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==Etymology==
==Etymology==


The name Judoc, meaning "Lord", is the 14th century Breton version of ''Iudocus'' in Latin, ''Josse'' in French, ''Jost,'' ''Joost,'' or ''Joos'' in Dutch and Joyce in English. The name Judoc was rarely used after the 14th century except in the Netherlands.
The name Judoc, meaning "pool", is the 14th century Breton version of ''Iudocus'' in Latin, ''Josse'' in French, ''Jost,'' ''Joost,'' or ''Joos'' in Dutch and Joyce in English. The name Judoc was rarely used after the 14th century except in the Netherlands.


==Biography==
==Biography==

Revision as of 22:01, 26 May 2016

For the commune in France, see Josse, Landes.
Saint Jodoc
A 16th-century portrayal of Saint Judoc by the Master of Meßkirch.
BornBrittany, France
Diedc.668
Ponthieu, France
Venerated inEastern Orthodox Church
Roman Catholic Church
Feast13 December
9 January(translation)
Attributespilgrim's staff; a crown at his feet

Saint Judoc or Saint Joyce (Template:Lang-la; traditionally c. 600 – 668 AD)[1] was a seventh-century Breton noble. Though he was never officially canonized, Saint Judoc is considered a Catholic saint.[2] Judoc is believed to be the son of Saint Judicael, King of Brittany. Judoc renounced the crown to become a priest and live as a hermit[3] in the coastal forest near the mouth of the River Canche.

Etymology

The name Judoc, meaning "pool", is the 14th century Breton version of Iudocus in Latin, Josse in French, Jost, Joost, or Joos in Dutch and Joyce in English. The name Judoc was rarely used after the 14th century except in the Netherlands.

Biography

According to tradition, Judoc was the son of Saint Judicael, King of Brittany, and the brother of Alain II Hir and Saint Winnoc. In approximately 636, Judoc, renouncing his inheritance and wealth, embarked on a pilgrimage to Rome. He was ordained as a priest during this voyage and subsequently became a hermit in Ponthieu, Saint-Josse-sur-Mer, where he resided until his death. According to ancient folklore, his body was claimed to be incorruptible.[4] For example, it is believed that his hair continued to grow after death, and his followers took it upon themselves to continually cut it.[5]

Veneration

St. Jodoc as depicted in the Church of St. Christina in Ravensburg.

Saint Judoc, never formally canonized, developed a local cultus. Built in the eighth century at the place where Judoc's shrine was kept, the Abbey of Saint-Josse was a small monastery built on the site of his retreat. In 903, some monks of the abbey fled the Norman raiders for England, where they bore Judoc's relics. Under the tradition of the New Minster of Hyde in Winchester (founded 901), the relics were translated by Saint Grimbald. To honor this event, the date was commemorated annually with feasts on the 9th of January.[6] It has been reported that these commemorative feasts were organized according to rank within the cathedral.[5]

From France, the veneration of Saint Josse spread through the Low Countries, England, Germany, and Scandinavia. In these regions, variations of Josse, Joyce, Joos, Joost, and the diminutive Jocelyn,[7] became popular names for both men and women, and a number of chapels and churches were dedicated to him.

The mal Saint Josse was the term for an illness resulting from snakebite, against which the saint's name was invoked by the fifteenth-century French poet Eustache Deschamps in an imprecatory ballade:[8] "...Du mau saint Leu, de l'esvertin, Du saint Josse et saint Matelin... soit maistre Mahieu confondus!".[9] According to Alban Butler, the abbey was given by Charlemagne to Alcuin and functioned as a hostel for those crossing the English Channel; it became a centre of pilgrimage, especially popular with Flemish and Germans in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

La vie de Saint Josse was written in Old French verses by the learned and competent poet and translator, Pierre de Beauvais, in the thirteenth century.[10]

The Suaire de St-Josse, or "Shroud of Saint Judoc ", is a rich silk samite saddle cloth woven in northeastern Iran prior to 961. When Saint Judoc was reinterred in 1134, the shroud was used to wrap his bones.[11] Currently, the shroud is housed in the Musée du Louvre.

The abbey was closed in 1772, and subsequently sold dismantled in 1789, leaving no traces of the monumental buildings; the abbey church then became the parish church of the French commune of Saint-Josse.

Saint Judoc or Josse has his feast-day on 13 December.

Cultural depictions

Cultural depictions usually portray St. Judoc holding the pilgrim's staff. He is also shown with a crown at his feet, referring to the renunciation of his lands and his fortune. In Austria, there is a depiction of St. Judoc on the mausoleum of Maximilian at Innsbruck. St. Judoc was most famously mentioned by Chaucer's Wife of Bath, who swears "by God and by Saint Joce." This suggests that his name was often invoked in oaths.[5]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Alban Butler, (Michael Walsh, ed.) Butler's Lives of the Saints (1991) s.v. "December 13: St Judoc, or Josse (AD 688)".
  2. ^ The Breton genealogist Fr. Augustin du Paz, (du Paz, Histoire généalogique de plusieurs maisons illustres de Bretagne, Paris, 1619) states that Conan I de Rennes, count of Brittany had a son Juthael; Alban Butler, following the twelfth-century Ecclesiastical History (iii) of Orderic Vitalis ("Beatus Iudocus Iuthail regis Britonum filius et frater Iudicail regis"), states "Judoc was a son of Juthaël, King of Armorica (Brittany), and brother of that Judicaël who had a cult in the Diocese of Quimper", whom Orderic would make king of the "Britons" after his father.
  3. ^ Butler 1991 gives "Runiacum".
  4. ^ David Hugh Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997, p.278.
  5. ^ a b c Farmer, David Hugh (1997). The Oxford dictionary of saints (4th ed.). Oxford [u.a.]: Oxford Univ. Press. p. 278. ISBN 9780192800589.
  6. ^ Butler 1991.
  7. ^ Chaucer's Wife of Bath swears "by God and by Saint Joce"
  8. ^ S.V. Spilsbury, "The imprecatory ballade: a fifteenth-century poetic genre", French Studies 33.4 (1979:385-396).
  9. ^ Among a host of ills wished upon Master Matthew, Eustache wishes "the ill of Saint Leu, a spell of madness, those of Saint Josse and Saint Matelin..." (Eustache Deschamps, Oeuvres complètes DCCCVI ((Paris 1884) vol. 4, p. 321).
  10. ^ Pierre de Beauvais, Nils-Olof Jönsson, tr. La vie de Saint Germer et la vie de Saint Josse de Pierre de Beauvais: Deux poèmes du XIIIe siècle (University of Lund) 1997. Jönsson's introductory notes offer good introductions both to Saint Judoc and Pierre de Beauvais.
  11. ^ M. Bernus, H. Marchal, and G. Vial, "Le Suaire de St-Josse", Bulletin de Liaison du Centre International d'Études des Textiles Anciens 33 (1971:1-57).
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