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Mar. 20th, 2010 07:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stitchwhichAmbrose Sansedoni (d. 1287) Ambrose was born in Siena. Born in 1448, he was born deformed but miraculously healed in a Dominican church. He became a sickly-sounding child prodigy, and entered the Order of Preachers on his fifteenth (or seventeenth) birthday. Ambrose was then sent to Paris, where he studied with Albertus Magnus. Ambrose spent the rest of his career as a preacher – so intense that he's credited with levitating during sermons, and was frequently used on peace-making missions, active in Germany, France, and Italy. Reportedly, he died as a result of bursting a blood vessel while preaching against usury. Many miracles were reported at his tomb.
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Cuthbert (d. 687) Cuthbert seems to have sprung from Anglo-Saxon nobility living in in the more northerly parts of the kingdom of Northumbria; as he trained at Melrose Abbey, quite possibly his family was in Lothian. After serving as guest master at a newly founded daughter house at Ripon he returned to Melrose as prior, moved on to Lindisfarne where he was also prior, and then became a hermit on Inner Farne. In 685 he was consecrated bishop of Lindisfarne (for which he exchanged Hexham, to which he has just been elected). At the very end of 686 or early in 687 Cuthbert returned to Inner Farne and died there, probably in his early fifties. His body was taken back to Lindisfarne and interred next to the altar of St. Peter's church. Eleven years later, Cuthbert underwent a formal elevation, at which time his body was declared to be incorrupt.
When the Vikings sacked Lindisfarne in 793 the monks began a lengthy peregrination with his body and other treasures (not least the head of St. Oswald), settling in 883 or 885 at Chester-le-Street in today's County Durham. By this time Northumbrian missionaries had carried his veneration to the Continent and Cuthbert was listed in the major Carolingian martyrologies. In 995 his remains were brought from Chester-le-Street to Durham, where they now repose in the cathedral. In 1104, when his tomb was opened prior to his translation to his present shrine it was found to contain a small copy of the Gospel of John, made at Monkwearmouth or Jarrow during the abbacy of St. Ceolfrith. Later known, from a former place of safekeeping, as the Stonyhurst Gospel and now referred to as the St Cuthbert Gospel of St John, it is on permanent loan to the British Library. His body was still incorrupt in 1104. In fact, when Henry VIII's commissioners dismantled his shrine in the early sixteenth century, the body was still so lifelike that they sent off to London for special instructions.
And, of course, Cuthbert has a bird named after him: the Cuddy duck (a.k.a. Common Eider; a.k.a. Somateria mollissima).
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Herbert of Derwentwater (d687) Herbert was a close friend of Cuthbert, a priest and hermit, living on an island in the Derwentwater. Cuthbert prophesied that they would die on the same day, as indeed they did.
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Evangelist and Peregrine (c. 1250) - close friends throughout their lives, these Augustinian Hermits died within hours of each other, and were buried in the same grave.
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Parasceve (d. 138/161) Parasceve was a particularly beloved saint in the Middle Ages, and a rich body of legends developed around her. Parasceve was a virgin martyr, probably killed in the reign of Antoninus Pius in Palestine. Legend reports that Parasceve was imprisoned and tortured several times, but remained miraculously uninjured; the emperor was so impressed that he accepted baptism. After that, Parasceve traveled widely and preached Christianity with great success - at one point she even killed a dragon, impressing yet another ruler so much that he converted.
---***---
Cuthbert (d. 687) Cuthbert seems to have sprung from Anglo-Saxon nobility living in in the more northerly parts of the kingdom of Northumbria; as he trained at Melrose Abbey, quite possibly his family was in Lothian. After serving as guest master at a newly founded daughter house at Ripon he returned to Melrose as prior, moved on to Lindisfarne where he was also prior, and then became a hermit on Inner Farne. In 685 he was consecrated bishop of Lindisfarne (for which he exchanged Hexham, to which he has just been elected). At the very end of 686 or early in 687 Cuthbert returned to Inner Farne and died there, probably in his early fifties. His body was taken back to Lindisfarne and interred next to the altar of St. Peter's church. Eleven years later, Cuthbert underwent a formal elevation, at which time his body was declared to be incorrupt.
When the Vikings sacked Lindisfarne in 793 the monks began a lengthy peregrination with his body and other treasures (not least the head of St. Oswald), settling in 883 or 885 at Chester-le-Street in today's County Durham. By this time Northumbrian missionaries had carried his veneration to the Continent and Cuthbert was listed in the major Carolingian martyrologies. In 995 his remains were brought from Chester-le-Street to Durham, where they now repose in the cathedral. In 1104, when his tomb was opened prior to his translation to his present shrine it was found to contain a small copy of the Gospel of John, made at Monkwearmouth or Jarrow during the abbacy of St. Ceolfrith. Later known, from a former place of safekeeping, as the Stonyhurst Gospel and now referred to as the St Cuthbert Gospel of St John, it is on permanent loan to the British Library. His body was still incorrupt in 1104. In fact, when Henry VIII's commissioners dismantled his shrine in the early sixteenth century, the body was still so lifelike that they sent off to London for special instructions.
And, of course, Cuthbert has a bird named after him: the Cuddy duck (a.k.a. Common Eider; a.k.a. Somateria mollissima).
---***---
Herbert of Derwentwater (d687) Herbert was a close friend of Cuthbert, a priest and hermit, living on an island in the Derwentwater. Cuthbert prophesied that they would die on the same day, as indeed they did.
---***---
Evangelist and Peregrine (c. 1250) - close friends throughout their lives, these Augustinian Hermits died within hours of each other, and were buried in the same grave.
---***---
Parasceve (d. 138/161) Parasceve was a particularly beloved saint in the Middle Ages, and a rich body of legends developed around her. Parasceve was a virgin martyr, probably killed in the reign of Antoninus Pius in Palestine. Legend reports that Parasceve was imprisoned and tortured several times, but remained miraculously uninjured; the emperor was so impressed that he accepted baptism. After that, Parasceve traveled widely and preached Christianity with great success - at one point she even killed a dragon, impressing yet another ruler so much that he converted.
