Masona or Mausona (died c. 600/610) was the
Bishop of Mérida and
metropolitan of the province of
Lusitania
Lusitania (; ) was an ancient Iberian Roman province located where modern Portugal (south of the Douro river) and
a portion of western Spain (the present Extremadura and the province of Salamanca) lie. It was named after the Lusitani or Lusita ...
from about 570 (certainly by 573) until his death. He is famous for exercising ''de facto'' rule of the city of
Mérida during his tenure as bishop and for founding the first confirmed
hospital
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emerge ...
in
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
.
He was a
Visigoth
The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is kno ...
and originally an
Arian, but converted to
Roman Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...
probably in the middle of the 6th century, though some have supposed as late as 579. His biographer says he "was indeed a Goth, but was wholly devoted to God with very ready heart," i.e. Catholic. He entered the church young and served from an early period in the Basilica of
Saint Eulalia at Mérida, which had been rebuilt in her honour by
Bishop Fidelis around 560. Masona is said to have had such a close relationship with Eulalia that by his prayers, and her intercession, a plague ravishing all Lusitania was lifted. Though no writings of his are known to have survived, Masona was probably educated in a manner similar to men of classical learning, such as the contemporary
Leander of Seville
Leander of Seville ( es, San Leandro de Sevilla; la, Sanctus Leandrus; 534 AD, in Cartagena – 13 March 600 or 601, in Seville) was the Bishop of Seville. He was instrumental in effecting the conversion of the Visigothic kings Hermengild and ...
, with whom he shared an exile for a time.
Government and patronage of Mérida
Masona built a ''
xenodochium
In the early Middle Ages, a xenodochium or (from Ancient Greek , or ''xenodocheion''; place for strangers, inn, guesthouse) was either a hostel or hospital, usually specifically for foreigners or pilgrims, although the term could refer to charita ...
'' (580), an inn (
hostel
A hostel is a form of low-cost, short-term shared sociable lodging where guests can rent a bed, usually a bunk bed in a dormitory, with shared use of a lounge and sometimes a kitchen. Rooms can be mixed or single-sex and have private or shared b ...
) for travellers, with a hospital for the sick incorporated. The ''xenodochium'' was open to
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
, and Masona is also recorded as showing kindness even to
pagans Pagans may refer to:
* Paganism, a group of pre-Christian religions practiced in the Roman Empire
* Modern Paganism, a group of contemporary religious practices
* Order of the Vine, a druidic faction in the ''Thief'' video game series
* Pagan's ...
, facts which his biographer clearly thought commendable. He built many churches and monasteries in and around the city, including one dedicated to the Virgin Mary whose foundation stone still survives and fragments, probably from three distinct churches, which survive as components of the current
alcazaba.
[Collins, ''Mérida and Toledo'', 195.] The decor preserved on the fragments is an indicator of the splendour of Masona's building projects.
Besides his ''xenodochium'', Masona instituted a system of
public healthcare
Publicly funded healthcare is a form of health care financing designed to meet the cost of all or most healthcare needs from a publicly managed fund. Usually this is under some form of democratic accountability, the right of access to which are ...
. Physicians visited each section of the city to find the sick and bring them to the hospital. The main source of travellers to Mérida was in the form of pilgrimages to the shrine of Saint Eulalia, the city's
patron saint
A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, or Eastern Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or perso ...
. The food of the hospital was derived from farms dedicated to the hospital by the bishop. Masona also initiated a programme for the distribution of free
wine
Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...
,
corn
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...
,
oil
An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...
, and
honey
Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primar ...
for the citizens and ''rustici'' (rustics, that is, peasants of the countryside, not the city).
Masona established a
public credit
A country's gross government debt (also called public debt, or sovereign debt) is the financial liabilities of the government sector. Changes in government debt over time reflect primarily borrowing due to past government deficits. A deficit oc ...
system by depositing 2,000 ''
solidi
The ''solidus'' (Latin 'solid'; ''solidi'') or nomisma ( grc-gre, νόμισμα, ''nómisma'', 'coin') was a highly pure gold coin issued in the Late Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire. Constantine introduced the coin, and its weig ...
'' with the deacon Redemptus at the basilica for the citizens to take out loans. A system of public bonds was probably a function of the diocese before the episcopate of Masona, however.
Conflict with Leovigild and the Arians
In his early years, Masona was not on poor terms with the Arian king
Leovigild
Liuvigild, Leuvigild, Leovigild, or ''Leovigildo'' (Spanish and Portuguese), ( 519 – 586) was a Visigothic King of Hispania and Septimania from 568 to 586. Known for his Codex Revisus or Code of Leovigild, a law allowing equal rights between th ...
. According to his early biographer Paul of Mérida, he even preached a sermon to compare Leovigild to God, the true King, in that both are to be feared: ''Si regem, ecce regem quem timere oportet; nam non talem qualis tu es.'' Later Leovigild tried by persuasion and argumentation as well as by threats and bribes to convert Masona back to Arianism, but unsuccessfully. Leovigild ordered a commission to examine the rival claims of Arians and Catholics to the Eulalian basilica, but the majority Arian commission found in favour of the Catholics.
Leovigild then threw his support behind the Arian faction in Mérida. In 582 Leovigild entered Mérida, appointing an Arian bishop,
Sunna, following the two years from 580 to 582 when the city's Arian community was possibly suppressed by
Hermenegild
Saint Hermenegild or Ermengild (died 13 April 585; es, San Hermenegildo; la, Hermenegildus, from Gothic ''*Airmana-gild'', "immense tribute"), was the son of king Liuvigild of the Visigothic Kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula and southern France. ...
. Sunna and Masona had co-existed peacefully during the 570s.
[Collins, ''Leovigild''.] Leovigild ordered certain basilicas held by the Catholic Church be transferred to Sunna's church and when Masona resisted he was called to
Toledo.
[Collins, ''Mérida and Toledo'', 214.] Leovigild then increased his demands, ordering Masona to hand over the tunic of Eulalia, the most sacred relic of the city, to the Arian faction in Toledo. Masona successfully tricked the king and kept the tunic.
Masona, for noncompliance with the king's last order, was banished. The reason behind Masona's banishment was probably due to his power in the city and his association with the revolt of Hermenegild then being suppressed, rather than any desire for racial ''apartheid'' (separateness) which considered Masona, as a Catholic Goth, to be the worst heresy of all.
The context of the revolt of Hermenegild was a sudden change in the relations between the Arian and Catholic churches, with each denomination vying for supremacy and political power in the cities. Masona, for instance, had preached a series of anti-Arian sermons on the eve of his city's capture, but this was probably unrelated. While in exile, Masona received 2,000 ''solidi'' on which to live from his supporters. During his exile he was replaced by another Catholic,
Nepopis.
Furthermore, he was not deprived of the right of correspondence. Masona returned to his see by permission of the king, who purportedly had a vision of Saint Eulalia, after three years, in 585.
This was the same time at which
John of Biclarum
John of Biclaro, Biclar, or Biclarum (''c.'' 540 – after 621), also ''Iohannes Biclarensis'', was a Visigoth chronicler. He was born in Lusitania, in the city of ''Scallabis'' (modern Santarém in Portugal). He was also bishop of Girona.
Earl ...
, the only other known Catholic Visigoth of the reign of Leovigild, returned from exile.
In 588, following the conversion of the king,
Reccared I, Sunna and his accomplices plotted the murder of Masona and the setting up of a rival king in the person of
Segga Segga was a Visigothic usurper who briefly claimed the kingship in 587 before being put down by the legitimate sovereign, Reccared I.
Following Reccared's conversion from Arianism to Catholicism, a conspiracy, led by Sunna, the Arian bishop of ...
.
The plot was betrayed by count
Witteric
Witteric ( es, Witerico; Portuguese and Galician: ''Viterico''; 565 – April 610) was the Visigoth King of Hispania, Septimania and Galicia. He ruled from 603 to 610.
Rise to power
The first mention of Witteric in history was as a conspirator ...
and Sunna undertook a voluntary exile in
Mauretania
Mauretania (; ) is the Latin name for a region in the ancient Maghreb. It stretched from central present-day Algeria westwards to the Atlantic, covering northern present-day Morocco, and southward to the Atlas Mountains. Its native inhabitants, ...
. Since Witteric was later king, it has sometimes been presumed that his rise to power represents an Arian resurgence, but it is more likely that he was a nominally Catholic king who clung to old Arian beliefs and that he redressed the grievances of those who had suffered under Leovigild without reversing any of the religious transformations of Reccared's reign.
Later years, illness, and death
Masona attended the
Third Council of Toledo
The Third Council of Toledo (589) marks the entry of Visigothic Spain into the Catholic Church, and is known for codifying the filioque clause into Western Christianity."Filioque." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. ...
in 589, the first Catholic bishop in order of precedence. At a limited synod in Toledo in 597, Masona was still bishop.
During a serious illness, when he thought he lay dying, Masona manumitted some of his church's slaves and granted them property (''exiguas possessiunculas'') on which to live without, as the law demanded, compensating his church for their loss of services.
[Dietrich Claude, ''Freedmen in the Visigothic Kingdom'', in Edward, 177–178.] The archdeacon Eleutherius, whom Masona had commended the diocese to until a successor was chosen, would probably have negated the bishop's actions by forcibly seizing and destroying the documents of emancipation had not he actually (miraculously) predeceased Masona, who survived the illness. The grants of small estates to the slaves was meant to confirm their new liberty.
A letter supposedly from
Isidore of Seville
Isidore of Seville ( la, Isidorus Hispalensis; c. 560 – 4 April 636) was a Spanish scholar, theologian, and archbishop of Seville. He is widely regarded, in the words of 19th-century historian Montalembert, as "the last scholar of ...
to Masona, and dated to 606, would place the latter's death sometime after that date, but the authenticity of the letter is debatable. The chief source for Masona is the ''
Vitas sanctorum patrum Emeritensium'', roughly modelled on the ''Dialogues'' of
Gregory the Great
Pope Gregory I ( la, Gregorius I; – 12 March 604), commonly known as Saint Gregory the Great, was the bishop of Rome from 3 September 590 to his death. He is known for instigating the first recorded large-scale mission from Rome, the Gregori ...
, which devotes more space to Masona than to either of the other "holy fathers of Mérida",
Paul
Paul may refer to:
*Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name)
* Paul (surname), a list of people
People
Christianity
*Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...
and Fidelis. The portion of the work covering Masona alone is sometimes referred to as the ''Vita Masonae'' or ''Life of Masona''.
Fidelis was Masona's predecessor; he was succeeded by one
Renovatus
Eastland Mall was a shopping mall in Charlotte, North Carolina. The center opened on July 30, 1975, as the then-largest mall in North Carolina with three anchor department stores, Belk, J.C. Penney, and Ivey's. A Sears, Roebuck and Company store j ...
.
[Thompson, ''The Goths in Spain'', 24.]
Notes
References
*
*
* Originally published in ''El Concilio III de Toledo: XIV Centenario, 589–1989''. Toledo: Arzobispado de Toledo, 1991.
*
{{authority control
6th-century bishops in the Visigothic Kingdom
600s deaths
Year of birth unknown