[62] What was the nature and extent of Eulogius' involvement with the martyrs of Córdoba? Given the amount of literary attention that he gave to the martyrs, the temptation is strong to assume that his relationship with them was particularly intimate. This, coupled with the fact that both he and his biographer used terms like incentor and instinctus when referring to his role in the events of 851, have led virtually every historian of Muslim Spain to portray Eulogius as an instigator, whose support and encouragement played a decisive role from the beginning to the end of the martyrs' movement.

But if we look more closely at their use of these terms, we see that they do not bear up all that well under this kind of interpretive weight. Alvarus once wrote that the priest "was seen to be the inspirer of the martyrs in those days,"⁽¹⁾ while Eulogius explained in his letter to Bishop Wiliesindus that he was in prison because "they think that it was by our instigation, and they ascribe to our instruction, that which these illustrious ones have done as a result of divine inspiration."⁽²⁾ Neither statement sounds much like an admission of guilt. Even on the one occasion when Eulogius actually confessed to having "incited some of them to battle," he immediately confined his use of the verb incitare to a rather nebulous "furnishing of arms" for those who, unlike himself, were ready to "fight."⁽³⁾ The value of such "admissions" for assessing Eulogius' actual relationship with the confessors is questionable. For a proper understanding of Eulogius and the martyrs, we must ignore potentially misleading assumptions about the connections between the two and look at the available evidence more closely.

As we noted in chapter 2, the earliest indication of Eulogius' sympathies for the martyrs are the passiones he composed in the late summer of 851, depicting the deaths of Isaac and the seven [63] Christians who followed in his footsteps. Though it is tempting to date Eulogius' distinctively strong commitment to the martyrs from the moment he began this martyrology, we must realize that such sympathy for Isaac's actions and outrage at his treatment were anything but exceptional during the first few weeks after his death. Eulogius himself wrote that "everyone, cleric and layman alike, greatly angered by the execution, began to extol Isaac's constancy with the greatest respect."⁽⁴⁾ When Eulogius began to record the events sympathetically, then, he did so as a self-designated spokesman for these communal sentiments. As a magister, and thus one of the leading pedagogical figures of the Christian community, his decision to assume the role of martyrologist would have come as no surprise to his fellow Christians. If we were to use the terminology of the Bollandist Hippolyte Delahaye, we would say that Eulogius simply assumed the traditional role of a rédacteur, providing the collective interpretation or légende of the events with a standardized literary format.⁽⁵⁾

Nor was this the first time that a Cordoban ecclesiastic had composed a passio on behalf of an executed Christian. We know virtually nothing about Joannes and Adulphus, the two Christians put to death in the 820s, except that the man who recorded their deeds, "twinkling like stars in the sky for the benefit of the holy Church and as an example for the weak," was none other than Eulogius' "aged master and illustrious teacher," abbot Speraindeo.⁽⁶⁾ The fact that both victims were successfully incorporated into the local liturgical calendar suggests that the abbot composed his account in complete harmony with the prevailing community sentiments.⁽⁷⁾ When Eulogius, following in the footsteps of his master, composed the accounts of Isaac and the others, he had no reason to doubt that his work would contribute to the establishment of a similar cult.

But what the priest expected to happen and what actually occurred were two separate things. He did not anticipate the unusually harsh response that the martyrdoms drew from the authorities. Nor did he expect that when ^cAbd ar-Rahmân II, through Bishop Reccafredus, began to apply pressure on the Christian community as a whole, the unanimity of Christian support for the confessors would dissolve. But in fact many did "change their minds with unheard-of fickleness" and began to [64] condemn the martyrs' actions.⁽⁸⁾ Unlike Speraindeo, Eulogius suddenly found his hagiographical efforts undermined, as popular support for the confessors began to disintegrate.

Just as the lack of independent sources makes it difficult to uncover the actual motives of the confessors, so the motives of their detractors can only be surmised from passing references in Eulogius' works. But in the few passages where the priest suggested why the diffidentes and dubitantes repudiated the confessors, the element he stressed was fear: "everyone was terrified by the anger of the raging tyrant. "⁽⁹⁾ We have already described the forms that this "iracundia tyranni saevientis" could assume: clerical imprisonment, the expulsion of Christians from public office, and increased taxation. But the real fear was of a more subtle and sweeping nature, a fear which stemmed from the two fundamental facts of Christian existence in al-Andalus: the legal status of the community as a protected but subjected "people of the book," and the socio-economic reality that made inevitable the integration of individual Christians into virtually every corner of Andalusian society. As long as they kept their religious preferences out of the public eye, individuals could, like the merchant Joannes or the exceptor Isaac, come to function as highly integrated parts of Andalusian society, perhaps even to the point where certain dhimma strictures would be relaxed. Such highly assimilated Christians presumably would not welcome anything that might draw undue attention to their inferior religious status or arouse suspicions about their contribution to Islamic society. The execution of Christians for religious transgressions did not, ipso facto, lead to strained relations between the Muslim authorities and the Christian community as a whole. Joannes and Adulphus apparently died without provoking any official reactions against their community. But the emir interpreted the events of the summer of 851 as a threat that merited sanctions against the Christians as a group. Given the circumstances, any Christian who felt he had too much to lose by being categorically linked to the martyrs had little recourse but to disassociate himself from them by openly criticizing their actions.

The actual size of the Christian contingent that came to reject the martyrs' example is unknown. We would expect to find sympathy for the martyrs in the rural hinterland surrounding the capital, where contact with Muslims was far less a feature of daily life and where the monastic retreats that contributed the bulk of the [65] blasphemers lay. Conversely, the urban Christians who hived and worked in the closest proximity to Muslims, and thereby had the most to gain from cooperation, would be the least likely to applaud the monks' actions once the magnitude of the repercussions became so painfully clear.⁽¹⁰⁾ But the urban-rural division was not hardfast. We know, for instance, that the physical remains of the martyrs were collected by local Christians and deposited in a variety of churches and monasteries in and around Córdoba.⁽¹¹⁾ But regardless of the relative dimensions of the two groups, the fact that there was community disagreement as to the victims' qualifications bode poorly for their sanctification.

When Lawrence Cunningham recently alluded to a "built-in censorship mechanism" in the canonization process he was referring to the ability of late medieval and modern popes to suppress or promote certain candidates to sainthood.⁽¹²⁾ But the same could be said of the vox populi, the original, informal "canonization process." Sanctity is a social product, attributed by a communlty to an individual perceived as having actualized in some particularly meaningful way the values and ideals that inform that community's existence.⁽¹³⁾ But if a significant portion of the communitv fails to appreciate the way in which a candidate embodies those values, any attribution of sanctity will fall on deaf ears. Such appears to have been the case in Córdoba beginning in the summer of 851.

The sudden division of community sentiment left Eulogius in an unwonted position. The hagiographer who had previously served as a mouth piece for community sentiment now found himself without unanimous support for the praise he had heaped on the victims. Had he confined himself to the strictly representative role ascribed by Delahaye to the typical hagiographer, his composition of the Memoriale sanctorum would have ceased the moment public support for Isaac and his followers began to wane. Instead, at what must be seen as the crucial turning point in his life, Eulogius opted to continue on his own, in an attempt to revive and nurture the abortive popular légende that lacked the support it needed to survive on its own. The saints' lives that emerged from this single-handed effort had to be more than merely edited versions of collective perceptions. They were, in fact, for lack of a créateur anonyme, the creation of Eulogius.

What made ihis particular Cordoban priest immune to the [66] reservations of his community? In part the answer is to be found in the intimate nature of Eulogius' relationship with those confessors whom he met prior to their executions.⁽¹⁴⁾ The earliest such encounter took place in a village outside of Córdoba, where the virgin Flora had fled after recuperating from the wounds she had incurred as punishment for her apostasy. Months later, Eulogius would remind her of what for him was the high point of that initial meeting:

I saw the skin of your venerable neck, torn and cut by the lashes of the whip at the time of your persecution; the neck which you deigned to reveal to me . . . And touching it gently with my hand -- because I did not think I ought to caress the wound with kisses -- I departed from you and for a long time I sighed thinking about it.⁽¹⁵⁾

As it happened, this formative encounter with Flora was not Eulogius' last. His subsequent arrest as a cleric and hers as an apostate brought them together once again in prison. This time, however, the spiritual magnetism that attracted Eulogius had been increased not only qualitatively, by the fact that the virgin was even one step closer to achieving her goal, but quantitatively: Maria had joined Flora in her determination to die. Faced with two women on the verge of dying for their faith, he did something that neither Speraindeo nor any of his ecclesiastic forbears for the previous five hundred years had had the opportunity to do: he composed a treatise "in which he tenaciously fortified the virgins for martyrdom and taught them, by means of letters and words, to disdain death. "⁽¹⁶⁾

[67] The Documentum martyriale is a textbook example of the hortative treatises encountered in the writings of ancient ecclesiastics who lived during the periods of Roman persecution. As Donald Riddle has observed, the composition of such works on behalf of condemned confessors was one way in which Roman bishops attempted to control the victims' response to imperial pressure, to make certain that they would not vacillate when faced with the ultimate choice of religious compromise or death.⁽¹⁷⁾ The authors relied on a variety of techniques to buttress the confessor's determination to die. The most common was the enumeration of both the rewards that awaited those who endured and the punishments reserved for those who did not. But in addition the confessors were reminded that the whole Christian world was watching and awaiting the outcome of their struggle. This included not only the members of the confessor's community, but also Christ and the other martyrs who resided with him, who had successfully passed the same test and were curious to see if the latest confessors were of the same mettle. The hope was that by recasting the individual struggle of the confessor into a cosmic confrontation between Christianity and its enemies, the stakes would seem much too high for the confessor even to consider relenting to imperial demands.

For the most part, the Documentum martyriale followed this pattern without deviation.⁽¹⁸⁾Eulogius' use of both promises of reward and threats of punishment is indistinguishable from Cyprian's.⁽¹⁹⁾ He also attempted to reduce the chances of a last minute change of heart by putting the virgins' passion in a broader context, specifically by naming the twelve Cordobans who had already met the challenge: "[They] have opened the door to the kingdom for you, preparing a worthy end for your journey, and saying: 'Come, most holy sisters, and enter the chamber of your spouse whom you have pleased thus far in that you fear not to die on his behalf."⁽²⁰⁾

Eulogius also assured them that their efforts would not go unnoticed among the living. He boasted that, thanks to his literary testimony, "the news of your struggle, passing through nations and peoples, will begin to be known to many."⁽²¹⁾ As women they would be providing an especially irresistible example for all Christians, especially those in Córdoba who still hesitated to applaud the martyrs actions.⁽²²⁾

Though for the most part faithful to the ancient paradigm, [68] Eulogius was forced by the peculiarities of the Cordoban situation to adapt or even omit certain time-honored motifs. Cyprian, for instance, could draw the attention of the confessors of third-century Carthage to the tremendous moral support provided by their community as a whole. He could and did make the prospective martyrs feel like local heroes, sacrificing their lives for the sake of their fellow Christians. But Eulogius knew that there was no such universal support for this type of dissent in ninth-century Córdoba. Quite the contrary, Eulogius lamented, "[the Cordoban Christians] consider it a delight to be subject to these peoples, and do not resist being led by the yoke of these infidels. They even make use of many of their sacrileges on a day to day basis and seek their company rather than trying to save themselves, like the patriarch Lot, who departed Sodom for the mountains."⁽²³⁾

Not surprisingly, given the circumstances, Eulogius presented the virgins not as the perfect embodiment of communal sentiments, but as their perfect antithesis. He berated those who would have Flora and Maria "deny and infringe upon their original confession" and impressed upon the two the importance of transcending the general spiritual malaise that had enervated their community.⁽²⁴⁾

Eulogius' use of the ancient exhortatio genre, then, amounted to more than imitation. Circumstances forced him to adapt the pattern so that it would fit a world in which the confessors lacked unanimous community support. Like the Memoriale sanctorum, the Documentum martyriale could not simply be an eloquent expression of communal sentiments. It had to supply much of the support structure that was missing in Muslim Córdoba.

Eulogius was by no means unaware of the spiritual benefits he could claim for assisting Flora and Maria in their quests. While the two were still alive he put in his request for the type of aid that only they, as prospective wives of Christ, could provide: "When you approach the chamber of your spouse and obtain in his embraces the fruit of unending union, remember me in your prayers. . . May the succinct mediocrity of this book, which I have written for your consolation, be of some profit to me, a sinner. "⁽²⁵⁾ This is of course a standard motif for this type of composition, making it difficult to assess any special significance it might have held in Eulogius' case. But it should be noted that within a week after their deaths, [69] Eulogius' fortunes changed so dramatically that be could nol resist attributing it to the virgins' successful intercession: "Christ, pleased with their victory and their glorious intervention, removed from us our chains on the sixth day after they were crowned, and released us from prison."⁽²⁶⁾

At the same time that Eulogius was composing the Documentum martyriale for the benefit of Flora and Maria, he had the opportunity to serve in a similar advisory capacity for another Christian on his way lo execution. Aurelius, in the company of his wife Sabigotho, made it a regular part of his self-imposed penitential discipline to visit and console imprisoned Christians. On one such visit, as Eulogius recalled more than a year later, Aurelius "sought my advice about what ought to be done with the property and the children that God had given them; if it was right that the two children be abandoned, whom he was afraid would be given over, after his death, to the profane rite; and if it was right to leave behind such an inordinate amount of riches to be added to the public revenues." Eulogius, faithful to his role as a spiritual advisor to the would-be martyr, "urged him, with regard for the kingdom of heaven and for the sake of eternal retribution, not only to relinquish, but to flee such worldly concerns, and to be mindful of their own souls rather than the welfare of their children." Adopting Christ's admonition, Eulogius bade Aurelius demonstrate the integrity of his desire for spiritual perfection by going and selling all that he had, giving the proceeds to the poor. With regard to the children, Eulogius did his best to console Aurelius by pointing out that their spiritual welfare was out of his hands:

God, who placed them in the womb, is capable of nurturing them from heaven, just as be provides care for all things. Not all little ones are cared for by the industry of parents, nor are they all reared with the labor of a guardian. Man is begotten, and though he may be deprived of the solace of the parent in the cradle, he shall never be deprived of the governance of the Creator, who is the father of orphans and the guardian of widows. O how many children, reared with the delicate care of a parent, come to no good! How many orphans, deprived of any abundance of great assistance, grow up rich in the many things of God, though scarcely able to go on for lack of bread!⁽²⁷⁾

[70] After his release from prison Eulogius met Aurelius again, this time in the company of Alvarus, from whom the prospective martyr had solicited advice of a more general character.⁽²⁸⁾ Eulogius joined them as they rejoiced over Aurelius' decision to see his quest through to the end. Finally, in late July 852, on the eve of his public confession, Aurelius sought out the priest one last time:

Before the darkness of the early morning had abated, he visited me again at home to say goodbye, and asked that I pray to the Lord on his behalf, insisting that this act of fraternal charity be made by me, the sponsor of his agony. There, kissing his hands, I obtained his patronage for myself and for the entire Church. After he kissed me in return, we parted in peace.⁽²⁹⁾

Eulogius' authorship of the Documentum martyriale for the virgins combined with his willingness to advise Aurelius suggests that he was deeply moved by the strength of their resolve to die for their faith. His repeated appeals for saintly intercession imply that he felt a certain security in the power of their martyrial status. If the priest's relationship to all of the martyrs whose passions he recorded had been, as in these cases, one of spiritual advisor, we would need look no further in our search for motives than his initial formative contact with the confessors in prison. But in fact the level of involvement demonstrated in the cases of Flora, Maria, and Aurelius was anything but typical. Of the rest of the martyrs, only Leovigildus, the confessor who accompanied one of Eulogius' martyred relatives, ever asked for and received any encouragement from the priest.⁽³⁰⁾ Leocritia, whose passio Eulogius did not live long enough to write, came to the priest for instruction in the finer points of her new faith, not for advice about martyrdom. In only one other case does Eulogius mention having had any contact with a prospective martyr at all. Georgius, the monk from Palestine who probably met the priest through Aurelius, requested that Eulogius read and forward to his home monastery a brief autobiographical account of his last days.⁽³¹⁾

[71] This paucity of specific references to contact between Eulogius and the confessors does not appear to have been a matter of inconsistency on the part of his records. The pride with which he claimed blood ties to three of the martyrs and a former teacher-student relationship with a fourth strongly suggests that if he had had personal contact with any of the others, he would have been quick to point it out, if for no other reason than to increase the spiritual benefits to which he could lay claim.⁽³²⁾ The fact that he did not suggests that his relationship with Flora, Maria and Aurelius was unique, and that in the great majority of cases the confessors marched to their deaths without the benefit of Eulogius' encouraging words.

Despite the lack of evidence, previous historians have assumed, on the basis of the priest's ties to local monasteries, that Eulogius served in an advisory capacity for many of the confessors. Alvarus did record that his friend "frequently scurried off to the sacred flocks of the monasteries, but lest he be thought to disdain his own office, he always went back to his clerical duties, in which he would persist for some time . . . only to return to the monastery."⁽³³⁾ But even if we could accept this assessment of Eulogius' monastic yearnings as a historical fact, monastic visitation and martyrial instigation are two very separate things. In fact it is difficult, in this instance, to separate the real Eulogius from the Gregorian model of the ideal secular ecclesiastic who, while committed to the vita activa, still longs for the purity of the vita contemplativa. Like Gregory I, the Eulogius whom Alvarus fell to be worthy of sanctity "would have been involved in both ecclesiastical states if it were possible to do so."⁽³⁴⁾

The nature of Eulogius' involvement with the martyrs' movement as a whole is impossible to assess accurately without recognizing how limited his personal contact with the confessors really was. The evidence leaves little room for doubt that in the majority of cases his actual role in the martyrdoms was restricted to supplying the victims with a liturgical afterlife. There is no question that he cheered loudly for the confessors, but, except in a few special cases, he did so from the stands, not from the arena itself.

What, then, prompted Eulogius to defend the martyrs as a group against their Christian detractors? It is important to remember, in this regard, that the clerical arrests served not only to put Eulogius [72] in immediate contact with a very attractive form of religious power, but to taint his opinion of another. For the decision to imprison the clerics was, at least in part, that of Bishop Reccafredus. The irony of a bishop sponsoring the arrest of priests struck a dissonant chord in Eulogius. The letters and treatises he composed in his cell contain cloaked allusions to Reccafredus as the embodiment of a saevus tyrannicus furor that was laying waste the church of God, or a negligent shepherd who, far from laying down his own life for the flock, had left it vulnerable to the attack of wolves.⁽³⁵⁾ Eulogius carne to regard the "anguish and imminent dangers" that the "insane decision" of Reccafredus had forced upon him and his fellow clerics, as the marks of an afflicted church in exile. For it was there, in the "innermost recesses of prison," and not in the churches left vacant by the bishop's decree, that the psalms and the "holy murmur of hymns" were to be heard.⁽³⁶⁾

We can imagine how his disenchantment with Reccafredus and identification with a captive church could have rendered Eulogius particularly sympathetic to the plight of the three confessors whom he encountered and advised while in prison. The stark contrast between their resolve to die for their faith and the determination of Reccafredus to implement the will of the emir against his own religious community, not only enhanced the priest's distaste for the policies of his superior, but suggested to him a viable medium for expressing his dissatisfaction. By resuming the hagiographical project that his untimely arrest had forced him to abandon, and transforming it into an apologia, he could present the confessors as holy antitheses of the destructively conciliatory attitude that characterized the dealings of Reccafredus with the Muslims. Every word of praise written in memory of the victims was a word of opprobrium for the bishop and those who shared his sentiments. Every martyrial image applied to an executed Cordoban carried with it the implicit identification of Reccafredus with the infamous Christians who cooperated with imperial authorities during the Roman persecutions.

The martyrology was not the only medium of protest that Eulogius utilized. As we have seen in the previous chapter, he even considered suspending himself from the priesthood. But, as we have seen, Eulogius was unwilling to alienate the Cordoban bishop. In the end, he would content himself with the literary outlet to which he had already committed himself.

[73] It should be noted that the martyrology provided Eulogius with a relatively safe way of expressing himself. It was unlikely that it would evoke any censure from the authorities. The Muslims apparently did not regard Latin treatises which contained disparaging remarks about Islam or its founder as violations of the proscriptions against blasphemy, because the audience of such works was so restricted. They were written by literate ecclesiastics for literate ecclesiastics. If Eulogius had anything to fear at all it was the reprimand of Christian leaders who did not share his sentiments about the nobility of the martyrs' actions. Eulogius knew this and so dedicated his martyrology to a very specific and sympathetic group: "our holy brothers and sisters in Christ," the inhabitants of the monasteries that had contributed the bulk of the confessors.⁽³⁷⁾ But others, perhaps, had access to it. It is likely, for instance, that the exceptor who upbraided Eulogius in the council of 852 had at least heard about the Memoriale sanctorum. But there was little that he could do, for the composition of the martyrology was an accepted, time-honored prerogative of a magister of the Christian community of Córdoba. Eulogius made it very clear in his opening remarks in the Memoriale sanctorum that he regarded himself as a praedicator, a legitimate mouthpiece of Christian truth: "I believe that the same true master who made an irrational animal speak like a man [Balaam's ass], deemed us worthy to employ noble words for the honest instruction of catholics, for the praise of the most worthy saints, and for efficacious attacks on the adversary." Taking it one step further, Eulogius reminded his readers that: "just as it is the duty of those to whom the office of preaching has been given to preach, so it is necessary for you to listen."⁽³⁸⁾ By introducing the Memoriale sanctorum in this manner Eulogius underscored his right to provide laymen with the correct interpretation of the events that had recently divided the community.

If we treat Eulogius' martyrology as a frame for a personal protest against the policies of his ecclesiastical superiors, we can account for many of the discrepancies between the instigator role so often attributed to the priest and those textual references that do not support such an active assessment of his part in the martyrdoms. His limited contact with the confessors makes sense if we avoid the assumption that the author actively encouraged the protagonists of his martyrology. Flora and Maria, two condemned virgins whom Eulogius encountered in prison, were special cases. [74] Their situation, highly reminiscent of ancient times, evoked from Eulogius an ancient response: the hortative treatise Documentum martyriale. In each of the other cases, the advice, instruction, or encouragement that Eulogius gave was in response to a specific request on the part of the prospective martyr. The same can be said for the priest's lack of prescience when it came to predicting new martyrial outbreaks, a curiosity only if one tries to understand his role as more active than it really was. Eulogius simply did not know when to end his martyrology. Twice he had to apologize to his readers for stopping too soon. The only formal conclusion to the work is found at the end not of book three but of book two. Finally this interpretation helps to account for Eulogius' hesitation to join the confessors and seek his own martyrdom. Though he sympathized with the martyrs, he did not see himself as one of them, and openly admitted as much, ascribing his reluctance either to his unworthiness or to the selectivity of the Holy Spirit.

Eulogius was simply not the orchestrator of a "martyrs' movement." For the most part the Christians who sacrificed their lives did so without any of the priest's encouragement. The few with whom he had any meaningful contact, however, made a deep impression upon him, and this, in conjunction with his negative feelings about the leadership of the Cordoban church, accounts for his unflagging literary support of the martyrs as a group long after Christian opinion had turned against them.

1. Vita Eulogii 2.5 (PL 115:710; CSM 1:333).

2. Epistula 3.12 (PL 115:850; CSM 2:502).

3. Memoriale sanctorum 1.37 (PL 115:764; CSM 2:395)

4. Memoriale sanctorum, pref. letter (PL 115:732; CSM 2:364).

5. Hippolyte Delehaye, Les Légendes hagiographiques, 3rd ed. (Brussels, 1927), p. 11. Pierre Delooz, in his Sociologie et canonisations, Collection scientifique de la faculté de droit de l'Université de Liege, 30 (The Hague, 1969), p. 41, wrote: "The initiative always comes from below, that is to say, from a portion of the Christian people, and the authority never intervenes except to consecrate an initiative for which it was not originally responsible."

6. Memoriale sanctorum 2.8.9 (PL 115:839; CSM 2:412).

7. Dozy, Le Calendrier, September 27.

8. Memoriale sanctorum, pref. letter (PL 115:733; CSM 2:364).

9. Ibid.

10. Just as the Christians who lived in the cities, and hence in the closest proximity to Muslims, were most likely to recognize the social and economic advantages of conversion to Islam. Glick, p. 187. See also R. W. Bulliet's article, "Conversion to Islam and the Emergence of a Muslim Society in Iran," in Nehemiah Levtzion, ed., Conversion to Islam (New York, 1979), pp. 32-3.

11. So much so that the authorities became wary of the potential use of martyrial remains as relics. In the case of Rudericus and Salomon, they ordered the bodies tied to rocks before being cast into the river and even disposed of the stones that had been spattered with the victims' blood. Liber apologeticus martyrum 31 (PL 115:866; CSM 2:492).

12. Lawrence S. Cunningham, The Meaning of Saints (San Francisco, 1980), p. 44.

13. Delooz, p. 7, distinguishes between the "saint réel" and the "saint construit," the latter referring to the particular attributions of holiness on the part of the community (the "saint pour les autres"), which often obscure the identity of the historical, "réel" man. The exact relationship between the holy man and the community which ascribes holiness to him is far more difficult to conceptualize. Peter Brown, in "The rise and function of the holy man in late antiquity," Journal of Roman Studies 61 (1971), pp. 80-101, and more recently Raymond Van Dam, "Hagiography and history: the life of Gregory Thaumaturgus," Classical Antiquity 1 (1982), pp. 272-308, have described the holy man as a recognized intermediary between the community's everyday world and its "other world," whose appeal is based on the marginality of his existence and the duality of his sphere of activity. We can take this a step further. The success of the holy man depends on his ability to act in a manner diametrically opposed to the behavioral norms of his community and yet be applauded for it. The holy man's rejection of his society is interpreted as a positive attribute: the result of his virtuoso embodiment of the truths of the other world.

14. Daniel alludes to this in connection to Flora. Arabs and Medieval Europe, pp. 27-8, 38.

15. Documentum martyriale 21 (PL 115:871; CSM 2:472). See also: Memoriale Sanctorum 2.8.8 (PL 115:821; CSM 2:411-12).

16. Vita Eulogii 2.4 (PL 115:709. CSM 1:332-3). See also: Documentum martyriale, prol. (PL 115:821; CSM 2:461).

17. Donald Riddle, The Martyrs, a Study in Social Control (Chicago, 1931). See especially chapter 1.

18. Eulogius seems to have been quite familiar with this genre, perhaps specifically with its North American renditions, such as Tertullian's Ad martyras, and Cyprian's De gloria martyrii.

19. Documentum martyriale 23 (PL 115:832; CSM 2:473); 14 (PL 115:828; CSM 2:468-9).

20. Documentum martyriale 23 (PL 115:832: CSM 2:473).

21. Documentum martyriale 21 (PL 115:831; CSM 2:472).

22. Documentum martyriale 1 (PL 115:822; CSM 2:462).

23. Documentum martyriale 18 (PL 115:830; CSM 2:471). Genesis 19:30.

24. Documentum martyriale 14 (PL 115:827-8; CSM 2:468).

25. Documentum martyriale 25 (PL 115:833; CSM 2:474).

26. Epistula 1.3 (PL 115:844; CSM 2:496). See also: Memoriale sanctorum 2.8.16 (PL 115:842; CSM 2:415); Vita Eulogii 2.4 (PL 115:709; CSM 1:333).

27. Memoriale sanctorum 2.10.10 (PL 115:781; CSM 2:419-20).

28. Memoriale sanctorum 2.10.18 (PL 115:785; CSM 2:423).

29. Memoriale sanctorum 2.10.28 (PL 115:789; CSM 2:428).

30. Memoriale sanctorum 2.11.2 (PL 115:792; CSM 2:431).

31. Memoriale sanctorum 2.10.24 (PL 115:787; CSM 2:426).

32. Eulogius described Sanctius and Christophorus each as auditor noster, which would seem to indicate that they were at one time students of the magister. Christophorus was also a contribulis of the priest, as were Paulus and Ludovicus. Memoriale sanctorum 2.3 (PL 115:771; CSM 2:402), 2.6 (PL 115:773; CSM 2:405), 2.11 (PL 115:792; CSM 2:430), 3.13 (PL 115:814; CSM 2:455).

33. Vita Eulogii 2.3 (PL 115:708; CSM 1:332).

34. Vita Eulogii 2.3 (PL 115:710-11; CSM 1:332). It is true, as Alvarus records, that Eulogius composed rules for the monks (regulas fratrum componere). The priest himself reports that he provided Leocritia with one. But this was a service that early medieval ecclesiastics regularly performed in the days before monasticism had achieved the institutional uniformity that would characterize it in later centuries, and does not imply any special involvement on Eulogius' part. See chapter 9 below for a fuller discussion of ninth-century monasticism in Córdoba.

35. Epistula 3.10 (PL 115:849; CSM2:501). Memoriale sanctorum 1.1 (PL 115:739; CSM 2:369).

36. Memoriale sanctorum 1.38 (PL 115:765; CSM 2:396). Epistula 3.10 (PL 115:849; CSM 2:501). See also: Documentum martyriale 1.1 (PL 115:849; CSM 2:467).

37. Memoriale sanctorum 1.4 (PL 115:741; CSM 2:371).

38. Memoriale sanctorum 1.3-4 (PL 115:740-1; CSM 2:371-2).