Veneration
Ado took the name from these Acts and put it in his Martyrology under date of March 30, on which day it is now also found in the Roman Martyrology (Quentin, "Les martyrologes historiques", 490). For April 30, the Roman Martyrology states: “Item Romae in coemetério Praetextáti via Appia, sancti Quirini mártyris, qui tribúnus confessiónem fídei martyrio coronávit.”
According to a document from Cologne dating from 1485, Quirinus' body was donated in 1050 by Pope Leo IX to an abbess of Neuss named Gepa (who is called a sister of the pope). In this way the relics came to the Romanesque Church of St. Quirinus at Neuss (Quirinus-Münster) which still exists. A statue of Quirinus sits atop the church (which Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte attempted to plunder during the Napoleonic Wars).
Inhabitants of that city invoked him for aid during Siege of Neuss by Charles the Bold that occurred in 1474-5. His cult spread to Cologne, Alsace, Scandinavia, western Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy, where he became the patron saint of Correggio. Numerous wells and springs were dedicated to him, and he was invoked against the bubonic plague, smallpox, and gout; he was also considered a patron saint of animals. Pilgrims to Neuss sought the Quirinuswasser (Quirinus water) from the Quirinusbrunnen (Quirinus spring or pump-room).
A farmers' saying associated with Quirinus' feast day of March 30 was "Wie der Quirin, so der Sommer" (“As St. Quirinus’ Day goes, so will the summer”).
Quirinus, along with Hubertus, Cornelius and Anthony, was venerated as one of the Four Holy Marshals ('Vier Marschälle Gottes) in the Rhineland. Portraits of Quirinus and of St. Valentine appear at the top of the recto of the Nuremberg Chronicles (Folio CXXII ).
Read more about this topic: Quirinus Of Neuss
Famous quotes containing the word veneration:
“It is evident, from their method of propagation, that a couple of cats, in fifty years, would stock a whole kingdom; and if that religious veneration were still paid them, it would, in twenty more, not only be easier in Egypt to find a god than a man, which Petronius says was the case in some parts of Italy; but the gods must at last entirely starve the men, and leave themselves neither priests nor votaries remaining.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“Erasmus was the light of his century; others were its strength: he lighted the way; others knew how to walk on it while he himself remained in the shadow as the source of light always does. But he who points the way into a new era is no less worthy of veneration than he who is the first to enter it; those who work invisibly have also accomplished a feat.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)