Location:Probably Vaucelles - Date:Shortly before 1250 (incorporated in the first 'Passionaire français I,14) (BHL 7543) (Perrot, 199: 20, 180-1892) - Commission: /

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Life of Saint Sebastian of Rome (+ 288). He was a Roman army officer and the head of the Praetorian Guard, who repented during the reign of Emperor Diocletian. For this betrayal Diocletian gave the order for execution by piercing Sebastian’s body with arrows. According to legend the martyr was left for dead. The widow of Castulus, Irene of Rome, wanted to bury his body but found he was still alive. He was nursed and cured by her so he could continue his preaching and testimony against the emperor. Because of this Sebastian was flogged to death and thrown into the Cloaca Maxima, the biggest Roman sewer. Eventually, Lucina Anicia dredged up his body and buried him in the catacombs near the Via Appia.

MEYER (P.), Légendes hagiographiques en français, in: Histoire littéraire de la France, XXXIII (1906) 401 (fragment)

Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina 7543
LE TARGAT (F.), Saint Sébastien dans l'histoire de l'art depuis le XVe siècle (Paris, 1979)
MEYER (P.), Légendes hagiographiques en français, in: Histoire littéraire de la France, XXXIII (1906) 393-458
MICHA (H.), 'Une rédaction en vers de La Vie de Saint Sébastien.', Romania, 92 (1971) 405-419
PERROT (J.P.), Le Passionnaire français au Moyen Age (Genève, 1992) 180-189
RESSOUNI-DEMIGNEUX (K.), 'La personalité de saint Sébastien: exploration du fonds euchologique medieval et renaissant du IVe au XVIe siècle', Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome. Moyen Age, 114: 1(2002)557-579
VAN DER LINDEN (S.), De Heiligen (Antwerpen, 1999) 793-794
ZUPNICK (I.L.), 'Saint Sebastian. The vicissitudes of the hero as a martyr.', in: Burns (N.T.), R. (C.J.) (eds.), Concepts of the Hero in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Papers of the Fourth and Fifth Annual Conferences of the Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, State University of New York at Binghamton, 2-3 May 1970, 1-2 May 1971 (Albany, 1975) 239-267