Site logo

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 24 August.

Evidence ID

E04929

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 24 August the following feasts:


*Julianus, monk of the community near Antioch, Syria, and companion of Macharus (S02511),
*Audoen, bishop of Rouen, ob. 686, (S02199),
*Genobus, Capitulinus, Emerita, Italica, martyrs of Antioch, (S02565),
*Eptadius, presbyter of Cervidunum, near Autun, ob. before 550, (S02389),
*Rufus, martyr of Capua (south Italy), (S02531) (here Rufina),
*Eutyches, martyr of Rome, and companion martyr with Nereus and Achilleus (S00403),
*Genesius, notary and martyr of Arles, (S00263),
*Patricius, monk and missionary of Nièvre (Gaul), 6th cent., (S02566),
*Iulius, martyr of Rome/Capua, (S02569),
*Hermes, martyr of Rome, (S00404),
*Gildardus, bishop of Rouen, ob. 511, (S02561),
*Iustus and Pastor, schoolboys and martyrs of Alcala, Spain, (S00504),
*Bartholomew, the Apostle, (S00256).



BnF 10837:


'On the ninth day before the Kalends of September, in Antioch, [the feast of] Zenovus, Capitolinus, Emerita, Italica.

In Rome, [the feast of] Genisus.

In Gaul, the city of Nevernum (Nièvre, Gaul), [the feast of] abbot Patricus, priest Geddordus.'



Bern 289:


'On the ninth day before the Kalends of September, in Syria, the feast of Iulianus.

And elsewhere, [the feast of] priest Eptatus.

In Capua, the city of Campania, [the feast of] Rufina, Eutica.

In the same cemetery on the via Nomentana, [the feast of] 18 soldiers.

In Rome, the feast of martyr Genesus, Iulius, Hermes.

In Spain, in an unclear place, [the feast of] saintly brothers Iustus and martyr Pastor.

In India, the feast of Apostle Bartholomew.

And the burial of bishop Audoenus.'



Weissenburg 81:


'On the ninth day before the Kalends of September, the burial of blessed bishop Audoinus, in the city of Rouen (Gaul).

In Antioch, the feast of Genobus, Capitulinus.

In Rome, the feast of martyr Genesus.

In Gaul in the city of Nevernum (Nièvre, Gaul), the feast of abbot and confessor Patricus.

And in the territory of the same city, in the village Luperciacum, the burial of priest and confessor Geldarus.

And in the territory of the city Edua (Gaul), the burial of priest and confessor Eptatus.

And the feast of Apostle Bartholomew.'




Quentin does not follow carefully any of the early manuscripts, but his text most resembles Mss BnF 10837 and Weissenburg 81.

Delehaye follows the manuscripts to a significant extent.



Translation and comments: M. Vukovic.

Festivals

Saint’s feast

Cult Places

Burial site of a saint - unspecified
Burial site of a saint - cemetery/catacomb

Relics

Bodily relic - entire body

Protagonists in Cult and Narratives

Soldiers
Family

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).


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
UIIII. KL. SEP. IN SIRIA Natał Sc̃i Iuliani.
VIIII KL. SEP. Dep̃ beati audoini ep̃i rodomaginsis urbis
VIIII k sep̃ in antioc̃ zenovi capitolini emeritae italicae In anthiocia nał sc̃orum genobi capitulini In Antiochia Zenovi Capitolini Emeritae Italicae. In Antiochia Zenovi Capitolini Emeritae Italicae. in Antiochia Zenobi.
et alibi. Eptati. presbit̃.
IN CAPPUA CIU. campanie Sc̃orū Rufinȩ. Euticȩ.
rom̄ sc̃i genisi Rom̄ nł sc̃i genesi mar̃ Romae sancti Genisi martyris. Romae sancti Genisi martyris.
IN CIMITERIO eiusdē uia nom̄tana militum XVIII.
in gał civĩ revernõ sc̃i patrici abƀ geddordi prƀ In gałł civt̃ neverno nat̃ sc̃orum patrici aƀƀ et conf̃ in Galliis civitate Neverno natale sancti Patricii abbatis et confessoris.
ROMAE natł Sc̃i Genesi martyr̃ Iulii Hermetis.
et in terreturio civit̃ ipsius Uico lup̱erciaco dep̃ sc̃i geldari prƀi et conf̃ in Galliis civitate Neverno natale sancti Patricii abbatis et confessoris et sancti Geldardi presbyteri in Galliis civitate Neverno natale sancti Patricii abbatis et confessoris et sancti Geldardi presbyteri et confessoris. in territorio civitatis ipsius [Nivernensis] vico Luperciaco sancti Gildardi episcopi et confessoris.
IN SPANIIS confluto loco. Fratrum Sc̃orū Iusti. et pastoris martyris.
Et in terreturio eduȩ civit̃ dep̃ sc̃i eptati prƀi et conf̃ et in territurio Eduae civitatis vico Cervidunensi depositio sancti Eptati presbiteri et confessoris. in territurio Eduae civitatis vico Cervidunensi depositio sancti Eptati presbiteri et confessoris.
IN INDIA. natł Sc̃i Bartholomei. apostoli. & Natale sci bartholomei apostoli aii. om.
et depos. audoeni epi in Rotomago civitate depositio sancti Audoeni episcopi et confessoris.




Record Created By

Marijana Vukovic

Date of Entry

12/08/2022

Related Saint Records
IDNameName in SourceIdentity
S00256Bartholomew, the ApostleBartholomeusCertain
S00263Genesius, notary and martyr of ArlesGenisus/GenesusCertain
S00403Nereus and Achilleus, eunuchs and martyrs of Rome, and companionsEuticaCertain
S00404Hermes, martyr of Rome, buried on the via Salaria vetusHermesCertain
S00504Iustus and Pastor, schoolboys and martyrs of Alcala, SpainIustus; PastorCertain
S02199Audoin, also known as Dado, bishop of Rouen, ob. 686Audoinus/AudoenusCertain
S02389Eptadius, presbyter of Cervidunum, 6th c.EptatusCertain
S02511Julianus and Macharus, monks of a community near Antioch, SyriaIulianusCertain
S02531Rufus, martyr of Capua (southern Italy)RufinaCertain
S02561Gildardus, bishop of Rouen, ob. 511Geldarus/GeddordusCertain
S02565Genobus, Capitulinus, Emerita, Italica, martyrs of AntiochZenovus/Genobus; Capitolinus; Emerita; ItalicaCertain
S02566Patricius, monk and missionary of Nièvre (Gaul), 6th cent.PatricusCertain
S02569Iulius, martyr of Rome/CapuaIuliusCertain


Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Marijana Vukovic, Cult of Saints, E04929 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E04929