The Saint Beneath the Stairs

The inspiration for the Waldensians was when Waldes heard a troubadour sing about St. Alexius of Rome, a man whose situation was similar to that of Waldes. Both were well-to-do, Alexius even more so.

The story goes that Alexius was born into one of the most prominent families in Rome in the 4th century, the son of Euphemianus, a Christian. The family was liberal with its wealth, with many offerings to the poor. Alexius grew up well-educated, steeped in a tradition of generosity, wanting for nothing; in turn, he was the pride and joy of his family.

By and by, his parents arranged a marriage to a young woman of great virtue and wealth. The wedding was grand and the wedding feast lavish. Later that day, however, Alexius was overcome with the urge to give up his wealth, his home, and his new bride. He went to her, giving her to take as tokens of his love jewels and riches. He then went to his own room, changed out of his sumptuous wedding garb, and left the household secretly. He went straight to the harbor and took the first ship to Edessa in Syria.

His disappearance caused his parents to send searchers high and low for him, but of course they never found him. He was living in voluntary poverty in Edessa, giving away all he had and clothing himself in rags. He fasted, slept for a few hours in the vestibule of a church dedicated to Mary, prayed all night, and spent an hour each day begging for alms. This style of living altered him so much that his friends and family would not recognize him. In fact, his parents' servants traveled as far as Edessa in search of the young man, and he was able to beg for alms from them without them recognizing him.

One day, the curate of the church where he resided heard a voice coming from the statue of Mary saying that the poor man in the vestibule was a servant of the Almighty whose prayers were very agreeable to God. The curate spread the word of this, and Alexius began to be visited and praised. This was the opposite of the humility he sought, and so he determined to leave Edessa. The first ship he took went to Rome. He was inspired by God to go to his father's house where, upon encountering his father, he said “Lord, for the sake of Christ, have compassion on a poor pilgrim, and give me a corner of your palace to live in.” Euphemianus, a pious man, took in the unrecognized son, instructing his servants to give him a place to stay and daily food. He was given a cubby under the stairs, where he stayed for 17 years, except for visits to church. Seeing his parents and bride still grieving for him was torturous, but he determined to remain anonymous, lest he be unwillingly returned to a life of luxury and leisure. When he felt his death was near, he went to Mass and Communion, went back home and wrote a brief biography of his years since his wedding night, folded it and held it in his hand. He then died peacefully.

Meanwhile, at Mass attended by Euphemianus and Emperor Honorius(384 - 423), and celebrated by Pope Innocent I (d.417), a voice was heard proclaiming that the servant of God at the house of Euphemianus was dead. The Pope and the Emperor accompanied Euphemianus to his house where they found the holy man dead, the paper held tightly in his hand until by praying the Pope was able to take it from him. They were all astonished at the reading. The house of Euphemianus was turned into the first church dedicated to Alexius.

Of course, as "detailed" as a story of a saint's life may be from 1600 years ago, we have to cast some doubt on it. There are several versions of this story. This is the Greek version. There I a Syriac version, and it seems likely that in Edessa there was a pious Roman-born beggar who was known to have given up a life of luxury. His legend grew over time and the Greek (Byzantine Church) version made Rome more prominent in the telling. The Eastern Orthodox Church venerates him on 17 July. The Tridentine Calendar of Saints in the liturgical year, however, however, has reduced the importance of his feast day over time from a Simple to a Semidouble, then a Double, and finally a Simple again in 1955. Now (as of 1960) it is a Commemoration.

...and since I assume you'd like to understand what all those terms mean, I suggest you come back to this blog tomorrow.

The Pallium

Tertullian in 220 CE wrote De Pallio ("Concerning the Pallium"), in which he talks about clothing fashion in different countries. The pallium here is not specifically religious. Pope Marcus in 336 conferred it on Bishop of Ostia, and Pope Symmachus did the same in 513 for Cæsarius of Arles. It was Boniface who insisted that it be conferred on metropolitan archbishops (archbishops who oversee a metropolis; some have the title but not their own archbishopric). The Archbishops of Canterbury were invested with the pallium, which is why Sigeric made that journey to Rome using the itinerary that has been preserved. Some popes did start charging for the pallium , enriching the coffers of the Vatican. The Council of Basel in 1432 condemned it, and the practice eventually ended.

But what is it, specifically regarding the papal garment? From the Latin palla, "woolen cloak," it is currently a band of wool that wraps around a certain way for ceremonial occasions. It used to be longer, hanging lower, but has shortened over time. Mosaics at Ravenna and Rome show the pallium looking as it did centuries ago. In current practice, a pallium is blessed by Pope Francis on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, but it will not be conferred then on a metropolitan archbishop: he shall receive it from the papal nuncio in his home diocese.

You may imagine that pallia are not bought at your corner ecclesiastical garment shop. It is made from the lambs who are presented by nuns of the convent of St. Agnes (a minor basilican in Rome). The wool is woven into the pallia by nuns of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere.

The significance of a garment of lambs wool draped over the shoulders of the pope may have originated with the pastoral image of a shepherd carrying a lamb draped over his shoulders. The popes are shepherds of their flock, etc.

Cæsarius of Arles was a pretty interesting character. He considered women the "gems of the Church." Unfortunately, like precious gems, he felt they should be locked away for safekeeping. I'll explain more in the next post.

What About the Hospitallers?

 

Pope Clement V, who approved the order to arrest all the Templars, had earlier told them to merge with the Hospitallers, since it didn't seem necessary to him to have two groups who were performing the same function: guarding/assisting people traveling to the Holy Land. Who were the Hospitallers?

In 1023, a hospital was built in Jerusalem on the site of the Benedictine monastery of St. John the Baptist, to care for sick and injured pilgrims. When Jerusalem was taken over by the First Crusade, some Crusaders formed the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem—colloquially known as the Hospitallers—to support the hospital. A papal charter charged them with the care and defense of folk in the Holy Land. This evolved from caring for people to providing military escorts and then to fighting in wars for Christendom.

Once Jerusalem was retaken by Muslims, the Hospitallers made their home base in Rhodes. Even later they had to relocate to Malta. They spread far and wide, establishing a presence in England and Normandy by 1200. They spread to Ireland, to Hungary, to Russia, and of course around the Mediterranean. They even made a presence in North America: they briefly colonized four Caribbean Islands—including Saint Martin and Saint Barts—which they gave to France in the 1660s.

The Knights had a bad time during the Protestant Reformation of the 1500s when several large Northern European sections of the order broke from their Roman Catholic roots. The French Revolution abolished the Order in France along with abolishing feudalism and tithes.

The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, more commonly known now as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, is considered the successor to the Hospitallers. The Order headquartered in Rome as of 1834; they performed extensive hospital work during the two World Wars. 

About that original hospital: it was excavated between 2000 and 2013, and was a replacement for an even earlier hospital. I'll talk about that next time.

The Patron Saint of Comedians

Icon of St. Genesius, commissioned
by the Fraternity of St. Genesius

There are several saints named Genesius in early Christian history: Genesius of Alvernia, Genesius of Béziers, Genesius of Rome, Genesius of Cordoba, Genesius Sciarensis (also known as Ginés de la Jara). They are likely to be made-up names, springing from misunderstandings and the desire to have a local version of the original Genesius, a very early and popular martyr.

The earliest story we have about Genesius is in the Acta Sanctorum ["Acts of the Saints"], attributed to St. Paulinus of Nola:

Genesius, native of Arles, at first a soldier became known for his proficiency in writing, and was made secretary to the magistrate of Arles. While performing the duties of his office the decree of persecution against the Christians was read in his presence. Outraged in his ideas of justice, the young catechumen cast his tablets at the feet of the magistrate and fled. He was captured and executed, and thus received baptism in his own blood.

He is believed to have been beheaded (the quickest and surest way to execute someone). This would have happened in 303 CE, in Arles in southern France. He is often referred to as Genesius of Arles (which distinguishes him from all the "copycat" saints). Later, a church was built for him in Rome, after which he became also known as Genesius of Rome, on the assumption that he was a Roman martyr.

How did he come to be the patron saint of comedians (and actors and entertainers in general)? Through fiction. A 6th-century legend of Genesius Sciarensis (who likely had no independent existence and is merely a literary duplication of the original Genesius) tells that Genesius was a comedian who, in the middle of performing an anti-Christian satire, became moved by the material and converted to Christianity; he was beheaded for this conversion.

Ginés de la Jara (mentioned above) is the Spanish version of Genesius; scholars analyzing the origins of his cult recognize the likelihood that he is synonymous with the earlier Genesius, partially because the two saints have the same feast day, 25 August.

A Fraternity of St. Genesius works toward the "renewal of culture" and its importance in the modern world.

The Huns

Today is the anniversary of Attila the Hun's attack on the town of Metz in Gaul.

In the 1st century CE, the Roman historian Tacitus mentioned a group of people living near the Caspian Sea. They were nomadic, and supposedly had come from the east. Tacitus called them Hunnoi. Ptolemy in 139 CE called them Chunnoi and said they were on the southern shores of the Black Sea. It is not certain if these two were the same peoples, or if they were the same as the Xiongnu people who lived north of China in the 3rd century BCE and later moved westward, as one 18th century scholar proposed.

We know, however, that there was an "empire" of Huns established in eastern Europe by the 4th century CE. They were so feared, conquering and absorbing peoples and dominating their lands, that it has been suggested that the Huns caused the great westward migration of other groups into western Europe.

Its peak of power was under a pair of brothers, Bleda and Attila. They were nephews of the leader Rugila, and took over when Rugila died in 434. The Huns at that time had been causing trouble for the Eastern Roman Empire, and they were in negotiations with Emperor Theodosius II. Several tribes that had been conquered by the Huns had taken refuge within the borders of the Roman Empire, and the Huns wanted them "back home."* Theodosius' legate agreed to push those tribes out of the Empire; the Empires of the Romans and Huns also agreed to trade with each other, and 350 pounds of gold as tribute was paid to the Huns to seal the deal (as well as gold ransoms for the Roman soldiers Huns had captured in recent fighting).

The Huns then turned their attention to invading the Persian Empire, leaving Rome alone for the next five years. They eventually turned back to attacking Europe when conquering Armenia proved difficult, falling into conflict with Rome again.

Bleda, the elder brother, ruled for 11 years. Upon his death, Attila took over. There has been speculation for centuries that Attila killed Bleda, but there is no evidence for it. The Hun Empire lost its focus after Attila's death in 453.

*Sounds a little like Putin annexing the Crimea.

Our Lady of the Snows

Art over the door of the Santa Maria Maggiore basilica

I said on Monday that Pope Liberius was usually known for one thing—his part in the Arian controversy—but that we owe him for the date of Christmas. Well, there's at least one other story worth repeating: his part in a miracle of the Virgin Mary.

A couple years prior to his establishing 25 December as the birthday of Jesus, Liberius had a dream. In the dream, Mary appeared an told him that a church was to be constructed on the Esquiline hill of Rome.* The same dream appeared to two other people: a childless Roman couple whose intent was to give all their worldly goods to the Mother of God. They happened to own property on the Esquiline hill. In the dream, Mary told her that she would give them a sign by covering the hill with snow.

Snow in Rome is rare, something that is noted and celebrated. And this was summer! On the morning of 5 August 352, Rome awoke to a covering of white snow on the Esquiline hill. Pope Liberius used the snow to outline the dimensions of a church in honor of Mary (represented in the sculpture above). The church they built was called the Santa Maria Maggiore [Saint Mary Major] basilica, dedicated to "Our Lady of the Snows."

*Rome was built on seven hills: Aventine, Caelian, Capitoline, Esquiline, Palatine, Quirinal, Viminal.

Cosmati Floors

Cosmati floor, Westminster Abbey church, during a recent cleaning.

When discussing the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey yesterday, I mentioned labor coming from outside of London; sometimes it came from far outside of London. Records mention workers named Matthew and Henry de Rems who likely came from Rheims in France. Richard Norman and Richard of Caen would have come from Normandy, probably for their expertise in stonework. Other expertise in stonework came from even farther away than Normandy. For in front of the high altar, Henry III commissioned a floor in the Cosmatesque style.

It wasn't known as "Cosmatesque" at the time; that is what we call it now, because the style was made popular by the Cosmati family of Rome. The Cosmati (members of whom were active for generations, from at least 1190 until at least 1303) used opus sectile [Latin: "cut work"] in stone to design intricate inlays. We know some dates for members of the family because they occasionally signed their work.

Cosmati floor from Rome.

The Cosmatesque floor in Westminster (created in 1268) is also signed, though not with a name known to be a member of the Cosmati family. A brass inscription proclaims (in Latin) "the third King Henry, the city, Odoricus and the abbot put these porphyry stones together." Another inscription reads "The spherical globe here shows the archetypal macrocosm." Explanation of the floor's symbolism has filled pages of speculation; you can find what Westminster itself has to say here.

A TV program made about the Cosmati floor during and after its recent restoration can be found on YouTube.

Got Silk?

Silk was not a medieval invention. According to Chinese tradition, Empress Si-Ling-Chi in 2460 BCE watched silkworms spinning cocoons; she unwound several cocoons, then ran the strands together to make thread, then wove the result into cloth to make a robe for Emperor Huang-Ti.

The Silk Road routes

Unverifiable, but it may very well be true. What is slightly more historically documented is that China guarded the secret of this magnificent fabric for centuries, but was willing to manufacture the cloth and sell it for very high prices to others. Wealthy people from other countries would gladly pay large sums to purchase it—soft and smooth, light to wear, dyed easily—so knowledge of this material spread. India somehow figured out the secret and was manufacturing its own silk by the 2nd century CE.

Ezekiel mentions silk, which means it was known to the Middle East in the 6th century BCE. Aristotle mentions the process of dealing with the cocoons, but the knowledge must have been lost for awhile, because it seems to be a mystery to that part of the world centuries later. We are told that Julius Caesar (100-15 March 44 BCE) had silk curtains. It is thought that the Romans first encountered silk in the hands of the Parthians in the first century BCE. By the end of the 1st century CE, Rome was trading for silk with the Parthians; we don't know what kind of "mark up" the Parthians were putting on the silk that they got from the East, but it was probably substantial. Although more than silk was traded between the East and West, silk was one of the few things only available from the Far East, and so the collection of interconnected trade routes from China and India to Byzantium and Alexandria became known as the "Silk Road."

Of course, it is cheaper to manage production yourself, and the Byzantine scholar Procopius (500-565 CE) tells us how some Nestorian monks* gave the Emperor Justinian the secret: the thread comes from silkworms that could not survive transportation, but their cocoons would travel well if insulated in dung and fed on mulberry leaves when hatched. Byzantium created a thriving silk industry and supplied Europe for centuries. The silk factories were staffed by all-female crews, and so were called gynaecea—after the name given to the section of a Roman or Greek home devoted to women.

Marco Polo on the Silk Road

The cycle of industrial espionage continued, however, when Muslims, who learned the secret of silk when they conquered Persia, took over Sicily and Spain. By the 13th century, Europe was producing its own silk and purchasing less from Byzantium. By the 15th century, France had its own factories. This was necessary, according to Louis XI, because purchasing silk from Italy created a trade deficit for France of 40-50,000,000 gold écus.**

Silk is different from cotton or wool in that it is not spun; rather, two or more strands are twisted together. To produce this, new techniques were invented. The simple reel is said to have been first devised for holding strands of silk, which could be up to a mile long. Two reels would be set up to unwind simultaneously so that their strands could be twisted together in a technique called "throwing."

The Middle Ages loved silk so much that a whole new vocabulary was created to describe its uses in fabrics:

• alexander - a striped silk
• baldachin - a warp of gold thread with a woof of silk
• begin - 14th century rayed silk fabric
• camlet - half silk/half hair (such as angora)
• cendal - woven silk material
• ecarlate - high-quality silk
• gauze - semi-transparent silk (from 13th century onward)
• imperial - silk with gold thread; originally from Byzantium, later called baldachin
• osterni - silk dyed purple
• samite - silk with interwoven gold or silver threads
• sarcenet - thin soft silk with slight sheen; sometimes called "shot"
• tartaire - silk from Tartary

...and in all these centuries, it hasn't lost its luster.

*Remember the Nestorians? They were a branch of Christianity deemed heretical a century before Procopius, who made their home in the East where William Rubruck ran into them.
**Story of the Silk Road by Yiping Zhang, p.146 (I don't normally bog things down with citations—I assume you trust me!—but this number was so ... impressive that I felt the need to point to a source. It may be a huge exaggeration.

The Abacus

After mentioning Fibonacci's work, the Liber Abacus, it occurred to me that the place of the abacus in history deserved a little attention.

The Salamis Tablet, 300 BCE

Like the etymology for book, the word "abacus" does not start out to "mean" a frame with wires and beads. The word "abacus" first enters print in the English language in 1387. The Latin word from which it is lifted refers to a sandboard, a counting board covered in sand that allows you to draw with your finger. Latin took the word from the Greek abax, abakos, a board covered with sand for the purpose of drawing figures and calculating. At some point, the sand was replaced with counters of wood or stone that were moved from column to column for calculations, and the board itself was designed to facilitate calculations

In 1846, on the island of Salamis, a white marble counting board was discovered. The Salamis Tablet has been studied extensively, and one scholar has made a video of its proper use.

But when did abacus come to refer to the wooden frame with beads on wires? A reconstruction of a 1st century Roman abacus shows a board with grooves to keep the round beads in line. Visually, it resembles the abacus with which we are familiar. Gerbert of Aurillac (c.946-1003), one of the most influential scientific minds of his era, pushed the use of the abacus as a method of calculating much more swiftly than when using Roman numerals. He was able to promote its use even more when he became Pope Sylvester II.

The abacus in the form we think of it seems to come from China in the 2nd century BCE. Called a suanpán ("counting tray"), it was built with rods that held beads, 2 on an upper deck and 5 on a lower. Now called the "2/5 abacus," the two decks allowed the user to use larger numbers without adding 1+1+1+1, etc. Other versions had different numbers of rods, and different numbers of beads on them.

Abacus showing 87,654,321

Visually, it is very much like the Roman abacus mentioned above. Commerce between Rome and China was not unknown, but a direct influence cannot be proven. Still, the wooden-framed Chinese suanpán was so much like the Roman abacus that it was natural that the West would use the same name for the new device. In fact, no one type of the many objects used for calculating universally replaced the others. Counting boards of clay or wax were used well past the Middle Ages. In fact, until just after 2000, some accounting schools in China required proficiency in using the bead abacus.

Medieval Re-Births

Far from being a complete intellectual vacuum in the years between the decline of Rome and the Renaissance, Europe experienced three distinct periods when the slow slog of culture enjoyed a short sprint forward. Two of them were connected specifically with royal patronage and the attempt on the part of a ruler to create something academically impressive and politically lasting. Scholars dispute the accuracy of calling them "renaissances" because their impact was not as lasting as the shifts in the 14th century that sparked an uninterrupted (so far) progression in all human endeavors. Erwin Panofsky, a 20th century German art historian, produced a slim tome in 1944 called Renaissance and Renascences in which he used the latter term to distinguish those other periods in history. Let's do that.

Charlemagne

The first Renascence took place during the reigns of Charlemagne (c.742-814) and his son, Louis the Pious (778-840). Charlemagne was not only King of the Franks. He managed to unite much of western and central Europe, and once he conquered Italy, he was in a position to be named Holy Roman Emperor.

Empires require a great deal of bureaucracy, however, and the dearth of literate men to serve as court scribes and secretaries was problematic. Literacy was also a problem because many parish priests could not read the Bible. In fact, the lack of widespread formal training in Latin meant that its common use—what now is referred to as vulgar Latin—was developing into regional dialects. Some of these dialects would evolve into what we call the Romance languages.

Sample of Carolingian Minuscule

With the chance to re-create the glory that was the Roman Empire, Charlemagne gathered scholars to promote the proper use of Latin. While establishing schools to accomplish this and—and along the way developing a new script called "Carolingian minuscule" that was more legible than what came before—he promoted learning, art, law, architecture, and Christianity. In order to do this, he brought together many top scholars of the day, such as:

• Peter of Pisa, who taught Charlemagne Latin
• Paulinus of Aquileia
• Paulus Diaconus
• Alcuin of York
• Joseph Scottus

These men and others helped to create a "bright spot" in a time so often called "dark." There were still dark times to come in western Europe, but thanks to the Carolingian Renascence, Western Civilization survived—in the words of Sir Kenneth Clark in his epic Civilization: "by the skin of its teeth."

Why "Middle" Ages?

So if the phrase "Dark Ages" was coined by Petrarch to describe the loss/lapse of much classical learning and advancement since the Decline of Rome (5th century CE), why do we say "Middle Ages," and what were they in the "middle" of?

Petrarch's term didn't become a widespread label; the centuries immediately following him didn't study history dogmatically the way a modern liberal studies education demands. It was a German classical scholar named Christoph Cellarius (1638-1707) who standardized the three general periods of the past two millenia with his mammoth work Universal History Divided into an Ancient, Medieval, and New Period. "Medieval" was from the Latin medium aevum (literally, "middle age"). This triple division struck the right note and entered the realm of conventional wisdom.

Still, the "Dark Ages" didn't go out of fashion, although its definition and popularity shifted. The American Cyclopaedia in 1883 said:

The Dark Ages is a term applied in its widest sense to that period of intellectual depression in the history of Europe from the establishment of the barbarian supremacy in the fifth century to the revival of learning about the beginning of the fifteenth, thus nearly corresponding in extent with the Middle Ages.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition (1911) defined the Dark Ages as the period from the fifth to the tenth centuries, affirming that "the Dark Age was a reality."

In 1929, however, the 14th edition of Britannica removed the term "Dark Ages" and stated:

the contrast, once so fashionable, between the ages of darkness and the ages of light has no more truth in it than have the idealistic fancies which underlie attempts at mediaeval revivalism.

A scholarly view of the "Dark Ages" has largely been eliminated in favor of the generic term "medieval" to distinguish between the Classical and Modern eras (Cellarius would be proud). In fact, because artistic, cultural, political and technological (et alia) development is a continuum, the division of "eras" has been muddled with a recent trend to refer to the Renaissance as the "Early Modern Era" (I remember a lecture from my grad school days in which we joked that maybe the Middle Ages would soon be labeled the "Really Early Modern Era."

Part of this desire to eliminate the concept of "dark" Ages is also 20th century understanding that not only was the period not a complete intellectual wasteland, but also that there were at least three "re-births" of education and art prior to what we think of as the European Renaissance.

But that's a topic for another day.

The Handkerchief

Richard II (1367-1400) had all of the elegance and none of the political savvy or military skill required of a king of England in the 14th century. He was given to--and ridiculed for--extravagances and fastidiousness that shocked many of his contemporaries. In an attempt to curb his excesses, he was put under the regency of a council called the Lords Appellant. Richard decided to negotiate a peace with France and devote his energies and finances to overthrowing the Lords Appellant. (Imagine what Congress would have done if, at the height of the Cold War, Lyndon Johnson had declared "I'm going to make peace with Russia and focus on controlling the GOP.") The Merciless Parliament of 1388 was called to curb him. During the process, Parliament convicted most of Richard's advisors of treason. The charges against them include lists of extravagances such as richly decorated garments and household furnishings.

At a time when such excesses were worthy of condemnation, something like the following line--a description of an order from the king's tailor, Walter Rauf--would surely make heads turn and eyes roll:

parvis peciis factis ad liberandum domino regi ad portandum in manu suo pro naso suo tergendo et mundando

"small pieces made for giving to the lord king to carry in his hand for wiping and cleaning his nose"

Why does this stand out?

Prior to this, the sleeve was the primary receptacle for the things for which we now use handkerchiefs or tissues. Stella Mary Newton, in her Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince,  does not find any evidence of handkerchief use in the courts of Europe. This seems to counter the theory that Richard picked up this "foppish" practice from France.* We know the Romans used a piece of cloth called a sudarium for wiping sweat, but that is not likely where Richard got the idea, since there is no evidence that the sudarium survived as a custom in Europe. So maybe Richard did invent the pocket handkerchief.

For more details, see Margaret Roe Designs, who also covers the Roman use of the sudarium.

*Richard was raised in France, where his father, Edward the Black Prince, held much land thanks to Edward III's successes in the Hundred Years War. In fact, it's pretty certain that Richard never bothered to learn English.