engleski

Where was that martyr buried for the first time? Memory as a link between the hagiography and the land property in early medieval Zadar

The early medieval legend Translatio beati Grisogoni narrates how martyr Chrysogonus from Aquileia revealed himself to the citizens of Zadar as being put to rest in the old cemetery situated in the close vicinity of the city. Although it is historically hard to imagine that the relics, which were probably translated to Zadar in the 7th century, would have been deposed outside the city walls at the time, the legend, notwithstanding its historicity, enriched the local hagiography with the narrative which played an important role in the subsequent centuries (to be almost forgotten in the Early Modern period). Translatio beati Grisogoni not only contains valuable „historical” material datable to early medieval centuries, but it is an interesting source for the research in the ‘memory making’ conducted by the Benedictine community of St Chrysogonus. Preserved through its liturgical usage in the powerful abbey of St Chrysogonus, Translatio beati Grisogoni had an important place in the life of both the monastery and the city during the Middle Ages. The problem I would like to address in the present paper is that of the location of the inventio of St Chrysogonus and its importance for the ‘making’ of the local memory of St Chrysogonus in medieval Zadar. Namely, as the legend gives a few hints about its possible location (place Iadera Vetula understood to be in the vicinity of Zadar at the spot of the antique graveyard), I will compare it with the descriptions of the particular portions of land donated to the monastery during the 11th century. Building on my ongoing interest in the topic, I will focus on the relation between the local hagiography of St Chrysogonus and the set of documents attesting the continuous interest of the Benedictine community in acquiring the particles of land around the important sacred lieu de memoire. In this, I intend to explore the particular example of the relation between the symbolic control of social memory and the actual control of the physical property.

St Chrysogonus; hagiography; Translatio beati Grisogoni; Zadar; Benedictine abbey of St Chryogonus; social memory

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