passion of Ignatius, Valerus, and Rufinus martyr.'




Weissenburg 81:


'On the eighteenth day before the Kalends of July, in the city Laodicea, the feast of Anteonus, Afra.

In Africa, [the feast of] Quincianus, Theudolus, Festiva, Cantianella.

In Aquileia, the feast of Protus.

In the city Orléans (Gaul), the translation of the body of Anianus, bishop and confessor.

In the city Soissons (Gaul), the passion of Valerus and Rufinus martyr.'



Quentin carefully follows all the early manuscripts.

Delehaye selects to emphasize some of the entries from the early manuscripts.



Translation and comments: M. Vukovic.

Festivals

Saint’s feast
Anniversary of relic invention/translation

Relics

Transfer, translation and deposition of relics
Bodily relic - entire body

Source

The Martyrologium Hieronymianum ('Martyrology of Jerome'), is the oldest extensive martyrology of the Latin West, listing the feast days of the saints for the entire calendar year, generally also specifying where their feasts are held (which is normally their place of burial). It derives its name from prefatory letters copied at the start of the martyrology, which attribute the text to the Church Father, Jerome of Stridon (ob. 420). These letters are present in all the earliest manuscripts, but it is uncertain when they were first attached to the text. The Hieronymianum is the primary source of all later martyrologies of the Latin world.

It is universally accepted that the attribution to Jerome, intended to give the text greater authority, is false, and the predominant scholarly view is that the first version of the martyrology was compiled in northern Italy during the 5th century (probably in Aquileia), though no manuscript of this Aquileian redaction has survived. The text was then evidently revised and added to in Gaul, probably in Burgundy, around AD 600. The north Italian origin of the text, and its Gallic revision, are deduced from the presence in the martyrology of saints from northern Italy, and then of saints from Frankish Gaul. This Gallic version (sometimes referred to as the recensio gallica), just like its north Italian predecessor, does not survive in its original form in any manuscript (Lifshitz 2006, 14).

At some point in the 7th century, and no later than the early 8th, the
Martyrologium reached Northumbria (in northern Britain), where it underwent some further revision and additions (Lapidge 2005, 45-46). From Northumbria, the text returned to the continent in the 8th century, and it is here that the earliest surviving manuscript copies were made, as listed below (Lapidge 2005, 73).

Some of the sources that were used by the compilers of the
Martyrologium in northern Italy, and subsequently in Gaul, can be identified: the so-called Chronography of 354, a mid-4th-century list from Rome of saintly commemorations, primarily of local martyrs (E010151 and E01052); a lost Greek martyrology compiled at Nicomedia around 360 (drawn basically from Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History and Martyrs of Palestine), which was also a prime source for the Syriac Martyrology of 411 (E00465); the African Calendar of Carthage of 505/535 (E02195 - E02205); and early local calendars from Aquileia and Auxerre (Lifshitz 2006, 20).

The four earliest manuscripts of the
Martyrologium Hieronymianum (three of them complete, one a fragment), on which all editions, including our own, are based, are all from eastern Francia and were copied in the eighth and early ninth centuries. They are as follows:

Ms Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), lat. 10837
Written in the abbey of Echternach (in present-day Luxembourg) by a single scribe, Laurentius, between 703 and 710 (Lifshitz 2006, 32). The Catalogue of the BnF, which publishes BnF lat. 10837 on-line, also provides brief information about the dating: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6001113z/f22.image (click Information). The text of the Hieronymianum is at fol. 2r-32v.

Ms Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Weissenburg 81
From the abbey of Weissenburg in Alsace. Dated to around 800 by the Wolfenbüttel on-line catalogue: http://diglib.hab.de/?db=mss&list=ms&id=81-weiss&lang=en. Lifshitz argues that the manuscript dates from around 772, and was written in the Carolingian royal sphere, in or around Maastrict (Lifshitz 2006, 4). The text of the Hieronymianum is at fol. 7r-103r.

Ms Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Bongars 289
From the abbey of Saint-Avold, near Metz. De Rossi and Duchesne, in the introduction to their edition, argue that Bern 289 must have been written after 766. The text of the Hieronymianum is at fol. 53v-129v. This manuscript is not yet available on line, but we have been able to check it through a microfilm.

Ms Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 238
From the abbey of Lorsch, near Worms. The manuscript contains only a fragment (five pages) of the
Hieronymianum, covering 25 December to 3 January, and 27 January to 31 January, written in Lorsch in the first half of the 9th century: http://bibliotheca-laureshamensis-digital.de/bav/bav_pal_lat_238). The fragment is at fol. 74-75, 1-2.

The standard edition of 1894, by G. B. de Rossi and L. Duchesne, published these four manuscripts in parallel columns. In 1931, H. Quentin produced a new edition, with a commentary by H. Delehaye, which attempted to collate the different manuscript readings into a single text.

Even though all the early manuscripts are believed to descend from the same redaction, they are by no means identical. In particular, BnF lat. 10837, the earliest of all, often contains a text which differs markedly from Bern 289 and Weissenburg 81, which are much closer to each other. Because the text varies between manuscripts, in content as well as spelling, it is now universally agreed that it will never be possible to create an 'authoritative' single text of the
Martyrologium Hieronymianum. De Rossi and Duchesne in 1894, facing the same problem, decided to print for each day of the year the text of all four early manuscripts, in four columns, and we have followed their lead. Our edition is essentially based on their edition, though we have checked their readings against the manuscripts, and corrected or removed some letters, words, diacritical marks, and comments introduced by the editors that do not exist in the manuscripts. We have then added three more columns: for Quentin’s text for the feast day, which sometimes comes in one version, sometimes in two, and for Delehaye’s reconstruction of much of the text, drawn from his Commentary. Delehaye's erudition was, and remains, unmatched, and we have leaned heavily on his commentary (which is in Latin), but it should be noted that his reconstructed text often departs markedly from the manuscripts. Using his extraordinary knowledge of the saints and their hagiography, he felt able to combine different parts of the Hieronymianum's text, and to correct garbled versions of names, to produce a more coherent 'original'. We consider each of his principal suggestions in our Discussion (below), and attempt a judgment as to how plausible they are. In Delehaye's extensive notes there are also other, more tentative, suggestions, which we have not discussed systematically.

The reason the
Martyrologium Hieronymianum is such a difficult text is because it consists primarily of long lists of names (with no punctuation and no consistency in the use of capital letters), which were often unfamiliar to copyists and so easily garbled. Generally, we cannot get behind these garbled variants, but occasionally we can, allowing us to shed light on how the text evolved into its current, often confused, state. For instance, an entry for 9 March (E04711) probably originally read something like 'In Armenia minore Sebastia milit(um) XL', 'In Lesser Armenia, at Sebasteia, [the feast of] the Forty Soldiers' - in other words a commemoration of the 'Forty Martyrs of Sebaste' (S00103), prominent saints in the East, but less well-known in the Latin West. In one of our manuscripts (Weissenburg 81) this has become 'In arminia minore sabastiani et milia XL', 'In Lesser Armenia, [the feast of] Sebastianus and the forty-thousand'; somewhere in the process of transmission, the city of Sebasteia has become the martyr Sebastianus, and the 'soldiers' (militum) have become 'thousands' (milia).

Discussion

On 14 June, all three manuscripts commemorate the saints in Frigia, among which *Artemon, (martyr of Laodicea in Phrygia, S02484), who also has a martyrdom text written about him (E06617). The saint commemorated with him is possibly *Afra (martyr of Augsburg, S01797); Delehaye stresses that we do not know any other saint with this name but her.

Manuscripts Bern 289 and Weissenburg 81 then record the commemoration of the saints in Africa, Quintianus/Quincianus, Theodolus/Theudolus/Theodola, Festiva, and Cantianella, on this day. Manuscript BnF 10837 adds Tecla to this list, but at the same time, places the commemoration of Antonus, Afra, and Cantianella in an unknown location called Specia, which Delehaye identifies as Frigia. Quintianus/Quincianus and Cantianella may belong to the group *Cantius, Cantianus and Cantianilla, (martyrs of Aquileia, S01552), particularly as a bit later, we have Protus, commemorated in Aquileia, who is mentioned in their hagiography (E03221), and whom we identify as *Protus, (tutor of Cantius, Cantianus and Cantianilla, martyrs of Aquileia, S01552). Theodolus/Theudolus/Theodola, Festiva, and Antonus stay unidentified.

Manuscript BnF 10837 has a few entries, for the commemorations in Ephesus and Specia/Frigia, of the saints Miggenis, Gallianus, Iuvinus in Ephesus, and Antonus, Afra, and Cantianella in Frigia. Miggenis, Gallianus, Iuvinus, commemorated in Ephesus according to BnF 10837, are not easily identified. Very similar names to these, however, appear on 15 June (E04852), which we classified as *Other saints, on 14 June in the
Martyrologium Hieronymianum: in Africa, Asia Minor, and Gaul, (S02701). The commemorations in Ephesus are already identified above.

All the manuscripts of the
Hieronymianum record on this day the translation of the body of *Anianus, (bishop of Orléans, ob. 453, S01206).

Also, the
Martyrologium records on this day the commemoration of *Valerius and Rufinus, (Roman missionaries, martyred at Soissons (Gaul), 4th cent., S02700), on this day. Ignatius, mentioned with them in Bern 289, is not identified.

Unidentified saints are listed by us among *
Other saints, on 14 June in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum: in Africa, Asia Minor, and Gaul (S02701).


Bibliography

Editions:

De Rossi, G. B., and Duchesne, L., Martyrologium Hieronymianum ad finem codicum adiectis prolegomenis. Acta Sanctorum Nov.II.1 (Brussels, 1894).

Quentin, H. and Delehaye, H.,
Acta Sanctorum Nov.II.2 (Brussels, 1931).


On the
Martyrologium Hieronymianum:

Duchesne, L., "A propos du martyrologe hiéronymien," Analecta Bollandiana 17 (1898), 421-447.

Lapidge, M.,
The Roman Martyrs. Introduction, Translations, and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).

Lapidge, M., "Acca of Hexham and the Origin of the Old English Martyrology,"
Analecta Bollandiana 123 (2005), 29-78.

Lifshitz, F.,
The Name of the Saint. The Martyrology of Jerome and Access to the Sacred in Francia, 627-827 (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006).

Ó Riain, P., "A Northumbrian Phase in the Formation of the Hieronymian Martyrology. The Evidence of the Martyrology of Tallaght,"
Analecta Bollandiana 120 (2002), 311-363.


On the manuscripts of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum:

Butzmann, H., Die Weissenburger Handschriften (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1964), 242-243.

Muller, J. C., "Trois manuscrits liturgiques de l'abbaye d'Echternach à Paris," in
Abteistadt Echternach, éd. P. Schritz, A. Hoffmann (Luxembourg, 1981), 202-206.

Ó Cróinín, D., "Rath Melsigi, Willibrord, and the Earliest Echternach Manuscripts,"
Peritia 3 (1984), 17-49.

Libaert, P., "Notice sur 43 manuscrits d'Echternach conservés à la bibliothèque nationale de Paris,"
Hémecht 1 (1985), 53-73.

McKitterick, R.,
Books, Scribes and Learning in the Frankish Kingdoms, Sixth-Ninth Centuries (Aldershot: Variorum, 1994).


On saints and calendars:

Farmer, D. H., Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978).

Nilles, N.,
Kalendarium Manuale utriusque Ecclesiae Orientalis et Occidentalis I-II (Farnborough: Gregg International Publishers Ltd, 1971).

Watkins, B.,
The Book of Saints: A Comprehensive Biographical Dictionary (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015).

Datum Table

BnF 10837Bern 289Weissenburg 81BAV 238Other MssQuentinQuentinDelehaye
XVIII k. iuł in frigia laudã artheonis XUIII. KL. IUL. IN FRIGIA. CIUI laudic Natał. Anteonis. Afre. XUIII KL. IUL. In pagia ciuit̃ nat̃ sc̃i anteoni afre In Frigia civitate Laudicia natale Artheonis In Frigia civitate Laudicia natale Artheonis Afrae in Frigia civitate Laodicia natale Arte〈m〉onis.
et in epheso miggenis galliani iuvini
et in af̃f. quintiani teclae theodoli et festivaeIN AFRICA. Quintiani. Theodole. Festiuȩ. Cantianellȩ. In africa quinciani theudoli festiuȩ cantianellȩ in Africa Quintiani Theodoli et Festivae in Africa Quintiani Theodoli et Festivae Cantianellae.
in specia antoni afrae cantianellae in Specia Antoni Afrae Cantianellae.
in aquileĩ proti civĩ IN AQUILEIA P(ro)ti. In aquileia Nat̃ sc̃i proti in Aquileia Proti. in Aquileia Proti. in Aquileia Proti.
auriliã transł sc̃i aniani ep̃i IN CIUIT. AURELIanis. Translatio corporis. Sc̃i Aniani ep̃i. et confessor̃ et liberatio ciuitatis. ipsius a chunis. In ciuit̃ aurilianis translatio corporis sc̃i aniani ep̃i et confes̃s̃ in civitate Aurilianis translatio corporis sancti Aniani episcopi et confessoris et liberatio civitatis ipsius a Chunis. in civitate Aurilianis translatio corporis sancti Aniani episcopi et confessoris et liberatio civitatis ipsius a Chunis. in civitate Aurilianis translatio corporis sancti Aniani episcopi et confessoris et liberatio civitatis ipsius a Chunis.
sessionis civĩ pas̃ valeri rufini.IN T(ER)RITURIO. sessionis. ciuitate Passio. sc̃orū Ignatii. Ualeri. et rufini mar̃. Sessionis ciuit̃ pas̃ sc̃orum ualeri et rufini mart̃in territorio Sessionis civitatis passio sanctorum Valeri et Rufini martyrum. in territorio Sessionis civitatis passio sanctorum Valeri et Rufini martyrum. in territorio Sessionis civitatis passio sanctorum Valerii et Rufini martyrum.




Record Created By

Marijana Vukovic

Date of Entry

01/11/2023

Related Saint Records
IDNameName in SourceIdentity
S01206Anianus/Annianus, bishop of Orléans, ob. 454AnianusCertain
S01552Cantius, Cantianus and Cantianilla, martyrs of AquileiaProtus; Quintianus/Quincianus; CantianellaCertain
S01797Afra, martyr of AugsburgAfraUncertain
S02484Artemon, martyr of Laodicea in PhrygiaArtheo/Anteonus/AnteoCertain
S02700Valerius and Rufinus, martyrs of SoissonsValerus; RufinusCertain
S02701Other saints, on 14 June in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum: in Africa, Asia Minor, and GaulMiggenis; Gallianus; Iuvinus; Antonus; Theodolus/Theudolus/Theodola; FestivaCertain


Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Marijana Vukovic, Cult of Saints, E04851 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E04851