Unterwegs mit den Reliquien des heiligen Severin von Noricum nach Kampanien. Eine peregrinatio devota in ein "Gelobtes Land" im Jahr 488?

Peregrinatio is a key-word for a conference about the “monastische Reisekultur im Mittelalter”; it means either “walking across the land” (from latin: per ager) or most of all “monastic life or living like a monk” (Du Cange). I’m going to tell you about the travel that latin abbot Eugippius described in the end of his hagiographical work, called Vita sancti Severini (VS -511 A.D. – BHL 7656). This author used the item “peregrinatio” only in VS 44,7, when he told about the migration of the most among religious men and rich landowners from Noricum to Italia, in a long funeral procession with Severinus’s relics. Which meaning did Eugippius give to this migration? Probably he wish to convey an economic and social value to the transformation of a frontier, but above all own theological thought [cp. VS 40,4 ; Exod. 6,13]. This peregrinatio began in 488 and it’s sustained by the highest ecclesiastical hierarchy; the development of a worship is promoted like a way for religious association and creation of new Christian communities. It’s possible to pick out like models for Eugippius’s narration: Venantius Fortunatus (praefatio carm.), Biblia (Gen. 12,1; 23,4), Augustinus (De Cantico Exodi); Sulpicius Severus (Ep. 3,21 – Vita Martini). We have also to wonder about purposes of late antique hagiographical texts; they devoted main attention to miracula post mortem and to adventus of relics, so the travel’s description is kept on background and it becomes most significant the translation of a relic from a place to another one as a transmission of religious authority. Eugippius was a forerunner of the Carolingian tradition, when abbots were purchasers to the relics’ translations, across long ways. They used the memory of saint like an element of prestige creating new monastic institutions. However I’ve tried to select topographical items into the Vita Severini and material evidences in Italy to find places where monastic worship with regard to Severinus is built up. The first possible route is the ancient road called “via Claudia Augusta” across Venetia et Histria with an account of Severinus’s cult into the Benedictine abbey in Montemaria of Burgusio (Malles –Bz). Then we can find others evidences in the neighbourhood of S. Marino and wholly into the region of the Marches, where the hagiographical legend of Severinus of Septempeda is written. Carrying on this travel the road via Flaminia was of great importance; Sidonius Apollinaris gave us an evocative description of this way and just in Umbrian territory there are others ecclesiastical buildings to confirm Severinus’s worship. Before triumphal goal in Lucullanum probably the procession crossed Latium; pope Gregorius Magnus wrote letters which demonstrate devotion for Severinus. The end and the main aim of Eugippius’s work is the monasterium sancti Severini (VS 46,6): the major purpose also of this peregrinatio.