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 1 October.
Evidence ID
E04973
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 1 October the following feasts:
Probably *Priscus, martyr of Tomis in Thrace, (S00390),
Possibly *Pappos and Chrestos, martyrs of Tomis, (S00994),
Perhaps *Euagrios of Pontus, ascetic in Egypt, ob. 399, (S01418),
The dedication of the church of *Stephen, the First martyr, (S00030) in Bourges (Gaul),
*Remigius, bishop of Reims, ob. 511/535, (S00456) to Reims (Gaul),
*Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, ob. c. 448, (S00455) in Auxerre,
The burial of *Vedastes/Vedast, bishop of Arras-Cambrai, ob. 540, (S01900) in Arras (Gaul),
*Other saints, on 1 October in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum: in Tomis and Reims (S02096).
BnF 10837:
'October has 31 days. On the Kalends of October, in the city of Tomis (Black sea), the feast of Priscus and Evagrus.
In Reims (Gaul), [the feast of] Remedus, bishop Germanus, Criscentus, Denegotia, Faustinus, Marcialis, Ianuarus, Alaxander, Eutropus, Pigra, Cotia, Saturninus, Spes, Castus, Primus, Donatus, also, Digna.
In the city of Tomis, [the feast of] Charistus.'
Bern 289:
'October has 31 days. On the Kalends of October, in the city of Tomis, [the feast of] Priscus, Criscentus, Euacer, Denegotia, Faustinus, Marcialis, Ianuarius, Alexander, Eoppus, Digna, Gottia, Saturninus, Spes, Castus, Primus, Donatus.
In Gaul, in the city of Bourges, the dedication of the church of Stephen the First martyr; also, [the feast of] Digna, Cotia, also, Cotia, Passus, Coppus.
In Tomis, [the feast of] Cristus.
In Gaul, in the city of Auxerre, the burial of Germanus, bishop and confessor.
In Reims, [the feast of] bishop Remigius.'
Weissenburg 81:
'In the city of Tomis (Black sea), [the feast of] Priscus, Criscentus, Euagrus, Denegothia, Faustinus, Marcialis, Ianuarius, Alexander, Eoprobus, Digna, Gotthia, Saturninus, Spes, Castus, Primus, Donatus, also Digna.
In the city of Reims, the translation of the body of bishop and confessor Remedius.
In Arras (Gaul), the burial of bishop and confessor Vedastus, Passicus (?), Praepus.
In Tomis, [the feast of] Christus.
In Gaul, in the city of Auxerre, [the feast of] bishop and confessor Germanus.'
Quentin does not follow any of these manuscripts carefully.
Delehaye records the commemoration only of certain saints for the day.
Translation and comments: M. Vukovic.
FestivalsSaint’s feast
Cult PlacesBurial site of a saint - unspecified
Places Named after Saint
Saint’s feast
Anniversary of relic invention/translation
Anniversary of church/altar dedication
Cult PlacesBurial site of a saint - unspecified
Cult building - independent (church)
Places Named after SaintChurch
RelicsBodily relic - entire body
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
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
According to all three early manuscripts of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum, the saints Priscus and Evagrus/Euacer/Euagrus are commemorated on 1 October in Tomis on the Black Sea coast. Priscus may be a saint that has been identified in this database as *Priscus (martyr of Tomis, S00390). He has another record attached to his name, a 5th/6th century mosaic in the Rotunda of Thessalonike that depicts him, which indicates October as the month of his feast. Delehaye offers another explanation, connecting Priscus with *Pappos (martyr of Tomis in Thrace, and companion of Chrestos, S00994).Further bellow, there is another commemoration in Tomis. Delehaye associates Charistus/Cristus/Christus, who appears to have commemoration on the same day in Tomis, with Chrestos (martyr of Tomis and companion of Pappos, S00994). Chrestos and Pappos appear together, as saints of Tomis, in the Syriac Martyrology, but on 3 April (E01465). The saint mentioned above, Evagrus/Euacer/Euagrus, appears together with them in the Martyrologium Romanum. According to Delehaye, this Evagrius could also possibly be Euagrios of Pontus (ascetic in Egypt, 345-399, S01418), but this is surely unlikely.
The rest of the saints commemorated in Tomis, according to Bern 289 and Weissenburg 81, and Reims, according to BnF 10837, Criscentus, Denegothia/Denegotia, Faustinus, Marcialis, Ianuarius/Ianuarus, Alexander/Alaxander, Eoprobus/Eoppus/Eutropus, Digna/Pigra, Gotthia/Gottia/Cotia, Saturninus, Spes, Castus, Primus, Donatus, and Digna, who are commemorated in Tomis/Reims (Gaul), are not otherwise known.
Further, Bern 289 records on 1 October the commemoration of the dedication of the church of *Stephen (the First Martyr, S00030) in Bourges (Gaul). Besides this saint, there are a few others, Digna, Cotia, Cotia, and two others, whose names are not clear. Namely, while they appear as "Passi Coppi" here, in the manuscript Weissenburg 81, they are "Passico praepi." They are not identified.
Manuscripts BnF 10837 and Weissenburg 81 record the commemoration of *Remigius (bishop of Reims, ob. 511/535, S00456), and Weissenburg 81 specifies that this date indicates the translation of his body to Reims (north-east Gaul). He is otherwise recorded as Remedius; only in Bern 289 he is noted as Remigius.
BnF 10837 records the commemoration in Reims of *Germanus (bishop of Auxerre, ob. c. 448, S00455); however, two other manuscripts record this saintly commemoration in Auxerre. Bern 289 records the commemoration of his burial in Auxerre.
Also, Weissenburg 81 records the commemoration of the burial of *Vedast (bishop of Arras-Cambrai, ob. 540, S01900) in Arras (north-east Gaul).
Unidentified saints are listed by us among *Other saints, on 1 October in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum: in Tomis and Reims, (S02096).
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 10837 | Bern 289 | Weissenburg 81 | BAV 238 | Other Mss | Quentin | Quentin | Delehaye |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Octimber dies XXXI. Kl oct̃ civĩ thomis nt̃ prisci et evagri | LAETANIAS INDICEND. MSIS . OCTUB. HABET DIES XXXI. KL . OCTB. IN THOMIS ciuitate. Prisci. Criscenti. Euacri Denegotie. Faustini Marcialis. Ianuarii Alexandri. Eop̱pi Digne. Gottiae Saturnini. Spei Casti. Primi. Donati. | LETANIAS INDIC. MEN. OCT. HAB. DIE. XXXI KL. OCT In ciuit tumis prisci criscenti euagri denegothiȩ faustini marcialis ianuarii alexandri eoprobi dignȩ gotthiae saturnini spei casti primi donati item dignae | In Thomis civitate Prisci et Evagri Criscenti Denegotiae Faustini Marcialis Ianuari Alexandri Eutropi Pigrae Cotiae Saturnini Spei Casti Primi Donati item Dignae | In Thomis civitate Prisci Criscenti et Evagri Denegotiae Faustini Marcialis Ianuari Alexandri Eutropi Pigrae Cotiae Saturnini Spei Casti Primi Donati item Dignae Cotiae item Cotiae Passi Eoprepi. | in Tomis civitate Chresti, Evagrii et Pappi. Dinogetiae Alexandri. 〈Cordubae〉 Faust(in)i, Marcialis, Ianuarii. | ||
| remus sc̃i remedi et sc̃i germani ep̃i criscenti denegotiae faustini marcialis ianuari alaxandri eutropi pigrae cotiae saturnini spei casti primi donati it̃ dignae | IN GALL. CIUITAT. beturicas. Dedicat̃ ecclesie Sc̃i Steph. ptomartyris. It. Digne. Cotie. It. Cotie. Passi. Cop̃pi | Remus ciuit̃ translatio corporis sc̃i remedii ep̃i et conf̃ | |||||
| In adrauetis dep̃ beati uedasti ep̃i et conf̃ passico praepi | |||||||
| thomis civĩ charisti | THOMIS. Cristi. | thomis thomis christi. | Thomis civitate Charisti. | Thomis civitate Charisti. | |||
| IN GALL. CIUITAT. autisioderiNsium Depos̃. Sc̃i Germani ep̃i et confessor̃ | In gałł ciuit̃ Autisioderins̃ sc̃i germani ep̃i et conf̃ | in Galliis civitate Autisiodorensi depositio sancti Germani episcopi et confessoris. | in Galliis civitate Autisiodorensi depositio sancti Germani episcopi et confessoris. | ||||
| REMIS FESTIUITA Sc̃i Remigii ep̃i |
Record Created By
Marijana Vukovic
Date of Entry
20/01/2022
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00030 | Stephen, the First Martyr | Stephanus | Certain | S00390 | Priscus, martyr of Tomis | Priscus | Certain | S00455 | Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, ob. c. 448 | Germanus | Certain | S00456 | Remigius, bishop of Reims, ob. c. 533 | Remedius/Remigius | Certain | S00994 | Chrestos and Pappos, martyrs of Tomis in Thrace | Charistus/Cristus/Christus; Priscus | Uncertain | S01418 | Euagrios of Pontus, ascetic in Egypt, ob. 399 | Evagrus/Euacer/Euagrus | Uncertain | S01900 | Vedast, bishop of Arras, ob. 540 | Vedastes | Certain | S02096 | Other saints, on 1 October in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum: in Tomis and Reims | Criscentus; Denegothia/Denegotia; Faustinus; Marcialis; Ianuarius/Ianuarus; Alexander/Alaxander; Eoprobus/Eoppus/Eutropus; Digna/Pigra; Gotthia/Gottia/Cotia; Saturninus; Spes; Castus; Primus; Donatus; Digna | Certain |
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Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Marijana Vukovic, Cult of Saints, E04973 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E04973