Ursus of Aosta

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Ursus of Aosta

Ursus von Aosta († February 1 , around 529 ) was a Catholic priest who worked in the late Roman city of Augusta Praetoria , now Aosta in Italy , in the 5th and 6th centuries . He is venerated as a saint of the Catholic Church, especially in the western Alps .

Life and effect

According to legendary tradition, Ursus lived as a hermit and anti-Arian preacher in the region of the late ancient city ​​of Dinia, today's Digne-les-Bains in the western Alps. Later - probably during the Ostrogoth Empire - he served Saint Jucundus, Bishop of Aosta , as a deacon. When the Arian-minded Plozian was later installed as a subsequent bishop of Aosta, Ursus left the cathedral community together with other members and a new ecclesiastical one nearby, outside the eastern city gate of Augusta, the ancient Porta Praetoria, on the road to Ivrea Settlement founded by the cemetery church dedicated to Saint Peter and where the bones of the Christian martyrs of Aosta lay. The St. Urs cemetery has existed as a historical site to the present day. The division of the ecclesiastical center in the episcopal city with the cathedral district and Sankt Ursen has been preserved to this day.

Peterskirche was rebuilt several times in the early and high Middle Ages and was given the new name Sankt Ursen Church (actually Peter and Urs Church ) in memory of Saint Ursus , when a clerical community of Augustinian canons formed near the church in the suburbs. The street next to it in Aosta is now called Rue Saint-Ours . In the Middle Ages, the relics of the saint and those of the city patron Gratus von Aosta , bishop in the 5th century, were in the crypt of Sankt Ursen . The relics of Ursus are now in a precious shrine and an arm reliquary from the 14th century in the church treasury of the sacristy of Sankt Ursen and the beautiful reliquary of St. Gratus in the Cathedral Museum of Aosta . The importance of Sankt Ursen can also be seen in the fact that the ancient city gate Porta Praetoria was named Porta Sancti Ursi in the Middle Ages .

Romanesque capital in the cloister of Sankt Ursen in Aosta

Legendary episodes from the life of Saint Ursus are depicted on a capital in the cloister of Sankt Ursen - which, with its Romanesque sculptures from the early 12th century, is one of the most remarkable high mediaeval works of art in Aosta and the Alpine region - he helps the needy, lets out one Rocks a spring gushing and watches the devils bring the wicked Plozian.

Ursus is the most popular saint and patron of several parishes in the Aosta Valley . He is regarded as the patron saint against the dangers of drought, storms and floods, animal diseases and also against the attacks of those in power, which are particularly threatening for traditional alpine societies. His holiday is February 1st. From Aosta, the veneration of Ursus also spread to the Piedmontese dioceses of Turin, Vercelli, Novara and Ivrea and in Savoy and Valais .

A popular peasant rule in the Aosta Valley for the end of winter reads in the patois : "Se feit cllier lo dzor de sèn-t-Or, l'or baille lo tor et dor euncò pe quarenta dzor," in German: Is the weather on St. Ursentag well, the bear turns and sleeps another forty days .

swell

The life story of Saint Ursus of Aosta has been handed down in two versions from the Middle Ages, the Vita Beati Ursi from the 9th or 10th century, of which various medieval copies exist in the library of the Farfa monastery and a manuscript from the 13th century Texts on the history of the Collegiate Church of St. Urs in Aosta. The critical edition of the text was done by Amato Pietro Frutaz in 1953.

Sankt-Ursen-Market

The annual market Foire de Saint-Ours , Italian Sant'Orso and valdostanisch Fera de Sent-ORS, is the most important fair of the Aosta Valley. It takes place on January 30th and 31st and, according to legend, was held for the first time in the year 1000.

literature

  • Nicolas-Joconde Arnod: Vie de saint Ours. Chambéry 1668.
  • Amato Pietro Frutaz: Redazione inedita della 'Vita Beati Ursi presbyteri et confessoris de Augusta Civitate'. Aosta 1953.
  • Amato Pietro Frutaz: Le fonti per la storia della Valle d'Aosta , Volume 1, Part 1, Rome 1966, pp. 162ff.
  • Justin Boson: L'insigne Collégiale d'Aoste. En souvenir de XIVe centenaire de St. Ours, fondateur de la Collégiale. Ivrea 1929.
  • A. Charrier: Note agiografiche e liturgiche su sant'Orso. In: Société académique, religieuse et scientifique de l'ancien duché d'Aoste, quarantième bulletin. Aosta 1963, pp. 163-192.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to the official list of the bishops of Aosta , Plozian is said to have only become bishop about a quarter of a century after Jucund.
  2. ^ Museo del Tesoro di Sant'Ors
  3. ^ GC Sciolla (ed.): Aosta. Museo archeologico. Tesoro della collegiata dei SS. Pietro e Orso. Tesoro della cathedral. Bologna 1974.
  4. ↑ Sandra Barberi: Il chiostro di S. Orso ad Aosta. (Quaderni della Soprintendenza per i Beni Culturali della Valle d'Aosta, New Series, 5). Roma 1988.
  5. ^ Robert Berton : I capitelli del chiostro di S. Orso. Un gioiello d'arte romanica in Val d'Aosta. Novara 1956.
  6. ↑ Barberi, 1988, p. 26.
  7. ^ Mario Galloni, Elena Percivaldi: Sant'Orso e il diavolo tra i vapitelli del chiostro. In: The same: Alla scoperta dei luoghi segreti del medioeva. Rome 2018.
  8. ↑ By invoking God, the saint miraculously averted a heavy flood near the city of Aosta, as the Vita reports. See Amato Pietro Frutaz : Le fonti per la storia della Valle d'Aosta. Rome 1966, p. 164.
  9. ↑ Francesco Sisti: Sant'Orso: un santo eremita, il letargo degli orsi, una fiera e… un uccellino . January 30, 2018, accessed August 10, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Ursus of Aosta
BRIEF DESCRIPTION catholic priest
DATE OF BIRTH 5th century or 6th century
DATE OF DEATH February 1, at 529