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CATHERINE, SAINT

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Originally appearing in Volume V05, Page 525 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CATHERINE, See also:SAINT . The See also:Roman See also:hagiology contains the See also:record of six See also:saints of this name. 1. ST CATHERINE OF See also:ALEXANDRIA, Virgin and See also:Martyr, whose See also:day of See also:commemoration recurs on the 25th of See also:November, and in some places on the 5th of See also:March. 2. ST CATHERINE OF See also:SWEDEN, a daughter of St See also:Bridget, who died See also:abbess of Watzen in March 1381, and is commemorated on the 22nd of that See also:month. 3. ST CATHERINE OF See also:SIENA, 1347-1380, whose festal day is observed on the 3oth of See also:April. 4. ST CATHERINE OF See also:BOLOGNA, 1413-1463, a visionary, abbess of the See also:convent of the Poor See also:Clares in Bologna, canonized by See also:Pope See also:Benedict XIII., and commemorated throughout the Franciscan See also:order on the 9th of March. 5. ST CATHERINE OF See also:GENOA,' who belonged to the See also:noble See also:family of See also:Fieschi, was See also:born about 1447, spent her See also:life and her means in succouring and attending on the sick, especially in the See also:time of the See also:plague which ravaged Genoa in 1497 and 1501, died in that See also:city in 1510, was beatified by See also:Clement V. in 1675 and canonized by Clement XII. in 1i37; her name was placed in the See also:calendar on the 22nd of See also:July by Benedict XIV.

6. ST CATHERINE DE' See also:

Ricci, of See also:Florence, daughter of a wealthy See also:merchant See also:prince, was born in 1522, became a See also:nun in the convent of the See also:Dominicans at See also:Prato in 1536, and died in 1589. She was famous during her life-time for the weekly See also:ecstasy of the See also:Passion, during which in a See also:trance she experienced the sufferings of the See also:Holy Virgin contemplating the Passion of her Son. She was canonized in 1746 by Benedict XIV., who fixed her festal day on the 13th of See also:February. In See also:Celtic and See also:English martyrologies (November 25) there is also commemorated St Catherine See also:Audley (c. 1400), a recluse of See also:Ledbury, See also:Hereford, who was reputed for piety and See also:clairvoyance. Of two of these saints, St Catherine of Alexandria, the St Catherine See also:par excellence, and St Catherine of Siena, something st more must be said. Of the former See also:history has little or Catherine, nothing to tell. The Maronite See also:scholar, See also:Joseph See also:Simon virgin and See also:Assemani (1687-1768), first identified her with the martyr. royal and wealthy See also:lady of Alexandria (See also:Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. viii. 14) who, for refusing the solicitations of the See also:emperor Maximinus, was deprived of her See also:property and banished. But See also:Rufinus (Hist.

Eccl. viii. 17) called this lady Dorothea, and the old Catherine See also:

legend, as recorded in the Roman See also:martyrology and by See also:Simeon Metaphrastes, has quite other features. According to it Catherine was the daughter of See also:King Konetos, eighteen years old, beautiful and See also:wise. During the persecution under Maximinus she sought an interview with the emperor, upbraided him for his cruelties, and adjured him to give up the See also:worship of false gods. The angry See also:tyrant, unable to refute her arguments himself, sent for See also:pagan scholars to argue with her, but they were discomfited. Catherine was then scourged and See also:cast into See also:prison, and the empress was sent to See also:reason with her; but the dauntless virgin converted not only the empress but the Roman ' See the study in See also:Baron Fr. von Hugel's Mystical See also:Element in See also:Religion (1909). See also:general and his soldiers who had accompanied her. Maximinus now ordered her to be broken on the See also:wheel; but the wheel was shattered by her See also:touch. The headsman's See also:axe proved more fatal, and the martyr's See also:body was See also:borne by angels to See also:Mount See also:Sinai, where Justinian I. built the famous monastery in her See also:honour. Another development of the legend is that in which, having rejected many offers of See also:marriage, she was taken to See also:heaven in See also:vision and betrothed to See also:Christ by the Virgin See also:Mary. Of all these marvellous incidents very little, by the universal See also:admission of See also:Catholic scholars, has survived the test of See also:modern See also:criticism. That St Catherine actually existed there is, indeed, no See also:evidence to disprove; and it is possible that some of the elements in her legend are due to confusion with the See also:story of See also:Hypatia (q.v.), the neo-platonic philosopher of Alexandria, who was done to See also:death by a See also:Christian See also:mob.

To the men of the See also:

middle ages, in any See also:case, St Catherine was very real; she was ranked with the fourteen most helpful saints in heaven, and was the See also:constant theme of preachers and of poets. Her festival was celebrated in many places with the utmost splendour, and in certain dioceses in See also:France was a holy day of See also:obligation as See also:late as the beginning of the 17th See also:century. Numberless chapels were dedicated to her, and in nearly all churches her statue was set up, the saint being represented with a wheel, her See also:instrument of See also:torture, and sometimes with a See also:crown and a See also:book. The wheel being her See also:symbol she was the See also:patron saint of wheelwrights and See also:mechanics; as the confounder of See also:heathen sophistry she was invoked by theologians, apologists, preachers and philosophers, and was chosen as the patron saint of the university of See also:Paris; as the most holy and illustrious of Christian virgins she became the tutelary saint of nuns and virgins generally. So late as the 16th century, See also:Bossuet delivered.a See also:panegyric upon her, and it was the See also:action of Dom Deforis, the See also:Benedictine editor of his See also:works, in criticizing the accuracy, of the data on which this was based, that first discredited the legend. The saint's feast was removed from the See also:Breviary at Paris about this time, and the devotion to St Catherine has since lost its earlier popularity. See See also:Leon Clugnet's See also:article in the Catholic See also:Encyclopaedia, vol. iii. (See also:London, 1908). St Catherine of Siena was the youngest of the twenty-five See also:children of Giacomo di Benincasa, a See also:dyer, and was born, with a twin-See also:sister who did not survive her See also:birth, on the st 25th of March 1347. A highly sensitive and imagin- Catherine ative See also:child, she very See also:early began to practise See also:asceticism oisiena. and see visions, and at the See also:age of seven solemnly dedicated her virginity to Christ. She was attracted by what she had heard of the See also:desert anchorites, and in 1363-1364, after much struggle, persuaded her parents to allow her to take the See also:habit of the Dominican See also:tertiaries. For a while she led at See also:home the life of a recluse, speaking only to her See also:confessor, and spending all her time in devotion and spiritual ecstasy.

Her innate humanity and See also:

sound sense, however, led her gradually to return to her See also:place in the family circle, and she began also to seek out and help the poor and the sick. In 1368 her See also:father died, and she assumed the care of her See also:mother Lapa. During the following years she became known to an increasingly wide circle, especially as a peacemaker, and entered into See also:correspondence with many See also:friends. Her peculiarities excited suspicion, and charges seem to have been brought against her by some of the Dominicans to See also:answer which she went to Florence in 1374, soon returning to Siena to tend the plague-stricken. Here first she met the Dominican See also:friar, Raimondo of See also:Capua, her confessor and biographer. The See also:year 1375 found Catherine entering on a wider See also:stage. At the invitation of See also:Piero Gambacorti, the ruler of the See also:republic of See also:Pisa, she visited that city and there endeavoured to arouse See also:enthusiasm for the proposed crusade, urging princes and presidents, commanders and private citizens alike to join in " the holy passage." To this task was added that of trying to keep Pisa and See also:Lucca from joining the Tuscan See also:League against the pope. It was at Pisa, in the See also:church of See also:Santa Cristina, on the See also:fourth See also:Sunday in See also:Lent (April r), while rapt in ecstasy after the communion, that Catherine's greatest traditional See also:glory befell her, viz. the stigmata or impression on her hands, feet and See also:heart, of the wounds corresponding with those received by Christ at his crucifixion, The marks, however, were at her See also:prayer not made visible. There is no need to doubt the reality of Catherine's exaltation, but it should be remembered that she and her circle were Dominicans, and that the stigmata of St See also:Francis of See also:Assisi were considered the crowning glory of the saint, and hitherto the exclusive boast of the See also:Franciscans. The tendency observable in many of the austerities and miracles attributed to St Catherine to outstrip those of other saints, particularly Francis, is especially remarkable in this marvel of the stigmata, and so acute became the rivalry between the two orders that Pope See also:Sixtus IV., himself a Franciscan, issued a See also:decree asserting that St Francis had an exclusive See also:monopoly of this particular wonder, and making it a censurable offence to represent St Catherine receiving the stigmata. In the year 1376, the 29th of Catherine's life, See also:Gregory XI. was living and holding the papal See also:court at See also:Avignon. He was the last of seven See also:French popes in See also:succession who had done so, and had perpetuated for seventy-three years what ecclesiastical writers are fond of terming "the Babylonian captivity of the church." To put an end to this See also:absenteeism, and to bring back the papacy to See also:Italy was the cherished and anxious wish of all See also:good Italians, and especially of all See also:Italian churchmen.

See also:

Petrarch had urgently pressed See also:Urban V., Gregory's immediate predecessor, to accomplish the desired See also:change; and See also:Dante had at an earlier date laboured to bring about the same See also:object. But these and all the other influences which Italy had striven to bring to See also:bear on the popes had hitherto failed to induce them to return. In these circumstances Catherine determined to try her See also:powers of per-suasion and See also:argument, attempting first by correspondence to reconcile Gregory and the Florentines, who had been placed under an See also:interdict, and then going in See also:person as the representative of the latter to Avignon, where she arrived on the 18th of See also:June. Gregory empowered her to treat for See also:peace, but the Florentine ambassadors were first tardy and then faithless. Nothing daunted, Catherine herself besought Gregory, who, indeed, was himself so minded, to return, and he did so, in See also:September (taking the See also:sea route from See also:Marseilles to Genoa), though perhaps intending only to make a temporary stay in Italy. Catherine went home by See also:land and stayed for a month in Genoa with Madonna Orietta Scotti, a noble lady of that city, at whose See also:house Gregory had a See also:long colloquy with her, which encouraged him to push on to See also:Rome. To this year, 1376, belongs the admission to Catherine's circle of disciples of Stefano di Corrado Maconi, a Sienese noble distinguished by a See also:character full of See also:charm and purity, and her healing of the See also:bitter See also:feud between his family and the Tolomei. Another family See also:quarrel, that of the Salimbeni at Rocca D'Orcia, was ended by her intervention in 1377. This year. also she turned the See also:castle of Belcaro, which had been given to her, into a monastery. Meanwhile the returned pope was not having an easy time. Besides perpetuating. the strife with his enemies he was alienating his friends, and finding it increasingly difficult to pay his mercenaries. He vented his anger upon Catherine, who reproved him for minding temporal rather than spiritual things, but in the beginning of 1378 sent her on an See also:embassy to Florence and especially to the See also:Guelph party.

While she was urging the citizens to make peace with the pope there came the See also:

news of his death. During the troubles that ensued in Florence Catherine nearly lost her life in a popular tumult, and sorely regretted not winning her heart's See also:desire, " the red See also:rose of martyrdom." Peace was signed with the new pope, Urban VI., and Catherine, having thus accomplished her second See also:great See also:political task, went home again to Siena. Thence on the outbreak of the See also:schism Urban summoned her to Rome, whither, somewhat reluctantly, she journeyed with her now large spiritual family in November. Once arrived she gave herself heartily to Urban's cause, and wore her slender powers out in restraining his impatient See also:temper, quieting the revolt of the See also:people of Rome, and trying to win for Urban the support of See also:Europe. After prolonged and continual suffering she died on the 29th of April 1380. Catherine of Siena lived on not only in her writings but in her disciples. During her See also:short course she gathered See also:round her a devotedcompany of men and See also:women trained to labour for the See also:reformation of the individual, the church and the See also:state. Her death naturally See also:broke up the fellowship, but its members did not cease their activity and kept up what mutual correspondence was possible. Among them were Fra Raimondo, who became See also:master-general of the Dominicans, See also:William Flete, an ascetically-minded Englishman from See also:Cambridge, Stefano Maconi, who joined the See also:Carthusians and ultimately became See also:prior-general, and the two secretaries, See also:Neri di Landoccio and See also:Francesco Malavolti. The last of her See also:band, Tommaso Caffarini, died in 1434, but the See also:work was taken up, though in other shape, by See also:Savonarola, between Francis of Assisi and whom Catherine forms the connecting See also:link. Catherine's works consist of (I) a See also:treatise occupying a closely-printed See also:quarto See also:volume, which Fra Raimondo describes as " a See also:dialogue between a soul, which asked four questions of the See also:Lord, and the same Lord, who made answer and gave instruction in many most useful truths," (2) letters, and (3) prayers. The dialogue i= entitled, The Book of Divine See also:Doctrine, given in person by See also:God the Father, speaking to the mind of the most glorious and holy virgin Catherine of Siena, and written down as she dictated it in the vulgar See also:tongue, she being the while entranced, and actually See also:hearing what God spoke in her.

The work is declared to have been dictated by the saint in her father's house in Siena, a little before she went to Rome, and to have been completed on the 13th of See also:

October 1378. The book opens with a passage on the essence of See also:mysticism, the See also:union of the soul with God in love, and the bulk of it is a compendium of the spiritual teachings scattered throughout her letters. There is more See also:monologue than dialogue. The book has a significant place in the history of Italian literature. " In a See also:language which is singularly poor in mystical works it stands with the Diving Commedia as one of the two supreme attempts to See also:express the eternal in the symbolism of a day, to paint the union of the soul with the supra-sensible while still imprisoned in the flesh." The prayers (twenty-six in all) are tnostly mystical outpourings repeating the aspirations found in her other writings. Of more See also:interest are the letters, nearly four See also:hundred in number, and addressed to See also:kings, popes, cardinals, bishops, conventual bodies, political corporations and private individuals. Their See also:historical importance, their spiritual fragrance and their See also:literary value combine to put their author almost on a level with Petrarch as a 14th century See also:letter-writer. Her language is the purest Tuscan of the See also:golden age of the Italian See also:vernacular, and with spontaneous eloquence she passes to and fro between spiritual counsel, domestic See also:advice and political guidance. AurHoRITIES.—The See also:sources for the See also:personal life of Catherine of Siena are (I) the Vita or Legenda, Fra Raimondo's See also:biography written 1384-1395, first published in Latin at See also:Cologne, 1553, and widely translated; (2) the Processus, a collection of testimonies and letters by those of her followers who survived in 1411, and had to justify the reverence paid to the memory of one yet uncanonized ; (3) the Supplementum to Raimondo's Vita, compiled by Tommaso Caffarini in 1414; (4) the Legenda abbreviate, Caffarini's See also:summary of the Vita, translated into beautiful Italian by Stefano Maconi; (5) the Letters, of which the See also:standard edition is that of See also:Girolamo Gigli (2 vols., Siena, 1713, Lucca, 1721). A selection of these has been published in English by V. D. Scudder (London, 1905).

A See also:

complete bibliography is given in E. G.

End of Article: CATHERINE, SAINT

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