Abstract
Around 492 ce, a bull that grazed on the slopes of Monte Gargano in Puglia wandered away from its herd. The wealthy magnate named Garganus who owned the animal tracked his errant bovine to the mouth of a grotto at the top of the mountain. When he attempted to shoot it with an arrow, wind blew from the cave to turn the missile backward and kill Garganus. The perplexed local rustics sought an explanation of this prodigy from their nameless bishop. By means of a vision, the bishop heard the voice of “Michael the archangel, who always stands in contemplation of the Lord,” declare that “by this sign, I am watching over (custos) and guarding (tutor) the place.” The salvation of the bull, with its “victory” over the forces of darkness, encouraged “the custom of praying [at the grotto] to God and St. Michael.” Afterward the Watcher and Overseer returned to fend off an attack of “pagans” from Naples. As earthquakes shook the mountain and lightning flashed around its peak, the mighty Archistrategos rained down arrows upon those who would disturb his sanctuary. Michael smote his enemies; their corpses littered the road back to Naples. Angelic footprints (posterula pusilla) appeared, impressed into the very rock of the cavern as a token (pignus) of Michael’s abiding presence. A little red cape (rubrus palliolus) materialized upon its altar. The grotto became a church that the archangel himself dedicated.
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Notes
Liber de apparitione de Sancti Michaelis in Monte Gargano, edited by Georg Waitz,l MGH SRL, pp. 541–543 (BHL 5948). English translation by Richard F. Johnson, Saint Michael the Archangel in Medieval English Legend (Woodbridge, UK/Rochester, NY: Boydell and Brewer, 2005), pp. 110–115.
Supposed epigraphs that would identify Garganus with Elvius Emmanuelis (d. 528), an actual magister militum who lived in nearby Siponto in 506, don’t appear to exist: Giorgio Otranto, “Il ‘Liber de apparitione,’ il santuario di san Michele sul Gargano e i Longobardi del Ducato di Benevento,” in Santuari e politica nel mondo antico, edited by Marta Sordi (Milan: Università cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 1983), pp. 215–216 [pp. 210–245]. Giovanni Bronzini more aptly suggested Garganus to be a symbolic eponymous hero despite his unpersuasive attempt to connect him with a Frankish folk character: “La Puglia e le sue tradizioni in proiezione storica,” Archivio storico pugliese 21 (1968): 89–90 [83–117].
Garth Fowden, “City and Mountain in Late Roman Attica,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 108 (1988): 56–57 [48–59].
Susan Alcock’s discussions of a dynamic sacred landscape in second-century Greece accord well with that of Late Antiquity, Graecia Capta: The Landscapes of Roman Greece (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
Michel Rouche, “Le Combat des saints anges et des demons: la victoire de Saint Michel,” Santi e demoni nell’alto medioevo occidentale 1, Settimane di studio del Centro Italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo 36 (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’alto Medioevo, 1989), p. 538 [pp. 533–557].
Francesco Fischetti, Mercurio, Mithra, Michael (Monte Sant’ Angelo: Tip. La Garganica, 1973), pp. 15–19, sees the cavern as an abandoned and transformed pagan temple.
Marco Trotta and Antonio Renzulli, “I luoghi dei Liber de apparitione di S. Michele al Gargano: l’ecclesia beati Petri,” Vetera Christianorum 35 (1998): 335–359.
Guglielmo P. Cavallo, “Magia e medicina popolare nella Calabria bizantina,” in I Bizantini in Italia, edited by Guglielmo Cavallo (Milan: Libri Scheiwiller, 1982), pp. 685–686 [pp. 684–686], citing Codex Marcianus gr. II 163 and Barberinus gr. III 3 (olim gr. 284).
Don C. Skemer, Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006), provides an overview of the copying and use of amulets across the longue durée.
Abandoned in the eighth century, the ruins of Siponto today lie west of Manfredonia, some 55 miles north of Bari on the southern side of the Garganic promontory. For archeological data and material culture remains, see the various articles in Siponto Antica, edited by Marina Mazzei (Foggia: C. Grenzi, 1999). Giuliano Volpe places Siponto’s development within the context of late-antique Apulia, Contadini, pastori e mercanti nell’Apulia tardoantica (Bari: Edipuglia, 1996), pp. 121–123, as does Jean-Marie Martin, La Pouille du VIe au XIIe siècle (Rome: École française de Rome, 1993), pp. 113–160. Giorgio Otranto discusses Siponto and its relationship with Monte Gargano, Italia meridionale e Puglia paleocristiane: Saggi storici (Bari: Edipuglia, 1991), pp. 187–202.
Asserted in the two Lives of St. Laurence, with the first dated to the early eleventh c. and the second to the later eleventh c. For both vitae, see AASS, February II.57–62. Ada Campione, “Storia e santità nelle due Vitae di Lorenzo vescovo di Siponto,” Vetera Christianorum 29 (1992): 169–213, discusses the dates, as does Nicholas Everett, “Hagiography of Dispossession,” 371–372.
Vita S. Laurentii 1: when Theodoric King of the Goths “struggled bitterly with Odoacer the King of the Herulis,” AASS Feb. 2.57. For background, refer to John Moorhead, Theoderic in Italy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), pp. 6–31; along with Thomas Burns, A History of the Ostrogoths (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), pp. 55–80;
and Herwig Wolfram, History of the Goths, translated by Thomas J. Dunlap (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), pp. 278–284.
Giorgio Otranto, “L’Iscrizione di Pietro e Paolo,” in Il Santuario di S. Michele sul Gargano dal VI al IX secolo, Atti del Convegno tenuto a Monte Sant’Angelo il 9–10 dicembre 1978, edited by Carlo Carletti and Giorgio Otranto (Bari: Edipuglia, 1980), pp. 183–206. The restored inscription reads: +Petrus et | +Paulus ambi apo | stoli clavi cla | vabant cruce co | nfissi erant p |ortasque | ita lucere fecere.
Mark Bradley, Colour and Meaning in Ancient Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 189–211.
Pseudo-Dionysius, La Hiérarchie céleste 7.3 =209 A-C, edition, translation, and introduction by R. Roques, G. Heil, and M. de Gandillac, SC 58 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1958), pp. 113–115. English translation in Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, translated by Colm Luibheid, prefatory remarks by J. Pelikan, J. Leclercq, and K. Froehlich (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), pp. 164–165. For further criticism, consult Andrew Louth, Denys the Areopagite (London: G. Chapman, 1989), pp. 33–51,
for the angelic choirs; William Riordan, Divine Light: The Theology of Denys the Areopagite (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008);
Paul Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the Texts and an Introduction to their Influence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993);
S. Gersh, From Iamblichus to Eriugena (Leiden: Brill, 1978).
“Iscrizioni murali,” no. 128, edition and commentary by C. Carletti, in Il santuario di S. Michele sul Gargano dal VI al IX secolo: contributo alla storia della Longobardia meridionale, edited by Carlo Carletti and Giorgio Otranto (Bari: Edipuglia, 1980), p. 125. Nicholas Everett discusses the graffiti within the broad context of literacy, Literacy in Lombard Italy, 568–774 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 265–274.
Armando Petrucci, “Origine e diffusione del culto di San Michele nell’Italia medievale,” in Millénaire monastique du Mont Saint-Michel 3 (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1993 reprint [1966]), pp. 340–343.
British Museum IV, n. 1. See the description in W. F. Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten der Spätantike und des frühen Mittelalters (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1976), pp. 78–79, and photograph, table 59. Wright, “Justinian and an Archangel,” pp. 75–79, also provides a detailed description and bibliography.
For the complete conciliar pronouncement, see Davis, The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325–787): Their History and Theology (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1983), p. 186 and pp. 170–206 for a discussion of the Council of Chalcedon and bibliography.
W. H. C. Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008);
John Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1987), pp. 29–46; and Byzantine Theology (New York: Fordham University Press, 1979), pp. 19–31.
Rohland, Der Erzengel Michael Arzt und Feldherr: Zwei Aspekte des vor- und frühbyzantishen Michaelskultes (Leiden: Brill, 1977), pp. 121–124;
Warren Treadgold, A History of the Byzantine State and Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), pp. 171–173.
Glenn Peers, “The Sosthenion near Constantinople; John Malalas and Ancient Art,” Byzantion 68 (1998): 110–120.
John W. Barker, Justinian and the Later Roman Empire (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1966), pp. 97–112; Moorhead, Justinian, pp. 116–122.
Peter Llewellyn, Rome in the Dark Ages (New York: Dorsett Press, 1993), pp. 64–67; Chavasse, “Messes du Pape Vigile,” 170–176.
Jacques Dubois, Les martyrologes du moyen âge latin (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978), p. 18. The earliest list of Roman liturgical festivals, the Depositio martyrum in the Chronographus of 354 does not mention it: Chronographus anni CCCLIIII, MGH AA 9, edited by Theodore Mommsen (Berlin: Weidmann, 1892), pp. 71–72. Richard Krautheimer knows only one ancient Roman church with a possible connection to Michael, that of S. Angelo in Pescheria, which he dates to 755: Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae (IV–IX C.), Monumenti di antichità cristiana II (Vatican City: Pontificio istituto di archeologia cristiana, 1937), pp. 64–74.
Germain Morin, “Liturgie et basiliques de Rome au milieu du VII siècle d’après les listes d’évangiles de Würzburg,” Revue Bénédictine 28 (1911): 316 [296–330].
Peter Heather and John Matthews provide the Gothic original and a translation, The Goths in the Fourth Century (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1991), pp. 128–130; also, Klaus Gamber, Die Liturgie der Goten und der Armenier (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1988), pp. 10–14.
Siegheld Müller-Riehle, Missale Beneventanum von Canosa, Textus Patristici et Liturgici 9 (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1972), p. 45.
Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis, Ravenna in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 152–160, for a discussion of possible interpretations of the Christological cycle of mosaics.
Jacobson narrates the campaign for Ravenna and its sur render (Gothic War, pp. 151–191); Otto G. von Simson details the building program and political context (including San Apollinare in Classe), along with biographical information on Maximian and Julius Argentarius, Sacred Fortress, Byzantine Art and Statecraft in Ravenna (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), pp. 1–22 and 40–62; Mario Mazzotti recounts the construction history of San Apollinare in Classe, La Basilica di Sant’Apollinare in Classe (Vatican City: Pontificio istituto di archeologia cristiana, 1954), with a discussion of the mosaics (pp. 162–188) and the archangels (pp. 168–170).
Reiner Sörries, Die Bilder der Orthodoxen im Kampf gegen den Arianismus (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1983), attributes an anti-Arian inspiration to most of the sixth-century churches of Ravenna, as well as to the mosaic of Michael in San Apollinare in Classe (pp. 223–225), an interpretation generally rejected by Deliyannis (Ravenna, pp. 259–274).
Angelika Michael, Das Apsismosaik von S. Apollinare in Classe (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2005) sees the art as an affirmation of Orthodoxy, even without overt anti-Arianism, as does
Luise Abramowski, “Die Mosaiken von S. Vitale und S. Apollinare in Classe und die Kirchenpolitik Kaiser Justinians,” Zeitschrift für antikes Christentum 5 (2001), pp. 289–341.
Dieter Heidtmann, Die Engel: Grenzgestalten Gottes. Über Notwendigkeit und Möglichkeit der christlichen Rede von den Engeln (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1999), particularly pp. 195–208.
For the Theopaschite formulation, see J. A. McGukin, “The Theopaschite Confession,” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 35 (1984): 239–255; for Justinian’s involvement, see Moorhead, Justinian, pp. 125–127. Kenneth P. Wesche translates Justinian’s theological writings: On the Person of Christ, The Christology of Emperor Justinian (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1991). Angelika Michael analyzes the liturgical and theological roles of the archangels at Classe with regard for doctrinal considerations (Das Apsismosaik, pp. 189–212).
Procopius, Wars, VII.xxii.221–24. Armando Petrucci maintains a connection with the Gothic War, “Aspetti del culto e del pellegrinaggio di S. Michele Arcangelo sul Monte Gargano,” Pellegrinaggi e culto dei santi in Europa fino alla I crociata (Todi: Presso l’accademia tudertina, 1963), pp. 151–152.
Martin, Pouille, pp. 138–140; Laurent Feller, “L’économie des territoires de Spolète et de Bénévent du Vie au Xe siècle,” in I longobardi dei ducati di Spoleto e Benevento: atti del XVI Congresso internazionale di studi sull’alto Medioevo (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 2003), pp. 214–217 [pp. 205–242].
For the church and its mosaics, see Marco Fabbri, “La basilica paleocristiana,” and Roberta Giuliani, “I mosaici del complesso archeologico di Santa Maria di Siponto,” in Siponto Antica, pp. 179–187 and 197–223; also R. Morena Cassano, “Mosaici paleocristiani di Puglia,” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome 88 (1976): 280–293.
Introductory overviews of the Lombard settlement with bibliographies include Neil Christie, The Lombards (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), pp. 69–91,
Chris Wickham, Early Medieval Italy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1989), pp. 28–47; and Everett, Literacy in Lombard Italy, pp. 54–99.
Stefano Gasparri, I Duchi Longobardi (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il medio evo, 1978), speaks to the foundations of the various duchies; Marcello Rotili specifically addresses the Duchy of Benevento, “Benevento e il suo territorio: persistenze e trasformazioni,” I longobardi dei ducati di Spoleto e Benevento, pp. 827–879.
For example, Eberhard Gothein, Die Kulturentwicklung Süd–Italiens in Einzeldarstellungen (Breslau: Wilhelm Koebner, 1886), pp. 76–97, who salutes Michael as a “Volksheiliger der Langobarden.” Giorgio Otranto repeated the mantra as late as 1988: “Per una metodologia della ricerca storico-agiografica,” p. 385.
Everett lays out the most recent view of the Lombard occupation, their Romanization, and their religious persuasion (Lombard Literacy, pp. 54–99). T. S. Brown explores the Byzantine perspective, Gentlemen and Officers, Imperial Administration and Aristocratic Power in Byzantine Italy A. D. 554– 800 (Rome: British School at Rome, 1984), particularly pp. 39–60. Also, Stefano Palmieri, “Duchi, principi e vescovi nella Longobardia meridionale,” in Longobardia e longobardi nell’Italia meridionale, le istituzioni ecclesiastiche, edited by Giancarlo Andenna and Giorgio Picasso (Milan: Vita e pensiero, 1996), pp. 43–99.
Carletti, “Iscrizioni murali,” no. 44, pp. 64–65. For a photograph, see Il Santuario di S. Michele Arcangelo sul Gargano dalle origini al X secolo, edited by Giorgio Otranto and Carlo Carletti, Scavi e ricerche 4 (Bari: Edipuglia, 1990), pl. 35, p. 96. Otranto interprets the text to refer to Grimoald and Romuald I, “Il Regnum longobardo e il santuario micaelico del Gargano: note di epigrafia e storia,” Vetera Christianorum 22 (1985): 170–173.
R. Derolez and U. Schwab, “The Runic Inscriptions of Monte S. Angelo (Gargano),” Academiae Analecta 45 (1983): 95–130.
Mark Blackburn, “Money and Coinage,” in The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 666.
E. Bernareggi, Il sistema economico e la monetazione dei Longobardi nell’Italia superiore (Milan: Mario Ratto, 1960), p. 76. See Medieval European Coinage, p. 432, pl. 8, for Ostrogothic pseudoimperial issues with Victory reverses, particularly Figure 122. The copy retained the bust and name of Justinian on the obverse. The winged victory stands left and holds a cross.
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Arnold, J.C. (2013). The Politics of Angelic Sanctity. In: The Footprints of Michael the Archangel. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137316554_4
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