St Michael, the Plague, and Castel Sant’ Angelo

Archangel Michael currently on top of Castel Sant’ Angelo made in 1753 (Public domain)

Gregory the Great’s vision of St Michael is one of the best known and most charming legends of the first plague pandemic. Gregory was elected Pope after the death of his predecessor from the plague in the 590s. In an effort to plead with God for an end of the plague, the new Pope Gregory led a procession, an early version of the Great Litany, around the streets of Rome. As they approached Hadrian’s Tomb, Gregory had a vision of Michael the Archangel atop the tomb overlooking the city, sheathing his sword, a sign that Gregory’s procession had been pleasing to God and that the plague would end. The statue to the right, an 18th century replacement of an earlier statue, commemorates the legend and evokes the archangels protection of Rome. It has become so iconic that it is on the cover of the only academic collected study on the first pandemic, Plague and the End of Antiquity.

As Louis Schwartz explained in his presentation at Kalamazoo last week, there are a number of problems with this story. Although Gregory the Great was a prolific writer and many of his works survive, he never mentions or even alludes to this vision. None of the early hagiographic works on Gregory mention it. Very strange considering how interested the English were in Gregory as their apostle. They came to Rome looking for more information in part on Gregory in the seventh century, and were still in the midst of plague epidemics when his story was forming in England. The earliest life of Gregory the Great was written in early eighth century England. The earliest written version of the vision that Schwartz could find was from the 13th century! The legend can only be documented about a century before the Black Death that must have fixed the legend in the landscape of Rome, along with supporting processions as mitigation against the plague.

For the shrine of St Michael in the upper chamber/roof of Hadrian’s Tomb, the earliest reference Schwartz could find was in Ado of Vienne’s Martyrology (c. 855) in the entry for St Michael.

“…But not much later, in Rome, the venerable pope Boniface dedicated to Holy Michael a church built atop a circular monument, a crypt of marvelous craft and great height. The church is housed within the very summit of this building, thus it is said to reside among the clouds.”

Castel Sant’Angelo guarding over the crossing over the River Tiber via the Pons Aelius (Credit: huwiki, wikipedia creative commons)

Schwartz notes that Ado was known for embellishing numerous saints lives and daily readings with innovative stories and is an unreliable historian. He believes that Ado was influenced by the Liber Pontificalis’ entry for pope Boniface IV (608-615) who built the church to St Mary in the structurally similar Pantheon. Bede describes this church after narrating Bishop Mellitus’ visit to Rome to confer with the pope on the English mission.

“St Boniface was the fourth bishop of Rome after St Gregory. He obtained from the Church of Christ from the Emperor Phocas the gift of the temple at Rome anciently known as the Pantheon because it represented all the gods. After he expelled every abomination from it, he made a church of it dedicated to the holy Mother of God and all the martyrs of Christ, so that when the multitudes of devils had been driven out, it might serve as a shrine for a multitude of saints.” (Bede, HE II:4)

For Schwartz the unreliable Ado of Vienne’s relatively late first reference to the shrine indicates that the shrine was old enough for its origin to have been forgotten. Instead of the time of Boniface IV in the early seventh century, Schwartz favors a later period in the early eighth century when the Lombards ruled over Rome. Michael the Archangel was the national patron saint and protector of the Lombards from the seventh century when a vision of Michael with his flaming sword was credited with the Lombards defensive victory in 663 at Monte Gargano under the warrior Lombard King Grimoald I.

Minted by King Cunincpert of the Lombards (688-700) featuring St Michael.

Schwartz noted that Grimoald’s successors minted coins with St Michael on one side and that between the 9th to 11th century, over 250 place names linked with St Michael have been found in Lombard territory.

Schwartz argued that the shrine of St Michael was built-in such a visible and strategic location during the few short years in the mid eighth century when the Lombards had hegemony over Rome. They immediately succeeded the final loss of Italian territory by the Byzantine Empire. The strategic location of Castel Sant’ Angelo guarding the only bridge over the River Tiber leading to St Peter’s Basilica symbolizing the Lombard’s role in ‘protecting’ Rome. Even after the Lombard’s lost hegemony over Rome, Lombards continued to hold an important place within the  administration of Rome. They had a Schola Langobardum within the Leonine walls built to protect St Peter’s Basilica and surrounding buildings in c. 850.

Unfortunately, for one of the best known legends of the first plague pandemic, there just isn’t any evidence to support it. It now seems likely that the shrine at Castel Sant’Angelo predated the legend of Gregory’s vision perhaps by several centuries.

Reference:

Louis Schwartz (May 12, 2012) “What Rome Owes to the Lombards: Devotion to Saint Michael in Early Medieval Italy and the Riddle of Castel Saint’Angelo” Session 429, International Congress for Medieval Studies, May 10-13, 2012, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI.

Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, 731 AD. Judith McClure and Roger Collins, Eds. Oxford U. Press.

Clashing models: Latin-Mediterranean vs Celtic

Another topic in William Trent Foley’s article “Imitatio Apostoli: St Wilfrid of York and the Andrew Script” (1989, Am Benedictine Rev) that I found very interesting is his discussion of Cuthbert and Wilfrid following different and indeed clashing life scripts.

“The difference between Aidan and Cuthbert, on the one hand, and Wilfrid on the other can be traced to their different scripts. Aidan and Cuthbert received their scripts exclusively through the Celtic Christian meliu of northern Britain. In that melieu, sanctity has long been bound up in the ideal of martyrdom that centered on ascetic self-control. Wilfrid had taken more of his script, however, from the Latin-Mediterranean cities of Rome and Lyon … both… had been drenched with the blood of Christian martyrs who stood firm against persecution from secular authorities. …In both places, Wilfrid encountered through legend and witnessed in person this ancient ideal which understood martyrdom as the holy person’s struggle against the secular ruler who is hostile to God’s people and purposes. …the Hexham church’s dedication to Andrew is owing to more than simply some general devotion that Wilfrid had for the Roman Gregorian tradition which Andrew supposedly symbolized; it can be traced more specifically to Wilfrid’s recognition that Andrew’s story was also his own. The Hexham church thus stands as a memorial not only to Andrew’s ordeal, but to Wilfrid’s as well.

…In the final chapter of Wilfrid’s Life, Eddius [Stephan] writes the following in loving admiration of his late master: ‘But now it is for us to believe fully and perfectly that our intercessor [Wilfrid] by the sign of the holy cross has been made equal to the apostles of God, Peter and Andrew, who he specifically loved.” … I suspect that by so ending his Life in ascribing to Wilfrid an apostle-martyr status equal to Andrew’s, Eddius was remembering his old abbot to the world in exactly the way that Wilfrid would have wanted.” (p. 29-31)

I think Foley’s identification of the Latin-Mediterranean model for Wilfrid’s life is a very important one. We often write/talk about authors modeling their subjects on this or that, but it is also probable that people really did model their lives on their heroes. Remember that a saint is a hero; a more important hero to a true monastic than any secular hero, real or fictional. Its also not surprising that these two different religious lifestyles would each choose a local model saint that exemplified those ideas, Wilfrid for the Mediterranean model and Cuthbert for the Anglo-Celtic/Celtic model. I think it may be better to talk of Wilfrid in this Mediterranean mode because the term Romanist (which I admit that I use all the time) is charged with many post-Reformation feelings and images that are not relevant for the seventh century.

I wonder if it is likely that two such polar examples of piety could have only developed in direct opposition to one another. Both living in the same kingdom at the same time. Cuthbert is the student of Eata, who was the bishop in most direct contact and conflict with Wilfrid (previously discussed here), and Eata was the oldest and perhaps most trusted English pupil of Aidan of Lindisfarne. Wilfrid was the student of Bishop ‘Dalphinus’ of Lyon and Bishop Agilbert (later of Paris, originally of somewhere in Gaul).

I think we also sometimes get into this mode of considering Cuthbert to be all goodness and light and Wilfrid to be nasty and political, but that is a trap. Each followed their own model and teacher. I don’t doubt Wilfrid’s faith, sincerity, or belief that it was right — and he usually was! Contemporary kings gave him plenty of reason to feel persecuted. I’m sure they did prefer the quiet monks who, as far as we know, very rarely interfered in politics and didn’t want their wealth. Yet, Wilfrid’s practical approach to politics and endowments to his monasteries got results. Endowments are a necessary thing when your king dies and the throne passes from his lineage, as no doubt Jarrow knew full well. Their endowments ended abruptly with the death of King Ecgfrith. From then on they have to barter with King Aldfrith for additional lands and there are no royal building programs at Wearmouth-Jarrow. I really have to wonder how monasteries like Lastingham survived when their founder was branded a traitor. They must have got help from the episcopal sees of Cedd and Chad. Their political position would have made establishing veneration of Cedd even more important than usual.

St Andrew’s Appeal

St Andrew‘s appeal in Britain is one of those stories of meandering coincidences that are common in development of the veneration of saints. After all, Andrew is mainly venerated in the East. His missionary work occurred in Asia Minor where he was martyred. He is the patron saint of Greece, Russia, Sicily, Romania, Malta, Prussia, and Scotland. How Andrew became the patron saint of Scotland is one of those curious East-West connections in a time when Britain is supposedly so isolated.

Here is where only the kind of melding that can take place on Sicily comes into play. Although the church of Rome tends to play down this period in Sicilian history, the island was taken by Justinian I in 535 and remained under the rule of Byzantium until it was taken by the Arabs in the mid-ninth century. Throughout this period, Sicily turned back to its ancestral orientation toward Greece and the East, including in the church. To this day, most of the people of Sicily are genetically closest to Greeks with a veneer of each invader (including the Romans). Although Rome ruled Sicily for six centuries they never heavily settled it or tried to Romanize its Greek culture.

Anyway, Gregory the Great came from a high ranking Roman family with vast Sicilian estates. His mother Silvia may have been Sicilian. It is likely that Gregory spent much of his youth in Sicily. We know that Gregory himself is said to have founded six monasteries on Sicily and one in Rome, in his former home, dedicated to St. Andrew. His knowledge of Eastern customs from Sicily, by then under the rule of Byzantium for nearly 50 years, made Gregory the ideal representative from Rome to Constaninople before he became Pope in 590. It was from his monastery of St. Andrew that Gregory chose his former prior Augustine to send to Britain. The reluctant missionary Augustine brought with him dedication to St. Andrew and founded a church in Rochester in his honor.

Northern veneration of St Andrew can also be tied to Gregory the Great’s mission to Britain. When Paulinus of York fled from York back to Kent, he was made bishop of Rochester, seated at the Church of St. Andrew. Bishop Wilfrid of York in particular looked to St Andrew (and perhaps Paulinus of York) as a role model. I wonder if the young Wilfrid visited Rochester where the legends of Paulinus and King Edwin were kept during his year in Kent waiting to go to Rome for the first time? When Wilfrid goes to Rome the first time as a teenager he seeks out the oratory of St Andrew where he kneels before the four gospel books and prays for the skills to preach to the nations. Archdeacon Boniface of the oratory of St Andrew takes him in and teaches his Roman law. Could the “Oratory of St Andrews” have been associated with Gregory the Great’s monastery in Rome? And, could Archdeacon Boniface have taken particular interest in Wilfrid because of common interest in Gregory’s mission to Britain? I don’t know.

William Trent Foley has suggested that Wilfrid’s mediation between King Ecgfrith and Queen Æthelthryth (Audrey) was influenced by legends of St Andrew’s similar intervention between a husband and wife that led to his martyrdom. Andrew counsels the wife to maintain her desired abstinence from marital relations. There is no claim that the wife was a virgin but the similarity between Andrew’s legend and Ecgfrith, Æthelthryth, Bishop Wilfrid triangle is uncanny. Wilfrid’s imprisonment and other abuse at the hands of Ecgfrith are similar to the torture Andrew endures before his martyrdom. Makes me wonder if Wilfrid wasn’t looking for martyrdom like his mentor ‘Bishop Dalphinus’ whom he had wanted to die with according to Stephan of Ripon. Wilfrid dedicated his church at Hexham (on land given to him by Audrey) to St. Andrew. This was his second major church, after St Peter’s at Ripon. The dedication to St. Andrew on land gained after his mediation between king and queen could be seen as support for Foley’s assertion that Wilfrid is intentionally following an Andrew life script. He believes that Stephan is portraying Wilfrid’s exile as a type of martyrdom. Yet, I’m getting the sense that Stephan is particularly good at showing Wilfrid escape from martyrdom opportunities, but perhaps that will be a post for another day.

After Wilfrid’s death, Hexham is inherited by his personal priest Acca, who succeeds him as Bishop of Hexham. Acca had long studied at Wilfrid’s knee but unlike his mentor his efforts had to be restricted to the see of Hexham, a minor fraction of Wilfrid’s vast domain. Bede credited Acca with greatly expanding and enhancing the Church of St Andrew at Hexham. After 21 years as bishop, Acca did follow his mentor in being exiled. Where Acca went for the rest of his life is a mystery. There has been speculation that he went to Galloway where there was a new see forming around Whithorn, but I think Bishop Pehthelm of Whithorn was removed or died about the same time. The first action of new Archbishop Egbert of York in 735 was to place new bishops, Frithuberht and Frithuwold, at Hexham and Whithorn. The Continuer of Bede’s summary (in later editions of the History) lists Egbert’s elevation and the consecration of the two new bishops all in one entry. Bishop Frithuberht of Hexham and Archbishop Egbert both retained their sees until their deaths in 766. Chronicles date Acca’s death to about 740, so he had 9 years in exile. There has been much speculation that he went north to King Oengus of Pictland. His predecessor King Nechtan had contacted Wearmouth-Jarrow in the diocese of Hexham for help in modernizing and adopting Roman rites and customs during Acca’s tenure as Bishop of Hexham. King Oengus of Pictland founded the cult of St Andrews in Scotland. Acca would have been keenly interested in turning the Pictish kingdom away from Iona and veneration of St Columba, and may have been actively involved in King Nechtan’s consultations with Abbot Coelfrith. As the kings of Pictland continued to build and favor St. Andrews, he eventually displaced St. Columba and became patron saint of Scotland.

The last but not least piece of evidence that links Hexham to St. Andrews in Scotland is circumstantial. Since the time that St Andrew became the patron saint of Constantinople, the legends of St Andrew and Constantine the Great became associated. When Wilfrid, Acca and others went to Rome and did research on St. Andrew they likely would have come across legends of Constantine the Great. It has been observed in a variety of places that Hexham’s version of the events at Heavenfield in Bede’s History (III.2) resemble accounts of Constantine at Milvan Bridge. I have never been convinced of this as much as others, but it is certainly told with Roman/Imperial language. The Pictish foundation legend of St. Andrews in Scotland is a far stronger comparison to the Constantine legend that the Heavenfield account. King Fergus of Pictland sees the X shaped Cross of St Andrew in the sky, just as Constantine sees the cross at Milvan Bridge. Fergus promises that he will make Andrew the patron saint of his kingdom Scotland/Pictland if he is victorious in the coming battle, just as Constantine does. St Oswald certainly does not give God or a saint such a challenge! A detraction to the Pictish story is that it is preserved so late that the Constantine imagery could have come at a much later date.

Andrew’s tale in Britain is a thin, long winding story but, ultimately, it leads back to Gregory the Great and his monastery in Rome. As large as Gregory the Great may loom over early Britain, it is clear that Wilfrid looms equally large over the interest in St. Andrew (and his little brother St Peter).

For further reading:

Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People. McClure and Collins, eds. Oxford UP, 1994

William Trent Foley. (1989) “Imitatio Apostoli: St Wilfrid of York and the Andrew Script” American Benedictine Review 40(1): 13-31.

Ursula Hall. (1994) St Andrew and Scotland. St Andrew’s University Library.