Saint Faith | |
---|---|
Virgin martyr | |
Born | 3rd century Agen, Gallia Narbonensis, Western Roman Empire |
Died | c. 3rd–4th century Gallia Narbonensis |
Venerated in | Catholic Church Eastern Orthodox Church Anglican Communion |
Canonized | Pre-Congregation |
Major shrine | Conques, Occitanie, France |
Feast | 6 October |
Attributes |
|
Patronage |
|
Saint Faith or Saint Faith of Conques (Latin: Sancta Fides; French: Sainte Foy; Spanish: Santa Fe) is a saint who is said to have been a girl or young woman of Agen in Aquitaine. Her legend recounts how she was arrested during persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire and refused to make pagan sacrifices. Saint Faith was tortured to death with a red-hot brazier. Her death is sometimes said to have occurred in the year 287 or 290, sometimes in the large-scale Diocletianic Persecution beginning in 303. She is listed as "Sancta Fides, Virgin and martyr", in the martyrologies.
The center of her veneration was transferred to the Abbey of Sainte-Foy, Conques, where her relics arrived in the ninth century, stolen from Agen by a monk from the Abbey nearby at Conques.
A number of legends exist regarding Faith, and she was confused with the three legendary sisters known as Faith, Hope, and Charity. [2] She is recorded in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum under October 6, but the date of her death is not given. [3] A Passio, now lost, once existed, and appears in summarized form in the ninth-century martyrology of Florus of Lyon. [3] [4] Her legends portray her as a patron who could turn against those who only gave small donations to her church at Conques. [2]
It is believed that Saint Faith, a young girl from Agen, was martyred at the end of third or beginning of the fourth century, [4] in which she was tortured naked over a brazier. [5] The first extant reference to the martyrdom of Faith exists in the late sixth-century manuscript copy of the martyrology of Jerome, who died in 420, in which her feast day is listed as 6 October. [4] Faith's martyrdom was later recounted in the Passio in the mid-ninth-century. [4]
Her popular hagiography, Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis , [6] attributed to the churchman Bernard of Angers (composed between ca 1013 and after 1020), calls miracles associated with Faith joca—Latin for "tricks" or "jokes", the kind that "the inhabitants of the place call Sainte Foy's jokes, which is the way peasants understand such things." [7] One such joke was the following story: a local castellan holds onto a ring that his dying wife had promised to the saint. The castellan, whose name is Austrin, uses the ring, however, to wed his second wife. Saint Faith causes the finger of the second wife to swell up in unbearable pain. Austrin and his new wife visit the saint's shrine, and on the third night, "when the sorrowful woman happened to blow her nose, the ring flew off without hurting her fingers, just as if it had been hurled from the strongest siege engine, and gave a sharp crack on the pavement at a great distance." [8] She was also known to restore the eyes and eyesight of those who lost them while being faithful to her, often retracting their eyesight when they became arrogant. [9]
The Cançó de Santa Fe , celebrating Saint Faith in 593 octosyllabic lines, is the earliest known written work in the Catalan language, set down during the reign of Ramon Berenguer I, Count of Barcelona, between 1054 and 1076 (often dated c. 1070 [10] ). It was primarily based on a now lost Latin Passio sanctorum Fidis et Caprisii. [11]
Saint Faith's life and martyrdom has been recounted in several other verse narratives and martyrologies. A French verse narrative of Saint Faith, La Vie de Sainte Foy, was written by Simon of Walsingham, a monk at the Bury St Edmunds Abbey based on Latin sources. [12]
During the 12th century, [13] Faith's cult (i.e., devotion and religious practices associated with her) [14] was fused with that of Caprasius of Agen (Caprais) and Alberta of Agen, both associated with Agen. [15] Caprasius' cult in turn was also fused with that of Primus and Felician, who are called Caprasius' brothers. [16] Simon of Walsingham's 12th-century verse narrative of Saint Faith's life, La Vie de Sainte Foy, Dacian, Caprais, and Primus and Felician figure heavily. [17]
One legend, retold in La Vie de Sainte Foy by Simon of Walsingham in the 12th century, states that during the persecutions of Christians by the prefect Dacian, Caprasius fled to Mont-Saint-Vincent, near Agen. He witnessed the execution of Faith from atop the hill. Caprasius was condemned to death, and was joined on his way to execution by Alberta, Faith's sister (also identified as Caprasius' mother [16] ), and two brothers, named Primus and Felician. All four were beheaded.
In the fifth century, Dulcitius, bishop of Agen, ordered the construction of a basilica dedicated to her, later restored in the 8th century and enlarged in the 15th. It was demolished in 1892 due to an urban planning effort at Agen. [3]
The center of her cult was not the basilica but the abbatial church of Saint Foy at Conques. [3] In 866, her remains had been transferred to Conques, which was along the pilgrimage route to Compostela. Her cult, centered at the Abbatiale Sainte-Foy de Conques, spread along the pilgrim routes on the Way of St. James—and beyond, for her cult became popular in England, Italy, and South America. [2] In c. 1105, a priory dedicated to Saint Faith was erected in Horsham, a village in Norfolk, by Robert and Sybil Fitzwalter, in which murals of Saint Faith have survived, discovered in 1969 hidden behind a refectory wall. [14]
The gilded reliquary at Conques was described in Bernard of Angers's Book of Miracles of Sainte Foi, about 1010. Bernard of Anger's Book of Miracles of Sainte Foy provides an insightful testimony of his reaction towards Sainte Foy as a Medieval cleric and his ambivalent attitude towards reliquaries in general. His change in attitude came when he witnessed an "economically charged [miracle]" in which another cleric, Odalric, claimed he was beaten by Sainte Foy. Thus, Bernard of Angers believed that Sainte Foy punishes non-believers, and, despite previously attacking the statue, he justified his newfound devotion by stating that the idol was a "vehicle to the saint and not the saint herself." [18] It has since been repeatedly adapted and enriched, into the nineteenth century. The head itself, made of a different gold from the body—which is fashioned of thin plates over a yew wood—has been tentatively identified as an imperial portrait of the Later Roman Empire. Thomas Hoving, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has alternately theorized that the life-size golden face is a portrait or death mask of Charlemagne. [19]
Part of her relics were moved to the monastery of Sant Cugat in Catalonia in 1365. However, the reliquary can be seen in the Abbey at Conques, in France. [1] Important churches were also dedicated to her at Conches-en-Ouche in Normandy and at Sélestat, in Alsace (see St. Faith's Church, Sélestat). [3] [20]
English translation option available at the bottom of the web page
There are, in fact, two portraits of Charlemagne. One is the little bronze in the Louvre showing the emperor on a horse. The other, life-size and perhaps a death mask, is the golden face on the reliquary of Sainte-Foy in the treasury of Conques. The latter is usually called, inaccurately, a late Roman head. But traces of the distinctive crown of Charlemagne are easily seen when the head is removed from the body of the reliquary. During the preparation of the Louvre show Les Fastes du Gothique in the 1960s, I had the pleasure of taking Sainte-Foy apart and spotted the tell-tale details.
Conques is a former commune in the Aveyron department in Southern France, in the Occitania region. On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the new commune of Conques-en-Rouergue.
Ursula was a Romano-British virgin and martyr possibly of royal origin. She is venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church and the Anglican Communion. Her feast day in the pre-1970 General Roman Calendar and in some regional calendars of the ordinary form of the Roman Rite is 21 October.
Sainte Foy or Sainte Foi may refer to:
Genevieve was a consecrated virgin, and is the patron saint of Paris in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Her feast day is on 3 January.
October 5 - Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar - October 7
Saints Marius, Martha, Audifax, and Abachum were, according to their largely legendary passio of the 6th century, four saints of the same family. They came from Persia to Rome, and were martyred in 270 for sympathizing with Christian martyrs and burying their bodies. Some ancient martyrologies place the date of their death between 268 and 270, during the reign of Claudius II, although there was no persecution of Christians during this time.
Raymond III, sometimes numbered Raymond II, was the count of Rouergue and Quercy from 961 to his death. Raymond achieved a suzerainty over several neighbouring counties and successfully titled himself margrave of Septimania. He was the son and successor of Raymond II.
Raymond II, sometimes numbered Raymond I was the count of Rouergue and Quercy from 937 to his death. He was the son of Ermengol of Rouergue and Adelaide. Under Raymond, Rouergue achieved a suzerainty over neighbouring counties and he successfully titled himself Margrave (marchio) of Septimania.
Saints Primus and Felician (Felicianus) (Italian: Primo e Feliciano) were brothers who suffered martyrdom about the year 304 during the Diocletian persecution. The Martyrologium Hieronymianum gives under June 9 the names of Primus and Felician who were buried at the fourteenth milestone of the Via Nomentana (near Nomentum, now Mentana).
Saint Acisclus was a martyr of Córdoba, in Hispania. His life is mentioned by Eulogius of Cordoba. He suffered martyrdom during the Diocletianic Persecution along with his sister Victoria. Their feast day is 17 November. There is doubt about the historical veracity of Victoria's existence, but both martyrs were honored in the Mozarabic liturgy.
Devota is the patron saint of Corsica and Monaco. She was killed during the persecutions of the Roman Emperors Diocletian and Maximian. She is sometimes identified with another Corsican saint named Julia, who was described in Latin as Deo devota. The description was misinterpreted as a proper name. The legend connected with her is similar to those told of other saints of the region, such as Reparata and Torpes of Pisa.
The Diocese of Rodez (–Vabres) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in France. The episcopal see is in Rodez. The diocese corresponds exactly to the Department of Aveyron. Since 7 July 2022, the bishop of Rodez have been Luc Meyer, who was appointed by Pope Francis.
Saint Caprasius of Agen is venerated as a Christian martyr and saint of the fourth century. Relics associated with him were discovered at Agen in the fifth century. Local legends dating from the 14th century make him the first bishop of Agen, though, as Alban Butler writes, the only evidence to support his existence is the dedication of a church to him in the 6th century.
The Cançóde Santa Fe, a hagiographical poem about Saint Faith, is an early surviving written work in Old Occitan and has been proposed to be the earliest work in Old Catalan. It is 593 octosyllabic lines long, divided into between 45 and 55 monorhyming laisses. It was written between 1054 and 1076, during the reign of Ramon Berenguer I, Count of Barcelona, by an anonymous poet.
UNESCO designated the Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France as a World Heritage Site in December 1998. The routes pass through the following regions of France: Aquitaine, Auvergne, Basse-Normandie, Bourgogne, Centre, Champagne-Ardenne, Ile-de-France, Languedoc-Roussillon, Limousin, Midi-Pyrénées, Picardie, Poitou-Charentes, and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. UNESCO cites the routes' role in "religious and cultural exchange", the development of "specialized edifices" along the routes, and their "exceptional witness to the power and influence of Christian faith among people of all classes and countries in Europe during the Middle Ages".
Indract or Indracht was an Irish saint who, along with his companions, was venerated at Glastonbury Abbey, a monastery in the county of Somerset in south-western England. In the High Middle Ages Glastonbury tradition held that he had been an Irish pilgrim — a king's son – on his way back from Rome who was molested and killed by a local thegn after he had stopped off to visit the shrine of St Patrick. This tradition synchronised his life with that of King Ine (688–726), though historian Michael Lapidge has argued that he is most likely to represent a 9th-century abbot of Iona named Indrechtach ua Fínnachta.
The Abbey Church of Sainte-Foy in Conques, France, was a popular stop for pilgrims traveling the Way of St. James to Santiago de Compostela, in what is now Spain. The main draw for medieval pilgrims at Conques were the remains of Sainte-Foy, a young woman martyred during the fourth century. The relics of Sainte-Foy arrived in Conques through theft in 866. After unsuccessful attempts to acquire the relics of Saint Vincent of Saragossa and then the relics of St. Vincent Pompejac in Agen, the abbey authorities set their sights on the relics of Sainte-Foy at the ancient St. Faith's Church, Sélestat. The Conques abbey opened a priory next to the shrine in Sélestat. A monk from Conques posed as a loyal monk in Agen for nearly a decade in order to get close enough to the relics to steal them. The abbey church has been a listed monument since 1840.
The Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis, literally the "Book of the Miracles of Saint Faith", is an account of the miracles attributed to Saint Faith, the patron of the Abbey of Conques in the County of Rouergue in southern France. The first two books of the Liber were written by Bernard of Angers, while the last two were written by three different anonymous authors following Bernard's death.
The 'A' of Charlemagne is a relic purportedly gifted to the Abbey Church of Sainte-Foy by the emperor Charlemagne himself. It is a gold and silver open triangle with ornate jewels on the arms. The base is stronger and serves more of a structural purpose rather than an aesthetic purpose. The piece served a greater purpose over time as the attraction to the church became more focused on visiting the relic that Charlemagne presented to the church rather than its original function of honoring Saint Faith. The church itself was a common destination of medieval pilgrimage, and the change in purpose for these pilgrimages became highly focused on visiting this relic and attracted a different audience than before.
Furta sacra refers to the medieval Christian practice of stealing saints' relics and moving them to a new shrine. Trade in and thefts of relics led to the creation of a new genre of hagiography that aimed to legitimize the actions that brought relics to their new homes; in these writings, the translation of the relics is often portrayed as morally necessary, or even requested directly by God. Sometimes, hagiographers would try to downplay the theft, but in general it was believed that a relic could not be stolen without the permission of the saint; a successful theft thus indicated saintly approval of the action. Saints Marcellinus and Peter are a famous example. Saint Faith is another. A monk from Conques brought her relics to the Abbey Church of Sainte-Foy after spending ten years undercover as a secular priest in Agen, where her relics had previously been housed.