Bartholomew of Trent: De Sancta Maxentia (Shorter Version)

This brief text on Maxentia, mother of Vigilius of Trent, is associated with Bartholomew of Trent, the thirteenth-century Dominican hagiographer. It states that Maxentia, a Roman noblewoman, came to Trent with her sons Vigilius, Claudianus and Magorianus, and that they became citizens there, Vigilius being ordained bishop for his holiness. She built a house at a place called Maianum near the lake, served God in good works, and died renowned for virtues and miracles. Christians buried her there and built a church over her, where she rested until Bishop Altmann of Trent moved her body to the crypt of the church of her son Vigilius. The text is about 100 words long.

Bartholomew’s Liber epilogorum in gesta sanctorum, compiled around the middle of the thirteenth century, was one of the first great Dominican legendaries and a source for Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda aurea. This entry preserves the local tradition of Trent about the family of its patron saint and the translation of her relics by Bishop Altmann in the twelfth century. A longer account of Maxentia from the same tradition is also available, and the two may be read together to see how the material was condensed.