N reading the Germania of Tacitus, with a view to the study of Teutonic mythology, I lit upon a passage so perplexing, that I resolved to minutely investigate it, and trace its connexion with other statements, and examine its bearings, little knowing whither it would lead. That passage shall be quoted in the sequel. Suffice it to say here, that it guided me to the legend of S. Ursula and her virgin company of martyrs.
At this point I became acquainted with the
masterly treatise of Dr. Oskar Schade, of Bonn, on the story of S. Ursula, and was agreeably surprised to find that, proceeding from the point at which I had arrived, he had been guided by sure stages to that from which I had started.
As my object in these pages is the analysis of a
Christian myth, I shall follow the Doctor’s course
rather than my own. The fable of S. Ursula is too
important to be omitted from this collection of
Myths, because of the extravagance of its details, the devotion which it excited, the persistency with which the Church clings to it, setting all her scenery in motion to present the tragedy in its most imposing and probable aspect. It may not be omitted also because it is a specimen of the manner in which saintly legends were developed in the Middle Ages, the process of the development being unusually evident; a specimen, lastly, of the manner in which they were generated out of worse than nothing; a process which is also, in this case, singularly apparent.
The legends of the Middle Ages were some
beautiful, some grotesque, some revolting. The
two latter classes we put aside at once, but for the
first we profess a lingering affection. Alas! too
often they are but apples of Sodom, fair cheeked, but containing the dust and ashes of heathenism.
Ursula and the eleven thousand British virgins
are said to have suffered martyrdom at Cologne, on October 21st, 237; for in 1837 was celebrated with splendor the 16th centenary jubilee of their passion. They suffered under the Huns, on their return from their defeat at Chalons by Aëtius in 451; so that the anachronism is considerable. The early martyrology of Jerome, published by d’Achery, makes no mention of S. Ursula; neither does that of the Venerable Bede, who was born in 672. Bede states that he has included all the names of which he read: as Ursula was a British lady of rank, and was accompanied to martyrdom by the enormous number of eleven thousand damsels, who shared with her the martyr’s crown and palm, it is singular and significant that Bede should not allude to this goodly company. The Martyrologium Gallinense, a compilation made in 804, does not include her; nor does the Vetus Calendarium Corbeiense, composed in or about 831. Neither is she mentioned in the Martyrology of Rabanus Maurus, who died in 856. Usardus, who wrote about 875, does not speak of her, though under the 20th October he inserts the passion of the holy virgins, Martha and Saula, with many others in the city of Cologne. S. Ado wrote a martyrology in 880, but makes no mention of Ursula and the other virgins; nor does Notker of S. Gall, who died in 912; nor, again, does the Corbey martyrology of 900; neither do the two of uncertain date called after Labbe and Richenove. We see that up to the tenth century, for either 650 or 450 years after the martyrdom, there is no mention of S. Ursula by name, and only one reference to virgin martyrs at Cologne. Usardus, who mentions these, gives the names of Martha and Saula. An old calendar in the Dusseldorf town library, belonging to the tenth century, copies Usardus, merely transferring the saints to the 21st October. A litany of the following century, in the Darmstadt library, invokes five, in this order: Martha, Saula, Paula, Brittola, Ursula. Another litany in the same collection raises their number to eight, and gives a different succession: Brittola, Martha, Saula, Sambatia, Saturnina, Gregoria, Pinnosa, Palladia. Another litany, in the Dusseldorf library, extends the number to eleven: Ursula, Sencia, Gregoria, Pinnosa, Martha, Saula, Brittola, Saturnina, Rabacia, Saturia, Palladia. And, again, another gives eleven, but in different order: Martha, Saula, Brittola, Gregoria, Saturnina, Sabatia, Pinnosa, Ursula, Sentia, Palladia, Saturia.
A calendar in a Freisingen Codex, published in
Eckhart’s Francia Orientalis, notices them as SS. M. XI. Virginum. And, lastly, in the twelfth century the chronicle of Rodulf (written 1117) reckons the virgin martyrs as twelve.