chapter 12 The Installation of the Patron Saints of as a Result of Carolingian Adriatic Politics

Nikola Jakšić

The collection of patron-saints in the city of Zadar (Iader) is relatively well known to researchers of medieval history in the Adriatic area. The two most important saints venerated in this Mediterranean port city1 are a man and woman who, according to the legend, during their earthly lives, at the begin- ning of the 4th century, knew each other well. They were both martyred, but in different places. The male saint died first in , and the female was mar- tyred later in . Those saints, venerated in medieval Jader, and contem- porary Zadar, are St Anastasia and St Chrysogonus. Neither St Chrysogonus nor St Anastasia are local martyrs, and their cult in Zadar is attested only from the 9th century, leaving open the question of when and how their cults were es- tablished in Zadar. There is a relative consensus amongst the scholarship con- cerning these questions that the cult of St Chrysogonus came to Zadar from Aquileia, while the cult of St Anastasia arrived from Constantinople, as local tradition records.2 This paper will re-examine the validity of these widely-held views. St Chrysogonus and St Anastasia are the central figures in the Zadar Chris­ tian pantheon, but they are not the only members of the pantheon. The priest Zoilus of Aquileia and three sisters who were martyred in Thessalonica – Agape, Chionia and Irene – are also present among the saints venerated in Zadar. This is not an accident, since both the priest Zoilus and the three Salonika martyrs are also central figures in the passio of St Chrysogonus, as is St Anastasia herself. For the purpose of this paper it will be necessary to give a brief outline of this well-known hagiographic narrative. Anastasia, daughter of the Senator Praetextatus, and the wife of the prominent pagan Publius, was an ardent Christian, and at the time of the ’s persecu- tions she was helping Christians in . For that reason, she ended up under house-arrest in her husband’s domicile. At that time, Anastasia’s teacher and

1 For medieval Zadar see: Brunelli 1913; Klaić & Petricioli 1976. 2 Farlati 1775: 33; Manojlović 1901: 3–12; Brunelli 1913: 105–07; Klaić & Petricioli 1976: 72, 107; Osborne 1999: 379; Preradović 2013: 196–98; Ančić 2014b: 77; Vedriš 2014c.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004380134_013 226 Jakšić adviser, Chrysogonus, was also imprisoned. Through the aid of mutual friends, they managed to exchange letters, in which Chrysogonus consoled Anastasia. At about this time, the Emperor Diocletian ordered the execution of the Christians in the Roman prisons, but took Chrysogonus with him to Aquileia. The emperor offered Chrysogonus high office in exchange for renouncing the Christian faith. After the unexpected death of her husband, Publius, Anastasia was set free, departing towards Aquileia, after Chrysogonus. Refusing the em- peror’s offers, Chrysogonus was put to death at a place called Aquae Gradate. His body was dumped in a neighbouring place, called Ad Saltus, where three Christian sisters, Agape, Chionia and Irene, lived together with the aged priest, Zoilus. Zoilus buried the corpse of Chrysogonus, and died soon after, predict- ing before his death that his companions would soon be martyred as well. The text, according to the Bollandist hagiography Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina (BHL), is titled Passio S. Chrysogoni, and it is numbered BHL 1795 in this edition.3 The Passio S. Chrysogoni is actually part of a larger unit, which consists of several texts linked together by the figure of the Roman noble woman Anastasia. The whole of the cycle is called the Passio S. Anastasiae or the Passio S. Chrysogoni et sociorum. The cycle includes a Prologus (BHL 400), and the Passio Agapes, Chioniae et Irenes (BHL 118),4 a text in which Anastasia follows the future martyrs to their death in Thessalonica. Next in the cycle is the Passio S. Theodotae cum tribus filiis (BHL 8093),5 shifting the action to Sirmium in Illyricum, where Diocletian had set out from Macedonia. In this text, Anastasia, together with Theodota and her three sons who had fled from Nicaea, arrive in Sirmium. Theodota is examined before the prefect of Illyricum, and with her children sent back to Nicaea, where they are executed on August 2. What follows is the martyrdom of Anastasia, and this event is nar- rated in the Passio S. Anastasiae m. in insula Palmaria (BHL 401).6 Anastasia, refusing to renounce her faith, is imprisoned and deprived of food, and then with the other captives put on board a ship and sent out into open waters. The prisoners are shipwrecked and all miraculously saved by the late Theodota. They disembark on the island of Palmaria and everyone converts to , after which the prisoners are massacred, while Anastasia is burned alive on December 25. Her mortal remains are picked up by a certain , who

3 BHL 1: 270; Petrović 2008. 4 BHL 1: 21. 5 BHL 2: 1173. 6 BHL 2: 66.