Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures and maps
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviation
- INTRODUCTION
- 1 THE CAROLINGIAN PERIOD
- 2 THE CAPETIAN PERIOD
- 3 THE IDEAL OF SANCTITY: FORMATION, IMITATION, AND DISSEMINATION
- 4 THE POSTHUMOUS PATRONAGE OF THE SAINTS
- 5 SAINTLY PATRONAGE AND EPISCOPAL AUTHORITY AT THE ABBEY OF MICY
- 6 SAINTS, ABBOTS, AND ECCLESIASTICAL POLITICS AT FLEURY AND PITHIVIERS
- CONCLUSION
- Bibliography and references
- Index
INTRODUCTION
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures and maps
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviation
- INTRODUCTION
- 1 THE CAROLINGIAN PERIOD
- 2 THE CAPETIAN PERIOD
- 3 THE IDEAL OF SANCTITY: FORMATION, IMITATION, AND DISSEMINATION
- 4 THE POSTHUMOUS PATRONAGE OF THE SAINTS
- 5 SAINTLY PATRONAGE AND EPISCOPAL AUTHORITY AT THE ABBEY OF MICY
- 6 SAINTS, ABBOTS, AND ECCLESIASTICAL POLITICS AT FLEURY AND PITHIVIERS
- CONCLUSION
- Bibliography and references
- Index
Summary
On 25 May 871 Bishop Walter of Orléans issued a set of twentyfive statutes intended to instruct his priests with regard both to the conduct of their own lives and to their guidance of the social and religious lives of the faithful. He covered a variety of topics ranging from the habit which some of his clergy had of drinking in public taverns to the sacred books which they should possess in their churches. He even specified a favoured handbook of virtues and vices to serve as a basis for preaching. Such statutes provide a precious glimpse into the attempts by members of the Carolingian episcopate to mould the practice of Christianity on the parish level.
Set among them was a list of the feastdays which ought to be celebrated in the diocese of Orléans:
[The priests] ought to observe the usual feasts of the saints with solemn cult and come to know those which ought to have been previously observed by their people, that is, the birth of the Lord, [the feast] of Blessed Stephen, of St John the evangelist, of the Innocents, the octaves of the Lord, the epiphany, the nativity of holy Mary, the purification of holy Mary, the Assumption of holy Mary, Holy Saturday, the eight paschal days, the rogation days, the Ascension of the Lord, Pentecost, that of St John the Baptist, of St Peter, of St Paul, of St Martin, and of St Andrew, as well as [the feasts] of our fathers, … whose pious local patronage we are aided before the Lord, [that is] of the death of blessed Evurtius, of the death of blessed Anianus, of blessed Benedict, of blessed blessed Evurtius, of the death of blessed Anianus, of blessed Benedict, of blessed Maximinus, similarly of the death of blessed Lifardus, of the invention of the salvationbringing cross, and of the exaltation of the same life–giving cross.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Hagiography and the Cult of SaintsThe Diocese of Orléans, 800–1200, pp. 1 - 19Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990
- 2
- Cited by