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 29 December.
Evidence ID
E05068
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 29 December the following feasts:
Possibly the *Martyrs of Vaga (North Africa), (S00817),
Possibly Secundus, Saturus, and Saturninus, companions of *Perpetua and Felicitas, martyrs of Carthage,(S00009),
*Felix I, bishop of Rome, ob. 274, (S00200),
The ordination of *Bonifacius I, bishop of Rome, ob. 422, (S00472),
The dedication of a basilica to *John the Apostle and Evangelist, (S00042).
BnF 10837:
'On the fourth day before the Kalends [of January], in Africa, the feast of Victor, Domitus, Crescens, and Primianus, bishop Libosus, Secundus, Saturninus, Honoratus, Victurina, Saturus, Felix.
In Rome, also, [the feast of] Felix and bishop Bonifatus.'
Bern 289:
'On the fourth day before the Kalends of January, in Africa, [the feast of] Domicus, Victorus, Criscentus, Primianus, bishop Libosus, Secundus, Saturninus, Honoratus, Victoria, Saturus, Felix.
And in Rome, [the feast of] Felix, and Primianus, of bishop Bonefatus, for [his] ordination..
On the same day, the priest Wineland died; I pray that you think it fit to remember him.'
Weissenburg 81:
'On the fourth day before the Kalends of January, in Africa, [the feast of] Domicus, Victurus, Criscentus, Primianus, bishop Libosus, Secundus, Saturninus, Honoratus, Victoria, Saturus, Felix, and of bishop Bonifacus, for [his] ordination.
And the dedication of the basilica to John the Evangelist in Wizen [= Weissenburg].'
BAV 238:
'On the fourth day before the Kalends of January, in Africa, the feast of Domicus, Victurinus, Crescentus, Primianus, Libosus, Secundus, Saturninus, Honoratus, Victoria, Felix.
And in Rome, in the cemetery of Calistus, [the feast of] Felix and Primianus, of bishop Bonifatius, for [his] ordination.'
The entries in Quentin follow for the most part the entries in BnF 10837 and BAV 238.
Delehaye seeks to clarify the entry for Rome.
Translation and comments: M. Vukovic.
FestivalsSaint’s feast
Cult Places
Saint’s feast
Anniversary of church/altar dedication
Cult PlacesCult building - independent (church)
Places Named after SaintChurch
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
All four early manuscripts of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum open their entries on 29 December with a list of eleven martyrs commemorated in Africa, which is essentially the same in each manuscript: Domitus/Domicus, Victor/Victorus/Victurus/Victurinus, Crescens/Criscentus/Crescentus, Primianus, Libosus (described as a bishop in all the manuscripts, except BAV 238), Secundus, Saturninus, Honoratus, Victurina/Victoria, Saturus (omitted in BAV 238) and Felix. Duchesne, followed in this by Delehaye, identified 'bishop Libosus' as the Libosus, bishop of Vaga (in central North Africa, near Carthage), who attended the Council of Carthage in 256 and corresponded with Cyprian of Carthage. The name is unusual, so this is possible. This identification led Duchesne to suggest that all these eleven saints might be the *Martyrs of Vaga (S00817), commemorated (but not listed in detail) on 29 October in the Calendar of Carthage (E02201). Delehaye speculates that an entry in the Hieronymianum for 29 October could have migrated in error to 29 December. All of this is just possible, but undemonstrable and highly speculative (the Calendar of Carthage links a martyr named Felicianus with the Martyrs of Vaga – see E02201 – and he is not named in the Hieronymianum's list considered here). Delehaye also points out that Saturus, Saturninus and Secundus share their names with companions of *Perpetua and Felicitas, martyrs of Carthage (S00009), and might be the same saints.All the manuscripts then record commemorations in Rome (though Weissenburg 81 suggests they were in Africa), starting with a certain Felix, associated with Primianus in Bern 289 and BAV 238 (but not in the other two manuscripts), whose commemoration BAV 238 alone specifies as in the cemetery of Callixtus. He is certainly *Felix I, bishop of Rome, who died in 274 (S00200), whose commemoration in the cemetery of Callixtus is reliably recorded in the Depositio Episcoporum of 354, though on the next day, 30 December (E01051). Primianus is, however, obscure – there is no known Primianus in the Roman tradition. It is just possible that his name has been duplicated from the African list, where it also appears.
All four manuscripts continue with commemoration of a Bishop Bonifatius/Bonefatius/Bonifacius, all the manuscripts except BnF 10837 specifying that the commemoration is for his ordination. This is presumably Bonifacius I, the bishop of Rome who died in 422 (S00472).
Finally, manuscript Weissenburg 81 adds to its entry for 29 January commemoration of the dedication of a basilica to *John, (Apostle and Evangelist, S00042) at 'Wizen', which is presumably Weissenburg.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IIII kł in af̃f̃ nt̃ victoris domiti crescentis et primiani libosi ep̃i secundi saturnini honorati victurinae saturi felicis | IIII KL. IANUAR. In africa. domici. uictori. criscenti. primiani. libosi ep̃i. secundi. saturnini. honorati. uictoriae. saturi. felicis. | IIII KL. IAN. In africa domici victuri criscenti primiani libosi ep̃i secundi saturnini honorati victorie saturi felicis et bonifaci ep̃i de ornatione | IIII. KL. Ianuar in Africa Domici Victurini Crescenti Primiani Libosi Secundi Saturnini Honorati Victoriae Felicis | In Africa natale Victoris Domici Crescentis et Primiani Libosi episcopi Secundi Saturnini Honorati Victurinae Saturi Felicis. | In Africa Domici Victori Crescentis et Primiani Libosi episcopi Secundi Saturnini Honorati Victurinae Saturi Felicis. | ||
| rom̄ it̃ felicis et bonifati ep̃i | et rom̄. felicis. et primiani bonefati ep̃i. de ordinatione | --------------- | ET ROM in cimit̃. Calisti Felicis et primiani Bonifatii ep̃i de ordinatione | et Romae item Felicis et Bonifati episcopi de ordinatione. | et Romae in cimiterio Calisti Felicis et Bonifati episcopi de ordinatione. | Romae in cimiterio Callisti Felicis. 〈item Romae〉 Bonifatii episcopi de ordinatione. | |
| Eodem die obiit uuineland prbt. precam ut eius memores esse dignemini. | et ē ded. basilice sci ioh evgl in uuizen. |
Record Created By
Marta Tycner; Marijana Vukovic
Date of Entry
06/03/2021
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00009 | Perpetua, Felicitas and their companions, martyrs of Carthage | Secundus; Saturus; Saturninus | Uncertain | S00042 | John, the Apostle and Evangelist | ioh evgl | Certain | S00200 | Felix I, bishop and martyr of Rome | Felix | Certain | S00472 | Boniface/Bonifacius I, bishop of Rome, ob. 422, buried on the via Salaria | Bonifatus/Bonifacus/Bonefatus | Certain | S00817 | Felicianus and the Martyrs of Vaga | Domitus/Domicus, Victor/Victorus/Victurus/Victurinus, Crescens/Criscentus/Crescentus, Primianus, Libosus, Honoratus, Victurina/Victoria, Felix | Certain |
|---|
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