The Itinerarium Malmesburiense, a guide to saints' graves around and within Rome, lists those outside the porta Ostiensis (now called saint Paul's gate) on the via Ostiensis, south-west of the city. Written in Latin in Rome, 642/683.
Evidence ID
E07894
Type of Evidence
Literary - Pilgrim accounts and itineraries
Major author/Major anonymous work
Lists of Shrines in Rome
Duodecima porta et uia Ostiensis dicitur; modo porta sancti Pauli uocatur, quia iuxta eam requiescit in aecclesia sua. Ibidemque Timotheus martir, et non longe in aecclesia sanctae Teclae sunt martires Felix et Adauctus et Nemesius. In Aqua Saluia est caput Anastasii martiris.
'The twelfth gate and road is called the Ostiensis; it is now called saint Paul's gate, because near it he rests in his own church, and there too is the martyr Timotheus, and not far off in the church of saint Thecla are the martyrs Felix and Adauctus, and Nemesius. In Aqua Salvia is the head of the martyr Anastasius.'
Text and translation: Mynors, Thomson, and Winterbottom 1998, 620-621, modified
[*Paul, the Apostle, S00008; *Timotheus, martyr of Rome, buried on the via Ostiensis, S00330; *Thecla, follower of the Apostle Paul, S00092; *Felix and Adauctus, martyrs of Rome, buried on the via Ostiensis, S00421; *Nemesius, martyr of Rome, buried on the via Ostiensis, S01078; Anastasius, monk and martyr of Persia, ob. 628, S02052]
Cult PlacesCult building - independent (church)
Places Named after SaintPilgrimage
RelicsBodily relic - entire body
Cult building - independent (church)
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Burial site of a saint - cemetery/catacomb
Places Named after SaintGates, bridges and roads
Non Liturgical ActivityPilgrimage
Visiting graves and shrines
RelicsBodily relic - entire body
Bodily relic - head
Source
The graves of the martyrs of Rome are quite exceptional in two respects: for the overwhelming number of saints whose names are recorded; and for the level of detail we have on where their bodies were venerated - in the many Martyrdoms surviving from Rome (incomparably more than from any other city), in uniquely rich epigraphic evidence, and in a narrative history, the Liber Pontificalis, that records in loving detail papal improvements to the saintly graves and churches of the city. From the century between circa 590 and 690, we even have four long lists of venerated graves, which were compiled entirely independently of each other: one (the Monza papyrus, E06788) is a catalogue of holy oil collected at these graves, but the other three, the Notitia Ecclesiarum (E07900), the De Locis Sanctis (E07901) and the Itinerarium Malmesburiense (E07883), are 'itineraries' - in other words texts that introduce their readers to the graves by taking them on a journey through the burial churches and cemeteries that ringed the city. They are often described as pilgrim-guides, which was certainly one of their functions, though they could also serve to introduced the saints of Rome to distant readers.William of Malmesbury, a monk of Malmesbury abbey in Wiltshire (England), included one of these itineraries in his massive work of history, the Gesta Regum Anglorum ('Deeds of the English Kings'), which he completed in 1125: hence the modern title given to this itinerary, the Itinerarium Malmesburiense (the 'Malmesbury Itinerary'). William introduces the text as an excursus on the gates and saints of Rome, as if it were his own composition: '... that it [Rome] may lack none of its due honour, I will append the number of the gates and its long list of the remains of saints'. But in reality he is quoting a much earlier text, that he had found somewhere in an English library, dating from before the massive translation of saintly bodies into the city in the late eighth and ninth centuries; indeed, as we will see below, the text can be dated with confidence to the mid or later seventh century. There is of course a possibility that William edited what he had found; but there are no obvious anachronisms in what he recorded, and when he wrote, in introducing the itinerary, that he 'will use the casual words of everyday speech', he may well be excusing the verbatim transcription of a text so simple that it rather offended his educated sensibilities.
Like the other two itineraries, the Itinerarium Malmesburiense, takes one round the suburban cemeteries of Rome, major road by major road, listing the churches and principal graves that lay along them, starting with the via Cornelia and the church and grave of Peter, then proceeding clockwise round the city to the via Aurelia, and closing with a short list of those saints whose bodies already rested within the walls. Uniquely, our itinerary names not only the roads, but also the relevant gates in the Aurelianic walls, revealing that these were increasingly being called after the saints whose shrines lay near them. Unlike the Notitia Ecclesiarum, which directly addresses the reader in the second person singular ('Then you go ...' etc.), the Itinerarium (in common with the De Locis), uses the impersonal 'By this road is ...' etc.
The Itinerarium can be dated with confidence to the years between 642 and 683, from information given in its list of intramural saintly burials (E07897). There we learn that the bodies of Primus and Felicianus were already in the church of Santo Stefano Rotondo, the result of a translation from a cemetery on the via Nomentana effected by Pope Theodore I (642-649; E01629). On the other hand, the translation of the bodies of Simplicianus, Faustinus and Beatrix from the via Nomentana to the church of Santa Bibiana, carried out by Pope Leo II (682-683; E01678), is not mentioned, and, since our author seems to have done a very thorough job of recording intramural burials, this must mean that it had not yet occurred.
Discussion
Because the text of the Malmesburiense is organised according to the gates of the city (as well as the roads out of Rome), we learn here that by the later seventh century the porta Ostiensis had become known as the porta sancti Pauli, from the presence close-by of the church and grave of the Apostle Paul, San Paulo fuori le mura, a name it has retained (porta San Paolo).The saints listed here on the via Ostiensis are all also recorded in one or both of the other two seventh-century itineraries, the Notitia Ecclesiarum (E00687) and the De Locis Sanctis (E06989), including the reference to the head of Anastasius the Persian, whose presence ad Aquas Salvias is first documented in the De Locis.
Bibliography
Edition:Mynors, R.A.B., Thomson, R.M., and Winterbottom, M. (ed. and trans.), William of Malmesbury. Gesta Regum Anglorum (Oxford Medieval Texts; Oxford 1998), vol. 1, 614-621.
Glorie, F. (ed.), Itinerarium Malmesburiense, in Itineraria et alia geographica aetatis patrum, saec. VI - VIII (Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina 175; Turnhout: Brepols, 1965), 325-328. [Reproduces Valentini and Zucchetti's text.]
Valentini, R. and Zucchetti, G. (ed.), Codice topografico della città di Roma (Istituto storico italiano - Fonti per la storia d'Italia; Roma 1942), vol. 2, 141-153.
(Partial) Translation:
Lapidge, M., The Roman Martyrs. Introduction, Translations, and Commentary (Oxford Early Christian Studies; Oxford: Oxford University Press 2018), 664-666. [Translates most of the text, but omits parts less relevant to the martyrdom accounts that he includes in his collection.]
Record Created By
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Date of Entry
26/5/2020
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00008 | Paul, the Apostle | Paulus | Certain | S00092 | Thekla, follower of the Apostle Paul | Thecla | Certain | S00330 | Timotheus, martyr of Rome, buried on the via Ostiensis | Timotheus | Certain | S00421 | Felix and Adauctus, martyrs of Rome, buried on the via Ostiensis | Felix, Adauctus | Certain | S01078 | Nemesius, martyr of Rome, buried on the via Ostiensis | Nemesius | Certain | S02052 | Anastasios, monk and martyr of Persia, ob. 628 | Anastasius | Certain |
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Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Bryan Ward-Perkins, Cult of Saints, E07894 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E07894