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42-624: The school of St Victor was the medieval monastic school at the Augustinian abbey of St Victor in Paris. The name also refers to the Victorines , the group of philosophers and mystics based at this school as part of the University of Paris . It was founded in the twelfth century by Peter Abelard 's tutor and subsequent opponent, the realist school master William of Champeaux , and

84-562: A celebrated place of pilgrimage. At Rome, Pope Felix IV (526–530) rededicated the Library of Peace ( Bibliotheca Pacis ) as a basilica of Santi Cosma e Damiano in the Forum of Vespasian in their honour. The church is much rebuilt but still famed for its sixth-century mosaics illustrating the saints. What are said to be their skulls are venerated in the Convent of Las Descalzas Reales of

126-752: A certain Maximus c.  1300 . The legends are preserved also in Syriac, Coptic, Georgian, Armenian, and Latin. As early as the 4th century, churches dedicated to the twin saints were established at Jerusalem , in Egypt and in Mesopotamia . Devotion to the two saints spread rapidly in both the East and the West. Theodoret records the division of their reputed relics. Their relics, deemed miraculous, were buried in

168-514: A denunciation of secular theological teaching. After this violent repudiation of Victorine pedagogical tradition the abbey was, in effect, a self-contained Augustinian priory like any other. Jan van Ruusbroec submitted his Groenendael Priory to their Rule in 1335, from which stemmed the Brethren of the Common Life and Thomas à Kempis ' Devotio Moderna . A major theme of their studies was

210-487: A nun who lived an equally cloistered life to the monks, is well known for her contributions to the medical tradition in the Middle Ages. Although Medieval monasteries are most known for their contributions to medical tradition, they also had a hand in other sciences. One of these sciences that would have been important to life in the monastery is astronomy. While they did not put forth new information or advancements in

252-408: A prominent early member of their community was Hugh of St Victor . Other prominent members were Achard of St. Victor , Andrew of St Victor , Richard of St Victor , Walter of St Victor and Godfrey of St Victor , as well as Thomas Gallus . Under the rigorous supervision of Hugh, St Victor offered a coherent and structured approach to learning through the cultivation of personal virtue rather than

294-423: A school that dealt with both religious and secular subjects. Beginning in the 5th century, a variety of abbots took upon themselves the responsibility of educating those who entered the monastery at a young age. The earliest of these monastic schools had more of a spiritual and ascetic focus than a scriptural or theological one, but it has been suggested that these were the qualities that led many monks trained at

336-733: A serpent. They were arrested by Lysias, governor of Cilicia (modern-day Çukurova, Turkey) during the Diocletian persecution because of their faith and fame as healers. Emperor Diocletian , who favoured the worship of the Olympian gods, issued a series of edicts that condemned the Christians with the goal of eliminating Christianity from the Roman Empire. Nothing is known of their lives except that they suffered martyrdom in Syria during

378-712: Is considered an important mediaeval gold work. In 1649 Bremen's Chapter, Lutheran by this time, sold the shrine without the heads to Maximilian I of Bavaria . The two heads remained in Bremen and came into the possession of the small Roman Catholic community. They were shown from 1934 to 1968 in the Church of St. Johann and in 1994 they were buried in the crypt. The shrine is now shown in the Jesuit church of St Michael in Munich . At least since 1413 another supposed pair of skulls of

420-557: The Clares in Madrid , where they have been since 1581, the gift of Maria, daughter of Emperor Charles V . They had previously been removed from Rome to Bremen in the tenth century, and thence to Bamberg . Other skulls said to be theirs were discovered in 1334 by Burchard Grelle , Archbishop of Bremen . He "personally 'miraculously' retrieved the relics of the holy physicians Cosmas and Damian, which were allegedly immured and forgotten in

462-699: The Ibeji . The Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian , in Igarassu , Pernambuco is Brazil's oldest church, built in 1535. In the UK, Damian is the dexter side supporter in the coat of arms of the British Dental Association . Cosmas and Damian are venerated every year in Utica, New York , at St. Anthony's Parish during the annual pilgrimage which takes place on the last weekend of September (close to

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504-590: The Oriental Orthodox Churches , Cosmas and Damian are venerated as a type of saint known as Unmercenary Physicians ( Greek : ἀνάργυροι , anargyroi, "without money" ). This classification of saints is unique to the Eastern Church and refers to those who heal purely out of love for God and man, strictly observing the command of Jesus: "Freely have you received, freely give." («Δωρεὰν ἐλάβετε, δωρεὰν δότε...» Matthew 10:8 ) While each of

546-612: The liberal arts . Cassiodorus set out this program of study as a substitute for the Christian school he and Pope Agapetus had hoped to establish in Rome. In any event, the curriculum that Cassiodorus set out involved the literary study of well-established texts that he had listed in his Institutiones , following the rules that he laid out in his De orthographia . Centers of learning were also found in seventh-century Spain, both at major monasteries and at episcopal centers. Students at

588-586: The station church for this day is Santi Cosma e Damiano. Their feast day in the General Roman Calendar , which had been on 27 September, was moved in 1969 to 26 September because 27 September is the dies natalis ("day of birth" into Heaven) of Vincent de Paul , now more widely venerated in the Latin Church . In Canada it has been moved to 25 September (as 26 September is the Feast of

630-588: The 27 September feast day). There are thousands of pilgrims who come to honor the saints. Over 80 busloads come from Canada and other destinations. The two-day festival includes music (La Banda Rosa), much Italian food, Masses and processions through the streets of East Utica. It is one of the largest festivals honoring saints in the Northeastern United States. In the Eastern Orthodox Church , Eastern Catholic Churches , and

672-537: The Benedictine Rule. These activities ranged from gardening to copying texts. Through the latter, monks became learned in the Classical Greek texts and later began to contribute their own knowledge to more practical and daily texts. Much of the great libraries and scriptoria that grew in monasteries were due to obligation of the monks to teach the young boys who came to them having been committed to

714-575: The Canadian Martyrs in Canada). Sts Cosmas and Damian are regarded as the patrons of physicians, surgeons, and pharmacists and are sometimes represented with medical emblems. They are also regarded as the patron saints of twins. In Brazil , the twin saints are regarded as protectors of children, and 27 September is commemorated, especially in Rio de Janeiro , by giving children bags of candy with

756-457: The Classical medical texts survived through the early part of the Middle Ages. Herbals are one of the largest and most well-known contributions of monastic schools to science, offering some of the most comprehensive amounts of historical evidence. Monasteries were, and are still today, isolated centers. This meant that they had to be able to provide treatment for themselves, including treating

798-421: The Classical period would have been lost without the dedication of the monks, is a very real one. It may even be said that they saved many of the Classical Greek texts from extinction. Medical practice was highly important in medieval monasteries. Caring for the sick was an important obligation. There is evidence of this from the monastery Vivarium, the monastery of Cassiodorus, whose monks were instructed to read

840-676: The Unmercenaries has his own feast days , all are commemorated together on the first Sunday in November, in a feast known as the Synaxis of the Unmercenary Physicians. The Orthodox celebrate no less than three different sets of saints by the name of Cosmas and Damian, each with their own distinct feast day : Orthodox icons of the saints depict them vested as laymen holding medicine boxes. Often each will also hold

882-723: The Virgin, your blessed Apostles and Martyrs, Peter and Paul, Andrew, James, ...John and Paul, Cosmas and Damian and all your Saints: grant through their merits and prayers that in all things we may be defended by the help of your protection." They are also invoked in the Litany of the Saints , and in the older form of the Roman rite, in the Collect for Thursday in the Third Week of Lent, as

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924-618: The anagogical relationship between the Divine and the Mundane, adopted by Pope Eugene IV in his 5.1.1435 bull declaring Roman supremacy. Monastic school Since the cenobitic rule of Pachomius (d. 348 AD) and the sixth-century Rule of the Master and the Rule of St. Benedict , monks and nuns were required to actively engage in reading. This reading took on the characteristics of

966-544: The choir of the Bremen Cathedral . In celebration of the retrieval Archbishop and Chapter arranged a feast at Pentecost 1335, when the relics were translated from the wall to a more dignified place. Grelle claimed the relics were those Archbishop Adaldag brought from Rome in 965. The cathedral master-builder Johann Hemeling made a shrine for the relics, which was finished c.  1420 . The shrine, made from carved oak wood covered with gilt and rolled silver

1008-437: The city of Cyrrhus in Syria. Churches were built in their honor by Archbishop Proclus and by Emperor Justinian I (527–565), who sumptuously restored the city of Cyrrhus and dedicated it to the twins, but brought their purported relics to Constantinople . There, following his cure, ascribed to the intercession of Cosmas and Damian, Justinian, in gratitude also built and adorned their church at Constantinople, and it became

1050-489: The emerging medieval universities, the rise of the universities did not go unchallenged. Some monastic figures such as Bernard of Clairvaux considered the search for knowledge using the techniques of scholasticism to be a challenge to the monastic ideal of simplicity. The rise of medieval universities and scholasticism in the Renaissance of the 12th century offered alternative venues and new learning opportunities to

1092-424: The field, they did continue its use. If they were not going to add to astronomy, then why was it important? As previously stated, monasteries had to be self-sufficient. That meant that in order to comply to their religious obligations they had to be able to tell the time. This ranged from a day to day timekeeping for prayer to yearly observations. Astronomy was particularly important to the yearly religious calendar and

1134-403: The general agriculture of growing herbs such as which plants can be or should be grown in the same vicinity, and what is the best location in the garden for the optimum amount of sunlight to reach any given plant. Much of the knowledge of exotic plants that can be found in herbals are due to trading of the plants themselves and knowledge between monasteries. While not a monk, Hildegard of Bingen ,

1176-539: The instruction of its own canons, rather than the emphasis on the external school operated earlier in the twelfth century. The end of the Victorines as a unique force came by 1173, when the reactionary Walter was appointed as prior. Walter launched a furious attack upon the intellectual culture of the school and its members with his Contra quatuor labyrinthos Francae (Against the Four Labyrinths of France),

1218-564: The learning was contained to the confines of the monastery walls, knowledge did extend beyond the relatively isolated centers through travelers and pilgrims who would stay at the monasteries. Saints Cosmas and Damian Cosmas and Damian ( Arabic : قُزما ودميان , romanized :  Qozma wa Dimyān ; ‹See Tfd› Greek : Κοσμᾶς καὶ Δαμιανός ; Latin : Cosmas et Damianus ; c.  3rd century – c.  287 or c.  303 AD) were two Arab physicians and early Christian martyrs . They practised their profession in

1260-422: The medical works of Greek writers such as Hippocrates, Galen, and Dioscorides. There is also evidence for the use of secular texts on medicine. It is likely that most monasteries had large amounts of expertise in medical practice. Despite the monastery school's obvious focus on theological instruction, they did hold a place for Classical and secular medical texts. It is through medical instruction in monasteries that

1302-475: The monastery of Saints Cosmas and Damian , at Agali near Toledo , learned such scientific subjects as medicine and the rudiments of astronomy. In the heyday of the monastic schools in the 9th and 10th centuries, the teachings of important scholars such as Alcuin , Hrabanus Maurus , Heiric of Auxerre and Notker Balbulus raised the prestige of their abbeys and attracted pupils from afar to attend their courses. Although some monastic schools contributed to

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1344-445: The monastic life by their parents. Cassiodorus (ca.480–ca.575) wrote a handbook for his monastery in which he recommends numerous pagan authors for studying by the monks. Although it is understood that Cassiodorus recommended those studies that enhanced spiritual learning or served some kind of sacred purpose, it is vital to remember that the study of classical and secular text did exist in monasteries. The idea that many great texts of

1386-451: The monastic school at Lerins to be selected as bishops. The Roman statesman Cassiodorus had abandoned politics in 537 and later in the century established a monastery on his own lands at Vivarium in southern Italy. Cassiodorus stipulated that his monastery would be a place of study, providing a guide for that study in his Introduction to the Divine and Human Readings ( Institutiones ), which encompassed both religious texts and works on

1428-468: The monks who would become ill. Since maintaining a hospital wing was a necessity, it is no surprise that monks invested a lot of time on medical treatment. At the time, this was almost exclusively through herbal medicine. Much of the evidence for their contributions to this field can be found as notes in the margins of herbal texts of the Medieval time period. Some of the contributions that they made were to

1470-481: The observation of such feasts as Christmas and Easter. In the grand scheme of intellectual advancement, monasteries and monastery schools make up a small portion of the larger whole. They were, however, important in their own right in their contribution to the preservation of textual philosophical and scientific tradition. Monasteries provided a stable environment for learning in Medieval Europe. While much of

1512-566: The persecution of the Emperor Diocletian . According to Christian traditions, the twin brothers were born in Arabia and became skilled doctors. Saladino d'Ascoli, a 15th-century Italian physician, claims that the medieval electuary , a pasty mass consisting of a drug mixed with sugar and water or honey suitable for oral administration, known as opopira, a complex compound medicine used to treat diverse maladies including paralysis,

1554-478: The requisition of knowledge for its own sake. This is exemplified in the schema for the liberal arts laid out in Hugh's Didascalicon , in which he exhorts the reader to Omnia Disce , or to know all. By 1160, the abbey had become a place of retreat from the schools, echoing the original act of weary retirement enacted by William of Champeaux at its founding. By the time of Godfrey, St Victor was primarily concerned with

1596-910: The saints has been stored in St Stephens's Cathedral in Vienna. Other relics are claimed by the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice . The martyr twins are invoked in the Canon of the Mass in the prayer known as the Communicantes (from the first Latin word of the prayer): "In communion with the whole Church, they venerate above all others the memory of the glorious ever-virgin Mary, Mother of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ, then of blessed Joseph, husband of

1638-423: The saints' effigy printed on them and throughout the entire state of Bahia where Catholics and adepts of Candomblé religion offer typical food such as caruru . The ritual consists of first offering the food to seven children that are no older than seven years old and then having them feast while sitting on the floor and eating with their hands. For adepts of Candomblé and Umbanda , the saints are syncretized with

1680-500: The seaport of Aegeae , then in the Roman province of Cilicia . Cosmas and Damian were third century Arabian-born twin brothers who embraced Christianity and practised medicine and surgery without a fee. This led them to being named anargyroi (from the Greek Ἀνάργυροι , 'the silverless' or ' unmercenaries '); by this, they attracted many to the Christian faith. They reputedly cured blindness, fever, paralysis and reportedly expelled

1722-490: The students and thus led to a gradual decline of the monastic schools. The monastery played a large role in the preservation and continuation of science throughout the Middle Ages. The largest part of their contribution was keeping the textual traditions of philosophers the likes of Aristotle and Plato alive in the transition from the height of Classical learning into the Middle Ages. In between prayer, meals, and sleeping, monks engaged in various labor activities in accordance to

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1764-797: Was invented by Cosmas and Damian. During the persecution under Diocletian, Cosmas and Damian were arrested by order of the Prefect of Cilicia , one Lysias who is otherwise unknown, who ordered them under torture to recant. However, according to legend they stayed true to their faith, enduring being hung on a cross, stoned, shot by arrows, and finally suffered execution by beheading . Anthimus, Leontius and Euprepius, their younger brothers, who were inseparable from them throughout life, shared in their martyrdom. The veneration of Cosmas and Damian quickly spread beyond Constantinople; accounts of their martyrdom were rewritten by various authors such as Andrew of Crete , Peter of Argos , Theodore II Laskaris , and

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