This site overlooks the ruins of Hippo Regius in the valley below, where once stood the Basilica of Peace used by Augustine 1,600 years ago.
This basilica at Annaba was built in 1881 by Abbe Pougnet, the architect of the Reform church in Marseilles, France. The stone for its construction was imported from the south east of France. Its design contains Arab, Byzantine, and Roman characteristics that represent Saint Augustine as a person of dialogue at the crossroads of different civilisations.
In this basilica, these bones of Augustine’s right arm were inserted in a glass tube in their correct position in a full-size funeral statue of Augustine. It is still there today in the basilica at Annaba (Hippo) in the same reliquary.
To view this statue in the Basilica of Augustine in Annaba, Algeria, access the Augnet gallery called Algeria by clicking here.
Additionally, there is information about an arm bone of Augustine. Aethelnoth (known also as Egelnodus or Ednodus), who died on 29th October 1038, was the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was a son of the ealdorman Æthelmaer, and a member of the royal family of Wessex.
He became a monk at Glastonbury, then dean of the monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury.
The number of his canons were so great, compared to the few monks, that he was consecrated as Archbishop of Canterbury by the Archbishop of York on 13th November 1020.
He was the counsellor, chaplain and close friend of King Cnut (Canute) the Great, and worked with the king to unite people in the kingdom with English and Danish ancestors.
Largely with the aid of Canute, he restored the Cathedral at Canterbury.
In the year 1022 he went to Rome to receive his pallium (the stole presented to archbishops by the Pope), and was received with great respect by Pope Benedict VIII.
Returning from Rome he purchased at Pavia a relic said to be an arm of Saint Augustine of Hippo, for a hundred talents of silver and one of gold, and presented it to the abbey of Coventry.
Other pieces of bone are recorded in subsequent centuries of being sent elsewhere in Italy, i.e., to Parma, Rome and Ragusa.
This information about the arm bone of Augustine is from the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1911. No subsequent details about this have as yet been located by Augnet. Can somebody shed further light on this please? If so, kindly e-mail the webmaster by using the contact button on this web page.
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