Professional paper

Saints as providers of a peaceful death in Istria - a reflection of the medieval understanding of dignified dying

Ante Škrobonja ; University of Rijeka-School of Medicine, Department of Social Sciences and Medical Humanities, Rijeka, Croatia
Morana Brkljačić ; University of Rijeka - School of Medicine, Department of Social Sciences and Medical Humanities, Rijeka, Croatia
Amir Muzur ; University of Rijeka - School of Medicine, Department of Social Sciences and Medical humanities, Rijeka, Croatia
Tatjana Čulina ; Teaching Institute of Public Health, Rijeka, Croatia

Abstract

After recalling the role of patron saints in the Christian tradition, seven saints – Acacius, Andrea Avellino, Cyriacus, Gertrude, Julian the Hospitaller, Rita, and Stephen the Martyr – traditionally venerated
as protectors and providers of a peaceful death, have been selected. The following topics were researched: the presence and roots of these patron saints, and the ethnomedicinal reflections of their cult in the example of the Istrian peninsula in western Croatia. Particular attention has been given to the most represented among them – St. Stephen the Protomartyr. A hagiographic and topographic analysis of the distribution of the places or religious buildings bearing his name leads to two different conclusions. On the one hand, since
kidney and gallstone problems occur relatively frequently in the agricultural part of Istria, St. Stephen is primarily venerated there as a protector against lithiasis, and only indirectly as a provider of a peaceful death. On the other hand, it is also possible that a peaceful death was an ideal precisely in the agricultural parts of the region, which were less aggressive than the centres of cattle breeding and trade, or urban areas.
Since the poorer rural areas and villages, which are typical of the central part of Istria, did not have a developed institution of hospice care, and to conclude the tradition of worshipping St. Stephen and the other saints mentioned, providers of a peaceful death, is now explained as a specific reflection of the popular medieval understanding of dignified dying.

Keywords

history of medicine; religion in medicine; Middle Ages; patron saints; Istria; Croatia

Hrčak ID:

83993

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/83993

Publication date:

4.6.2012.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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