ON ST. MARTYRIA OR MARTYRIUS,
MARTYR AT RAVENNA IN ITALY.
Likewise from various Martyrologies.
CommentaryMartyria or Martyrius, Martyr at Ravenna in Italy (S.)
G. H.
We were received in the year MDCLX at Ravenna with the greatest humanity, where whatever was preserved concerning the Saints of that city in the archive of the Cathedral Church was brought to us, who would receive it, if we found anything pertaining to these our studies. But there was nothing conducive to commending the veneration of S. Martyria or Martyrius. Then four years after our departure the sacred Memories of ancient Ravenna were published in a sizable Italian volume at Venice by Hieronymus Fabri, Theological Canon of the Metropolitan Church: but neither did he find anything anywhere here, not even the name. What therefore is had elsewhere we set forth, and we propose [it] to the Ravennese themselves for further discussion. The most ancient copy of the Hieronymian Martyrology, written nearly a thousand years ago, which we restored to the Epternacenses, has thus in the second place: At Ravenna the natal day of Martyria. Indeed these things are missing in three other copies of the same Martyrology, but Rabanus more than eight hundred years ago wrote in his: And at Ravenna the natal day of Martyria. The same things plainly are read in the Ms. Martyrology of the Church of Aix-la-Chapelle. Moreover two ancient Mss., the Rhinoviensian in Helvetia and the Richenoviensian or of Augia-divitis near Constance in Suevia, begin this day thus: At Ravenna the natal day of Martyrius. But on the following day XXII May in the Martyrology printed under the name of Bede, the natal day of S. Martyria at Ravenna is annotated.