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 11 December.
Evidence ID
E05048
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 11 December the following feasts:
The burial of *Damasus, bishop of Rome, ob. 384, (S00535),
*Eulalia, virgin and martyr of Mérida, (S00407),
*Traso/Trofo, Pontianus, Capitolinus, and Praetextatus, saints of Rome commemorated in December, (S02050),
*Secundus, Zosimus, Paulus, and Cyria/Ciriacus, martyrs of Antioch or Bithynia, (S02053),
*Victoricus and Fuscianus, martyrs of Amiens, Gaul, (S02054),
*Other saints, on 11 December in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum: in Alexandria and 'elsewhere' (S02055).
BnF 10837:
'On the third day before the Ides of December, in Rome, the burial of Damasus, [the feast of] Eulalia, Traso, Pontianus, Capitulinus, Praetextata, and 10 others.
In Alexandria, [the feast of] Sammo and Emeritus.
In Spain, [the feast of] Euticus.
In Antioch, [the feast of] Secundus, Zosimus, Paulus, and Cyria.
In Amiens, [the feast of] Victoricus and Fuscianus, martyrs.
And elsewhere, [the feast of] Maria.'
Weissenburg 81:
'On the third day before the Ides of December, in Rome, [the feast of] the holy Eulalia, Traso, Pontianus, Capitulinus, Pretextatus and many others without number.
In Alexandria, [the feast of] Sammonus, and Emeritus.
In Spain, [the feast of] Euticus, whose acts are extant.
In Antioch, [the feast of] Secundus, Zosimus, Paulus, and Ciriacus.
In Amiens, [the feast of] Victuricus and Fuscianus, martyrs.
And elsewhere, the feast of Maria.
And the death of Fritranus.'
In Bern 289 all the entries from 22 November to 24 December are missing from the manuscript.
Quentin relies on both early manuscripts.
Delehaye suggests several changes to the text.
Translation and comments: M. Vukovic.
Festivals
Saint’s feast
Cult PlacesBurial site of a saint - unspecified
Non Liturgical ActivityComposing and translating saint-related texts
RelicsBodily relic - entire body
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesWomen
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
Of the two early manuscripts of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum with entries for 11 December, only BnF 10837 records the burial at Rome of *Damasus (bishop of Rome, ob. 384, S00535). This date for his burial agrees with the record in the Liber Pontificalis (E01273).A group of five further saints is recorded in Rome in both manuscripts. Among them is Eulalia, who must be *Eulalia (virgin and martyr of Mérida, S00407), who is also commemorated on 12 December (E05049). The remaining four, namely, Traso, Pontianus, Capitulinus, and Praetextata/Pretextatus, are not readily identifiable. As Delehaye points out, a Thraso(n) appears in the Martyrdom of Susanna (BHL 7937, E02515), but as a devout Christian who helped bury the martyrs of Rome, rather than as a martyr himself, so he is unlikely to be the same saint. Delehaye hypothesises that these four names are here, not as names of saints, but as the names of four of the cemeteries of Rome: of Traso on the via Salaria nova, of Pontianus on the via Portuensis, of Calepodius (with 'Capitulinus' an error for 'Calepodius') on the via Aurelia, and of Praetextatus on the via Appia. This hypothesis is possible, but, since the same four names are also recorded in the Hieronymianum on 10 December (E05047), we have considered them as a group: *Traso/Trofo, Pontianus, Capitolinus, and Praetextatus (saints of Rome, commemorated in December, S02050).
Both manuscripts then record on 11 December commemoration in Alexandria of Sammo/Sammonus and Emeritus, neither of whom can be identified with any confidence. Delehaye thinks that these names are not preserved properly: in the case of Sammo, he argues that this could be an Egyptian saint, Ammon, and, in the case of Emeritus, that this could be the place-name Emerita (modern Mérida), the home of *Eulalia (virgin and martyr of Mérida, S00407), whom we have noted above.
Both early manuscripts of the Hieronymianum record the commemoration on this day in Spain of a certain Euticus, who again cannot readily be identified, though Weissenburg 81 notes that he had a martyrdom text attached to his name. Delehaye wondered whether the name might be a garbled version of the name of Eulalia, the martyr of Mérida (S00407).
Both early manuscripts then record Secundus, Zosimus, Paulus, and Cyria/Ciriacus as commemorated in Antioch. The same names recur in the Hieronymianum on 19, 20 and 21 December (S05058, S05059, S05060), though there associated with the city of Nicaea in Bithynia (north-west Asia Minor); we have therefore identified them as *Secundus, Zosimus, Paulus, and Cyria/Ciriacus (martyrs of Antioch or Bithynia, S02053).
Further, both early manuscripts of the Martyrologium record on this day commemoration in Amiens (ancient Ambianum, in north-east Gaul) of *Victoricus and Fuscianus (martyrs of Amiens, S02054), for whom, as Delehaye records, a later martyrdom account, BHL 3224-3228, exists.
A saint Maria, who is recorded in both early manuscripts of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum to have commemoration on 11 December in an unknown place, is not identified. Delehaye points out that she could be the same saint who is recorded on 5 December (E05042) among *Other saints, on 5 December in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum: in Africa (S02040). We are unsure about her identity, and thus leave her unidentified.
Finally, Weissenburg 81 records the death of Fritranus, who must be a local person related to the place where the manuscript was kept. We have not included him among the saints for the day.
Unidentified saints are listed by us among *Other saints, on 11 December in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum: in Alexandria and 'elsewhere' (S02055).
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| III id rom depos̃ damasi eulaliae trasonis pontiani capitulini praetextatae et aliorum X. | III ID. DEC. Romae scae eulaliae trasonis pontiani capitulini pretextati et aliorum sine numero multorum | Romae Eulaliae Trasonis Pontiani Capitulini Praetextatae et aliorum X. | Romae Eulaliae Trasonis Pontiani Capitulini Praetextatae et aliorum sine numero multorum. | Romae depositio Damasi episcopi. | |||
| In alãx sammonis et emeriti | In alēx sammoni et emeriti | in Alexandria Sammonis et Emeriti. | in Alexandria Sammonis et Emeriti. | ||||
| in spanis eutici | In hispaniis sc̃i eutici cuius gesta habentur | in Spanis sancti Eutici cuius gesta habentur. | in Spanis sancti Eutici cuius gesta habentur. | Emeritae in Spanis Eulaliae. | |||
| in antioc̃ secundi zosimi pauli et cyriae | In. anthiocia secundi zosimi pauli et ciriaci | in Antiochia Secundi Zosimi Pauli et Cyriae. | in Antiochia Secundi Zosimi Pauli et Cyriae. | ||||
| In gałł ambianis victorici et fusciani mar̃ | In gałł ambianis uicturici et fusciani mar̃ | in Galliis Ambianis Victorici et Fusciani martyrum. | in Galliis Ambianis Victorici et Fusciani martyrum. | in Galliis Ambianis Victorici et Fusciani martyrum. | |||
| et alibi sc̃ae mariae. | et alibi nat̃ sc̃ae mariae. | et alibi sanctae Mariae. | et alibi sanctae Mariae. | ||||
| et ē obitus fritrāni. |
Record Created By
Marijana Vukovic
Date of Entry
19/08/2021
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00407 | Eulalia, virgin and martyr of Mérida | Eulalia | Certain | S00535 | Damasus, bishop of Rome, ob. 384 | Damasus | Certain | S02050 | Traso/Trofo, Pontianus, Capitolinus and Praetextatus, saints of Rome commemorated in December | Traso; Pontianus; Capitulinus; Praetextata/Pretextatus | Certain | S02053 | Secundus, Zosimus, Paulus, and Ciriacus, martyrs of Antioch or Bithynia | Secundus; Zosimus; Paulus; Cyria/Ciriacus | Certain | S02054 | Victoricus and Fuscianus, martyrs of Amiens | Victoricus/Victuricus; Fuscianus | Certain | S02055 | Other saints, on 11 December in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum: in Alexandria and 'elsewhere' | Sammo/Sammonus; Emeritus; Euticus; Maria | Certain |
|---|
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