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URSULA, ST

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Originally appearing in Volume V27, Page 804 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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URSULA, ST , and her companions, virgins and martyrs, are commemorated by the See also:Roman See also:Catholic See also:church on the 21st of See also:October. The See also:Breviary gives no See also:legend; but in current See also:works, such as See also:Butler's Lives of the See also:Saints, it is to the effect that " these See also:holy martyrs seem . . . to have met a glorious See also:death in See also:defence of their virginity from the See also:army of the See also:Huns... . They came originally from See also:Britain, and Ursula was the conductor and encourager of the holy See also:troop. " The See also:scene of the martyrdom is placed near the See also:lower See also:Rhine. The date has been assigned by different writers to 238, c. 283 and c. 451. The See also:story, however, is unknown both to See also:Jerome and to See also:Gregory of See also:Tours—and this though the latter gives a somewhat detailed description of the See also:Cologne church dedicated to that Theban See also:legion with which the tradition of the-martyred virgins was very See also:early associated. The story of their See also:fate is not entered under 21st October in the See also:martyrology of See also:Bede (ob. c. 735), of See also:Ado (c. 858), of Usuard (ante 877), See also:Notker Balbulus (896) or Hrabanus Maurus (845); but a 9th-See also:century See also:life of St Cunibert (ob.

663) associates a prominent incident in the life of this See also:

saint with the See also:basilica of the sacred virgins at Cologne (Surius vi. 275, ed. 1575). Not only does See also:Arch-See also:bishop Wichfrid attest a See also:grant to the church of the sacred virgins outside the walls of Cologne (in 927), but he was a large donor in his own See also:person. Still earlier a Cologne martyrology, written, as Binterim (who edited it in 1824) argues, between 889 and 891, has the following entry under 21st October: " xi. virg. Ursule Sencie Gregorie Pinose Marthe Saule Britule Satnine Rabacie Saturie Paladie." Much shorter entries are found in two of the old martyrologies printed in See also:Migne (cxxxviii. 1207, 1275). A more definite allusion to the legend may be found (c. 850) in Wandelbert of See also:Pram's metrical martyrology (21st October): " Tune numerosa simul Rheni per littora fulgent Christo virgines erecta tropaea maniplis Agrippinae urbi, quarum furor impius See also:ohm Millia mactavit ductricibus inclyta See also:sanctis." The full legend first makes its See also:appearance in a festival discourse (sermo) for the 21st of October, written, as See also:internal See also:evidence seems to show, between 731 and 839. This sermo does not mention St Ursula, but makes Pinnosa or Vinnosa the See also:leader of these spiritual " See also:amazons," who, to avoid Maximian's persecution, See also:left their See also:island See also:home of Britain, following their bridegroom See also:Christ towards that See also:East whence their faith had come a See also:hundred years before. The concurrent traditions of Britain, See also:Batavia, i.e. the See also:Netherlands (where many chapels still preserved their memory), and Cologne are called in evidence to prove the same origin. The legend was already very old and the festival " nobis omni tempore celeberrima "; but, as all written documents had disappeared since the burning of the early church erected over the sacred bones, the preacher could only See also:appeal to the continuous and careful memory of the society to which he belonged (nostrates).

Even in his See also:

time there were sceptics who pointed dubiously to the full-grown bones of " widows " and of men among the so-called virgin See also:relics. The author of the sermo pointedly rejects the two theories that connected the holy virgins with the Theban See also:band and brought them as pilgrims from the East to the See also:West; but he adds that even in his days there still existed an inscription in the church, showing how it had been restored from its See also:foundations by a certain " Clematius, vir consularis, ex partibus Orientis." Two or three centuries. later the Passio XI. MM. SS. Virginum, based apparently on the revelations made to Helentrude, a See also:nun of Heerse near See also:Paderborn, gives a wonderful in-crease of detail. The narrative in its See also:present See also:form may date somewhere between 900 and 1100, while Helentrude apparently flourished before 1050. According to her See also:account, the son of a powerful See also:pagan See also:king demands in See also:marriage Ursula, the beautiful daughter of Deonotus, a king " in partibus Britanniae." Ursula is warned by a See also:dream to demand a See also:respite of three years, during which time her companions are to be 11,000 virgins collected from both kingdoms. After vigorous exercise in all kinds of manly See also:sports, to the admiration of the populace, they are carried off by a sudden See also:breeze in eleven triremes to Thiel on the Waal in See also:Gelderland. Thence they See also:sail up the Rhine by way of Cologne to See also:Basel, at which See also:place they make fast their vessels and proceed on See also:foot to See also:Rome. Returning, they re-enter their See also:ships at Basel, but are slaughtered by the Huns when they reach Cologne. Their relics are then collected and buried " sicut hodie illic est cernere," in a spot where " to this See also:day " no meaner sepulture is permitted. Then follows the usual allusion to Clematius; the date is expressly fixed at 238, and the whole See also:revelation is seemingly ascribed to St Cordula, one of the r1,000 who, after escaping death on the first day by hiding in one of the vessels, on the morrow gave her-self up to death of her own See also:accord.

Towards the beginning of the 12th century See also:

Sigebert of See also:Gembloux (ob. 1112) gives a brief resume of .the same story. He is the first to introduce the name of See also:Attila, and See also:dates the occurrence 453. Passing over the visions and exhumations of the first See also:half of the r2th century, we come to the singular revelations of St See also:Elizabeth of Schonau. These revelations, delivered in Latin, See also:German or a mixed See also:jargon of both See also:languages, were turned into See also:simple Latin by Elizabeth's See also:brother Egbert, from whose words it would seem that in 1156 an old Roman See also:burial-ground had lately been laid open near Cologne. The See also:cemetery was naturally associated with the legend of St Ursula; and, this See also:identification once accepted, it is not unlikely that when more careful investigations revealed male skeletons and See also:tomb-stones bearing the names of men, other and more definite epitaphs were invented to reconcile the old traditions with the facts of such a damaging See also:discovery. Hence perhaps the See also:bare-faced imposture: " Cyriacus, papa See also:Romanus, qui cum gaudio suscepit sanctas virgines et cum eis Coloniam reversus martyrium suscepit." One or two circumstantial forgeries of this See also:kind would form the basis of a See also:scheme for explaining not a few other problems of the See also:case, such as the See also:plain inscription " Jacobus," whom St Elizabeth promptly transformed into a supposititious See also:British See also:archbishop of See also:Antioch, brother to the equally imaginary British See also:Pope Cyriacus. For these epitaphs, with others of a humbler kind, were brought before St Elizabeth to be identified in her ecstatic converse with St Verena, her See also:cousin St Ursula, and others. Elizabeth herself at times distrusted her own revelations: there was no Cyriac in the See also:list of the popes; Antherus, who was said to be his successor (235-36), died more than two centuries before Attila, to whom See also:common See also:report assigned the See also:massacre; and it was hardly credible that See also:James of Antioch could cut rr,000 epitaphs in less than three days. Every doubt, however, was met by the invention of a new and still more improbable detail. According to St Verena, the virgins suffered when See also:Maximus and " See also:Africanus " were principes at Rome (? 387-88).

In 1183 the See also:

mantle of St Elizabeth See also:fell upon See also:Hermann See also:Joseph, a Praemonstratensian See also:canon at Steinfeld. He had to solve a more difficult problem than St Elizabeth's; for the skeletons of little See also:children, ranging in See also:age from two months to seven years, had now been found buried with the sacred virgins. But even such a difficulty Hermann explains away: the little children were See also:brothers, sisters or more distant relatives of the rr,000. Hermann's revelations are mainly taken up with an See also:attempt to show the mutual relationship of nearly all the characters he introduces. The names are a most extraordinary mixture. Among British bishops we have See also:Michael, See also:William, James and Columbanus. See also:Sovereign princes--an See also:Oliver, a See also:Clovis and a Pepin—start out in every See also:page, till the writer finds it necessary to apologize for the number of his See also:kings and his own blunders. But, for all this, Hermann exposes his own doubts when he tells that often, as he was preparing to write, he heard a See also:voice bidding him See also:lay down the See also:pen, " for whatever you write will be an unmixed See also:lie." Hermann makes St Ursula a native of See also:Brittany, and so approximates to the version of the story given by See also:Geoffrey of See also:Monmouth (Historia Britonum), according to whom Maximian, after fleeing from Rome and acquiring Britain by marriage, proceeds to conquer Brittany and See also:settle it with men from the island opposite. For these settlers he has to find British wives, and to this end collects 11,o0o See also:noble and 6o,000 plebeian virgins, who are wrecked on their passage across. Certain of the vessels being driven upon " barbarous islands," their passengers are slain by Guanius and Melga, " kings of the Huns and Picts," whom See also:Gratian had called in to his aid against Maximian. In this version St Ursula is a daughter of Dionotus, king of See also:Cornwall. Hermann alludesmore than once to the Historia Britonum, and even to King See also:Arthur.

The legend of St Ursula is perhaps the most curious instance of the development of an ecclesiastical myth. Even in the earliest form known to us this legend is probably the complex growth of centuries, and any claim to the discovery of the first germ can hardly approve itself to the historic sense. These remarks apply especially to that See also:

venerable rationalization which evolves the whole legend from a misreading of Undecimilla, the name of Ursula's See also:companion, into undecim millia, i.e. 11,000. A more See also:modern theory makes St Ursula the Christianized representative of the old See also:Teutonic goddess Freya, who, in Thuringia, under the name of Horsel or Ursel, and in See also:Sweden Old Urschel, welcomed the souls of dead maidens. Not a few singular coincidences seem to point in the same direction, especially the two virgins, " Martha and Saula," whom Usuard states to have suffered " cum aliis pluribus " on the loth of October, whence they were probably transferred to the 21st. It is curious to See also:note that Jerome and many of the earliest martyrologies extant have on the 21st of October the entry, "Dasius Zoticus, Gains cum duodecim militibus." Even in copies of Jerome this is transformed into millibus; and it is perhaps not impossible that to this misreading we may indirectly owe the " thousands " in the Ursula legend. The two entries seem to be mutually exclusive in all the early martyrologies mentioned in this See also:article, and in those printed in Migne, cxxxvii. The earlier " Dasius " entry seems to disappear steadily, though slowly, as the Ursula legend works its way into current martyrologies. See H. Crombach, Vita et Martyrium S. Ursulae (Cologne, 1647), and the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum, 21st October, where the story fills 230 See also:folio pages.

The rationalization of the story is to be found in Oscar Schade, See also:

Die See also:Sage von der heiligen Ursula (See also:Hanover, 1854), of which there is a See also:short resume in S. See also:Baring-See also:Gould's Lives of the Saints. See also S. Baring-Gould, Popular Myths of the See also:Middle Ages; A. G. See also:Stein, Die Heilige Ursula (Cologne, 1879). The credibility of some of the details was doubted as early as the 13th century by Jacobus de Voragine in the Legenda aurea. For further works, especially See also:medieval, see A. See also:Potthast, Bibliotheca hist. med. aevi (See also:Berlin, 1896), p. 1616. (T. A.

A.; A. J.

End of Article: URSULA, ST

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