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Liturgy and Healing in an Early Medieval Saint's Cult: The Mass in honore sancti Sigismundi for the Cure of Fevers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Frederick S. Paxton*
Affiliation:
Connecticut College

Extract

In The Glory of the Martyrs, a collection of miracle stories completed by the early 590s, Bishop Gregory of Tours included a chapter on the Burgundian king Sigismund. A Catholic convert from the Arian Christianity of his father, Sigismund had founded a monastery at Agaune, the present St.-Maurice, Switzerland (Wallis/Valais), in the year 515. After he died in 523, at the hands of Chlodomer, one of the sons of Clovis, his body lay in a well at St.-Péravy-la-Colombe near Orléans (where the Franks had thrown it) until the abbot Venerandus brought it back to St.-Maurice in 535/36 for burial. Over the next fifty years or so, Sigismund gained the reputation as a saint and as a source of healing power over fevers. About Sigismund's posthumous fame, Gregory recorded that “whenever people suffering from chills piously celebrate a mass in his honor and make an offering to God for the king's repose, immediately their tremors cease, their fevers disappear, and they are restored to their earlier health.” Gregory's reference to a mass in honor of Sigismund is as unusual as is the very existence of such a celebration, for the Missa sancti Sigismundi is an early and peculiar example of a new development in the Latin liturgy in late antiquity, the missa votiva or votive mass. Votive masses differed from traditional forms of eucharistic celebration because they could be offered for a particular purpose and at the special request of a member (or members) of a congregation. Unlike the Missa sancti Sigismundi, however, most other early votive masses had generalized titles such as missa votiva or missa pro vivorum et mortuorum. The mass in honor of St. Sigismund is, as far as I can tell, unique in its appeal to the intercession of a particular saint for a specific purpose—the cure of fevers.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 by Fordham University 

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References

1 Gregory of Tours, Liber in Gloria Martyrum, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH SSRM 1.2 (Hannover, 1885), chap. 74, p. 537; trans. Raymond Van Dam, Glory of the Martyrs (Liverpool, 1988), 96–97. On the dating of the text, see Krusch, 451–56, and Van Dam, 4–5. I would like to thank the American Council of Learned Societies for a Grant-in-Aid that supported initial research on this project in Paris in 1990, and the Fulbright Commission, for a research fellowship in Rome in 1993 that gave me the opportunity to bring it to completion.Google Scholar

2 Jean-Marie Theurillat, L'Abbaye de Saint-Maurice d'Agaune des origines à la réforme canoniale 515–830 (Sion, 1954).Google Scholar

3 Ibid., 84 n. 1.Google Scholar

4 On Sigismund's cult, see Robert Folz, “Zur Frage der heiligen Könige: Heiligkeit und Nachleben in der Geschichte des burgundischen Königtums,” Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 14 (1958): 317–44; idem, Les saints rois du moyen âge en occident (vie-xiiie siècles) (Brussels, 1984); Erich Zöllner, “König Sigismund, das Wallis und die historischen Voraussetzungen der Völsungensage,” Mitteilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung 65 (1957): 1–14; Frantisek Graus, Volk, Herrscher und Heiliger im Reich der Merowinger (Prague, 1965), 396–98; and Paxton, Frederick S., “Power and the Power to Heal. The Cult of St Sigismund of Burgundy,” Early Medieval Europe 2 (1993): 95–110.Google Scholar

5 “Nam, si qui nunc frigoritici in eius honore missas devote celebrant eiusque pro requie Deo offerunt oblationem, statim, conpressis tremoribus, restinctis febribus, sanitati praestinae restaurantur.” Liber in Gloria Martyrum, ed. Krusch, 537; trans. Van Dam, Glory of the Martyrs, 97.Google Scholar

6 Angelus Albert Häussling, Mönchskonvent und Eucharistiefeier: Eine Studie über die Messe in der abendländischen Klosterliturgie der frühen Mittelalter und zur Geschichte der Messhäufigkeit, Liturgiewissenschaftlichen Quellen und Forschungen 58 (Münster, 1973); Arnold Angenendt, “Missa specialis. Zugleich ein Beitrag zur Entstehung der Privatmessen,” Frühmittelalterliche Studien 17 (1983): 153–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Mabillon, J. and Germain, M., Museum Italicum 1.2 (Paris, 1687), 273–77; Paul Cagin, “Avant-propos,” Paléographie musicale, vol. 5, Antiphonarium Ambrosiarum de musée brittanique (xiie siècle) codex additional 34209 (Solesmes, 1896–99) (hereafter cited as Cagin); André Wilmart, Lowe, E. A. and Wilson, H. A. The Bobbio Missal: A Gallican Mass Book (Ms. Paris Lat. 13246): Notes and Studies, HBS 61 (London, 1924). More rarely, scholars have investigated the mass in its own right: Adolph Franz, Die Messe im deutschen Mittelalter: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Liturgie und des religiösen Volkslebens (Freiburg, 1902; rept. Darmstadt, 1963), 191–203; and Amédée Gastoué, “Un rituel noté de la province de Milan du Xe siècle,” Rassegna Gregoriana 2 (1903): 245–54. The Bobbio mass is edited in Lowe, E. A., et al., The Bobbio Missal: A Gallican Mass Book (Ms. Paris Lat. 13246), HBS 58 (London, 1920), 101–02.Google Scholar

8 Cagin, 134, 161–76, 197–98.Google Scholar

9 In the preface, written in 1924, to his contribution (originally written in 1907 as an article for the DACL) to The Bobbio Missal: Notes and Studies, Wilmart retracted his criticisms of Cagin and agreed that the Bobbio Missal was a north Italian creation. Lowe argued (Bobbio Missal, 94–105) for an eighth-century Frankish provenance on paleographical grounds, a judgment shared by Bernhard Bischoff. Cf. Klaus Gamber, Codices liturgici latini antiquiores, Spicilegii Friburgensis subsidia 1 (Fribourg, 1963; 2nd ed., 1968), no. 220, pp. 167–68, and Cyrille Vogel, Medieval Liturgy: An Introduction to the Sources, trans. and revised by William Storey and Neils Rasmussen (Washington, D.C., 1986), 323–24. Given the continuing disagreement about the origins of this text, it is surprising that there is no reference to Cagin's work in Gamber's guide to liturgical manuscripts.Google Scholar

10 Wilmart, , Bobbio: Notes and Studies, 28, n. 3, expressed dissatisfaction (which I share) with Gastoué's attempt (n. 4 above) to reconstruct the primitive Gallican form of the mass.Google Scholar

11 Paxton, “Power and the Power to Heal.”Google Scholar

12 Franz, , Messe, 195–96; Folz, “Zur Frage,” 325.Google Scholar

13 Brown, Peter, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago, 1981), 114–20. Cf. Aline Rousselle, “Du sanctuaire au thaumaturge: la guérison en Gaule au IVe siècle,” Annales 31 (1976): 1085–1107; trans. Elborg Forster in Ritual, Religion, and the Sacred, ed. Robert Forster and Orest Ranum (Baltimore, 1982), 95–127.Google Scholar

14 Cagin (173, n. 2) was unaware of the eighth- and ninth-century Frankish examples, and Franz (Messe, 191–203) discussed only the Bobbio mass and the tenth-century St. Gall versions (n. 20 below). Using mostly late medieval liturgical texts, Folz (“Zur Frage,” 340–41) argued that there were two centers from which the cult radiated—the abbey of St.-Mesmin de Micy near Orléans, from which devotion spread into southern France; and St. Maurice d'Agaune, from which it spread to Italy and Switzerland. My findings support his (although the identification of St.-Mesmin is purely conjectural), and add St.-Martin of Tours and Lorsch as the sources of the diffusion of the mass in the low countries and Germany in the later ninth and tenth centuries.Google Scholar

15 Gregory memorialized his links to Agaune by rededicating the cathedral church at Tours to St. Maurice. See Gregory of Tours, Libri historiarum X 10.31, ed. Krusch, B. and Levison, W., MGH SSRM 1 (2nd. ed., Hannover, 1951), 534; and Sharon Farmer, Communities of St. Martin: Legend and Ritual in Medieval Tours (Ithaca, 1991), 54–55, 232–35.Google Scholar

16 BN lat. 816, fol. 115v, “Missa sancti Sigismundi regis quae pre (sic) febribus cantare debet”; ed. Patrick Saint-Roch, Liber sacramentorum Engolismensis, CCL 159C (Turnhout, 1987), 251. This sacramentary, perhaps a product of the abbey of St.-Cybard, could have been written any time after the depredations of Pepin le Bref in Aquitaine in 760 and 768 and before 820; ibid., xi; Berlin, Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, MS Phillipps 1667, fol. 184r, ?“Missa sancti Sigismundi”〈 (fragment); ed. Odilo Heiming, Liber sacramentorum Augustodunensis, CCL 159B (Turnhout, 1984), nos. 2022–25. Although Heiming noted (vi–vii) that a folio is missing between fols. 183 and 184 in the manuscript as it now stands, the truncated mass of St. Sigismund (last line of a collect, preface, and two postcommunion prayers) appears in his edition under the rubric “Super Agnum in Pascha” from fol. 183v, thus confusing its identification. I found it thanks to the apparatus in Moeller, E., Corpus Praefationum, 5 vols., CCL 161 (Turnhout, 1980–81), nos. 956, 997.Google Scholar

17 Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS lat. 377, fols. 91r-92r, “Missa sancti Sygismundi regis et martyris”; ed. Sieghild Rehle, Sacramentarium Arnonis, Textus patristici et liturgici 8 (Regensburg, 1970), 83–84 (A.D. 850–900). Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, MS A24bis inf., fols. 295r–297r, “Missa in honore sancti Sigismundi regis ac martiris pro infirmantibus” and ?“alia missa sancti Sigismundi”〈 (fragment); ed. Odilo Heiming, Das ambrosianische Sakramentar von Biasca, Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschungen 51 (Münster, 1969), 191–93, nos. 1319–23 and 1324–26 (Biasca, Italy, N., 894–932).Google Scholar

18 Vatican, MS Pal. lat. 485, fol. 15r–v, “Missale in nat?ale〈 Sigismundi” (Lorsch, ca. 900); see Paxton, Frederick S.Bonus liber: A Late Carolingian Clerical Manual from Lorsch (Bibliotheca Vaticana MS Pal. lat. 485),” in The Two Laws: Studies in Medieval Legal History Dedicated to Stephan Kuttner, ed. Laurent Mayali and Tibbetts, Stephanie A. J., Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Canon Law 1 (Washington, D.C., 1990), 11. BN lat. 9433, fol. 125, “Passio s. Sigismundi regis et mart?yris〈 Missa contra quartanum typum” (Echternach, 895–900); see Victor Leroquais, Les sacramentaires et les missels manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France 1 (Paris, 1924), 124, and Cagin, 170–71. The late ninth-century date for this manuscript was established by Carl Nordenfalk, “Ein karolingisches Sakramentar aus Echternach und seine Vorläufer,” Acta archaeologica 2 (1931): 211–12.Google Scholar

19 There are four copies of the mass in three sacramentaries from Tours: BN nouv. acq. lat. 1589, fol. 102; Tours, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 184, fol. 184; and BN lat. 9430, fols. 33v and 262r (“Missa s. Sigismundi pro febribus”). Nouv. acq. 1589 (TU2) was written for the cathedral of St. Maurice in the last quarter of the ninth century. The other two manuscripts comprise a jumble of material from two sacramentaries, one written for the abbey of St. Martin between 875 and 900 (TU1), and an augmented copy of the same written for use at the cathedral in the early tenth century (TU3). Jean Deshusses, Le sacramentaire grégorien: Ses principales formes d'après les plus anciens manuscrits, 3 vols., Spicilegium Friburgense 16, 24, 28 (Fribourg, 1971, 1979, 1982) 2:196–97, edited the mass from the texts in TU1 and TU2, but although he distinguished between those two versions, he did not indicate if the version in TU1 is based on one or the other (or both) of its two appearances in that sacramentary (BN lat. 9430, fols. 33v and 262r). The mass in TU3 is probably the same as that in TU1 on fol. 33v (since they both appear after the common of the the saints and the mass for the dedication of a church), but I was not able to check the manuscripts directly; cf. Leroquais, Sacramentaires, 46, 50, 52; and Deshusses, Sacramentaire grégorien, 3:55–59.Google Scholar

20 Orléans, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 127, fol. 329, “Missa in honore s. Sigismundi regis et mart. et pro febricitantibus”; Leroquais, Sacramentaires, 91 (taken from the abbey of Winchcombe in England to Fleury in the eleventh century). Reims, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 214, fols. 119v–120r, “Missa de (sic) s. Sigismundi regis contra febris”; Leroquais, Sacramentaires, 93, and Cagin, 171–72 (wrongly identified as ninth century). Angers, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 91(83), fol. 261, “Missa in honore s. Sigismundi regis et mart.”; Leroquais, Sacramentaires, 73, and Cagin (n. 7 above), 170–71. Göttingen, Universitätsbibliothek, MS Theol. 231, fols. 183v–184r, “Missa pro illo qui febre continetur”; ed. Gregor Richter and Albert Schönfelder, Sacramentarium Fuldense, Quellen und Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Abtei und der Diözese Fulda 9 (Fulda, 1912), 278–79. Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, MS lat. 1888, fols. 67r–68v, “Missa sancti Sigismundi pro febribus”; ed. Franz, Messe, 202. The Vienna MS is a late tenth-century copy of a compilation assembled at St. Albans between 936–62 as part of the preparation of the Roman-German Pontifical (Vogel, Medieval Liturgy [n. 9 above], 233). St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, MSS 338–41; ed. Franz, Messe, 198–202. On the St. Gall manuscripts, see also Gustave Scherrer, Verzeichniss der Handschriften der Stiftsbibliothek von St. Gallen (Halle, 1875), 118–20.Google Scholar

21 BN lat. 2291, fol. 19r, “Missa s. Sigismundis regis pro febribus” (written at St.-Amand for St.-Germain ca. 875–76); see Deshusses, , Sacramentaire grégorien, 3:41, and Leroquais, Sacramentaires, 56. The mass did not otherwise enter into the important stream of sacramentaries emanating from St.-Amand in the late ninth century. Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine, MS 525, fol. 98v, “Missa s. Sigismundi regis pro febricitantibus”; ed. Gastoué, “Un rituel” (n. 7 above), 252–54 (Asti). Bergamo, Biblioteca di San Alessandro in Colonna, MS 242, fols. 15v–16v, “Missa sci sigismundi (pro his) qui febricitantur”; ed. Angelo Paredi, Sacramentarium Bergomense, Monumenta Bergomensia 6 (Bergamo, 1962), 32–33. Padua, Biblioteca Capitolare, D47, fol. 160r, “Missa in honore s. Sigismundi”; see Leo Cunibert Mohlberg, Die älteste erreichbare Gestalt des Liber Sacramentorum anni circuli der römischen Kirche, Liturgiegeschichtliche Quellen und Forschungen 11/12 (Münster, 1927), xxii, xxx. Cagin's (164–65) reference to a mass in this MS at fol. 297 is clearly wrong.Google Scholar

22 Vich, Museo Episcopal, MS 66, fols. 65r–66r, “Missa sancti Sigismundi regis”; ed. Alejandro Olivar, El sacramentario de Vich, Monumenta Hispaniae sacra, Serie litúrgica 4 (Madrid-Barcelona, 1953), 193–94. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, MS Aedil. 123, fol. 80r, “Missa s. Sigismundi pro febricitantibus”; cf. Cagin, 164–65, and Adalbert Ebner, Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte und Kuntsgeschichte des Missale Romanum im Mittelalter: Iter Italicum (Freiburg, 1896), 33–35 (Florence, Cathedral). BN lat. 820, fol. 12r–v, “Missa s. Sigismundi pro febribus”; Victor Leroquais, Les pontificaux manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France, vol. 1 (Paris, 1937), 293 (Pontifical of Salzburg). Monte Cassino, Archivio della Badia, MS 426, pp. 57–58, “Missa sigismundi regis et martyris pre febre canenda”; Ebner, Iter Italicum, 102 (I would like to thank Virginia Brown for bringing this example to my attention). For other examples, see Leroquais, , Sacramentaires, 101 (Figeac), 113 (St.-Méen), 116 (Reichenau), 119 (Metz), 144 (St.-Denis), 158 (abbey in the Limousin), 174 (Besançon), and Cagin, 164–73. I do not know of any examples of the mass from the British Isles.Google Scholar

23 On the dating of books 1–4 of the History, see Gregory, , Libri historiarum (n. 15 above), xxi; (1st ed., 1885), 16.Google Scholar

24 Libri historiarum 3.5–6, ed. Krusch and Levison, 100–03.Google Scholar

25 A Passio did eventually appear, in the eighth or early ninth century, but not at Agaune (n. 57 below).Google Scholar

26 For a recent discussion of the development of hagiographical traditions around none-too-saintly characters, see Paul Fouracre, “Merovingian History and Merovingian Hagiography,” Past and Present, no. 127 (May 1990): 3–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 Cagin (n. 7 above), 168.Google Scholar

28 On the bidding as a peculiarly Gallican prayer, see Jungmann, Joseph A., The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origin and Development (Missarum Sollemnia). trans. Brunner, Francis A., 2 vols. (New York, 1951–55) 1:366–67. From the tenth century on, the grammatical confusion evidently caused by the shift from the dispositive to the vocative disappears and only vocative versions appear. The earlier confusion is visible in the texts in Bobbio (n. 7 above), Angoulême (n. 16 above), and Vat. lat. 377 (n. 17 above). The scribe of Vat. lat. 377 tried to correct “famulo tuo” to “famulo suo,” but someone else erased the “s”; the modern editor compounded the problem by seeing two erasures where there is only one. The MS reads further on, “famuli sui,” not “famuli tui.” The tenth-century masses from Fulda and St. Gall (n. 20 above) have prefaces derived from this prayer. It was also rewritten early on in the vocative to form another prayer, beginning “Inclina domine.” In that form it is sometimes a Secret (e.g. Bobbio, Angoulême, Tours [cathedral; n. 19 above], and St. Albans [n. 20 above]) and sometimes a Collect (Tours [abbey; n. 19 above], Biasca [n. 17 above], Fulda, the St. Gall MSS, and the Salzburg Pontifical [n. 22 above]). The grammatical confusion over the first prayer probably arose by way of contamination from the second, but the shift from the Gallican dispositive to the Roman vocative form also signalled a change in the role of the priest from leader of the congregation's prayer to the one who prayed for the congregation.Google Scholar

29 Bobbio Missal (n. 7 above), 101: “Omnipotentem dominum qui per apostolus et martires suos, diuersa sanitatum, dona largiatur, fratres dilectissimi deprecimur, ut huic seruo suo ill. qui typum quartani uixacione fatigatur, fidelis, famoli sui sigismundi, precibus clementer, occurras, dum nobis illius facit, merita isti conferas medicinam.” Translations, unless otherwise noted, are my own, although I would like to acknowledge the aid of three works that are indispensable to anyone reading medieval liturgical texts: Albert Blaise, Le vocabulaire Latin des principaux thèmes liturgiques (Turnhout, 1966), and Dictionnaire Latin-Français des auteurs chrétiens (Strasbourg, 1954); and Anthony Ward and Cuthbert Johnson, The Prefaces of the Roman Missal (Rome, 1989). In this instance, I have corrected the final two verbs to the third person on the model of the sacramentary of Biasca (n. 17 above) and read “patefacit” for “facit” on the basis of the text of this prayer in Bergamo (n. 21 above) and the Secret in Bobbio (“Inclina … nobis illius, patefacias, merita presenti egroto conferas medicinam”). Cf. Franz, Messe (n. 7 above), 196.Google Scholar

30 The reference to quartan fever suggests malaria, but the subject is in need of a separate study. On the historical epidemiology of malaria, see Mirko Grmek, Diseases in the Ancient Greek World, trans. Mireille Muellner and Leonard Muellner (Baltimore, 1989), 245–83 (and esp. the bibliographical references in nn. 123–45); and Leonard Wilson, “Fevers,” in Bynum, W. F. and Roy Porter, eds., Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine, 2 vols. (London, 1993) 1:382–94. Peregrine Horden, “Disease, Dragons and Saints: The Management of Epidemics in the Dark Ages,” in Terence Ranger and Paul Slack, eds., Epidemics and Ideas: Essays on the Historical Perception of Pestilence (Cambridge, 1992), 45–76, has recently suggested that early medieval stories of dragon slayers can be read as stories of the successful control of diseases such as malaria. If he is right, then the intriguing possibility raised by Zöllner, “König Sigismund” (n. 4 above), 8–9, of a connection between Sigismund as healer of fevers and Germanic folk heroes like Beowulf and Sigurd as dragonslayers takes on new significance.Google Scholar

31 “eiusque pro requie” (n. 5 above).Google Scholar

32 St. Gall 399, p. 500, ed. Franz, Messe, 198–99, “Missa in commemoratione s. Sigismundi pro febricitante.”Google Scholar

33 Ibid., 199, “Propitiare Domine supplicationibus nostris pro anima et spiritu famuli tui Sigismundi regis, pro qua tibi offerimus sacrificium laudis, ut eam sanctorum tuorum consortio sociare digneris.” On the language of the prayer, see Blaise, , Vocabulaire Latin. 181–82, 441–42. Cf. the Secrets in the mass for the dead in the sacramentary of Gellone, ed. Antoine Dumas, Liber sacramentorum Gellonensis, CCL 159 (Turnhout, 1981), 480; the mass on the anniversary of a death in the supplement to the Gregorian sacramentary of Benedict of Aniane, ed. Deshusses, Sacramentaire gregorien (n. 19 above), 1:467; and the parallel between Gregory's language and the words of the prayer (noted below). The use of the expression “pro anima et spiritu” rather than simply “pro anima” (only Gellone agrees with the St. Gall Secret here) may also indicate the Gallican origin and antiquity of the prayer; see Paxton, Frederick S., Christianizing Death: The Creation of a Ritual Process in Early Medieval Europe (Ithaca, 1990), 58–59.Google Scholar

34 The fact that neither Franz nor Folz was familiar with the late eighth- and ninth-century versions of the mass led them to misread the presence of the Secret in the St. Gall mass as representative of a continuous tradition of ambivalence concerning the saint's power rather than as an isolated vestige of the sixth-century beginnings of the cult. Cf. Franz, Messe, 199–200, and Folz, “Zur Frage” (n. 4 above), 331–32.Google Scholar

35 Marius, , Chronica. anno 523, ed. Mommsen, T., MGH AA 11.235: “Sigismundus rex Burgundionum a Burgundionibus Francis traditus est et in Francia in habitu monachale perductus ibique cum uxore et filiis in puteo est proiectus.” Marius recorded a number of incidents at Agaune known from no other source, such as the attack by the monks on the local bishop and his retinue in 565 (ibid., 237): evidence of tensions that may have been involved in the promotion of Sigismund's cult; see Paxton “Power and the Power to Heal” (n. 4 above).Google Scholar

36 Graus, , Volk, Herrscher und Heiliger (n. 4 above), 393, 427–33; see also Janet Nelson, “Royal Saints and Early Medieval Kingship,” in Sanctity and Secularity: The Church and the World, ed. Derek Baker, Studies in Church History 10 (Oxford, 1973), 39–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 Gregory, , In gloria martyrum (n. 1 above), chap. 74, p. 537, “paenitentiam egit, deprecans, ut quaecumque deliquerat in hoc ei saeculo ultio divina retribueret, ut scilicet habeatur in iudicio absolutus, si ei mala quae gesserat, priusquam de mundo decedat, repensetur.”Google Scholar

38 Ibid., “quem in consortio sanctorum adscitum ipsa res quae geritur manifestat.”Google Scholar

39 There was also a political motivation. At the time, Gregory was advancing claims for the sanctity of the reigning king of Burgundy, Guntram, which owed much to the precedent of Sigismund; see Folz, “Zur Frage,” 320, 326. The heightened interest in the cult of Sigismund around this time may also be linked to the rebuilding of the abbey of St.-Maurice by Guntram after its occupation by the Lombards in 574; see Marius of Avenches, Chronica, 239, and Theurillat, Abbaye (n. 2 above), 105.Google Scholar

40 Cf. notes 33 and 38 above.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 McCulloh, John M., “Martyrology,” Dictionary of the Middle Ages (New York, 1982–89) 8:161–62; Jacques Dubois, Les martyrologes du moyen âge latin (Typologie des sources médiévales 26; Turnhout, 1978), 29–34.Google Scholar

42 AS November 2.1, p. 53 and 2.2, p. 222; cf. Folz, “Zur Frage,” 327–28; some manuscripts have “passio Sigismundi regis” and others, simply, “sancti Sigismundi regis.”Google Scholar

43 Cagin (n. 7 above), 168–73.Google Scholar

44 I leave aside those versions that use a form of the Gallican bidding, “Qui per sanctos apostolos tuos et martyres,” as a Preface: i.e. those in St. Gall 338 and the Fulda sacramentary (n. 20 above), and in the books from tenth-century Bobbio, Brixen, and the Tyrol discussed by Cagin (169, n. 1).Google Scholar

45 Liber sacramentorum Engolismensis (n. 16 above), 251: “UD. Qui famulos tuos ideo corporaliter uerberas, ut mente proficiant, patenter ostendens quod sit pietatis tuae praeclara saluatio, dum praestas, ut operetur nobis etiam ipsa infirmitas salutem.” The translation of the standard beginning of a Preface (abbreviated as UD) is taken from Ward and Johnson, Prefaces (n. 29 above).Google Scholar

46 Sacramentarium Veronense. ed. Leo Cunibert Mohlberg, Rerum ecclesiasticarum documenta, series maior, fontes 1 (Rome, 1956), no. 1060. It reappears regularly in masses for the sick in later sacramentaries, and among prayers de tribulatione; see Moeller, , Corpus praefationum (n. 16 above), no. 956.Google Scholar

47 On attitudes toward sickness in Roman prayers and rituals for the sick, see Paxton, , Christianizing Death (n. 33 above), 27–32, or “Anointing the Sick in Late Antiquity and the Early Medieval West,” in Health, Disease and Healing in Medieval Culture, ed. Sheila Campbell, Bert Hall, and David Klausner (New York, 1992), 93–94.Google Scholar

48 There are some trenchant remarks on this subject in an unpublished paper by Smith, Julia M. H., “Saints and Sickness in Carolingian Europe.”Google Scholar

49 Bobbio Missal: Notes and Studies (n. 7 above), 28, n. 3.Google Scholar

50 The Angoulême Secret is in the Bobbio Missal, the Tours and Biasca sacramentaries (nn. 19, 17 above), and the Vienna MS of the Roman-German Pontifical (n. 20 above); its Post Communion prayers appears as well in the Tours cathedral sacramentary, the St. Gall books (n. 20 above), and the Vienna MS.Google Scholar

51 Liber sacramentorum Augustodunensis (n. 16 above), 269: “Tu uero domine deus noster qui electi tui Sigismundi regis triumphis martyre contulisti consecutus gratiam consecutus misericordiam. Tua enim dona sunt domine omnipotens pater ut per communionem corporis et sanguinem Iesu Christi filii tui domini nostri in honore electi tui Sigismundi regis. tempestates frigoris excutias febrium ardoris in ?eo〈 repellas et sanitatem pristinam hunc famulum tuum reuocare digneris quo socrui beati Petri apostoli febricitantem integram restituisti corporis sanitatem Christi Iesu saluatur mundi, per quem laudent angeli.”Google Scholar

52 Cf. the charts in Cagin, 170–72.Google Scholar

53 Bobbio Missal (n. 7 above), 102: “UD … quis in hoc mundo ita poterit sequi ut nec dolus, in ore nec peccatum eius inueniatur, in opere; sed in paciencia que deus amat, maiestas divina commendat. Nunc ergo dono maiestatis tuae agnuscimus; reliquiae esse homeni pacifico….” Cf. Cagin, 170.Google Scholar

54 Bobbio, 102: “… inter bellorum, tumultos, non examinacione persecutoris … tu dispensando pauperibus pulsanti, aperire dignatus es … post mortem, ostendas, in uirtute quem ante mortem firmasti in fide …” Cf. Cagin, 170 and n. 29 above.Google Scholar

55 Cf. Cagin, 173–74. The “Missa sancti Sigismundi” in a tenth-century missal from Bobbio (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Cod. D 84 inf., fols. 403–5), uses the Gallican bidding as a Preface (Cagin, 169), thus suggesting that at Bobbio the old mass was no longer in use at that time.Google Scholar

56 The Prefaces in the mass added to the sacramentary of St.-Germain (n. 21 above) and in the eleventh-century sacramentary of Nevers (Cagin, 171–72) have only the final section, “Tua enim … digneris”; that is, they read the same as Angoulême, but without the old Roman prayer as a beginning.Google Scholar

57 Passio sancti Sigismundi regis, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH SSRM 2.329–40.Google Scholar

58 Krusch argued for an early ninth-century date for the text in MGH SSRM 7.776, and Theurillat, Abbaye (n. 2 above), 83–84, posited an author who had visited Agaune but wrote the Passio for his own local church.Google Scholar

59 Passio, 338, “Qui dum ad clausuras ipsius monasterii pervenissent, ibique agminibus Burgundionum una cum Francis, ad instar Iudae traditoris Christi Trapsta Burgundio in eum manus iniecit, et vinctum catenis Francis obtulerunt.”Google Scholar

60 Passio, 339–40, “In quo loco tantas virtutes Domini misericordia praestare dignatur, ut, quisquis quartanum typum invasus, fideliter sanctorum cineribus fuerit advolutus, statim integra sanitate recepta, revertatur incolomes; seu etiam et reliquae infirmitates, quae genus hominum invadere solent, assidue per Domini misericordiam, intercedentibus sanctis martyribus, ad pristinam redeunt sanitatem, adiuvante domino nostro Iesu Christo, cui est honor et gloria, virtus et potestas per omnia secula seculorum. Amen.”Google Scholar

61 Bobbio Missal, no. 338, p. 102, “ad sanitatem pristinam reuocare digneris.”Google Scholar

62 Cf. the opening prayer in the north Italian version of the mass in Vat. lat. 377, fol. 91r, ed. Rehle (n. 17 above), 83; the words of Gregory of Tours cited in n. 1 above; and the prayer for the sick in the Supplement of Benedict of Aniane to the Gregorian sacramentary, ed. Deshusses, Sacramentaire grégorien, 1:454–55, which is common to the Bobbio Missal and the Gelasian sacramentaries of the eighth century.Google Scholar

63 Jacques Dubois and Geneviève Renaud, Edition pratique des martyrologes de Bede, de l'anonyme lyonnais et de Florus, Institut de Recherche et d'Histoire des Textes: bibliographies, colloques, travaux préparatoires (Paris, 1976), 78, “Kalendas Maii …. Passio sancti Sigismundi, filii Gundebaldi regis Burgundionum; qui cum se cerneret non posse Francis resistere, solus fugiens, coma deposita habitum religionis suscepit et jejuniis, vigiliis atque orationibus die noctuque vacans, captus a Francis, cum uxore ac filiis in puteum demersus occubuit; post vero cuidam abbati revelatus, et ab eo reverenter sepultus, etiam miraculis claruit.” On the author and the text, see Henri Quentin, Les martyrologes historiques du moyen âge (Paris, 1908), 131–221, and Dubois, Martyrologes (n. 41 above), 39–40.Google Scholar

64 “Civitate Sedunensi, loco Acauna, passio Sigismundi regis”; Dubois and Renaud, Edition pratique, 78, and Quentin, Martyrologes, 331.Google Scholar

65 Ado, , Martyrologium, PL 123:255.Google Scholar

66 Rabani Mauri Martyrologium, ed. John McCulloh, CCM 44 (Turnhout, 1979), 41, “in Acauno passio sancti Sigismundi regis”; Jacques Dubois, Le martyrologe d'Usuard, texte et commentaire, Subsidia hagiographica (Brussels, 1965), 222, “Civitate Sedunensi, natalis Sigismundi regis.” Dubois asks if there might have been a political motive for refusing the title of martyr to Sigismund (ibid., 109), and there might be something to that, but the term natalis preserves some sense of his sanctity, since it refers, in the style of the early Church, to his birth into life everlasting.Google Scholar

67 Notker, , Martyrologium, PL 131:107, “etiam miraculis claruit adeo ut frigoretici ab eo quasi specialem expetere soliti sint medicinam, et fideliter expetentes nequaquam priventur eadem.”Google Scholar

68 Franz, Adolph, Die kirchlichen Benediktionen im Mittelalter, 2 vols. (Freiburg im Bresgau, 1909) 2:473–74. This might also be a function or a cause of the multiplication of prayers in tenth-century masses in honor of Sigismund at St. Gall, and of the preservation of the otherwise unattested Secret said for the repose of the king's soul in St. Gall, MS 338.Google Scholar

69 See n. 19 above.Google Scholar

70 Deshusses, , Sacramentaire grégorien, 2:197, “UD ae. d. Qui omnium creator et custos es, quique ex nihilo uniuersa fecisti, facta ordinasti, ordinata conseruas, cuius uirtuti et misericordiae parum fuit dedisse nobis uitae huius ac lucis exordium, nisi etiam mortalitatis nobis dona confirmes, respice domine ad hanc oblationem famuli tui ill., qui tercianis uel quartanis uexatur incommodis, et per intercessionem fidelis famuli tui sancti sigismundi cum sociis suis, spiritale ei munus effunde, per inuocationem domini nostri iesu christi filii tui.”Google Scholar

71 Cf. Cagin, 169 n. 1; Franz, Messe, 198–99; and Folz, “Zur Frage,” 341 n. 103.Google Scholar

72 Vatican, Pal. lat. 485, fol. 15r–v, “domnino, basilino, petro, pyrro, pirrino, restituto, basilio, desiderio.” Cf. Paxton, “Bonus liber” (n. 18 above); Cagin, 169 n. 1; and Franz, Messe, 198–99.Google Scholar

73 Theurillat, , Abbaye, 87, assuming that no. 4, “Sancti Basilidii marteres,” refers to two relatives, Basilius and Basilinus. I would identify Desiderius as Bishop Desiderius of Vienne, martyred by Queen Brunhilda in 610; the others are unknown.Google Scholar

74 Folz, “Zur Frage,” 337; Theurillat, Abbaye, 86.Google Scholar

75 As Folz noted, “Zur Frage,” 341, n. 103, late medieval sources identify the associates with the king's wife and sons. This probably was the result of the disappearance of the names from the mass traditions and the implication in the Passio that the miracles at the king's grave involved the sanctity of the whole family.Google Scholar

76 A second surge in interest began in the late Middle Ages when Emperor Charles IV, who named his second son after the saint, spread the cult to Bohemia; see Folz, “Zur Frage,” 338–43.Google Scholar

77 Ed. Rehle (n. 17 above), 83–86. The laying on of hands is characteristic of the liturgical treatment of the sick in the Ambrosian liturgy.Google Scholar

78 Paxton, , “Bonus liber,” 10–12.Google Scholar

79 Sacramentarium Fuldense (n. 20 above), nos. 431–34.Google Scholar

80 Leroquais, , Sacramentaires (n. 18 above), 124. The mass in Vatican Pal. lat. 485 (nn. 18 and 78 above) is associated by title with the feast of Sigismund on 1 May, but by context (it is followed by instructions for letting blood) with healing as a form of pastoral care.Google Scholar

81 Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS lat. 4772, fol. 74r (Ebner, Iter Italicum [n. 22 above], 225; Gamber, Codices [n. 9 above], no. 790), “Tuam nobis indulgentiam domine deus sanctus sigismundus martyr implorat (e written over a) et beneficia desiderata concedat…. Ad compendum … deprecamur ut indulgentiam tuam nobis intercessio beati sigismundi martyris tui et imploret semper et impetret.” See also, Folz, “Zur Frage,” 336.Google Scholar

82 Biasca (n. 17 above), St. Gall (n. 20 above) and Vich (n. 22 above).Google Scholar

83 Leroquais, , Sacramentaires, 91.Google Scholar

84 Ibid., 113, 144.Google Scholar

85 Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 448, fol. 181r; Catalogue général des bibliothèques publiques de France: Départements 5 (Paris, 1889), 106–109; Ernest Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits latins de médecine du haut moyen âge dans les bibliothèques de France, Documents, Etudes et Répertoires publiés par l'Institut de Recherche et d'Histoire des Textes 11 (Paris, 1966), 32–33.Google Scholar

86 Ibid., “Tribus diebus cotidie ter lege super febricitantem et sanabitur. Ad febres carmen. In nomine Patris et … Amen. Ecce crucem Domini triunius. Christus natus est, on. bon. jon. Christus passus, don. ron. con. Christe resurrexit, ton. son. yon. Cum introisset Dominus Jhese in domum Symonis Petri, vidit socrum ejus jacentem et febricitantem…. Syon. Syon. Syon. Pro commemoratione sancti Sigismundi regis libera famulum vel famulam Domine, N. Deus, in nomine Patris dico vobis febres. In nomine Filii contradico vos. In nomine Spiritus sancti conjuro vos febres.”Google Scholar

87 Flint, Valerie I. J., “The Early Medieval ‘Medicus’, the Saint—and the Enchanter,” Social History of Medicine 2 (1989): 127–45.Google Scholar

88 Katherine Park, “Medicine and Society in Medieval Europe, 500–1500,” in Medicine and Society: Historical Essays, ed. Andrew Wear (Cambridge, 1992), 59–90, esp. 64–70.Google Scholar

89 Paxton, “Anointing the Sick” (n. 47 above), 93–94.Google Scholar