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The Medieval Cult of St Agatha of Catania and the Consolidation of Christian Sicily

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2011

PAUL OLDFIELD
PAUL OLDFIELD
Affiliation:
Department of History, Manchester Metropolitan University, Geoffrey Manton Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M15 6LL; e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

In the twelfth century the cult of St Agatha of Catania was revived on the island of Sicily. This article explores the development of the cult within the wider process of the re-Christianisation of an island which had, in the previous century, been removed from Muslim control by Norman conquerors. It demonstrates that the revival of St Agatha's cult occurred through its connection to powerful political circles and to a range of emergent communication networks. The increasing renown of this shrine centre contributed to Sicily's integration into the Latin Christian world, and countered suspicious external perceptions of the island.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 62 , Issue 3 , July 2011 , pp. 439 - 456
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

1 For Muslim Sicily generally see Alex Metcalfe, Muslims and Christians in Norman Sicily: Arabic-speakers and the end of Islam, London 2003, and The Muslims of medieval Italy, Edinburgh 2009, chs ii–v.

2 G. Scalia presents a cogent overview of the documentary evidence for the medieval cult: ‘La traslazione del corpo di S. Agata e il suo valore storico’, Archivio Storico per la Sicilia Orientale xxiii–xxiv (1928), 38–157Google Scholar.

3 Bibliotheca sanctorum, i, Rome 1961, 320–35.

4 Bede's ecclesiastical history of the English people, ed. and trans. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, Oxford 1969, iv. 20, 398; PL ccxxiii. 733–4.

5 Scalia, ‘La traslazione’, 48–50.

6 Metcalfe, Muslims and Christians, 13–18, and Muslims of medieval Italy, 35. More generally see also L. T. White Jr.#x0027;s classic study, Latin monasticism in Norman Sicily, Cambridge, Ma 1938.

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9 Malaterra, i.7–8 at pp. 11–12.

10 I am grateful to Jonathan Shepard for sharing with me his immense knowledge of the Byzantine material.

11 Epistola Mauritii Cataniensis episcopi de translatione S. Agathae Virginis, Acta Sanctorum, Februarii I. 643.

12 The ecclesiastical history of Orderic Vitalis, ed. and trans. M. Chibnall, Oxford 1972, iii.v. 86–7. The monastic see at Catania was originally staffed by monks transferred from S. Euphemia, and the latter's abbot, Ansger, became its first abbot-bishop.

13 Scalia, ‘La traslazione’, 54–5.

14 In addition, a long debate has raged over the authenticity of some of the documents in the Catania archives: Ménager, L.-R., ‘Notes critiques sur quelques diplomes normands de l'Archivio Capitolare di Catania’, Bollettino dell' archivio paleografico italiano n.s. ii/iii (1956/7), 147Google Scholar. For useful revisions of Ménager's judgements on the materials within the Catania archive see also J. Johns, Arabic administration in Norman Sicily: the royal dīwān, Cambridge 2002, 40 n. 3, 52–3.

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16 Malaterra, iv.7 at pp. 88–9.

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21 Epistola Mauritii, 643.

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33 Scalia, ‘La traslazione’, 95–6; Loud, Age of Robert Guiscard, 177, 180, 182.

34 Epistola Mauritii, 646.

35 G. A. Loud, ‘Norman Italy and the Holy Land’, in B. Z. Kedar (ed.), The Horns of Hattin, Jerusalem 1992, 58–61.

36 Epistola Mauritii, 647–8.

37 Ibid. 646.

38 The bishopric of Catania avoided subordination to Messina, and in 1168 was made directly subject to the papacy: Loud, Latin Church, 234–5.

39 Idem, ‘Norman Italy’, 52, 54, 56. See also the chapters by Houben, Luttrell and Franchetti Pardo in G. Musca (ed.), Il mezzogiorno normanno-svevo e le Crociate: atti delle quattordicesime giornate normanno-sveve, Bari, 17–20 Ottobre 2000, Bari 2002.

40 Falcandus, 156; The itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, ed. and trans. M. N. Adler, London 1907, 137; The travels of Ibn Jubayr, trans. J. C. Broadhurst, London 1952, 338–9.

41 S. Agathae miracula, 645, 649.

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43 S. Agathae miracula, 648–9.

44 Ibid.

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48 Bibliotheca sanctorum, i. 320–7.

49 O. Demus, The mosaics of Norman Sicily, London 1950, 327; W. Tronzo, The cultures of his kingdom: Roger II and the Capella Palatina in Palermo, Princeton 1997; E. Borsook, Messages in mosaic: the royal programmes of Norman Sicily (1130–1187), Oxford 1990. For Monreale's historical context see Loud, Latin Church, 329–39.

50 Epistola Mauritii, 647.

51 Ibid.

52 Vita Sancti Silvestri Trainensis, in Vitae sanctorum siculorum, ed. O. Caietanus, Palermo 1657, ii. 177. On Silvester see further Bibliotheca sanctorum, xi, Rome 1968, 1074–5, and Scalia, ‘La traslazione’, 96–7.

53 D. Pringle, The churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: a corpus, Cambridge 1998, ii. 153–4.

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55 For Howden's account see Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Houedene, ed. W. Stubbs, London 1870, iii. 53; Bibliotheca sanctorum, i. 323. In the 1190s Conrad of Querfurt, bishop of Hildesheim, visited Sicily during Henry vi's conquest and recorded a similar account of ‘Saracens’ turning to St Agatha for protection against Etna: Arnoldi chronica slavorum, ed. G. H. Pertz, MGH, SS xxxiv, Hanover 1868, bk v at p. 195.

56 Metcalfe, Muslims of medieval Italy, 213, 221–7.

57 Al-Harawi, A lonely wayfarer's guide to pilgrimage, trans. J. W. Meri, Princeton 2004, 142.

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61 See further P. Oldfield, Sanctity and pilgrimage in medieval southern Italy, 1000–1200, Cambridge, forthcoming.

62 Pioletti, A., ‘Artù, Avallon, l'Etna’, Quaderni medievali xxviii (1989), 6–35Google Scholar; La chanson d'Aspremont, trans. M. A. Newth, New York 1989.

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64 D. Comparetti, Vergil in the Middle Ages, 2nd edn, London 1908, 257–89; Gervase of Tilbury, Otia imperialia, iii. 12–13 at pp. 576–87; Arnoldi chronica slavorum, bk v at pp. 192–6.

65 Gervase of Tilbury, Otia imperialia, ii.12 at pp. 334–5.

66 Falcandus, 216–17, 243.

67 Peter of Blois, ep. xlvi, PL ccvii. 133–4.