SOME OPINIONS OF THE PKESS ON THE FIRST VOLUME

From the "Guardian"

"Miss Dunbar has accomplished in this first volume a really valuable portion of a most useful task. With the help of the ' Acta Sanctorum' and a very considerable knowledge of later work, she has compiled an excellent summary of a vast number of lives of female saints. Her survey extends over the whole Church prior to the severance of East and West, the Western Church as a whole up to the Reformation, and the Roman Church afterwards. So far as we have been able to test the book, it is very well done, and from the best authorities."

From the "Church Times"

" The present compiler has gone to the best sources. . . . Un questionably, it will be found to be an exceedingly useful book of reference."

From the "Catholic Times"

" The authoress of this book undertook a work which demanded ability and discrimination. In performing it she has displayed both. . . . The biographical sketches are well written, and the dictionary will be valuable both as a work for pious use, and a book of reference."

From the "Expository Times "

" It is a work of intense human interest, and at the same time of real scientific value. The best authorities have been used, and they have been used in the best way, the utmost care being taken to have all the references exact, and at the same time to let these holy women speak and act in their own tongue and in their own time. This is the way in which short dictionaries should be written. Every article should be made to touch some human sympathy, every date as exact as pains and patience can make it."

From the "Tablet9'

"This work is a useful collection of interesting lives of holy women . . . who in all ages of the Christian era have illustrated God's Church. . . . Much historical information concerning the Middles Ages will be found in the lives of saints of that period."

A DICTIONARY

OF

SAINTLY WOMEN

GEORGE BELL AND SONS LONDON: PORTUGAL ST., LINCOLN'S INN CAMBRIDGE : DEIGHTON, BELL & CO. NEW YORK I THE MACMILLAN CO. BOMBAY : A. H. AVHEELER & CO.

A DICTIONARY

OF

SAINTLY WOMEN

BY

AGNES B. C. DUNBAR

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOLUME II

LONDON

GEORGE BELL & SONS

YORK HOUSE, PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN'S INN, W.C.

1905

•

I \ Jc

ABBKEVIATIONS

AA.SS. . . . . . Acta Sanctorum.

A.R.M. . . . . . Appendix to Roman Martyrology.

B Blessed.

c. circa.

M Martyr, martyred.

Mart Martyrology.

O.S.A. . . . . . . Order of St. Augustine.

O.S.B Order of St. Benedict.

O.S.D. . . . • . . Order of St Dominic.

O.S.F. . ... Order of St. Francis.

Praeter Prtetermissi.

R.M Roman Martyrology.

Ven. . . . . . . Venerable.

V. ...... Virgin.

+ . . Died.

ERRATA

Madrun : for " JEGIWG," read " TEGIWG." Margaret (8) : for " Zealand," read " Sealand." Syncletica (4) : for " PERPETUA (6)," read " PERPETUA (8). Victoria (5) : for " 18," read " 23." Victoria (19) : for " 19," read " 24." Victoria (20) : for " 20," read " 25."

A DICTIONARY OF SAINTLY WOMEN

St. Mabe. A church and village in Cornwall are called by this name. Pro bably same as Mabena.

St. Mabel or Mabille, ISABEL or ELISABETH. Cahier.

St. Mabena, MABINA or MABY is represented on a window in St. German's church, in Cornwall, having on her lap a dead Christ crowned with thorns (Whitaker, Life of St. Neot). Daughter of Brychan (Smith and Wace). (See ALMHEDA.)

St. Macaona or MACHAONIA, Dec. 15, M. Guerin.

St. Macaria ( 1 ) or MACARIUS, April 8, M. with SS. MAXIMA (3) and Januarius, at Carthage. EM. AA.SS.

St. Macaria (2), April 6, M. at Alexandria. AA.SS.

St. Macaria(3) or MADIARIA, April 7, M. with ST. MAXIMA at Antioch. AA.SS.

St. Macaria (4) or MARCIA, April 14, M. at Terano in Umbria. AA.SS.

St. Machaonia, MACAONA.

St. Maches, M. First half of the 6th century. Daughter of St. Gwynllyw and sister of St. Cattwg and several other saints. St. Maches gave alms to all who asked, and was stabbed by a heathen Saxon who came to her begging, at a place called afterwards Merthyr Maches or Llanfaches in Monmouthshire. Rees.

St. Macra, Jan. (5 (MAGRA, MAKER), V. M. c. 303, at Times, near Eheims. Patron of Fimes. Rictiovarus was sent by Diocletian and Maximian to put down Christianity in Gaul. In this persecution Macra was stretched over burning coals, and so died. ELENARA (1)

VOL. n.

and SPONSARIA were her companions. Roman, German and Gallican Martyr- ologies. AA.SS. Tillemont. . St. Macrina (1), Jan. 14, + c. 340. Grandmother of SS. MACRINA (2), Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Peter of Sebaste. Mother of St. Basil who married St. EMILY (1). Macrina was born at NeocsBsarea in Pontus, soon after the death of its famous bishop St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, and she was brought up to venerate his memory and follow his precepts. She married a Christian of good family and consider able property in Pontus and Cappadocia. During the persecution under Galerius and Maxirnianus they were compelled to leave their home and conceal themselves with a few devoted servants in a forest on the mountains of Pontus. Here they lived for seven years in great privation, sometimes only saved from starvation by the timely appearance of stags and the miraculous ease with which they were enabled to catch these wild animals. They returned home in 311, but when persecution was renewed, their possessions were confiscated and they suffered great distress. They, however, regained part of their property and, after her husband's death, Macrina lived in her own country house at Annesi on the Iris, and brought up her grandson St. Basil the Great. She is spoken of with praise in the writ ings of her famous grandsons and in the history of Macrina (2). EM. Baillet. Smith and Wace.

St. Macrina (2), July 19, c. 327- 379. Granddaughter of MACRINA (1).

ST. MACRONE

Eldest daughter of SS. Basil and EMILY (1). Sister of SS. Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Peter of Sebaste. She was born at Caesarea in Cappadocia ; she was very carefully brought up by St. Emily, and before she was twelve years old she knew all the Psalms by heart, besides other portions of the Holy Scriptures. As she was rich and remarkably beautiful, she had many suitors and her father betrothed her to a young man of distinction ; but he died and she chose to remain single and lead a life of devotion with her mother, working with her hands that she might have the more to give to the poor. She exercised a powerful and salu tary influence over her family. On her father's death she relieved her mother of all care and trouble, managing the estate % and settling her four sisters in suitable marriages. In 357 she shared to the full her mother's grief for the death of Naucratius and comforted her with her sympathy and courage. (See EMILY (1).) She brought up her youngest brother, St. Peter of Sebaste, who was born after his father's death. She avoided teaching him profane knowledge useless to his salvation, and so regulated all his time that he had no leisure for vain or puerile occupations. He grew up wise and saintly and in 379 was found worthy to succeed his brother, St. Basil- the Great, in the government of the monas tery founded by their mother, St. Emily. Macrina ruled the sister house, instituted at the same time for women. A few months after the death of her brother Basil she fell ill. St. Gregory of Nyssa, who had been absent eight years, arrived to pay her a visit and found her in a raging fever, lying on two boards on the ground. Although she was at the point of death, they had a long conversation concerning their lately deceased brother Basil, the future life, the resurrection, and the purifying by fire after death. She thanked God for His many mercies to her, and that amid her greatest poverty she had never been compelled to refuse any one who begged of her, nor to beg of others for herself. She died that night and they found that she had a band round her neck from which hung

a cross and a ring. Gregory gave the cross to Vestina, one of the nuns, but the ring, which contained a little piece of the cross of Christ, he kept for him self. Such was the poverty of the house, that nothing could be found to cover the corpse of its mistress on the way to the grave ; her saintly brother spread his episcopal mantle over it. R.M. Butler. Baillet, " St. Peter of Sebaste." Smith and Wace.

There is a church dedicated to St. Macrina at Hassakeni, one of the curious subterranean villages in Cappadocia. The local tradition is that she came there with ten virgins from Caesarea and lived in one of the rock-hewn houses with which the ground is riddled ; they are of great antiquity, most of them are Christian, but some are older still. Each of the little hovels above ground has subterranean rooms under it, the passage to which is closed by a cheese- shaped stone that can only be opened from inside. The Athenseum, Aug. 5, 1882.

St. Macrone, March 15, M. at Thessalonica, beaten to death. Mart. of Salisbury.

St. Mactaflede, March 13, 7th cen tury (MACTEFLEDIS, MADEFLEDE, MAGDE- FLEDE, MAGDEFREDE, in French MAFLEE), first abbess of Habend. About 620 St. Eomaric and St. Amatus (Sept. 13) founded a double monastery on the hill of Habend in the Vosges. They chose Macteflede, a woman of great sanctity, to preside over the nuns, in seven bands of twelve each ; they were to succeed each other in singing psalms without cessation day and night. She ruled for two years and was succeeded by GEGO- BERGA, daughter of Komaric. The com munity was at first under the Columban rule and afterwards adopted that of St. Benedict. The monastery was destroyed by Huns in the 10th century and rebuilt, for nuns only, by the Emperor Louis III., on the other side of the river, where it became the nucleus of the town of Remiremont. The nuns gave place to canonesses before the final suppression of the establishment. AA.SS. O.S.B., " SS. Amatus and Komaric." Bouquet. Mactaflede is called Saint by Saussaye

B. MAFALDA

and in several calendars but her worship is not certain.

St. Maddalena, Madeleine or Madeline, MAGDALKM:.

St. Madelbert, Sept. • 7, + c. 705 (MADUBERT, MAGDELBERTA, MALDEBERTA, MAUBERTE), succeeded her sister ADEL- TRUDE (1) as third abbess of Maubeuge, about 604. Daughter of B. Vincent and WALTRUDE. She was brought up by her aunt ALDEGUNDIS (2). AA.SS. Butler.

St. Madeleine, MAGDALENE.

St. Madeltrude, ADELTRUDE(!)

St. Maderasma, MEDRYSIMK.

St. Madern, MADRON.

St. Madiaria, MACARIA (3).

St. Madila or MADLA, MLADA.

St. Madilama, Sept. 17, V. M. Mentioned in the Alexandrine-Ethiopian Calendar and Coptic Menology. AA.SS. Neale.

St. Madron or MADERNE, perhaps MADRUN. A very ancient Cornish saint, whose well in Cornwall, though very cold, was, according to tradition, boiling hot to the hand of a traitor. Sick chil dren are taken to this well on the first Sunday in May and rags are tied to the surrounding bushes as offerings. C. F. Gordon Gumming. Blight, Cornish Crosses.

St. Madrona or MATRONA, patron of Badajos. Cahier.

St. Madrun, + c. 500, daughter of Gwrthefyr or Vortimer. She married Ynyr Gwent, a Welsh chieftain and saint. They had a daughter ST. TEGIWG and sons SS. Cedro and Cynheiddion. With the assistance of Auhun, her maid, Madrun founded the church of Traws- fynydd, Merionethshire. Rees. She is perhaps the same as MATERIANA and MADRON.

St. Madruyna, Sept.^5, -f 006 or 086, abbess of the Benedictine convent of St. Peter, at Barcelona. She was carried captive by the Moors, to the island of Majorca. A certain merchant planned her escape, and on the appointed day, she left her master's house and arrived safely in the merchant's ship. The Moor, however, soon discovered that she was gone, and guessed whither ; so he went to search the ship. When the merchant heard him coming, he hid

the abbess in a sack of wool. The Moor suspecting this ruse, ran his dagger through every sack and pierced Ma druyna with three or four wounds, which she bore in brave silence ; so her master went away baffled. On her return to Barcelona, she refused to resume the dignity and duties of abbess that she might have leisure to prepare for her death, which occurred very soon after, from the wounds she had received in the ship. She was regarded as -a martyr and buried with great honour in the church, and afterwards translated to another tomb where she wrought miracles. She is called "Saint" by some Benedic tine and Spanish writers, but it seems uncertain whether her worship is sanc tioned by due authority. AA.SS. Hi St. Madubert, MADELBERT.

B. Mafalda, or MALDA, May 2, -f 1252. Daughter of Sancho and Dulcia, king and queen of Portugal. Sister of SS. THERESA (5) and SANCHA. Their brother Alfonso II. was envious of the fortunes left to his sisters and tried to take their property for himself. As Mafalda was his favourite, he .increased her portion and promoted her marriage to Henry I. king of Castile (1214-1217). The ceremony was performed at Palentia or at Medina del Campo. The bride scarcely arrived in Spain when the Pope declared the marriage null on account of consanguinity. She resolved to be a nun, and on her return home, obtained from her brother a ruined monastery which had been built at Arouca in the eleventh century. She restored the house, established in it a convent of Cistercian nuns and herself became a nun under the worthy Eldrada, its first abbess. Mafalda kept part of her fortune and built the monastery of Abraga, a bridge near it called For Dios, another bridge at Canaves, and other religious and beneficent institutions. She made fre quent visits to an image of the B. V. MARY in the cathedral at Porto. Once, on her way back, she was seized with fever, near Amaranth, and could go no further. Knowing that death was ap proaching, she ordered her body to be put on a mule and buried wherever the mule stopped. The mule went to Arouca,

ST. MAFLEE

entered the church, kneeled down before the altar of St. Peter, laid down the precious burden and died. By her own wish, she was buried in her cilicium with no other covering except a thick layer of ashes. She was soon afterwards seen in glory by the nuns; and when the house took fire, she appeared among the flames and saved the church and infirmary from destruction. Other miracles attested her holiness. A.A.88., Appendix. Bucelinus. Henriquez, Lilia. Ferrarius.

St. Maflee, MACTAFLEDE. Baillet. St. Magdalene (1), MARY MAGDA LENE.

B. Magdalene (2) of Como, May 13, + 1465, O.S.A. Abbess of Brunate. Daughter of the chief magistrate of Como, Niccolo or Livio Albrizzi. This ancient and influential family had for their device, a gate and a lion, the branch to which Magdalene belonged added to this a wheel in token of their special devotion to CATHERINE (1). Her parents, Niccolo and Margarita, rejoiced to see early proofs of devotion and conscien tiousness.^ their child. In 1409, while she was still a very young girl, a famine desolated the city and neighbourhood of Como; numbers of beggars, emaciated by starvation and disease, wandered through the streets helplessly parading their rags and dirt. Magdalene's chari table heart was deeply touched by their distress. One day while her father was out she called in one of the beggars and with his assistance distributed amongst a number of these wretched creatures a great chest full of beans. Presently Niccolo came home and informed his daughter that he had just sold the beans for a large sum of money. Magdalene felt sure he would be very angry when he found that they were no longer there, and the discovery could not be delayed as the purchaser was expected immedi ately. It was a common thing for fathers to be very violent with their children. The girl was terrified. In her distress she began to pray aloud. Niccolo hear ing but scarcely understanding what she said, ran to the chest and found it brimful of beans.

When her parents were dead, Magda

lene, with the approbation of her Con fessor, decided to take the veil in the convent of St. Margaret, outside the walls of Como. It had long been ren dered famous by the sanctity of two noble sisters, LIBERATA (5) and FAUSTINA (13). Magdalene turned her steps to wards this convent, intending to ask for admittance there. On the way a myste rious voice called her by name and bade her go instead to Brunate, a little place on a hill not far from Como, honoured as the resort of two famous bishops who had become hermits there. Uncertain of its origin, Magdalene did not obey this call; but when it was repeated a second and a third time, she acknow ledged it as a divine command, and entered the cloister of St. Andrew at Brunate. Here she soon became abbess and the fame of her holiness attracted devout women to her community. With the help of Blanche, duchess of Milan, she succeeded in having her convent placed under the rule of the Hermits of St. Augustine, and this arrangement was confirmed by a bull of Nicholas IV. in 1448. The community was extremely poor, so that the nuns were sometimes obliged to beg in Como ; and sometimes in bad weather they had to stay all night in the houses of charitable persons there. To avoid this inconvenience, Magdalene had a branch house built in Como, to which a few of the nuns removed while she remained at Brunate with the ma jority. One day the cellarer told her it was dinner time and there was no bread in the house. Magdalene who always had unbounded trust in God, said, "Never mind, call the sisters to the table." No sooner were they seated than the porteress entered with a great basket full of the very best bread. She said she heard a knock at the door, and found this basket on the step. Another time they suffered dreadfully from heat and drought. The wells were dry and the trees and plants were withered for want of rain. One of the nuns came to Magdalene and said her thirst was almost beyond endurance. Magdalene took her into the garden. There they knelt down and the abbess prayed that God would lighten their sufferings. They looked

ST. MAGIRDEN

up and saw a crowd of beautiful juicy cherries on the trees, which a short time ago had nothing but blackened twigs to show. Magdalene miraculously con verted a relation of her own from a criminal life to one of penitential de votion. Many other miracles are told of her. She bore a long and painful ill ness with great fortitude. Immediately after her death she was honoured as a saint, and when the nuns moved to another house they carried her body with them as a sacred treasure. AA.SS. Torelli, Saints of the Order of St. Augus tine. Stadler.

B. Magdalene (3), Oct. 14, 13, V., 3rd O.S.F., -f- 1503 or 1505. Maddalena Panateri was born at Tridino, a town of Montisferrato ; her mother was of the family of Fondazucchi. She was beau tiful, clever, well brought up. She early set before herself the example of ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA. Her asceticism was great. She was often translated in spirit to Jerusalem and other holy places. She had the gift of prophecy and was favoured with many visions of Christ and the saints. She twice saved the life of her brother Benino by super natural means. In 1827 her immemorial worship was confirmed by the Congrega tion of Rites and her name was inserted in the Dominican Martyrology. A.R.M. AA.SS., Oct. 14, supplement. Marchesi, Diario Sacro Dominicano. Diario di Roma, Sept. 28, 1827. Tia,zzi,Predicatori. B. Magdalene (4) Mundo, Oct. 5, V. M. 1613, at Arima in Japan. At the time of the beatification of MARY MAG DALENE DEI PAZZI, Pope Urban VIII. sent to the Carmelites of Florence, a cross containing relics of Magdalene Mundo, whom he called " the Blessed Mary Magdalen, Virgin of Japan." She was the daughter of a Christian gentle man, named Adrian Facafati Mundo and Jane his wife. Magdalen was twenty years old and had made a vow of vir ginity, when she was condemned to death, with her parents, a brother of eleven, and four other Christians. All the women met their death in dresses of ceremony, treating it not as a misfor tune, but as a festal occasion. Twenty thousand Christians, unarmed, encamped

around the place of execution for three days ; they were fed and assisted by other Christians. Villefranche, MM. du Japon. B. Magdalene (5), Aug. 10,M. 1620. Wife of B. Simon Quiota or Kyota. He was born of a noble family in the king dom of Bungo, Japan. He was a soldier, but when Francis, his king, was expelled, Simon and Magdalene retired to Cocura, where the Jesuit Fathers made him their catechist and gave him charge of the mission. He opened a school for children and soon it was known that he cast out devils. The prince ordered him to abandon the faith and cease from the functions of catechist. As he did not obey, he was condemned to be crucified with his head down, like St. Peter. Magdalene who belonged to the confra ternity of the Eosary, was cited before the tribunals, after her husband. She said, " Why should I go to the tribunal ? I shall say the same before the jndges as at home and never will fear of death make me abandon the faith of Christ." She wrote this protest and sent it by her servants to the prince, who forthwith condemned her to be crucified with her husband. Authorities, as for LUCY DE FREITAS.

B. Magdalene (6;, Sept. 12, de scended from the royal house of Bungo, was burnt alive in 1(327 with B. FRANCES (10), at Nangasaki.

B. Magdalene (7) of Isounocouni. Sept. 10, M. 1622. Wife of Antony Sanga, at one time a catechist of the Jesuit Fathers in Japan ; he wished to be a Jesuit ; his health did not permit him to finish his novitiate, so he married Magdalene who had been brought up a Christian, and they dedicated themselves to the service of the missionaries of the Order of St. Dominic. They were both beheaded with Spinola. (Sec LUCY DE FREITAS.)

St. Magdeflede or MAGDEFREDE, MACTAFLEDE.

St. Magdelberta, MADELBERT. St. Magenhild, MENEHOULD. Cahier. St. Maggina, or MIGIKA, M. April 12. AA.SS.

St. Magina, Dec. 3, M. in Africa. EM. Guerin.

St. Magirden, MAGIRDLE, MAGRIDEN,

ST. MAGNA

or MAGRUDEN. A parish in Fife is called Exmagirdle, a contraction of Ecdesia Magirden or Magridden, per haps an ancient Scottish saint. Possibly the name is derived from MAGDALENE.

St. Magna, May 6, V., born at Ancyra, was compelled by her mother to marry. Her husband soon died and left her his sole heiress. She led a holy and laborious life, and gave all her substance in charity and piety. Palladius, Lausiaca.

St. Magnentia (1). (See CAMILLA

(1)0

St. Magnentia (2), Nov. 26. Ee- presented with St. Germain d'Auxerre. She accompanied his relics when they were brought back from Ravenna : none of her companions in this pious office seem to be represented with him. Mag nentia died at Ste. Magnence near Avallon. AA.SS. Cahier.

St. Magra, MACKA.

St. Magriden or Magruden, MA-

GIRDEN.

St. Magrina or Materna. (See PECINNA.)

St. Maharite, MARGARET is so called in Brittany. Cahier. Guerin.

St. Mahault or Mahaut, MATILDA.

St. Mahpul, MATILDA.

St. Maikie, probably MAZOTA. Forbes.

St. Mainna, Feb. 20, V. mentioned in an old Irish martyrology. Colgan thinks it is a mistake for Moenna or Mainus, a monk or hermit.

St. Maixence, MAXENTIA.

St. Majola or Majolus, May 10, M. at Tarsus in Cilicia. AA.SS.

St. Major or Majeure, companion of St. Saturninus. Guerin gives her no day, and as he enumerates seventy-three SS. Saturninus, this is not very en lightening.

St. Majorica (1), April 30, M. at Alexandria. AA.SS.

St. Majorica (2), April 30, M. at Aphrodisia in Caria. AA.SS.

St. Majosa, June 1, M. with Au-

CEGA. AA.SS.

St. Majota, Dec. 18, V. commemo rated in the Scotch Breviary. Per haps same as MAZOTA.

St. Maker, MACRA.

St. Malachiaor Malachie, Nov. 20, V. M. Guerin.

St. Maid, MATILDA (4).

St. Malda, MAFALDA.

St. Maldeberta, MADELBERT.

B. Malfalda, MAFALDA.

St. Malina, April 28, M. with 170 others, at Tarsus in Cilicia. Perhaps a woman. Worshipped at Narbonne and said to have lived and died there. AAJ38.

St. Malque, MALCHIA or MALCHIE, Guerin, Table Alplidbetique. Perhaps this is the same as]MALA*cHiA.

St. Mama (1) V. M. with BAHUTA.

St. Mama (2), June 11, V. Per haps a companion of NINA. Armenio- Georgian Calendar.

St. Mamelchta (1), MAMLACHA.

St. Mamelchta (2), MAMELTA.

St. Mamelta or MAMELCHTA (2), Oct. 17, 5, M. probably 5th century. A native of Persia. She was an attendant in a temple of Diana, but she had a sister who was a Christian. Mamelta, in a dream, saw an angel who showed her the mysteries of the Christian religion. She awoke in a fright and told her dream to her sister, who took her to the bishop ; he instructed and baptized her, her sister being godmother. While she was still dressed in her bap tismal robes, the people attacked her furiously, stoned her to death and threw her into a deep lake, from which she was with difficulty taken up by the Christians. The Bishop obtained from the King of Persia an order to have the temple of Diana overthrown and a church built on its site, dedicated to the God of the Christians, in the name of the Martyr Mamelta. When it was built he de posited her precious remains there. Assemani erroneously confounds her with MAMLACHA. EM. AA.SS.

St. Mamica. (See ANNA (7).)

St. Mamilla was formerly honoured in Palestine. Guerin.

St. Mamlacha or MAMELCHTA (1). (See BAHUTA.) Assemani, Bibliotheca Orientale, erroneously confounds her with MAMELTA. AA.SS. Butler.

St. Mammas or MAMAS, July 17, M. If the former, a woman ; and if MAMAS, a man. AA.SS.

ST. MANNEA

St. Mammea (l), MAMY.

St. Mammea (2), MANNEA.

St. Mammelthe, MAMELTA.

St. Mammita, Aug. 17, M. with DISCA at Alexandria. Commemorated with a man named Mammes. AA.SS.

St. Mamurra, Feb. 28, M. Guerin. Mas Latrie.

St. Mamy or MAMMEA, Feb. 11. Queen. M. 3rd century. Mother of the Emperor Alexander Severus, 222-235. Converted by Origen. Put to death by her son. (Mart. Salisbury) Bede, Six Ages of the World, says it was Maximin, successor of Severus, who put Mammea and many other Christians to death.

St. Mamyque or MAMYCA, March 26, M. Guerin.

St. Manaris or MANARIDIS. 5th century. A deaconess at Gaza in the time of St. Porphyry. (See SALAPHTHA.) Guerin calls her " Saint," but gives her no day.

St. Manatho, ENNATHA.

B. Mancia or Mencia Pereira, Aug. 12. Widow. Nun O.S.D. in Por tugal. Mentioned in Anno Dominicano Gallico, Viridario Germanico, and Anno Sancto Bdyico. AA.SS. Prater.

St. Mancina, Jan. 13. Either MANCINACH, mentioned among the vir gins and widows in the Dunkeld Litany, or MANSENNA, in the Martyrology of Donegal ; or, more likely, Mainchin, an Irishman of the Gth or 7th century ; O'Hanlon makes him a contemporary and servant of St. Patrick. Forbes.

St. Mancinach. (See MANCINA.)

St. Mane. (See NUNE.)

St. Manechild, MENEHOULD. Baillet.

St. Manegild or Manehild, MENE HOULD.

St. Manehould, MENEHOULD.

St. Manintia or MARNINTA, Feb. 28, M. with many others. AA.SS.

St. Manna (1), MANNIA, or MAGNUS, Feb. 4, M. at Forum Sempronium — either Fossombrone in Urbino or a forum in Rome. Mentioned in several old calendars. AA.SS.

St. Manna (2) or MENNA of Fonte- net, Oct. 3, 4th century. Daughter of Sigmar and Liutrude and sister of SS. Eucharius, Eliphus, GERTRUDE (1), LIBARIA, ODA, and SUSANNA (14).

Sigmar and Liutrude sent Manna at an early age to be baptized and taught by the bishop of Chalons. After a few years they recalled her to be married to a young nobleman. She said she would have no husband who was a sinner and mortal. As they insisted, she fled to the bishop, taking with her a veil with which she begged him to consecrate her. Fearing the anger of her parents, he hesitated, but while he doubted, an angel appeared and placed the veil on her head. Her parents were satisfied and soon afterwards died, leaving great pos sessions to be divided among their chil dren. The persecution under Julian the Apostate obliged them to disperse. Manna fled, attended by one maid. They came in their flight to a river, where there was a frightful abyss, dangerous even for boats and impassable for pedes trians. Manna prayed and immediately the gulf was filled with sand and the two women passed over dry-shod. The place was called ever after Le Guc de Ste. Manne. When she had got safely across, she stuck her staff into the earth and a fountain spouted out from the spot. She built herself a hermitage at Fontenet and passed the rest of her days there. Her relics were placed in the church at Portsas near Mirecour, where a great house of canonesses was founded by St. Bruno, afterwards Leo IX. ; it was destroyed in the French Revolution. Manna was particularly honoured in the Vosges. Martin takes the story from Jean Rhuyr, Antiquites des Vosges. AA.SS. says she is perhaps the same as AMA (4), one of seven sisters. The stories and the names in these groups of sister saints are somewhat confounded.

St. Mannea or MAMMEA, Aug. 27, M. c. 303. Wife of St. Marcellinus, a tribune. Mother of John, Serapion, and Peter, all martyred at Tomis in Pontus ; or, according to their Acts given from an old MS. by Soller the Bollandist, at Oxyryncha in Egypt : the names of the sons are also different in this account. Many other martyrs suffered at the same time and are commemorated with them ; one of these was named SUSANNA. They were condemned to be torn by wild beasts, but the beasts lay down meekly

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ST. MANNIA

and would not hurt them : then they were beheaded. R.M. AA.SS. St. Mannia, MANNA (1). St. Mansenna, MANCINA. Maraca, V. M. under Sapor. Migne, Die., Appendix.

St. Marana or Maranna, Aug. 3, Feb. 28, 5th century. A lady of Berea in Syria, sister of CYRA (1). They im mured themselves in a small half-roofed enclosure near their native town, assign ing a little building outside their own to such oj; their maids as chose to follow their example. Here they lived for many years, loaded with chains too heavy for a strong man. Through a narrow window they received a scanty supply of food and water and exhorted their visitors to prayer and the love of God. They repeatedly fasted for long periods. They observed a rule of silence, which Marana allowed herself to break at Pentecost, in order to exhort to prayer and the love of God, such women as visited the cell for edification. No one ever heard Cyra speak. She was the smaller and weaker of the two and was bowed to the earth by the weight of her chains. Large mantles concealed their faces and forms and shut the world from their sight. They wrought miraculous cures on the blind, the lame, and the possessed. Only twice did they leave their dwelling ; once to walk to Jeru salem, twenty days' journey ; and once to the church of St. Thecla, at Seleucia in Isauria, almost as long a distance. On both these journeys they fasted the whole way, only eating when they were at the goal of their pilgrimage. They allowed Theodoret, bishop of Cyprus, to enter their abode and feel the weight of their chains. He testifies that they had thus lived for forty-two years and were still living, the ornament of their sex, when he wrote in the middle of the fifth century, Hist. Religiosve. EM. AA.SS. Migne. Men. of Basil, Feb. 28. Baillet. Tillemont.

St. Marcella (1), June 10, July 29. Patron of Tarascon and of Sclavonia. A fabulous saint described in the legends as servant of SS. Lazarus, MARY and MARTHA, whom she accompanied to Marseilles. After Martha's death, she

preached in Sclavonia. She is by some writers identified as the woman who, recognizing the divine authority of Our Lord, " lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked " (St. Luke xi. 27). Legenda Aurea.

St. Marcella (2), QUINCTIA MAR CELLA.

St. Marcella (3), June 2. One of 227 Eoman martyrs, commemorated together this day in the Martyrology of St. Jerome. AA.SS.

SS. Marcella (4, 5, 0), MM. in Africa, May 7 ; Tarsus, May 10 ; and Eome, Feb. 17, respectively. AA.SS.

St. Marcella (7), Jan. 31, 4- 410, called "The First Nun," and by St. Jerome, " The Pattern of a Christian Widow" and "The Glory of Eoman Ladies." - She was of the illustrious Roman family of the Marcelli, and sister of ASELLA. Her mother was Albina, a benevolent and intellectual Christian lady of great wealth. Marcella was a child, but old enough to receive a last ing spiritual impression, when, in 340, St. Athanasius came as an exile to Eome and was a welcome guest in her mother's house. Albina, Asella and the little Marcella, heard with enthusiasm Atha nasius' descriptions of the desert, with the solitary life and unremitting prayer of the monks. When he went away, he left in the house the first copy of the Life of St. Antony that had been seen in Eome, a book which greatly influenced the three ladies.

Marcella grew up singularly beautiful, and married young. She had been a wife little more than half a year when she became a widow. She very soon had the offer of a second marriage, still more brilliant and wealthy than the first ; the pretendu was Cerealis, a consular senator, related to the imperial family. Her mother and all her friends favoured the suit of Cerealis and were vexed when she decidedly refused to take a second husband. The custom of the time, how ever, granted great freedom to a widow, a freedom shamefully abused by many ; Marcella used it to follow her vocation and break with the irksome and absurd

ST. MARCELLA

0

conventionalities of the day. The law passed about this date, placing conse crated widows on the same footing as virgins, is supposed to have been made in the interests of Marcella, to protect her from the insistence of Cerealis. She sacrificed part of her fortune to obtain tolerance from those on whom, failing her, devolved the duty of keeping up the family name. She ceased to follow the fashion in dress, rebelling against the immense weight of splendid cloth ing, the hours of painting and curling before the mirror ; she was the first widow among the great ladies of Home to assume the coarse brown dress that marked her as consecrated to a religious and self-denying life. At first the gossips slandered her, seeking and in venting bad motives for her singularity. She disregarded these insinuations, liv ing a studious, charitable and devout life with her mother, in a palace on Mount Aventine, supposed to have stood close to the site of the present church of St. Sabina. Here she grade ally attracted round her a society of women who as pired to a better life and more interest ing thoughts and occupations than the frivolous, gay world afforded. Some of these ladies were still members of the world of fashion and dressed as such. Some were wives of pagans, some were young widows, who would marry again. Most of them were women of high station and great influence, and many were of considerable ability and culture. This circle soon became a power in Rome. It has been called " The First Convent," but its members were bound by no rule ; they came and went, and were under no obligation to continue their meetings.

It was in 382 that St. Jerome was summoned to Rome by Pope Damasus, and was assigned as a guest to the hos pitality of Marcella. He calls her house " the domestic church." He remained there three years, working at his transla tion of the Bible, instructing his hostess and her friends, and profiting by their criticism. Like all well-educated per sons of the time, they had some know ledge of Greek and some learnt Hebrew that they might follow and assist the work of translation. It was here that he

first met PAULA (13J and EUSTOCHIUM, who became his life - long friends. FABIOLA, BLAESILLA, Paulina were also of the party, and so were many others whom his pen has made famous. He testifies to the scholarship and earnest ness of Marcella. She often tried to restrain him from quarrelling or to moderate the violence of his retaliations on his opponents. He attributes the condemnation of Origen's doctrines, by Pope Anastasius, to Marcella's influence, and calls this decision a "glorious victory."

When Paula and Eustochium had left Rome and settled in the Holy Land they wrote to Marcella begging her to join them, and dwelling on the delight of visiting the scenes of our Lord's life on earth, and of other events in scripture history. This letter has been repro duced in English by the Palestine Pil grims' Text Society.

Marcella, however, remained in Rome. She must have been nearly eighty in the disastrous year 410. She had outlived most of the friends of her youth and had removed from the palace on the Aven- tiue to a smaller house, accompanied by PRINCIPIA (1), a young girl she had brought up and whom she loved as a daughter. There were signs that the house belonged to a wealthy family, and when the Goths took the city, the soldiers, bent on pillage, would not believe that Marcella had not a store of money and jewels concealed ; they knew nothing of the lavish charity which had dispersed the family treasures. To in duce her to give up that which she had not, they beat, tortured, insulted the aged lady ; they threatened violence to Principia ; but Marcella succeeded in defending her until another group of soldiers arrived, having some reverence for holy things. They escorted the two women to the church of St. Paul, — one of those which had been named by Alaric as a sanctuary for all who chose to take advantage of it. Here the venerable Marcella, exhausted with her fatigues and wounds, died the next day.

Eleven of St. Jerome's letters are addressed to her and she is mentioned in many of his other writings.

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ST. MARCELLA

St. Marcella (8), July 22, M. Wor shipped in the island of Ohio, where pebbles used to be found on the seashore full of clotted blood ; when crushed and kept in a bottle, the dust cured all manner of diseases. This miracle and certain nocturnal apparitions accounted for Mar- cella's worship as a saint and martyr. The Bollandists do not consider this sufficient authority. AA.SS., Prseter.

St. Marcella (9), MARCHELL.

St. Marcellina (1), June 2. One of two hundred and twenty-seven Eoman martyrs, commemorated together this day in the Martyrology of St. Jerome. AA.SS.

St. Marcellina (2). M. with ANTIGA.

St. Marcellina (3), Feb. 24, M. with many others at Nicomedia. AA.8S.

St. Marcellina (4), July 17, V. 4- 398. Eepresented with two boys. Daughter of Ambrose, a Eoman of high birth, prefect of the Gauls. She had two brothers, younger than herself: St. Satyrus and the great St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan from 374 to 397. She is credited with a large share in their education, and the three were united by the most devoted affection as long as they lived. It is remarkable that al though brought up in the highest morality and Christian piety, neither of these holy men was baptized in youth; Ambrose, only after he was elected bishop of Milan. Marcellina received the veil of a consecrated virgin from Pope Liberius, at Eome, on the night of Christmas-day, 352, 353, or 354. On that occasion the Pope preached a sermon which is preserved by Ambrose in De Virginibus. She continued to live in her mother's house in Eome, and was one of the circle of devout and studious Christian ladies who so frequently met at the house of MARCELLA (7).

When Ambrose was compelled to accept the bishopric of Milan, Satyrus gave up a good appointment in order to live near him and manage his secu lar affairs; Marcellina lived near her brothers, and was their adviser and confidant. She congratulated Ambrose on his fame and success as a preacher, and suggested that as she could not come to hear his sermons, he should send them to her. He then embodied

that course of sermons in three books dedicated to his sister and entitled De Virginibus. It contains the address of Liberius to Marcellina, and her name occurs frequently throughout the book.

KM. AA.SS. Three of the most important letters of St. Ambrose are ad dressed to Marcellina ; she is praised in his funeral sermon on their brother Satyrus, and in other works. Smith and Wace, "Ambrosius" and "Marcellina."

St. Marcelliosa or Marcelona, May 20, M. in Africa. AA.SS.

St. Marcesine is in Guerin's table. (See MARCHESIXA.)

St. Marchell or MARCELLA, Oct. 26, Sept. 5. 6th century. Welsh. Daughter of St. Arwystli Gloff and Twynwedd ; and sister of four sainted men. They were of the race of Seithen. There were six other saints of the same family. Marchell founded Ystrad Marchell, in Montgomery ; an abbey was afterwards built there and called Strata MarcJiella. Eees.

B. Marchesina Luzi, Jan. 10, + 1510, 3rd O.S.A. She was murdered in a cave on the mountain of Mambrica in Italy, by her brother Mariotto of Visso, with circumstances of peculiar atrocity. The crime was miraculously brought to light. Such were the universal con viction of her innocence and esteem for her sanctity, that from that day she began to be worshipped and miracles encouraged those who sought her aid. Civilta Gattolica, Aug. 18, Bibliography, note.

St. Marchilla, July 22, is mentioned in the Arabico Egyptian Mart. AA.SS., Pr deter.

St. Marcia (1), March 3, M. with St. Felix and others. E.M.

St. Marcia (2), June 5, 6, M. at Csesarea in Palestine, with ZENAIS, CYRIA (1), and VALERIA. KM.

St. Marcia (3), July 2, with ST. SYMPHOROSA and eight men; MM. in Campania, under Diocletian. R.M.

St. Marcia (4), July 11, -f c. 300. Mother of SS. Marcellian and Mark. She is mentioned in the life of St. Sebastian. Silvano Eazzi, Sanctis Mu- liebris. AA.SS.

SS. Marcia (5-17) ( MAC ARIA, MARGA,

ST. MARGARET

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MARTIA), MM. in sundry places and on various days. Calendars.

St. Marcia (18), KUSTICULA.

St. Marcia (19), M. with her brother St. Felicitatus, in the early days of Christianity (probably 10th century). Their relics set in pearls and jewels are preserved in the Capuchin monastery on the Hradschin at Prague. Schultz, Guide to Prague.

St. Marcia-Matidia, MAHTIA.

St. Marciana 0) or MARTINIANA. (See IRENE (4).)

St. Marciana (2). (See SILA.)

St. Marciana 0*'), Jan. 9, July 12, V. M. c. 300,, in Mauritania. Patron of Tortosa in Spain ; sometimes called Marciana of Toledo ; she was born at Rusuccur. Despising the advantages of rank and fortune, she betook herself to Csesarea, 40 leagues west of Algiers, and there served an apprenticeship to martyrdom in fasts and austerities of all kinds. At last, during the reign of Diocletian, such was her desire to en counter the enemies of the faith, that she went into the forum and struck off the head of a statue of Diana. She was immediately seized and met the fate she courted,, being insulted, beaten with clubs and then killed by a wild bull and a leopard in the amphitheatre. Her Acts are short and simple but are not quite above suspicion. H.M. AA.SS. Butler. Baillet.

St. Marciana (4). (&>e SUSANNA (10).)

SS. Marciana (5, 6, 7), MM. in Home, Pontus, and Africa respectively.

St. Marciana (8) of Albi, Nov. 2, 5, V. M. supposed 8th century. She was of noble birth, a nun at Tarsia, veiled by Polymius, bishop of Albi. It is uncertain whether she was murdered by barbarians, or whether her habitual austerities amounted to martyrdom. Martin. Oynecseum. Migne.

St. Martina (1) or MARINA, June 8, M. at Nicomedia. AA.SS.

St. Marcina (2) or MAGRINA, June 24, sister of PECINNA.

St. Marcionilla or MARCIANILLA, Jan. 9, + 309. Wife of Marcian, governor of Antioch. Her son Celsus was one of many boys instructed in the Christian faith by St. Julian. In the

persecution of Diocletian, Celsus was imprisoned, and begged to see his mother. She was sent to him and given three days in which to convert him. He, however, converted her. St. Julian and other Christian priests taught her. St. Antony baptized her. It.K. AA.SS. Butler.

St. Marciosa, one of the martyrs of Lyons, who died in prison. (See BLANDINA.)

St. Mardia, companion of URSULA.

St. Mare, July 20, V. M. in the diocese of Lectoure, where the little town of Mare is called by her name. Martin.

St. Marella, NIRILLA.

St. Mareme, MEDRYSYME.

St. Marewinna, MERWIN.

St. Marga or MARCIA, April 6, M. at Alexandria. AA.SS.

St. Margaret (1) or GRITA, July 20, V. M. 27(5 or 306, is called MARINA in the Coptic Church and by Metaphrastes ; on an old bell at Pittington near Durham are the words " Sancta Marineta." She is represented with a dragon and some times carrying a banner. MARGARET (1), BARBARA (1), CATHERINE (1), and EUPHEMIA (2) are the four great patron esses of the Eastern Church. Margaret is patron of women called Marjory, Marjoleine, etc. ; of women pregnant or in labour ; against barrenness ; of Cremona, Corneto, Procida, Montefia- scone, King's Lynn, and Paris.

According to the legend she was the daughter of Theodosius, a heathen priest of Antioch, and was nursed and brought up by a Christian woman. When Theo dosius heard that the nurse had taught his daughter to be a Christian he said he would not acknowledge her for his child ; he thought the nurse being poor would soon be tired of maintaining the girl, and thus he would punish them both. The good woman's only wealth consisted of a few sheep, and these the now portionless maiden had to tend. By-and-bye it happened that Olybrius, prefect of Asia, on his way to Antioch to persecute the Christians, passed through the place where Margaret lived with her nurse, and seeing a beautiful young shepherdess in the field, inquired

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who she was. Finding she was of noble birth, he proposed to make her his wife. She refused that honour and declared herself a Christian. He then assembled the chief men of the city and after hold ing a grand feast in honour of his gods, he inflicted on Margaret many horrible tortures which she endured with great courage. She was put in prison where the devil appeared in various forms, and when to terrify her he took that of a dragon, he swallowed her, but she made the sign of the cross and he immediately burst asunder, leaving her unhurt. She was comforted by heavenly visions. Next day she was subjected to new forms of torture. Condemned to be drowned, she was bound hand and foot and thrown into a great vessel of water. She prayed that this trial might be to her instead of baptism. Immediately an earthquake shook the place, her bonds were loosed and a dove carrying a gold crown lighted on her head. Many of the spectators were converted and became martyrs. As none of these tortures availed to change her opinions or even to do her bodily harm, Margaret was condemned to be beheaded. At the moment of her death she prayed that God would show mercy on all who were in trouble, particularly women in labour, who should call on the name of Jesus and remember her martyrdom. The legend is of Greek origin. It was re jected as apocryphal by Pope Gelasius in the fifth century and her Acts were among those forbidden by him to be read in churches, as containing things more likely to deter sceptics from being converted than to edify Christians. Her story and her worship were made popu lar in Europe by the crusaders of the eleventh century. Many churches in England are dedicated in her name.

R.M. AA.SS. Yillegas, Leggendario. Flos Sanctorum. Golden Legend. Mrs. Jameson. Annotated Prayer-book.

St. Margaret (2), V. M., a com panion of URSULA. Her head and those of two others of the same band of martyrs were preserved in the Fran ciscan convent of St. Clara at Paris.

St. Margaret (3) of Lerins, was the

sister of St. Honoratus who, early in the fifth century, founded a monastery on the island now called St. Honorat, op posite Cannes. Margaret, in order to be near him and profit by his advice and assistance, settled on the neighbour ing island, then called Lero but now Ste. Marguerite. Honoratus, thinking the world had too strong a hold on his affections, intended to renounce the society of his sister, and would only yield to her entreaties so far as to agree to visit her when certain little flowers which covered the island were in bloom. Until that time these flowers had only bloomed for a very short time every year, but Margaret, convinced that her brother's visits would tend to the spiritual advantage of both, prayed that the flowers might blossom all the year round. Her prayer was granted, and flowers may be seen on the island at all seasons of the year to this day. Local legend.

St. Margaret (4) called Brother Pelagian. A rich and beautiful maiden who was married by her family to a young man of rank equal to her own; but fearing the troubles and dangers of secular life, she fled on the day of her marriage, disguised as a man, and took refuge in a monastery where, under the name of Pelagian, she rose to the rank of abbot. It was a double monastery, having a house for monks and another for nuns. After a time, the whole com munity condemned her without a hearing, on a charge of seducing a girl who lived near their gates; so they built her up in a cave, where the " cruellest " of the brothers brought her every day a scanty allowance of bread and water. At last, being at the point of death, she found means to write a letter re vealing her name and story and begging that the nuns might bury her. Legenda Aurea.

B. Margaret (5), May 16, V. 10th century. A lady of rank, betrothed to St. Bernard of Mentone, but they were not married ; she became a nun and he a hermit. He founded the monasteries and hospices of the Great and Little St. Bernard, the former on a spot where he had destroyed an image of Jupiter and

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exposed the trick of its oracle. She is mentioned in the Life of St. Bernard. AA.SS., Prseter.

St. Margaret (6), Queen of Scotland, June 10,11), Nov. 10 (MARITA, MERGRETJ, c. 1045-1093. She was daughter of Edward the Outlaw, who was son of Edmund Ironside; her mother was Agatha, sister of the Queen of Hungary ; they were probably daughters of Anna (14) and Yaroslav, grand-prince of Russia, at whose court Edward and his brother were refugees, as was also the Magyar Prince, afterwards Andrew I., king of Hungary.

In 1057 Edward returned to England with his wife and three children, Edgar the Atheling, Margaret, and CHRISTINA. He had no sooner arrived than he fell ill and died. In 1008, Agatha with her son and her two daughters resolved to return to Hungary and embarked with that intent. Their ship was driven up the Firth of Forth to Dunfermliue, where Malcolm III., king of Scotland, received them hospitably. He very soon offered the whole family a per manent home with him and asked that the Princess Margaret should become his wife. Margaret, who was very devout and much impressed with the futility of earthly greatness, had very nearly determined to be a nun, but when Malcolm's request was made to Edgar, "the Childe said 'Yea'," and Margaret was persuaded to marry the king as his second wife. She was as saintly and self-denying on the throne as she could have been in the cloister. She at once perceived it to be her duty to benefit and elevate the people among whom it was her destiny to live, and this she undertook with the greatest diligence and the most earnest piety. There existed so much barbarism in the customs of the people, so many abuses in the Church, so much on all hands to reform, that she called together the native clergy and the priests who had come with her, her husband acting as interpreter, and she spoke so well and so earnestly that all were charmed with her gracious demeanour and wise counsel and adopted her suggestions. Among other improvements, Margaret intro

duced the "observance of Sunday by abstaining from servile work, " that if anything has been done amiss during the six days it may be expiated by our prayers on the day of the Resurrection." She influenced her people to observe the forty days' fast of Lent, and to receive the Holy Sacrament on Easter day, from which they had abstained for fear of increasing their own damnation because they were sinners. On this point she said that if the Saviour had intended that no sinner should receive the Holy Sacrament, He would not have given a command which, in that case, no one could obey. " We," said she, " who many days beforehand have con fessed and done penance and fasted and been washed from our sins with tears and alms and absolution, approach the table of the Lord in faith on the day of His Resurrection, not to our damnation but to the remission of our sins and in salutary preparation for eternal blessed ness."

Malcolm regarded her with holy reverence, and with most devoted love followed her saintly advice, and guided by her he became not only more re ligious and conscientious but more civilized and kinglike.

One of her first acts as queen was to build a church at Dunfermline, where she had been married. She dedicated it to the Holy Trinity. She gave it all the ornaments that a church re quires, amongst them golden cups, a handsome crucifix of gold and silver enriched with gems, and vestments for the priests. Her room was never without some of these beautiful things in preparation to be offered to the Church. It was like a workshop for heavenly artisans ; capes for the singers, sacerdotal vestments, stoles, altar cloths were to be seen there; some made and some in progress. The embroideries were executed by noble young ladies who were in attendance on her. No man was admitted to the room, unless she allowed him to come with her. She suffered no levity, no petulance, no frivolity, no flirtation. She was so dignified in her pleasantry, so cheer ful in her strictness that every one

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ST. MARGARET

both loved and feared her. No one dared to utter a rude or profane word in her presence. She did much for the secular as well as for the religious im provement of her country. She caused traders from all lands to bring their goods, and thus introduced many useful and beautiful articles, until then un known in Scotland. She induced the natives to buy and wear garments and stuffs of various colours. She is said to have introduced the tartans that after wards became distinctive of Scottish costume. She instituted the custom that wherever the king rode or walked he should be accompanied by an escort, but the members of this band were strictly forbidden to take anything by force from any one, or oppress any poor person. She beautified the king's house with furniture and hangings, and intro duced cups and dishes of gold and silver for the royal table. All this she did, not that she was fond of worldly show, but that the Court should be more decent and less barbarous than heretofore. Numbers of captives were taken in the wars and raids between England and Scotland, and many English prisoners were living as slaves in Mal colm's lands. They were of somewhat better education and superior culture to the Scots and gradually advanced the civilization of their captors. Many of these were sei^free by the queen. When she met poor persons, she gave them liberal alms, and if she had nothing of her own left to give, she asked her attendants for something, that she might not let Christ's poor go away empty- handed. The ladies, gentlemen, and servants who accompanied her took a pride and pleasure in offering her all they had, feeling sure that a double blessing would reward their alms when given through the saintly queen.

She provided ships at a place on the Firth of Forth, still called " The Queen's Ferry," that all persons coming from distant parts on pilgrimage to St. Andrews might be brought across the water free of charge. She also gave houses and servants on either shore for their accommodation, that they might find everything necessary for

their repose and refreshment and might pay their devotions in peace and safety. Besides this, she built homes of rest and shelter for poor strangers in various places.

From childhood she had diligently studied the Holy Writ and having a keen intelligence and an excellent memory, she knew and understood the Scriptures wonderfully well. She de lighted to consult learned and holy men concerning the sacred writings, and as she had a great gift for expressing her self clearly, they often found themselves far wiser after a conversation with her. Her love for the holy books made her spend much time in reading and studying such of them as she had. She longed to possess more portions of the Word of God, and she sometimes begged Turgot and other learned clergymen to procure them for her.

The king's devotion to her and her influence over him were almost un bounded. Turgot calls Malcolm's peni tence and piety a " great miracle of God's Mercy." He wondered how it was that there could exist in the heart of man living in the world such an entire sorrow for sin. The king dreaded to offend one whose life was so admirable as Margaret's. He perceived that Christ dwelt in her, and therefore he readily obeyed her wishes in all things. He never refused or grudged her anything, nor showed the least displeasure when she took money out of his treasury for her charities. Although he could not read, he loved her books for her sake, handling them with affectionate rever ence and kissing them. Sometimes he would take away one of her favourite volumes and send for a goldsmith to ornament it with gold and gems. When this was done, he would restore it to the queen as a proof of his devotion.

Margaret brought up her eight children very strictly and piously, instructing them in the Holy Scriptures and the duties of their station and associating them in her works of charity. She made a great point of their treating their elders with becoming respect. The fruit of her good training appeared in their lives for long years after her time.

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15

There were many holy anchorites living in cells or caves in different parts of Scotland. These the queen occasionally visited, conversing with them and commending herself to their prayers. It was not uncommon in the ancient Celtic Church for devout secular persons to withdraw for a time from association with the rest of the world; they devoted themselves entirely to prayer and meditation for a long or short season, and then returned to the ordinary duties of life. A cave is still shown, not far from Dunfermline, where tradition says this holy queen used to resort for solitude and prayer.

Her abstinence was so great and her care for her own needs or gratification so small that her feast days were like the fast days of others. She fasted so strictly that she suffered acutely all her life from pain in the stomach, but she did not lose her strength. She observed two lenten seasons in each year — the forty days before Easter, and the forty days before Christmas. During these periods of self-denial, her biographer says that after sleeping for a short time at the beginning of the night, she went into the church and said alone three sets of Matins, then the Offices of the Dead, then the whole Psalter, which lasted until the priests had said Matins and Lauds. She then returned to her room and there, assisted by the king, she washed the feet of six poor persons who were brought there by the chamber lain. After this, she " permitted her body to take a littel slepe or nodde " (Horstmann). When it was morning she began her works of mercy again ; while the psalms were being read to her, nine little destitute orphans were brought, and she took each on her lap and fed it with her own spoon. While she was feeding the babies, three hundred poor persons were brought into the hall and seated all round it. As soon as Margaret and the king came in, the doors were shut, only the chaplains and a few attendants being present while the king and queen waited upon Christ in the person of His poor, serving them with food and drink. After this meal, the queen used to go into the church and

there, with tears and sighs and many prayers, she offered herself a sacrifice to God. In addition to the " Hours," on the great festivals, she used to repeat the Psalter two or three times, and before the public Mass she had five or six private Masses sung in her presence. It was then time for her own dinner, but before she touched it she waited on the twenty-four poor people who were her daily care at all seasons ; wherever she happened to be, they had to be lodged near the royal residence.

She had a Gospel Book which she particularly prized and often read. It had beautiful illuminated pictures, all the capital letters shining with gold. One of her people, when passing through a stream let it fall into the water, but was not aware of his loss and went on. By-and-bye the book was missing and was looked for everywhere, and even tually found at the bottom of the stream ; the pieces of silk that were between the leaves to prevent the letters rubbing against each other were washed away ; the leaves were shaken to and fro by the movement of the water, but not a letter was obliterated. She gave thanks for its restoration and prized it more than ever. This book, with the water stain on the last leaf, is now in the Bodleian Library.

For more than six months before her death, Margaret could not ride on horse back and was often confined to bed. Shortly before her death, the king, against her advice, made a raid into Northumberland, where he and her eldest son, Edward, were slain. The queen, who remained in the castle of Edinburgh, had a presentiment of it, and said to those that were with her, " Perhaps this day a greater evil has happened to Scotland than any that has befallen it for a long time." Four days after this, she felt a little better and went into her oratory to hear Mass and receive the Holy Communion. She then returned to bed, and growing rapidly worse, begged Turgot and the others who were present to keep commending her soul to Christ with psalms. She asked them to bring her the black rood, which she had brought from Hungary

ST. MARGARET

and always regarded with great venera tion. It was of gold set with large diamonds and contained a piece of the actual cross of Christ. She devoutly kissed and contemplated it, and when she was cold with the chill of death, she still held it in both hands and kept praying and saying the fifty-first psalm. Her son Edgar, who had gone with the king to Northumberland, came into her room to tell her of the death of his father and brother. Seeing his mother was dying, he was afraid to tell her the sad news ; but she said, " I know, I know, I conjure you to tell me the truth," and having heard it, she praised God and died, and her pale face recovered its fair and rosy colour. The continuation of the Annals of Tighernac say, " Mael- colaim, son of Duncan, king of Scotland, is slain by the Normans, and Edward his son, and Marita the wife of Maelcolaim died of grief."

The Annals of Ulster for 1093 say, "Maelcolaim Mac Donnocha sovereign of Alban and Echbarda his son, slain by the Franks. His queen, viz. Margarita, died through grief before the end of [three] days."

While her body still lay in Edinburgh Castle, Malcolm's brother, Donald Bane, assisted by the King of Norway, attacked the castle, but he only watched the gate, thinking the other parts of the fortifica tion inaccessible. By the merits of this great Saint, her family and her faithful attendants escaped by a postern called the West Yhet, taking with them the revered corpse. A thick mist hid them from the enemy. They crossed the sea and arrived without hindrance at Dun- fermline, where they buried her according to her own wish.

Donald Bane kept the kingdom. Edgar the Atheling took Margaret's children to England, and for fear of the Normans, gave them privately to friends and relations to be brought up. He afterwards helped to restore them to their country.

Malcolm and Margaret had six sons and two daughters : Edward, killed with his father at Alnwick ; Edmund, who reigned with his uncle, Donald Bane, for three years and died a monk at

Montacute in Somersetshire; Ethelred, lay abbot of Dunkeld and earl of Fife ; Edgar, king 1097-1107; Alexander, king 1107-1124; David (St.), king 1124-1153; MALD (Si. MATILDA (4)), married Henry I., king of England ; and Mary, married Eustace, count of Boulogne.

" The zere of God a thousand Ixvj zeris Malcolm ye sonne of Duncan tuke ye rewmm of Scotland in Heritage and rignyt xxxvj zeris. The yere of Christ a thousand Ixvj Mergret ye Quvenne was spowsyt wyt Malcolm and had six sonnys and twa dochtiris, Maid Quvenne of Ingland, and Marie Cowntasie of Balanne " (Chron. of the Scots.^).

Margaret was worshipped without authority until 1250, when Innocent IV. solemnly approved her cult and ordered her sacred body to be translated from its first tomb. On July 19, 1297, all the arrangements being made, the men who were appointed to raise the body, found it impossible to do so ; stronger men were ordered to lift it and tried in vain ; still more men were brought, but all their strength was unavailing. Evidently the saint objected to what was being done. The clergy and all present prayed earnestly that the mys terious opposition might cease and the sacred rite be completed. After some time an inspiration was granted to a devout member of the congregation; namely, that the saint did not wish to be separated from her husband. As soon as they began to take up his coffin, that of his dutiful wife became quite light and easy to move, and both were laid on one bier and translated with ease to the honourable place prepared for them under the high altar. In 1(593 Innocent XII. transferred Margaret's festival from the day of her death to June 10. The bodies are said by Pape- broch (AA.SS.) to have been acquired by Philip II., king of Spain (1556- 1598), who placed them in the church of St. Lawrence in his new palace of the Escurial in two urns. The head of St. Margaret, after being in the possession of her descendant Queen Mary Stuart, was secreted for many years by a Bene dictine monk in Fife; thence it passed

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to Antwerp, and about 1627 it was trans lated to the Scotch college at Douai and there exposed to public veneration. It was still to be seen there in 1 785 ; it was well preserved and had very fine fair hair. Neither the heads, the bodies nor the black rood can now be found, but the grave of Margaret may still be seen outside the present church of Dun- fermline. Her oratory in Edinburgh castle is a small church with sturdy short pillars and a simple but beautiful ornamental pattern at the edge of its low rounded arches. It was falling to ruin when, in 1853, her late Majesty Queen Victoria, among her many good and wise works, had it repaired and furnished with coloured glass windows.

EM. Turgot, Life of St. Margaret Queen of Scotland, tr. by Forbes Leith. AA.SS., June 10. Skene, Cliron. of the Picts, Cliron. of the Scots, and Celtic Scot land. Karamsin. Lappenberg. Butler. Horstmann, Lives of the Women Saints of our Contrie of England. Brit. Sancta. A Memorial of Ancient British Piety. Brit. Mart. Lingard, Hist, of England. Palgrave.

St. Margaret (7), Queen of Den mark, July 28, + 1180. Daughter of St. Ingo IV., king of Sweden, and Helen, Queen. Margaret married Nicholas, kiug of Denmark. She showed her sanctity by her magnificent gifts to the Church and by her strenuous efforts to restore peace throughout the country, and especially amongst certain of her relations who quarrelled. She was still striving to make peace, when the agonies of death overtook her. Vastovius, Vitis Aquilonia.

St. Margaret (8), Oct. 25, M. 1176, at Roskild in Denmark. Patron of Roskild. She was of illustrious birth in the island of Zealand. Aunt of Peter, bishop of* Roskild, Niece of Absalon, archbishop of Lund. She married Herlaug or Haerloegr. She was found hanging from a beam and was supposed to have killed herself, and therefore was denied Christian burial. Archbishop Absalon, however, investi gated the matter and found that she had been murdered by her husband, whereupon she was translated into the

VOL. II.

church of St. Mary at Roskild. She is called a martyr, because she suffered an unjust and cruel death with piety and humility. AA.S3. Langebek, Scriptores, " Anonymi Chron. Dano Svecica, 826- 1415."

St. Margaret (9), Feb. 3, Jan. 11, July 20, V. 12th century. Her body is preserved with great veneration in the church of the Cistercian nuns of Seauve Benoite, about twenty miles from Puy-en-Velay. The tradition of the place — confirmed by several old writers — says she was English ; but an old French Life of her, preserved in the Jesuit college of Clermont, says she was a Hungarian, of noble birth, and that she accompanied her mother on a pilgrim age to Jerusalem. The Biograjia Eccle- siastica says that her mother was English. After the death of her mother in Pales tine, Margaret made a pilgrimage to Monserrat and afterwards to Puy. She ended her days in the convent of Seauve Benoite, but she does not appear to have taken the vows of the Order as she is not mentioned by Henriquez, the his torian of the Cistercians. AA.SS., Prseter. Butler.

B. Margaret (10), Oct. 29. End of 12th century. Margaret of Hohenfels was abbess of Bingen, where her sister IDA (7), countess of Spanheim, became a mm under her in 1190. Both are called Saintsby Bucelinus andMenardus. AA.SS. Ferrarius.

B. Margaret (11), July 13, daughter of Ladislaus II., king of Bohemia. In the 12th century she was third abbess of the Premonstratensian nunnery of Doxan, diocese of Prague ; it was founded by her mother, Gertrude of Austria. Stadler. Migne, Die. des Abbayes.

B. Margaret (12) of Louvain, Sept. 2 and 11, V. M. 13th century. Repre sented dead and floating on a river, a man with a spear standing by her, angels appearing in the heavens, the king and queen looking out of a window, a two- handled vase on the river bank, either the wine she was bringing to the robbers or the porridge which boiled without fire at her translation.

In the time of Henry I., duke of Brabant, who died 1235, there was a man

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called Amandus who, with his wife, kept . an inn in the rue de la Monnaie at Louvain. " Little Margaret," a girl who was related to them, acted as a servant in their house. She was called "the Proud" because she would accept no love or admiration, intending some day to become a Cistercian nun. Strangers and pilgrims who came to their door were always hospitably received and en tertained. About the year 1200, Amandus determined to leave the world and become a monk at Villers, a famous Cistercian monastery in Brabant. Accordingly, he and his wife settled all their affairs and prepared to leave their home. Their intention became known to a set of robbers, who also ascertained that they had money in the house. So on the last night of their stay in their own home, eight of these ruffians came to the door. Margaret let them in, thinking they were strangers seeking a night's shelter. Pre sently they sent her out to fetch some wine from the neighbouring rue du Chevalier. While she was gone they murdered Amandus, his wife, and all the servants, and possessed themselves of everything they could carry away. When Margaret returned with the wine they took her to a house some distance from the town. The people of the house sus pected that she had been carried off by force. The landlady watched what the robbers would do with her. They took her to the banks of the river Deel, and as they were going to kill her, one of them was touched with compassion, and said to the others, " Let her live, I will marry her." But she said she would rather die than marry him, and as they were afraid she would betray their crime, they would not let her live, but gave to one of the party ten marks more than his share of the plunder, on condition of his killing the girl. He cut her throat and stuck his spear into her side, and they threw her into the river. The woman in whose house they had rested saw the murder. Next day a search was made for the murderers, but they could not be found; the bodies of Amandus and his family were found and people began to look for the body of Margaret. After some days it was found

by some fishermen, but they were afraid to produce it lest they should be accused of the murder, they therefore buried the girl in the river bank ; over her grave, however, unearthly lights were seen at night, so she was taken up and carried into the town of Louvain and a chapel was built over her. Meantime Amandus and his wife appeared in a dream to a monk at Villers and told him that they were not yet in heaven, that but for Margaret they would not be so well off as they were, and that they could not hope to enjoy the same glory to which she was promoted. The two accounts from which her story is gathered agree as far as the moment of her death but differ as to the finding of her body. An old MS. of Eubea Valle says that the night she was murdered, the Duke of Brabant and his wife, who lived at Louvain, were looking out of their win dow, and saw a bright light in the heavens over the river, and heard angels singing. They sent to find out the cause of the unusual apparition, and the body of the saint was discovered, not under water but held up by the fish. The duke ordered a grand procession of the clergy and citizens to bring the sacred body into the city and bury it in a place of honour. It happened that a woman was making porridge for her labourers in the field. When she saw such a crowd of people, she went to the door with the pot in her hand and asked what it was all about. On hearing the circumstances, she laughed and said, " That story is true if my pot of porridge that I set down here on the wall will boil without any fire ; one is as likely as the other." Immediately, in presence of all the people the pot began to bubble and steam as if it were on the fire, and not only that, but whoever chose to eat of its contents could do so without diminishing the quantity ; the murderer's relations were not allowed to taste.

AA.SS., Sept. 11. Le Mire, Fasti Belgici ae Burgundici. Biografia Ecclesi- astica. Biog. Nat. de Belgique. Molanus, Hist. Lovan. Butler.

B. Margaret (13) of Ypres, July 20, 1216-1237, 3rd O.S.D., led in the world a life of great innocence and simplicity.

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She was much tempted and vexed by her natural instincts, but fled to Christ to save her from them, and soon experienced so complete a change as to become subject to visions and ecstasies. She had a deep conviction of her own sinfulness. The life of prayer was so strong in her that when her confessor had commanded her to sleep during Christmas night, and she had every intention of obeying, she thought she was only saying a short prayer before falling asleep, and lo ! the morning dawned. She did not like to speak to any one but her confessor of her visions, etc. Thomas of Cantimpre praises her for this reticence, saying that most women who have anything of the sort to tell, make as much noise about it as a hen that has laid an egg. A life of her, translated into French, from that written in Dutch by Zegher, her confessor, calls her "Sainte Marguerite d'Ypres." H. Choquetius, Sancti Belgi Ordinis Prse- dicatorum, 1618. Biog. Nat de Belgique. Preger, Deutsche Mystik im Mittelalter. Both these modern books quote her con temporary Life by Thomas of Cantimpre.

B. Margaret (14) Rich, Aug. 15, Nov. 16, + 1257, prioress of Catesby. Sister of ALICE EICH. Ferrarius. The Bollandists promise an account of her when they come to Nov. 16.

St. Margaret (15) of Hungary, O.S.D., Jan. 29, July 13, 1241 or 1242-1270. Patron against inundations. Daughter of Bela IV., king of Hungary, descended from the sainted Kings Stephen, Emeric and Ladislas ; her mother was Mary, daughter of the Emperor Theodore Lascaris. Margaret of Hungary was sister of ST. CTJNEGUND (4), queen and patron of Poland.

In 1240, the year of the dreadful Tartar invasion of Europe when the whole of Hungary was laid waste, Bela appealed in vain to the Pope, the Em peror, and his neighbours, to help him against the enemy of all Christendom. The royal family fled first to one place, then to another; and when in 1241 so many of their friends and kinsmen were killed in the desperate battle of Leignitz, the Queen of Hungary, daily expecting her confinement, fled to the farthest corner of her country and was at Klessa

in Dalmatia, trembling lest the Mongols should make their appearance there also. Despairing of human aid, she sought the protection of heaven and vowed her un born child to the Church. It was a daughter and she called it Margaret in memory of one of the fair young princesses whose early death had just been added to the calamities of the royal house. From the time of Margaret's birth the forlorn affairs of Hungary began to mend and soon the Tartars were fast leaving the countries to which they had proved such a fearful scourge. When she was four she was placed in the Dominican nunnery at Vesprim, accompanied by her governess, the Countess Olympia, who soon became a nun there for love of her pupil. Margaret demanded to be dressed like the nuns and insisted on having a cilicium. At twelve years old she received the veil from the hands of Humbert, General of the Order. She was remarkable for austerity, humility, kindness, and every virtue, and was credited with gifts of prophecy and miracles ; her love of dirt was almost a miracle in itself. She did all the lowest and most revolting work of the house and kept herself and her clothes so dirty that the other nuns were afraid to sit beside her. Not content with her fair share of scourging, she made her friends and maids give her some more in a dark room, which often used to be miraculously illumined for the occasion.

About 1261, Ottocar, king of Bohemia, who had just divorced his first wife, came to visit King Bela and Queen Mary, and begged to be allowed to see the princess, of whose holiness he had heard so much ; he was so charmed by her beauty and amiability that he entreated to be allowed to marry her, asking no dowry and ex plaining that his elder children were debarred from the succession. Bela at first said it was useless to ask, as Margaret had been vowed to the cloister from her birth ; but, as Ottocar persisted in his suit, he told Margaret that if she would consent to the alliance, a dis pensation might be procured, on the ground that the original vow had been made without her consent. Margaret, however, remained firm in her decision

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as she had no wish to leave her cloister.

Her parents built her a monastery at Buda, on the island in the Danube after wards called in honour of her St. Mar garet's Island. She was abbess there. She was honoured as a saint from the moment of her death and the whole kingdom of Hungary demanded her canonization of Clement V. but it was never accom plished. She continued, however, to work miracles ; one of the first was, that when her nephew, King Ladislaus IV., was at the point of death, her veil was brought to him and placed on his head ; he immediately opened his eyes and returned to consciousness, and soon re covered. As soon as he was able, he visited her tomb and busied himself about her canonization.

Her life was written in 1340, by a Dominican monk, from the original docu ments collected five years after her death with a view to her canonization. A.R.M., Jan. 26. AA.SS., Jan. 28. Ferrarius. Lopez, Hist, de Sancto Domingo. Mailath. Palacky. Eibadeneira. Baillet.

B. Margaret (16), June 4, +1277. Second abbess of Vau-le-duc (Vallis ducis), a Cistercian nunnery founded in 1232, by her father Henry 1., duke of Lorraine and Brabant. She is called "Blessed" by the Benedictine and Cister cian chroniclers. Her worship was pro- ably kept up as long as the convent was of the Order of St. Benedict and forgotten when it passed to Dominicans. AA.SS. Gallia Christiana. Bucelinus. Honriquez. Stadler.

B. Margaret (17) Colonna, Sept. 25, Dec. 30, V. 0. S. F., + 1284. Daughter of one of the great historical princely houses of Rome. Her parents died while she was very young and some of her brothers wished to settle her in a suitable marriage, but one of them, of a more religious turn than the rest (and afterwards a cardinal), en couraged her wish to be a nun; she went to a Franciscan convent near Rome, where she was occupied with the care of the sick but the veil was re fused her on account of her delicate health. She founded a convent for nuns of St. Clara at Palestrina ; Hono-

rius IV. (1285-1288) gave to this com munity the convent of San Silvestro in Capite and thither her relics were trans ferred. Her virtues and miracles at tracted public veneration from the time of her death. Pius IX. in 1847 con firmed her immemorial worship and pro nounced her Blessed. A.R.M. Romano Seraphicum. Wadding. Diario di Roma, Dec. 17, 1847. Her life is promised by the Bollandists.

St. Margaret (18) of Cortona, a penitent, 3rd O. S. F., Feb. 22, trans lation Nov. 22, 1247-1297. Repre sented with a spaniel or lap dog.

She was born in the little town of Laviano, eight miles from Cortona. She grew up so beautiful that wherever she was, people would look at nothing but her face ; she liked this admiration and took great pains to dress nicely, curling her hair with hot irons. When she was eighteen, a young man of Montepulciano, having great riches, went about seeking some vicious way of spending them. He seduced Margaret and carried her off to his own home where she lived with him for nine years in a handsome house, dressing expensively, plaiting her hair with gold ribbons, eating dainty food, riding about on a beautiful horse and wearing jewels. Notwithstanding her sinful life, she was always kind and liberal, and had a respect for religion ; often when, in her rides, she came to a lonely place, she said, "It would be nice to pray here." She had a son, and she hoped that her lover would marry her to legitimize his child, but he kept putting it off. One day he went out and as he did not return that day nor the next she became very anxious. At the same time her little pet dog disappeared. In vain she sent servants to look for their master. His absence had con tinued for some days, and as she was looking up and down the road, sud denly the spaniel rushed to her, seized the end of her dress in its teeth and, without jumping up or making any signs of joy like a dog that has been absent from his mistress for a week and suddenly finds her, he showed great eagerness to lead her on. She followed and the dog led her to a thicket, and

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went in among the bushes, whining and making every possible sign that she should follow. This sho did with diffi culty through thorns and over stones and rough places. The faithful creature scraped with his paws and tried to re move the earth. Margaret now more alarmed than ever, fetched a spade and called a man to help her to dig. They soon discovered the murdered bcdy of her lost lover, in a horrible state of decay. He had been called away from a sinful life, most likely without a moment's notice, without time for a repentant prayer, certainly without be ing absolved and reconciled by the rites of the Church. Her grief and her horror were extreme. Next morning, taking her little boy with her, she went to her father's house at Laviano and begged him to take her in at least as a servant, and let her have some of the food of the pigs like the prodigal son ; she was willing to be beaten, even to be killed. Her father felt compassion for her but her step-mother positively re fused to admit her, so she sat awhile in the vineyard uncertain what to do, or how to feed her child ; she had thoughts of returning to a life of sin, but prayed against that temptation, and wandered forth with her son until she came in sight of the beautiful city of Cortona, and thought it was like Jerusalem ; and there she went to the church of the Friars Minors and asked for the habit of penitence. This they refused as she was still young and pretty and her con version was so recent that they feared she would relapse into her unholy life. She frequented the church. She la boured hard to maintain herself and her child, and lived in a poor little dwelling near some kind ladies who gave her work.

In 1227, when she had destroyed all her beauty by fasting and weeping, she made a general confession and obtained admission to the Third Order of St. Francis. On that occasion she foretold that she would in time become holy and that pilgrims would come to visit her. At this time she removed to a still poorer lodging, nearer to the church of the Friars. She became a servant, and

often cooked dainty food for her em ployers but never touched it herself, living all the time in the most rigidly penitential ascetic manner. After a time, she found that her service pre vented her attending mass and sermons, and she gave it up.

She attended the great ladies of Cor tona in their confinements, making deli cate food and devising comforts for them but never departing from her own rigid practice of poverty and self-denial. Then, that she might attain to thorough hu mility, she went about begging, and if any one gave her a whole loaf she would not accept it lest it should be given out of regard for her ; she would only have such broken scraps as would be given to the first beggar who asked for anything.

One day as she prayed with tears before the image of the crucified Saviour in the Franciscan church, He bowed His head and said to her, " What wouldst thou have, poor woman ? " She answered, " I seek nothing, I wish for nothing but Thee, my Lord Jesus." Another day while she was praying she heard the Sa viour speak to her in the spirit, and re mind her of her conversion, of the favours granted to her, such as perseverance, in crease in virtue, strength to do penance, good desires, and other gifts. She ren dered thanks with great affection, and Christ told her He had forgiven all her sins, and would make her a mirror of penitence, a net and a ladder to bring sinners to repentance.

As the fame of her sanctity began to spread abroad, strangers from all parts of Italy, France, and Spain came to see her and take counsel of her ; and as she was attaining to great humility, the devil tried to destroy this virtue in her and make her vain of her virtues and favours. Then she called to mind her sins and her shameful life, and finding the temptation to pride returning to her thoughts in the night, she went out calling through the streets to the people to arise from their sleep and stone her and to drag her and chase her out of their city that she might not contami nate them with her wickedness, lest they should suffer a judgment for keeping so depraved a creature amongst them.

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Many arose and went to her and were edified by her repentance, and the devil never again lured her into self-compla cency. Once she went with a cord round her neck, in the poorest clothing, to Montepulciano, where she had lived during those nine years of infamous pros perity. She begged for alms, saying, "Behold your Margaret, so pretty and so brilliant, who scandalized you all and who wounded your souls! Take ven geance on me."

At last she determined to serve and beg for the poor. With the help of the charitable Cortonese she built a hospital of St. Mary of Mercy, called the Miseri- cordia. It is still standing. She gave up her former cell to her sister ADRIANA (2) and served the destitute and the sick, begging from door to door for them until, worn out with her charitable labours and with more than twenty years of the most severe penance, she removed to a poor place in the highest part of the town near the citadel. This move was op posed by the Franciscan monks, lest she should not be buried amongst them. Here she spent the short remainder of her life, and died Feb. 22, 1297. She was embalmed and laid in a new tomb in the Francisan church of St. Basil, where twenty years before, the crucifix had spoken to her. She was afterwards translated to the new church — the church of the monks of St. Basil, who had re moved there ; it was erected in her name, on a neighbouring hill, by the Cortonese and the monks.

In 1505 Leo X. went to visit her tomb, recommended himself to her intercession, and gave leave to exhibit her relics for public veneration and to celebrate her festival in Cortona and in her own Order. Many miracles re warded the faith of those who sought her intercession. Urban VIII. declared her " Blessed," and she was solemnly canonized in 1728. Her son became a Franciscan monk and a great preacher.

AA.SS. Jacobilli, Santi dell' Umbria. Leon. Gaspar Bombaci. Her Life by Marchese. Leggendario. Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art.

St. Margaret 09) of Castello, April 13, -f 1320, 0. S. D. Born blind in

1287 at Metola, in the duchy of Spoleto. She wore a hair shirt from the age of seven and fasted and prayed much. Her parents were greatly distressed at her blindness and took her to Castello, where they offered and commended her to a saint of the Order of St. Francis, whose body was kept there with great venera tion and wrought many miracles. As the saint did not open the eyes of the child, her parents abandoned her in the streets of Castello and went home with out her. Some charitable women took pity on her and placed her in a little convent which bore the name of St. Margaret; she did not remain there long, as her sanctity and asceticism so much exceeded those of all her com panions that they were dissatisfied with her, and spoke evil of her, and turned her out in disgrace. A certain honest man, called Venturino, took her in for the love of God ; his wife Grigia re ceived her with great kindness, and she passed the rest of her life with them. The Lord to whom the forsaken child belonged began immediately to pay for her board and lodging in miracles and the notorious sanctity of His servant. Although owing to her blindness she had never learnt to read, she used to- assist and instruct the sons of Ventu rino and Grigia in preparing their daily tasks for school. One day she was pray ing in her room at the top of the house when the kitchen took fire. A concourse of people rushed to the house so that half the town were assembled there, making so much noise and confusion that Grigia did not know whether the fire or the crowd was worse. In her distress she called Margaret, who left her prayers and threw her cloak down saying, "Don't be afraid, Signora Grigia, throw this over the fire and it will go out." Grigia obeyed her. The fire was extinguished quicker than if a river of water had been turned into it ; and all the people saw that the power of God was greater than the deluge.

Margaret received the habit of the Order of St. Dominic from the brothers of that body, and frequented their church, still living with Venturino and Grigia. Her favourite subjects of

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23

meditation were the delivery of the Virgin Mary, the birth of Christ, and the service of St. Joseph during the flight into Egypt and the return thence.

On her death, a grave was dug for her in the cemetery, but the people who had witnessed her sanctity and her miracles, clamoured to have her buried in the church like a saint, so they made a wooden box and took her in it to the church. A dumb and deformed boy was brought to this extemporized coffin, and as soon as he touched the body of the saint he became straight and cried out that he was healed by St. Margaret. He forthwith took the Dominican habit, to the joy of his grateful parents.

The rulers of the town decided that Margaret ought to be embalmed. This operation was attended by miracles, the most remarkable of which was that her heart was found to contain three precious stones marked with representations of the three chief subjects of her meditations. On one was engraved the image of a beautiful woman with a gold crown on her head ; on the second, a new-born child batween two mules ; on the third, an old man with a bald head and white beard, wearing a gold mantle ; before him was a woman on her knees, in the dress of the Order of St. Dominic, repre senting Margaret herself at her devo tions. She cured many persons possessed of devils and afflicted with blindness and divers diseases. Her worship and miracles having continued for nearly three hundred years, her honours were solemnly confirmed by Paul V. in 1609.

Mart.Predicatorum. AA.SS. Ferrarius. Cahier. Pio. Razzi. Analecta.

B. or S. Margaret (20) of Faenza, Aug. 26, V. -f 1330. She was abbess of the Order of Vallombrosa, and was buried at the convent of St. John the Evangelist at St. Salvio, near Florence. For centuries the nuns reverently pre served the image of the Infant Christ, which she caused to be made. She was the disciple, beloved companion and suc cessor of ST. HUMILITY. She was favoured with many celestial apparitions and mar ried with a ring to Christ in a vision. AA.SS. Bucelinus. Ferrarius.

St. Margaret (21) of Sanseverino,

widow, Aug. T>, 27, 4- 1395, called La Paittoretta, the shepherdess. She was born of poor parents in the village of Cesalo, near Sanseverino. She was always anxious to serve God and her neighbour and to deny herself. When she was seven years old, she was sent by her mother to feed the sheep. On the way she saw a noble looking pilgrim sitting on the ground, apparently worn out with fatigue and hunger. He asked her if she could spare him some of the food she was carrying for herself, as he was dying of hunger. Although she was very hungry, the child opened her little bag and gave all her bread to the pilgrim, who stood up and solemnly blessed her for her charity and then vanished out of her sight. She knew that he was no mortal man and she spent the rest of the day in prayer. At night when she brought home the sheep as usual, she was very hungry and asked her mother for bread. The mother re plied somewhat angrily, " Didn't you see that the cupboard was empty when I gave you the last bit of bread I had in the morning ? And now you come and ask for more before supper time as if you were the only one of the family that wanted food ! Don't you know how poor we are ? Do you forget that we all want food ? " Margaret told her mother she had been fasting all day because she had given all her bread to a beggar, and that she was not sorry for it as she had done it for the love of Christ and she believed she had given her charity to the Lord Himself. "Well then," said the mother, " bear with patience the hunger you voluntarily encountered." With these words she opened the cup board, and saw to her surprise a large, white loaf of bread which she at once divided, giving a piece to Margaret first, and afterwards sharing it with the whole family and some relations and neigh bours, who, hearing that something un usual was going on, nocked to the house. When they saw the miracle they en treated Margaret to pray for them and they all lived together in peace. At fifteen Margaret was married to a man of Sanseverino, with whom she never quar relled during the twenty-one years of her

24

B. MARGARET

married life ; she bad several sons and daughters whom she brought up piously. EM., Aug. 27. AA.SS.,Aug. 5. Baro- nius, Annales.

B. Margaret (22) Dominici, June 13, 1378-1442, O.S.F., was born at Foligno, of obscure but honest parents. From the time of her mother's death, when she was fifteen, she prayed for two years incessantly to be guided where and how she was to serve God. He inspired B. ANGELINA CORBARA to come to Foligno, where, in 1395, she founded the monastery of St. Anna. Devotees came from many places but Margaret was the first virgin of Foligno to enter there. Angelina was like the sun among planets, and Margaret was like the moon among stars. The number of nuns being too great for this convent, in 1399 a branch was established, one hundred paces from St. Anna's, and was dedicated in the name of St. Agnes, V.M. After long prayers it appeared that Margaret was chosen in heaven to rule the new monastery. When Angelina announced this to her, Margaret was overwhelmed with the sense of her own un worthiness, but in obedience to the Ministra — as Angelina was called — and the bishop, she was obliged to accept the office of Superior of the new house. It was called La Margaritura and the nuns were called Maryaritole. In 1402 the Margaritole had become so numerous that she had to enlarge the house. Mar garet was sent in 1431 to set up a new monastery of St. Catherine in Spoleto. She afterwards returned to her own at Foligno, and was eventually elected second Minister- General of the Ter- tiaries. She miraculously cured de formed and dumb persons. She died on June 13, the day of St. Antony of Padua, whom thenceforward her nuns took for patron, honouring their own saint with him every year. Many pri vileges had been granted by different Popes, to the convent of St. Anna, and Pius II., in 1462, extended these to the house of St. Agnes of the Margaritura. Margaret performed new miracles when her grave was opened, and again, in 1588, on the occasion of her translation. She is enrolled by the O S.F. and by the

people of Foligno among their Saints. Jacobilli, Santi di Foligno Santi dell"1 Umbria, and his life of St. Angelina.

B. Margaret (23) of Sulmona, Sept. 5, 1395-1449, O.S.F. Daughter of Francesco Figliuoli and of GEMMA (5) di Letto. Margaret was brought up by her cousin ALEXANDRINA in the convent of St. Clara at Sulmona. Jacobilli has written the lives of the saintly family of Letto of Sulmona, whose members he also mentions in his Santi dell' Umbria.

B. Margaret (24) of Savoy or MAR- GARIDA A GRANDE (Agiologio Dominico), Nov. 23, 27, + 1464, 3rd O.S.D. Patron of Alba de Montferrat. Eepresented holding three lances. Daughter of Louis, count of Savoy and prince of Achaia, who was a member of the family of the dukes of Savoy. She was married young to Theodore Paleologus, marquis of Montferrat, of imperial descent. She was disposed to virtue and piety and her heart was touched by the preaching of St. Vincent Ferrer, so that she became more strict in her conduct. Under her silken robes, she wore a cilicium. She was extremely charitable, particularly to those who were ashamed to beg. Her husband died about 1418, and she left the government to John James, her step son. When she was a widow and before she became a nun, she prayed to be num bered among the elect. The Lord ap peared to her in human form. He offered her three lances, which were the three different trials of calumny, sickness, and persecution, and asked her which she would choose to suffer. She said she would leave the choice to His wisdom, so He granted her all the three. She had no children. She went to Alba, not as a princess but as a poor woman, and in a few days she took the habit of the Third Order of St. Dominic. She was still beautiful and was invited to marry Filippo Maria, duke of Milan. She re fused on the ground of her religious vow. Eugenius IV. granted a dispensa tion, but she would not have it. She suffered badly from gout and prayed to be rid of it. The VIRGIN MARY told her she must bear it until her death. She did so and never complained again. She asked and received of the Pope, the old

B. MARGARET

25

abbey of Gracciano, founded by Alerano, the first marquis, and containing his tomb; and there she built the convent of St. Mary Magdalene where she shut herself up and imitated St. Dominic, walking towards Paradise by the difficult road of patience. She cured her niece Amadea, afterwards queen of Cyprus, whom all the physicians had given up. A certain lady having heard Margaret spoken ill of, abused her and shut the door in her face. As a punishment for this un just and unchristian conduct, she brought forth monsters instead of children, until she repented and craved the pardon of the saint. Margaret brought up Gian- nettina de' Boccarelli, who became a very holy nun. They were united by the ten- derest affection. Their spiritual father ordered them not to speak to each other and they dutifully obeyed. A.R.M., Nov. 27. Razzi. Piq. Cahier. Manoel de Lima. Her Life is to be in the AA.SS. when they come down to Nov. 27.

B. Margaret (25) Stropeni, LUCINA (5).

B. Margaret (2(3) of Ravenna, Jan. 23, 1442-1505, one of the founders of the Congregation of the Good Jesus, was born at the village of Russi, between Ravenna and Faeuza. She became blind at two months old and began from early childhood to lead a life of religious con templation and extreme austerity. She suffered much from ill-health and from the unkindness of her neighbours, who accused her of hypocrisy. At length, however, they were convinced of her sincerity and goodness, and all of them and three hundred other persons who had been strangers to her put themselves under her guidance. She then thought herself called to draw up a rule. It was written, in the first place from her dicta tion, by Dom Serafino di Fermo, a Canon Regular of St. John Lateran. The Ven. Father Jerome Maluselli and B. GENTILE, her disciple, assisted her in founding this secular order, which was intended for persons living in the world. Each member was enjoined to be content with his station and fulfil its duties: there were special rules for the guidance of women married and single : the clergy of this brotherhood were bound to be

content with their income and not seek to obtain good livings. Twenty years after the death of Margaret, Maluselli suppressed such of her rules as were adapted to laymen and women, and it became an order for priests only, under the name of the Priests or Regular Clerks of the Good Jesus. The Biografia Ec- clesiastica says that, with the exception of the extreme asceticism inculcated on members of religious orders, her holy counsels for her Congregation would be good for every Christian. About thirty years after her death, Paul III. con firmed her institution and commanded that her miracles and prophecies should be inquired into. She is not yet canon ized but is numbered among the saints of Italy. She foretold many events which duly came to pass, in particular the depopulation of Ravenna by the French, which occurred within a year of her death. AA.SS. Helyot. Ferrarius.

B. Margaret (27) Fontana, Sept. 13, 1440-1513, was a very good and charitable woman, who belonged to the Third Order of St. Dominic, and lived in her own family in Modena. One winter, although food was very scarce, she deter mined to take some bread to the poor. It was near Christmas and bitterly cold. As she was coming downstairs with her apron full of bread, she met her brother, who angrily asked her what she had there. The terrified girl said, " Roses," and immediately the loaves were changed into fresh, sweet roses. At her death her family were going to bury her in their own tomb, but the workmen suf fered such awful terrors when they began to prepare the grave that they were obliged to desist ; it was then de cided to bury her in the Dominican church, where her tomb emitted a scent of roses. AA.SS. Pio. Razzi.

B. Margaret (28) of Lorraine, or Margaret of the Ave Maria, Nov. 2, 1463-1521, O.S.F., was the daughter of Ferry de Lorraine, count of Vaudemont. Her mother was Yoland d'Anjou, duchess of Lorraine and Bar, eldest daughter of Rene d'Anjou, titular king of Jeru salem, Sicily, and Naples, and sister of Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England.

After the death of her parents,

B. MARGARET

Margaret spent some years of her youth at Aix in Provence, at the Court of her grandfather, King Rene, famous as a patron of troubadours. At his death she went to live with her brother Rene, duke of Lorraine, who married her, in 1488, to Rene de Yalois, duke of Alencon, count of le Perche, viscount of Beaude- mont. Her married life lasted little more than four years, and at thirty, she was left a widow with three children. Her inclination would have led her to religious retirement, but for the sake of her children, she went to the Court of her relation Charles VIII. to be pro tected and confirmed in their guardian ship. On the accession of Louis XII. she went to Court to congratulate him, as her son had to take part in the cere mony of his coronation. The king made her stay for his second marriage with Anne of Bretagne, who was a firm friend of Margaret. On this occasion she also paid a visit of affection and respect to the ex-queen ST. JANE (10). Margaret brought up her children with great care and was so good a manager of their pro perty that, during the minority of her son, she paid off debts and burdens to the amount of 133,000 crowns, without diminishing the state required of him as a prince of the blood. She took great care that his subjects should live in peace and safety, and spared no pains to provide good magistrates to look after them and do them justice. She made great alliances for her children, marrying her son Charles, duke of Alencon, to the only sister of the Due de Valois, after wards King Francis I. ; her elder daugh ter, first to one duke and then to another, and the younger to the Marquis de Montferrat, a member of the imperial family of Paloologus. All these expenses and economies did not prevent her from giving immense sums in charity ; and not content with giving, she waited in person on the poor, dressing their sores, feeding and nursing them. Her ladies were unable to overcome their repug nance to these charitable works, and could not assist her. She built five monasteries: Argentan, Alencon, la Fleche, Mortagne, and Chateau Gontier ; the last was for the Third Order of St.

Francis, and had a hospital attached to it for sick persons and for the enter tainment of pilgrims.

When she had bsen a widow twenty- four years, and had set all her family affairs in good order, she took leave of King Francis I. and assumed the habit of the Third Order of St. Francis, in presence of her son and daughters. After a year of probation, she took the vows in 1518. She lived as a nun of the Order of St. Clara, at Argentan, for four years in great perfection, and died in the odour of sanctity, 1521. She was buried in the church of her convent, where, not withstanding the damp, her body re mained perfect and lifelike for many years, and smelt of the gardens of Paradise. Steps were taken for her canonization in the reign and by the wish of her grandson Louis XIII., but owing to his death and the long minority of his son, the subject was allowed to drop.

The Bollandists say that her worship has never been authorized, but the people of Argentan and Alencon persist ^ in honouring and invoking her as a saint. AA.SS. Hueber, Menologium Francis- canum (Nov. 5). Leon, Aureole de Ste. Claire. Coste, Eloges des Eeines. Lau rent, Hist, de Marguerite de Lorraine.

In the church of St. Germain at Argentan, on the left side of the great door, is the chapel of B. Clara, which is always called by the populace the Chapel of St. Margaret (meaning the Duchess of Alencon). There her heart is built up in the wall, and there pious persons light candles and put money on the altar, and often demand to have masses said in honour of Margaret. Women near their confinement invoke her and provide themselves with her relics, and the nuns of her convents resort to her intercession and protection with advantage on all occasions.

B. Margaret (29) Plantagenet, May 4, 28, 3469 or 1473-1541, was born at Farley Castle near Bath. Daughter of George, duke of Clarence, and Isabella, daughter of the Earl of Warwick. Mar garet was niece of Edward IV. and Richard III. Her brother Edward was beheaded on Tower Hill in 1499. She

B. MARGARET

27

married, in 1-H'l, Sir Richard Pole, a landed gentleman of Bucks and kinsman of Henry VII. Sir Richard had already done good service to the king and after his marriage he distinguished himself particularly in the wars against Scotland, for which he was made a Knight of the Garter and chief gentleman of the bed-chamber to Prince Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII. It was probably at this time that Margaret's friendship with Catherine of Aragon began. Later, he was made Constable of the castles of Harlech and Montgomery and held other important appointments in Wales. He died in 1505, leaving Margaret a widow, with five children, viz. — (1) Henry, lord Montague in his mother's right, beheaded shortly before her, on a charge of plotting to dethrone Henry VIII. in favour of Reginald Pole ; (2) Geoffrey, convicted at the same time, but pardoned in consideration of his betraying the secrets of his party ; (3) Arthur, con demned to death for plotting in favour of Queen Mary Stuart, but not executed, on account of his near relationship to Queen Elizabeth Tudor ; (4) Reginald, Cardinal, born at Stoverton Castle, Staf fordshire, in 1500, on two occasions he was nearly elected Pope ; twice he came near to being made King of England ; he was Archbishop of Canterbury after Cranmer; he died in 1558 on the same day as Queen Mary; he is buried in Canterbury Cathedral ; (5) Ursula, mar ried, in 1516, Henry, lord Stafford, son of the last Duke of Buckingham of that family. The Duke was beheaded in 1522 but the barony of Stafford was afterwards restored to Henry.

Henry VIII. succeeded to the throne in 1509. He held Margaret in great esteem 'and, desiring to atone for the judicial murder of her brother, Prince Edward, and the injustice that had been done to her family, he at once granted her an annuity. In 1513 he reversed the attainder of the prince and made full restitution to her of all the rights of her family, creating her Countess of Salis bury and giving her all the lands be longing to the earldom. She now had fine estates in Hampshire, Wiltshire, and Somersetshire, and although she had

heavy burdens in the way of " benevo lence " and " redemption money " to the king, she was rich enough, a good many years later, to buy additional property for herself in Essex and Buckinghamshire.

In 1517 Henry's eldest daughter, the only child of Catherine of Aragon, was born at Greenwich Palace. Henry, who called Lady Salisbury " the most saintly woman in England," appointed her governess to the infant Princess, after wards Queen Mary. Margaret carried her pupil to the neighbouring church of the Grey Friars to be christened ; she appointed a kinswoman of her own to be her wet-nurse and devoted herself with watchful affection to her charge as long as she was suffered to remain at her post.

In 1533 the king married Anne Boleyn. The Countess of Salisbury, whose heart was in the cause of the in jured Queen Catherine and the Catholic religion, withdrew from Court. The king sent a lady to her with orders to bring the Princess Mary's jewels to him. Margaret refused to give them up. The king then deposed her from her office of governess, but the faithful Margaret said she would remain with her beloved pupil at her own expense. Mary re garded her as a second mother and Catherine fully appreciated her self- sacrificing devotion. The king, how ever, took means to remove his daughter from her care. After the fall of Anne Boleyn, in 1536, the Countess of Salis bury returned to Court and to favour. Meantime, in answer to Henry's declara tion that he constituted himself Head of the Church, her son Reginald Pole wrote his book Pro Unitate Ecclesise and sent it to the king. At the same time an insurrection occurred in the north of England, caused by the dislike of the people to the change of religion and by their loss of respect for the king. The book gave dire offence, and the king knowing that Pole was working against him in foreign Courts and that his whole family were hostile to the new arrange ments, determined to get rid of them all. The Countess of Salisbury, who was now about seventy years old, was accused of treason. She was imprisoned for a time

B. MARGARET

in the house of Fitzwilliam, earl of Southampton, who did not treat her with the consideration due to her station. She was never brought to trial as it was certain that any jury would acquit her. In 1539 she was removed to the Tower, where she was kept without the common comforts necessary to her age, and not withstanding her great possessions, was not able to buy herself a warm garment to protect her from the extreme cold; Catherine Howard, the fourth of Henry VIII.'s queens, sent her a furred gown, some shoes and slippers and other com forts. It was generally supposed that the Countess would soon be released ; but early on the morning of May 27 she was informed that she was to die that day. She walked with a firm step to the grass plot still shown in the Tower, where Anne Boleyn, before her, and Catherine Howard, after her, were be headed. When ordered to lay her head on the block she said, " Thus should traitors die, I am none ! " and stood erect, her almost gigantic height towering above the guards and spectators; and so she was beheaded.

When Cardinal Pole was told of her death, he said that he had always thanked God for giving him a pious and excellent mother, but that it was an unexpected honour to be able to call himself the son of a martyr.

Margaret's portrait, with those of many other martyrs, was painted on the walls of the ancient church of the English college in Rome, with the sanction of Gregory XIII.

She is the only woman among the fifty-four English Martyrs, May 4, pro nounced Blessed by Pope Leo XIII., Dec. 9, 1886. They were martyred by Protestants in England during the struggle on account of the change in the national religion, between 1 535 and 1681. Die. of Nat. Biocj. Phillips, Life of Pole. Beeton, British Biography ; Nou- velle Biogragnie Universelle. Thomas, Universal Die. of Biography. Lingard, Hist, of England. Low and Pulling, Die. of English History. Sanford, Hist, of the Royal Family of England. Keightley, Hist, of England. Stanton, Menology of England and Wales.

B. Margaret (30) of Piazza in Sicily, or Margaret Calixabeta, March 7, May 12, Sept. 13, Dec. 28, + 1560, 3rd O.S.F. Her father's name was Thomas Matthia ; her mother was Angela Negra. Various days and dates are assigned to her. She lived alone in a humble dwell ing and took poor girls to teach and train. She is credited with miracles. Stadler. Hueber.

St. Margaret (31) delle Chiave, Sept. 8, June 13, -f 1570. A Portu guese widow, a nun, O.S.A., at Ponta Delgada in the Azores. She was ex tremely ascetic and had wonderful spiritual gifts. She died Sept. 8, and was translated June 20. Her immediate canonization was confidently expected by the inhabitants of the island; they began at once to build a church in her honour, but as she was not canonized it was not permissible to dedicate it in her name, so ST. MAKGAKET (1) was chosen as its patron in 1587. Margaret (31) is called "Saint" byTorelli, Secoli. Cardoso, Agiologio Lusitano. Chevalier, Repertoire. AA.SS., June 23, Prseter.

B. Margaret (32), Sept. 14, + 1574. Daughter of Francis I., king of France. Married, in 1559, to Emmanuel Phili- bert, duke of Savoy. Migne. Her sister Magdelaine married James V., king of Scotland.

B. Margaret (33) Agullona, Dec. 9, 1536-1600, 3rd O.S.F. — erroneously called Margaret Angelona and B. BULLONA — was born at Xativa in Val encia. In her childhood she was sur rounded by a miraculous light, which moved about with her. At twenty, she became a member of the Third Order of St. Francis, and gave all she had to the poor. She lived by the work of her own hands, went about in ragged clothes, and begged at the gate of the friars. Her sanctity attracted the attention of St. Louis Bertran, Louis of Grenada and other persons eminent for learning and holiness. In her time, Mary, prioress of the Convent of the Annunciation in Lisbon, pretended to have the stigmata and deceived every one, even Pope Gregory XIII., who wrote her a letter. When she was found out, a great revulsion of feeling set in

ST. MARIAMNA

29

against ecstatic nuns in general, and Margaret came in for a share of the popular dislike and persecution, but her perseverance was rewarded with increase of grace. " Such wonderful things are recounted of this illustrious virgin," says the Bwgrafia Bcdetiattica, " that if they were properly proven, there is no doubt she would be placed in the category of the saints." Da^a and du Monstier speak of her as " Blessed " and " a holy virgin."

B. Margaret (34), abbess of Val de Grace in Paris, Aug. 10, 1580-1020, was born at Villemont; daughter of Gilbert de Veynes d'Arbouze, of the ancient house of Villemont, and Jeanne de Pinac, daughter of Peter, viceroy of Burgundy. Margaret took the veil at St. Peter's at Laon. Seeking for the severest rule, she first joined the Capu- chinesses or Passionists, then the bare footed Carmelites ; afterwards the Bene dictine nuns of Mont des Martyrs. Louis XIII. heard of her sanctity and, in 1018, appointed her abbess of Val de Grace. She obeyed the royal behest somewhat unwillingly. When she ar rived at her new house and was inaugu rated, she found that a room had been handsomely and comfortably fitted up for her. She sent for a ladder and began at once to pull down all the silken hangings, and banished from her cell everything but the plainest and most necessary articles. She practised in her own person all the austerities she required of those under her rule and soon reformed the convent. Her holiness was rewarded with the gifts of prophecy and miracles. She resigned her post in 1620 and died at Sery in Berri, the same year. Catherine, princess of Lorraine, abbess of Remiremont, was her disciple and the authority for many of the facts recorded of her. Bucelinus. Hugo Menard. Biografia Ecclesiastica.

B. Margaret (;-*5) Mary Alacoque, Oct. 17, 1047-1690. Founder of the devotion to the Sacred Heart. Repre sented holding a heart, or a picture of a heart, encircled with a wreath of thorns and surmounted by a cross. She was born at Lauthecour, in Charolois, Bur gundy. She was christened Margaret,

to which at her confirmation she added the name of Mary. She was for a time discontented with her station, desiring riches and distinction for herself, but she found that nothing but the love of Christ could bring her any satisfaction. At twenty-three, she became a nun at Pa- ray-le-Monial, in Charolois, of the Order of the Visitation, founded by JANE (19). She was for a long time mistress of the novices and was much beloved by them. She was the first to establish a general devotion to the heart of Jesus as a special object of worship ; she did so in consequence of visions and revela tions, which are described at great length by her biographer. The object of this devotion is to acknowledge the love of Christ to His people and to make amends to Him for the indignities to which He submitted for their sake during His life on earth, and to which He is still subject in the Sacrament ; and to make up, by the greater love of His devotees, for the ingratitude of those who forget and neglect Him. The festival is held on the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi. She met with great opposition, es pecially in her own convent and diocese, which were the last in France t > receive the Sacred Heart as a separate object of devotion. Immediately after her death, she was regarded as a saint, and miracles were performed at her tomb. She was beatified in 1864. In 1720, three hundred societies of the Sacred Heart had been established in different parts of Europe and in India and China. Saints and Servants of God, published by the Fathers of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. Analecta.

St. Mariamna (1), Feb. 17, V. Sister of St. Philip the apostle. She is not commemorated in the Western Church, but honoured in the Mcnea with the title of "Equal of the Apostles." After the ascension of the Lord, she accompanied her brother and St. Bar tholomew to Hierapolis, in Phrygia, where idols were worshipped in magni ficent temples. In one of these temples a viper was kept in a shrine and re ceived divine honours. The preaching of the three saints put a stop to idol

30

SS. MARIAMNA AND PHILIPPA

worship for a time, but through some cause of dissatisfaction the people rose in a sedition against them and hung Philip by his head, from a pillar, and fastened Bartholomew and Mariamna on crosses. The earth then suddenly sank to a great depth, engulting the proconsul and a great number of the rioters and spectators. The people understood this calamity to be a judgment for their conduct to the holy preachers, and begged their forgiveness. Mariamna and Bartholomew prayed Philip to free the populace from their danger : the earth returned to its usual level ; all the people were saved except the pro consul. He was left in the abyss with the viper, which had escaped in the con fusion . Batholome w and Mariamna were released, and Philip, who was already dead, was buried with fitting honours. Bartholomew afterwards preached in India, and Mariamna having preached the gospel and baptized many converts in Lycaonia, died there in peace.

The Latin Acts of St. Philip do not give him any sister ; but two daughters, virgins, buried with him. Bollandus thinks the story of Mariamna possibly makes some confusion with St. Philip the deacon. AA.SS. Menology of Basil.

SS. Mariamna (2) and Philippa (1), VV., May 1. Daughters of St. Philip the apostle. Tradition says Philip had three daughters, two of whom (Mariamna and Philippa) re mained at Jerusalem until they died at a great age and were buried there on each side of their father; the third was HERMIONE. Some legends add a fourth, Eutyche. Their names are not mentioned in any of the old martyr- ologies. Some of the hagiologists appear to confound the daughters of St. Philip the apostle with those of St. Philip the deacon : " four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy" (Acts xxi. 9). AA.SS., " St. Philip," May 1, Introduction.

St. Mariamna (3). See THECLA (10).

St. Mariana (1) or MARINA, March 16, V. M. in the year 253, at Antioch. She was afterwards translated into Spain. AA.SS.

St. Mariana (2), KETEVAN.

B. Mariana (3) or MARIANNA, of Jesus, May 25/1618-1645, V.

Marianna Paredes y Mores, called the "lily of Quito," was born at Quito in Peru. She devoted herself to God from her early youth, seeking especially the grace of purity ; and knowing that that virtue could not be cultivated in a life of ease and pleasure, she subjected her body to severe and extraordinary penances. She is said to have preserved her country, by her prayers, from the scourge of earthquake and pestilence. After her death many miracles were wrought by her intercession. She was solemnly beatified by Pius IX. in 1853, and her life, written on that occasion, was pub lished by Agostini at Turin, in 1858, in the Collezione di buoni libri. La Civilta Cattolica, Dec. 3, 1853. Diario di Roma, Nov. 21, 1853.

B. Mariana (4) of Jesus, MARY (67).

Mariana (5) or MARIANNA Fontan- ella, MARY (70).

St. Mariminia, ARMINIA (2).

St. Marina (1), June 18, M. at Alex andria. Her martyrdom is commemo rated, June 18 ; her translation to Venice, July 17. EM.

SS. Marina (2-11), appear as MM. in different places. One of them is also called MARCINA (June 8). The great V. M. ST. MARGARET, and some of the other Margarets are sometimes called Marina. Calendars.

St. Marina (12), July 17, Y. M. at Antioch in Pisidia. Daughter of a heathen priest. She underwent diverse tortures on account of her Christian faith and was then put in prison, where a dragon appeared to her; its neck was encircled by horrid serpents which hissed at the young saint. She killed it with the sign of the cross. Next day she was thrown into a lake; a white dove ap peared over her, blessed the water and baptized the maiden. Marina was taken uninjured from the lake and beheaded. Men. of Basil.

St. Marina (13) or MARGARET, July 18, V. M. at Orense or Amphilochium in Galicia, Spain. She and her eight sisters were daughters of Attilius and lived at Belcagia. They left their father there and went to Orense, where Marina

ST. MARINA

31

vanquished the devil in the form of a dragon, by making the sign of the cross. E.M. AA.SS.

The Spanish hagiologists sometimes claim as a native of their own country, some ancient saint who suffered martyr dom at Eome, Nicomedia, or anywhere else. This seems a reflection of the story of MARINA (12) and that of MARGARET (1), both martyrs at Antioch in Pisidia ; nevertheless she appears in the Roman Martyrology as a separate person.

St. Marina (14), May 10, -f 362. Wife of St. Gordian, a ricarius in Eome under Julian the apostate. He was converted by St. Januarius, an aged priest who was brought to his tribunal accused of being a Christian. Gordian and Marina went by night to the prison to receive instruction and baptism from Januarius. He would not baptize them until they had allowed him to destroy all their idols, one of which was a gilded statue of Jupiter, the gift of the emperor. He then baptized them and their household of fifty-three persons. When these things came to the knowledge of the emperor, he deputed some one to supersede Gordian and punish him. Marina was sent to be a slave to the peasants who worked at a villa called Aquas Salvias, near the Porta Capena, not far from the spot where St. Paul the apostle was beheaded. While there, she heard that her husband had been scourged to death and thrown in front of the temple of Pallas and left to be eaten by dogs. The dogs, however, kept guard over the martyred saint until one of his servants came with some other Christians to take him away and bury him in the tomb of St. Epimachius, about a mile from Eome, in the Via Latina. Gordian's name appears in the Vetus Romanum and other very ancient mar- tyrologies, and Marina's name is men tioned in the account of him by Ado. AA.SS. Smith and Wace, " Gordianus (3) " and « Marina (1)." Baillet.

St. Marina (15), June 13, July 19, Dec. 4, is called in the Golden Legend MARYNE ; in French, MARINE LA DEGUISEE. Perhaps 5th century. Eepresented at the door of a monastery with a small child. Somewhere in the East, once upon a time, there was a man whose wife

died, leaving him an infant daughter. He called the child Marina after her mother, and gave her into the care of a good woman to nurse. Then having no pleasure or interest in the world, and longing only to follow his wife to Paradise, he left his home and went to a monastery and there he tried to occupy himself entirely with the duties and de votions of the monks ; but ever and anon, the thought of his little daughter recurred to his mind and he wondered what would become of her, left alone in this unsatis factory world. The Abbot soon re marked that he had some unacknow ledged care in his mind, and questioned him about it. " Alas, Father," said he, " I have a little child, I have left it to be nursed, but after that I know not what will become of it, or what dangers may await it in this wicked world." The Abbot supposed the child to be a boy, and without more questions, he bade the father go and fetch it and bring it up himself in the monastery, safe from all the peril and wickedness of secular life. The happy father set out for his old home and brought his daughter, who was now a big baby able to run about. He kept her carefully in his own cell, teach ing her all that was necessary and earnestly impressing on her the import ance of concealing her sex. She went by the name of Marinus. By the time that her father died, she was tall and strong and took her share of the labours of the community ; among others, she was often sent with a cart to fetch wood from a considerable distance. On these occasions she used to sleep at an inn where soldiers and other rough people sometimes lodged. At last it came to pass that the landlord's daughter had a child, and said that Brother Marinus was the father of it. The landlord and his wife came to the monastery and complained to the Abbot of the indignity they had suffered from one of his monks. Marina not being able to prove her innocence, accepted the accusation in silence and was turned out of the monastery. She lived outside the gate and sometimes the monks threw her a bit of bread. When the child was weaned, its grandfather brought it to Marina, saying, " Here is your son, take

32

B. MARINA

him and bring him up if you like ; for I will not have him." Marina took the child and the insult meekly, and tended the boy as if he had been her own ; and when the monks gave her the remnants of their food for charity, she fed the child first, and if anything remained when he had had enough, she contented herself with that.

"When her exclusion from the monas tery had lasted five years, the monks seeing her meekness and patience, and how she departed not from their gate nor sought to associate with others, besought the Abbot to restore her to her place amongst them. The Abbot replied, "Marinus has brought a grievous re proach upon us and has committed a great sin, we cannot bring him back as one of ourselves again ; but let him come in and do the hardest and meanest of the work, and by-and-bye, perhaps we will admit him to penance." So Marina was brought back into the monastery, not to her former place amongst the brethren, but to do all the work that was most laborious and disagreeable. This she accepted humbly and thankfully. A few days afterwards she was found dead one morning. The monks went and told the abbot, who said, "Behold, what a sinner Marinus was; God would not allow him to be reconciled by penance, but cut him off before he had begun ! " Her accuser was tormented by a devil, and could only be cured by penance at the tomb of the injured saint. AA.SS., July 17. Golden Legend.

B. Marina (16) of Spoleto, June 18, 13th century. VALLARINA PETKOCIANI joined the order of Canons regular of St. Augustine, took the name of MARINA, and founded the convent of St. Matthew at Spoleto. At her death a heavenly light illumined her body, and many miracles increased the reputation for holiness which she had acquired in her life. AA.SS.

B. Marina (17), MARY (64). St. Marina (18), MARIANA (1). St. Marineta, MARGARET (1). St. Marinha, July 18, a Portuguese V. M. in one of the three first centuries. Many churches are dedicated in her name in Portugal and Galicia. She is

said to have been worshipped in the Order of Mercy from time immemorial. She is sometimes confounded with Mar garet and sometimes supposed to be one of nine sisters born at a birth (See Qui- TEBIA). A.EM. Azevedo.

St. Marionilla, M. 309. A matron of Antioch who was put to death with cruel tortures in the persecution of the Christians, at the same time with St. Julian, St. Celsus, St. Antony and many others. At their death an earthquake ruined great part of the city, over throwing most of the idols and heathen temples ; and many persons were killed by lightning and hail. Martian, who had condemned these Christians, escaped half dead from the storm, but died a few days after from a horrible disease. Martyrum Ada.

St. Mariota. In the 16th century there was a chapel in her honour in the county of Haddington in Scotland. Forbes.

St. Marjoleine, MARGARET. St. Marjory, MARGARET. St. Marmenia, May 25, + 230. Wife of Carpasius and mother of LUCINA (4). In the reign of the Emperor Alexander, the Church in general had peace, but occasional cruelties^ and in justice were committed against the Christians through bigotry, malice or covetousness. Alrnachms, prefect of Eome (whose name is not historical), raised a persecution against them and commissioned Carpasius to compel them to worship the gods. St. Urban I., who had succeeded St. Calixtus as Pope in 223, was one of the first victims. Car pasius held a great function and called upon all to join in the sacrifice. The Pope and many others who refused were beheaded, Carpasius proceeding with the sacrifice was seized by the devil. He gnashed his teeth and talked incoherently, crying out between the paroxysms that this had come upon him because he had killed the Christians ; Almachius thought Carpasius had be come a Christian, and ordered him to be taken away. His convulsions and sufferings increased and he presently died. Marmenia, next night, went with her daughter Lucina to two holy Christian

ST. MARTHA

33

priests and begged to be instructed. They buried Urban and the martyrs who Buffered with him. Lucina distributed all her property to the poor among the Christians. Marmenia, Lucina and twenty-two of their newly converted servants were beheaded, and many other Christians were put to death by Alma- chius, and are honoured on the same day. AA.SS. Baillet. The story is taken from the Acts of St. Urban, which, though very ancient, are not authentic.

St. Marninta, or MANINTIA, Feb. 28. M. with many others. AA.S8.

St. Maroye, MART OF OIGNIES and MARY OF THE INCARNATION, Guenebault.

St. Martana, Dec. 2 (R.M.), Dec. 10 (Lightfoot and Tillemont), Nov. 30, + between 250 and 205. A Christian lady who came to Eome with her daughter VALERIA (4) some months after the martyrdom of SS. Adrias and PAULINA and their family. Martana and Valeria were made to die of hunger for their faith, and were buried beside Paulina and her companions in the sandpit, at the first milestone from the city. Bishop Lightfoot, Hippolytus of Portus.

St. Martha (1) of Bethany, the entertainer of Christ, July 29. 1st century. Patron of housekeepers, inn keepers, publicans (with Zaccheus), hos pitallers, laundresses (with HUNNA) ; patron and model of women who serve God in an active life, while her sister MARY is the patron of those who choose the contemplative state ; MARTHA is patron of Provence, Aix en Provence, Cadiz, Castres, Tarascon, Martos. Re presented carrying a bunch of keys, or with a dragon beside her. It is conjectured that she was the wife or daughter of Simon the Leper. We are told that " Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus." After the death ' of Lazarus, the Lord came to Bethany ; and Martha, as soon as she heard that He was coming and before He entered the town, went and met Him, but Mary sat still in the house until Martha came back and called her, saying, " The Master is come and calleth for Thee." Each sister, as she met the Lord, said, "Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my

VOL. II.

brother had not died.'' They knew that he was to rise again at the last day, but as yet they knew not that he was to be given back to them at once. After the raising of Lazarus, the Saviour again visited the family at Bethany, where they made Him a supper, and Martha served ; many of the Jews came that they might see Lazarus, and because of him many believed in the Lord Jesus. To these details, tradition adds that after the death of onr Saviour, Martha with her brother Lazarus and sister Mary, MAUCKLLA their maid, and St. Maximus, one of the seventy-two disciples, were put by the Jews into a boat without oars, sail, or rudder, and committed to the sea, with the intention that they should all perish ; the boat, however, arrived safely at Marseilles, of which Lazarus became the first bishop, and Maximus, bishop of Aix. Martha con verted a great number of persons by her preaching. A large district on the bank of the Rhone suffered great loss and terror from a dreadful dragon named Rasconus ; Martha killed it, and the town of Tarascon, which in the course of years grew up on the spot, bears the name of the monster, to this day. St. John xi., xii. R.M. AA.SS. Villegas. Mrs. Jameson,

St. Martha (2), Feb. 23, V. M. 251 or 252. In the time of Deoius, a ruler named Paternus came to Astorga in Asturias. There he summoned all the people to a great feast to sacrifice to the gods. A certain Christian virgin, named Martha, of noble birth and great riches, absented herself ; he had her seized and commanded her to worship idols. On her refusal she was placed on the rack and beaten with knotted sticks. After a time Paternus told her that if she would renounce her religion, she should marry his son ; if not, she should be pnt to death. As she disregarded his promises and threats, she was stabbed and her body thrown on a heap of rubbish. A charitable matron buried her. B.M. AA.SS. Baronius.

St. Martha (3), DOMINICA (1).

St. Martha (4), Feb. 24, M. at Nicomedia in Bithynia with many others. AA.SS.

ST. MARTHA

St. Martha (5), Jan. 19, 20, + 270 or 800. Wife of Maris or Marius, a nobleman of Persia. They sold their possessions, gave all to the poor, and with their sons, Audifax and Abacum, travelled to Rome, where they devoutly assisted the persecuted Christians and buried those who were put to death, until they were apprehended by Mari- anus, under the emperor Aurelian. Maris and his sons were tortured in various ways, Martha being compelled to stand by and see them ; they were then beheaded, and she dipped her finger in the blood and made the sign of the cross on her forehead. She was finally taken to Santa Ninfa, the sacred pools, thirteen miles from Rome, and there drowned. The date and the name of the reigning emperor are matters of dispute, but the story is accepted as true. KM. Villegas. Baillet. Butler. Martin. Canisius.

SS. Martha (6) and Mary, Feb. 8, VV. MM. They were sisters. La- herius, in his Menologio Virginum, says they lived and died in Asia, but Bol- landus declares the date and place of their death to be unknown. As the pre fect of the province was passing through the place where they lived, they looked out of the windows and cried out that they were Christians ; he pitied their youth and would have let them retract their words and escape death, but they said martyrdom was not death, but the beginning of an endless life. A boy of the name of Lycarion or Bycarion, their pupil, was martyred with them. They were all three hung upon crosses and pierced with swords. AA.SS.

SS. Martha (7) and Mary, June 6, VV. MM. Honoured in the Greek Church with three companions, VV. MM., not known where or when. AA.SS.

St. Martha (8). (See THECLA (16).)

St. Martha (9), Sep. 20, is com memorated with SUSANNA (13). ll.M.

St. Martha (JO), May l, 22. V.^of Auxerre, end of 4th century. Wife of St. Amator of Auxerre. Both were of high rank and great wealth. On their wedding-day their room was splendidly decked for them with silk and gold, ivory and precious stones ; the bride's dress

was magnificent; a large gathering of friends assembled for the festive oc casion. St. Valerian (May 6), the aged bishop of Auxerre, having been invited, according to the custom of the time, to bless the house of the newly united pair, instead of the marriage blessing read by mistake the prayers for the dedication of a priest. As no one present understood Latin except Amator and Martha, the mistake passed unremarked. When the young couple were alone, Amator said to his bride, " Did you understand what the bishop read while we knelt before him ? " "I did," answered Martha, " and I was afraid it would now be sinful to lead the worldly life we contemplated." From that time, they considered them selves set apart for the service of God. They were encouraged in their resolu tion by an angel who appeared to them. The venerable Valerian was soon suc ceeded by St. Eladius, to whom Amator and Martha went for advice and instruc tion. He ordained Amator a priest and gave the sacred veil to Martha. 'On the death of Eladius, Amator succeeded to the bishopric, and on his death, in 418, he begged to be succeeded by St. Germain. Martha died some years before her hus band and was buried by him. These four bishops of Auxerre are universally considered saints, and Martha is so called by Saussaye, Arturus and others, although her worship is not authorised. AA.SS., Prsetcr.

St. Martha (11) with. SAULA E.M., perhaps 5th century.

St. Martha (12), Sept. 1 (MATANA, MAHTHANA), -f c. 428. Mother of St. Simeon Stylites the Elder or St. Simeon in Mandra. He was born at Sisan on the borders of Cilicia and Syria, in 388. When he was about sixteen, he disappeared from his home and his parents did not know what had become of him, until his extreme asceticism and his repute for miraculous powers at tracted so much attention even in distant countries that his mother discovered his whereabouts. Meantime he had been sent away from one monastery on account of his excessive austerities and had lived some time in another monastery, an ex ample of humility and devotion. At

ST. MARTHA

last, in 413 he settled in a cell of his own near Antioch, where a number of devout men gathered round him. Although he lived shut up in a cell, he was con tinually disturbed by persons who came to consult him on all subjects, so in 42:5, to escape from these interruptions he built himself a pillar, of no great height at first ; but as this innovation in the customs of the anchorites drew crowds to see this wonderful man, he gradually built the column higher and higher to be out of their reach. Round the pillar was a wall to keep off intruders, especially women : the enclosure thus formed was called Mandra, a word signifying a fold for sheep or cattle. The emperor Theo- dosius II., his wife Eudoxia, his sisters, sundry bishops and other potentates sent to consult him on divers matters. Some of them begged him, in vain, to descend for a time from his pillar and come to visit them. His new form of self-mortifi cation profoundly impressed the age and he had imitators, both in the Church and in heretical bodies. He is credited with the conversion of many Arabs and other heathens. Pilgrims came in great num bers from all directions, some from Spain and Britain ; so that a house for their entertainment was built in the neigh bourhood, the ruins of which are there to this day. As far as the curiosity and devotion of the world would allow him, he spent his time in perpetual adoration. He wrote several epistles and addresses, and although they are not extant, ex tracts from them are preserved in the works of reliable authors, and many of the wonderful things told of him by his early biographers are confirmed by the latest explorations. In 428 Martha dis covered in this marvellous man her long lost son and sought an interview with him. This he declined, saying that they would meet in the next world. This answer only quickened his mother's desire ; she wished to ascend by a ladder, the better to see and hear him ; but this he absolutely forbade. However, as she entreated the more earnestly, he bade her wait patiently for a short time and then he would see her. She sat down within the Mandra and immediately died Then he directed those who stood by to

bring her nearer ; they laid her at the foot of his column, and he prayed God to receive her soul. Upon this, the happy mother moved in her death-sleep and a smile irradiated her face. AA.SS. Guerin. Compare with " Simeon Stylites " in Smith and Wace.

St. Martha (13), May 24, + 551. Mother of St. Simeon Stylites the Younger, who is called also the Thaumastorite, or according to Dr. Stokes, Maumastoritos. Martha was a native of Antioch ; her husband came from Edessa in Mesopo tamia, and her son was born at Antioch in 521, and died in 596. He was the second of three SS. Simeon Stylites. He early became a monk in a monastery at the foot of a mountain near Antioch, under St. John the Stylite, who, when he considered him sufficiently advanced in holiness, allowed him to come on to his pillar. The two led a life of penance, standing together on the pillar for some time. Afterwards Simeon had another pillar constructed for himself in a small monastery, hewn out of a single rock in the mountain. On this pillar he stood until his death at a great age. Some accounts say he stood on a pillar for sixty-eight years. He is mentioned by the contemporary historian Evagrius, who bears witness to some of his miracles. He was highly esteemed by the Emperor Justinian. Few particulars are recorded of the life of Martha. She spent her whole time in works of devotion and charity, and such was her reverence for sacred places and services that she was never known either to sit down in church or to exchange a word with any one while there. She was very humble, and when Simeon wrought miracles she impressed on him that he must remember his own worthlessness and give God the glory. When she knew that her death was near, she went to her son to ask his prayers, and seeing her approaching, he called out to her, " Mother, I commend myself to thy prayers, for thou art going hence to God." She exhorted him to remember her in all his prayers after her death, and reminded him that she had always prayed for him. She was venerated as a saint during the life of her son, and is commemorated with him in the Greek

ST. MARTHA

Church. AA.SS. Baillet, " St. Simeon Stylites." Guerin.

St. Martha (14), June 24, M., honoured in the Abyssinian and Coptic Churches. Not the same as any other Martha. AA.SS.

St. Martha (15), abbess of Kildare, who died in 753. Colgan.

B. Martha (1C)), May 24, 10th cen tury. Abbess of Malvasia in the Pelo ponnesus. One day while she was praying in the church of her monastery, an aged monk came up to her and begged her to give him her jacket. She an swered him, "As the Lord liveth, brother, I have but two jackets, one is at the wash, and on account of my infirmity, I cannot do without the other, which I am now wearing. Were it otherwise, I would gladly give it to you." The man, however, continued to beg, in the name of Christ, that she would give him one. At last she did so. He instantly disap peared, and from that moment she was cured of her infirmity and had no need for warm clothing. Every one perceived that the beggar must have been St. John the Evangelist. AA.SS.

B. Martha (17), July 5, Cistercian nun at La Cambre near Brussels. She ministered with great charity and patience to ADELAIDE (10) when she had the leprosy. Called " Blessed " by Henriquez, Bucelinus and others. AA.SS., Prseter.

St. Martha (18), Nov. 8, also called MARY, -f 1300. Daughter of the Grand- duke Demetrius, who was closely related to Alexander Nevski, grand-prince of Russia. She married Dormont, duke of Pskov. After his death she renounced the world and led a religious life. She was buried in the church of St. John the Baptist, where she is honoured with public worship. Slavonic Calendar in the AA.SS., Oct. vol. xi.

St. Marthana(l). A holy deaconess or abbess who, in the 4th century, pre sided over a community of Renuntiants at Seleucia. She went to Jerusalem to pray at the holy places, and there made the acquaintance of ST. SILVIA ; they became dear friends and met again with great joy when Silvia visited Seleucia on her way to Constantinople, probably about 385. These Renuntiants were an

extremely self-denying sect, who re nounced all private property. Pilgrimage of St. Silvia.

St. Marthana (2), MARTHA (12).

St. Martia or MARCIA-MATIDIA, March 3. Her name is the first in a list of martyrs in eighteen of the oldest and most reliable martyrologies. Martia and her companions are mentioned in an ancient Anglo-Saxon edition of St. Jerome, discovered in the seventh cen tury. They suffered perhaps in Spain, perhaps in Africa. Some writers, con founding her with Matidia Augusta, have called her a sister of the Emperor Trajan and disciple of St. Clement, but Trajan had no sister who was a Christian. His niece, Matidia, was the wife of Adrian. AA.88.

St. Martina, Jan. 1, 15, 30, Dec. 31, + 230. Patron of Rome. She was the daughter of a consul of Rome and deaconess in the Christian church in the time of the Emperor Alexander Severus and Pope Urban I. She was ordered to sacrifice to Apollo, and replied, " Com mand me to sacrifice to Jesus Christ, that will I do, but to no other God." They dragged her to the altar of Apollo, and she prayed that his image might perish. Immediately, part of the temple fell down, destroying the statue of the god, killing the priests and causing the devil to depart shrieking from the idol's shrine. She was struck on the mouth, and eight executioners were commanded to inflict divers tortures on her, but she was defended by four angels who avenged on the eight men each injury they did to the young saint. They tore off her eyelids and the angels tore off theirs. She prayed for their conversion, which occurred while they were tearing her with hooks ; they declared themselves Christians, and were immediately hung up and torn with hooks by other execu tioners. She was condemned to be killed by a lion; but instead of hurting her, he crouched at her feet. Then she was hung on four stakes and cut with swords, and at last she was beheaded. At the moment of her death, a great earthquake shook the city: a circumstance which increased the number of converts from paganism. Her martyrdom occurred

ST. MARY

37

Jan. 1, but her festival is the 3()th. E.M. Canisius, Mart. Da- Kirchen Kalcndftr. Flo* Sanctorum. Leggendario. AA.SS. Baillet (Jan. 30) says her Acts are not authentic, but that she was held in veneration at Rome from the time of her martyrdom, and a chapel was erected in her honour, over her tomb at the foot of the Capitoline Hill, where multitudes resorted on the 1st of January, although the festival was afterwards changed to other days, to avoid interfering with commemorations of greater importance. Before the finding of her relics, the monks of St. Francis of Araceli boasted that they possessed St. Martina's head. Her bones were said to be at Sta. Maria Maggiore, and her whole body at Piacenza ; but in the time of Urban VIII. , 1 634, her body was found in a ruined vault under her church. She was in a sarcophagus of terra cotta, placed on a long slab of stone, enclosed between two walls and covered with earth and pebbles. In the same sarcophagus were other bodies separated by partitions, one of which was of lead, one of marble, and one of earth like a large tile ; the names of SS. Martina, Concordius and Epi- phanius were inscribed respectively on three of the compartments, the other was not named; but the epitaph de scribed them all as having suffered death in the cause of Christianity. The head of Martina was separate from the body, in a rusty iron bowl, and was easily ascertained to be that of a young girl.

Her Acts are almost identical with those of PRISCA and TATIANA, neither of which are authentic : those of Prisca are supposed to be the oldest of the three and the basis on which the other two were written.

St. Martiniana. (See IRENE (4).)

St. Martyria (1) or MARTYRIUS, May 21, M. at Ravenna. AA.SS. Henschenius from Bede and other martyrologies.

St. Martyria (2), June 20, M. at Tomis. AA.SS.

St. Marvenne, MERWIN.

St. Marvia, perhaps MERWIN.

St. Mary (1), the Prophetess, July 1 (MARIAMXE, MIRIAM). The Martyrolcxjy of Salisbury says, " St. Mary the Pro

phetess, sister of Moses and Aaron, As Moses was/guyder of the meu/amonge/ ye/childer of/israell, so was she of the women." When Moses was born in Egypt, the cruel edict of Pharaoh was in force, condemning every male child among the Hebrews to death. His mother concealed him for three months, and then being no longer able to do so, put him in " an ark of bulrushes " and laid it in the flags by the river's brink ; Miriam, his sister, stood at a little dis tance to see what would happen. When Pharaoh's daughter found the child and had compassion on him, Miriam sug gested that she should employ one of the Hebrew women to nurse him ; and fetched his mother (Exodus ii.). Miriam next appears after the crossing of the Red Sea (Exodus xv. 20), where she is styled Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron. She headed the Hebrew women in a great service of praise and song. In Numbers xii. we find that Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because he had married an Ethiopian woman. As a punishment Miriam was smitten with leprosy. When Aaron confessed the wickedness of himself and his sister and prayed to Moses for her restoration, Moses interceded with God and was promised that she should re cover in seven days. During that time the whole nation halted for her while she was kept outside the camp. She died at Kadesh in the desert of Zin (Numbers xx. 1). Her tomb was shown in the time of St. Jerome. The prophet Micah (vi. 4) mentions her as one of the great leaders and deliverers of the Israelites. Josephus numbers her among the old Testament Saints. The Christian Calendars honour her, July 1, with her nephew Eleazar, and great-nephew Phineas. According to Josephus, she had a husband named Hur. Moham medan legend makes her identical with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and says she was miraculously kept alive to fulfil her blessed destiny. Smith's Die. of the Bible. Stadler, Lcxikon. AA.SS.

St. Mary (2)> 1st century, Mother of the Saviour, March 25 Annunciation, Aug. 1~> Assumption, Feb. 2, July 2 Visitation (to Elisabeth), Aug. 5 Our

ST. MARY

Lady of the Snow, Sept. 8 her nativity, Sept. 12 her name, Sept. 24 Our Lady of Mercede for the Kedemption of Captives, Nov. 21 Presentation of the Blessed Virgin in the temple in her childhood ; this feast, originally observed Feb. 14, is the oldest festival in her honour, Dec. 8 the Immaculate Conception, Oct. 7 Our Lady of Victory, instituted by Pius V. in honour of the victory of the Christians over the Turks at Lepanto ; this victory was ascribed to her. All these days and a few more are marked in the R.M. Many others are set apart by different Churches and Orders in honour of certain events and relics con nected with the Mother of the Lord. The month of May is the month of Mary. By the Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin, March 7, are generally meant (1) the agony of grief that Mary felt when Simeon prophesied that this Child should be for the fall and rising again of many, and that a sword should pierce through her own soul; (2) when the angel told Joseph to flee into Egypt because Herod would seek the Child's life, and she saw from this how ill He would be received on earth ; (3) when He stayed behind at Jerusalem with the doctors and she lost Him ; (4) when she met Him carrying His cross ; (5) when she saw Him crucified ; (6) when He was taken down from the cross and she took Him in her arms; (7) when they took Him from her arms to bury Him.

St. Mary has many aliases, amongst others, The Blessed Virgin Mary, the Virgin, our Lady, the Mother of God ; the Madonna; the Queen of Heaven and Hell ; the Star of the Sea ; the Gate of Heaven; the Mother of Mercy; the Refuge of the Lost ; the Mediatrix ; the Protector from Divine justice and from the devil ; the Ladder of Paradise ; the Door ; the Ark ; Theotokos, Deipara, Deigenitrix, Bogoroditza. la, Mariarnne, Merg, Miriam, Mury, are identical with Mary.

She is patron of women named Annunciata, Candelaria, Concepcion, Dolores, etc. Cahier gives a long list of places, communities and industries of which she is patron. Among the coun tries are England, France, and Portugal ;

among the towns, Lincoln, Salisbury, Paris, Hampstead, and Montreal which was founded by the Sulpicians under the name of Villemarie. Among the re ligious orders are the Cistercians and the Order of Mercede for the Redemption of Captives. The newspaper-carriers of Paris and ribbon-makers are under the patronage of the Annunciation ; the fish- sellers of Paris specially honour her Assumption. The Conception is the patron of Spain and the Spanish Indies; the Nativity, of many places in Paris, of restaurants, cooks, fish- women, makers and sellers of ribbons, fringes, gold and silver cloth. As Our Lady of tlie Snow, she is patron of embroiderers, lace-makers, bleachers of linen and spinners of thread for lace ; this is probably on account of the perfect whiteness aimed at in these arts.

If the genealogy of our Lord given by St. Luke, is that of His mother, her father's name was Ileli, which is a variant oi Joachim, and the tradition that her mother's name was Anna is of great antiquity, and very likely to bo true.

All that we know of St. Mary from contemporary history is the little that is told in the Bible, but that little was soon amplified and gradually grew to a story of considerable length, most of which is to be found in the apocryphal gospels.

According to the traditions, Mary was the daughter of SS. Joachim and ANNA. For the story of their long childlessness and the wonderful circumstances of the birth of Mary, see ANNA (3).

When Mary was nine months old, Anna set her on the ground to see whether she could walk, and she walked nine steps. By another account, she was first set down at three months and walked three steps. Her mother caught her up and said, "As the Lord liveth thou walkest no more on this earth until I bring thee into the temple of the Lord." So she made her chamber a holy place and suffered nothing common or unclean to come near her, but invited certain well- reputed daughters of Israel to keep her company.

When she was a year old, Joachim made a great feast and invited all the

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priests, scribes, and elders, and many others. At tho feast he made an offer ing of his daughter to the chief priests. They blessed her, saying, " The God of our fathers bless this girl and give her a name famous and lasting through all generations.'* All the people cried, " Amen."

When she was two years old, Joachim proposed to Anna to take her to tho temple in fulfilment of their vow; but Anna said they would wait one more year that the child might know her parents. When she was three years old they took her to the temple, accompanied by several young women, each- carrying a lamp lest the child should be frightened. They delivered her to the priest, who " set her on the third step of the altar, and the Lord gave her grace, and she danced with her feet, and all the house of Israel loved her." Her parents left her with the other virgins who were to be brought up in the temple, and returned home.

During the years of her childhood and education there, she was daily visited and fed by angels. When she was twelve — or fourteen, or eighteen, for the accounts vary — the priests ordered that all the virgins who were of suitable age should return to their families and " ac cording to the custom of their country endeavour to be married." They all received the command gladly, except Mary, who was vowed by her parents to the service of God for life ; besides which, she had herself made a vow of virginity, so that she could not marry. Then the priests, after asking counsel in the usual way, made a proclamation that all the marriageable men of the house of David — or by another account, all tho widowers — should bring their rods to the altar, when it would be made known by a sign from heaven which of them should be the husband of Mary. So the criers went out through all Judea, and the men assembled and presented their rods. The high-priest prayed, and after wards returned to each man his rod ; but no sign followed. The high-priest again sought Divine instruction, and it was revealed to him that the man who was destined to marry Mary had kept back

his rod when the others were pre sented. Thus Joseph was betrayed, and had to produce his rod. No sooner had the high-priest taken it than it burst forth into flower and a dove from heaven lighted on it — or, according to the Prot- evangelion, a dove flew out of the rod and lighted on the head of Joseph. He, however, refused to marry, saying that he was eighty years old, and had grown up children, and that ho would become ridiculous in the eyes of all people if he married a young girl. The high-priest reminded him what an evil fate befel Korah, Dathan, arid Abirarn when they refused to do the bidding of tho inspired rulers of Israel. So Mary was espoused to Joseph the Carpenter. He took her to his house and left her there while he went to attend to his trade of building. Now the priests decided to make a new veil for the temple, and they sent for seven virgins of the tribe of David, and when they were come, Mary being one of them, the high-priest said, " Cast lots before me, who of you shall spin the golden thread, who the blue, who the scarlet, who the fine linen, and who the true purple." The purple fell to the lot of Mary, and she went away to her own house to spin it. One day she went out to draw water, and as she went she heard a voice saying to her. " Hail, thou that art full of grace, the Lord is with thee, thou art blessed among women ! " She looked round, trembling, and went back into her house, and putting down her pitcher, she sat down to work at the purple. Then she saw the angel Gabriel standing by her, and he told her she was highly favoured and that she should be come the mother of a Holy Child, the Son of God Whom she was to call Jesus (St. Luke i. 26-37). At the same time ne told her that her cousin (ST.) ELISA BETH, who was old and had been called barren, was in the sixth month of her pregnancy. Mary finished working the purple for the veil and carried it to the high-priest, who blessed her, and she went a great distance from Nazareth to visit and congratulate Elisabeth, who lived at Hebron or Juttah, about twenty miles south of Jerusalem.

Elisabeth received her with great

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joy and blessed her and was the first to hail her as the mother of the Lord (St. Luke i. 42). In answer to the salutation of Elisabeth, Mary uttered the song which we know as the Mag nificat (St. Luke i. 46-55). It shows that, whether the priests in the temple or her parents at Nazareth brought her up, she had been instructed in the scrip tures. The song is taken largely from that of Hannah (ANNA (1)), mother of Samuel (1 Sam. ii. 1-10). The rest of it is almost entirely from the Psalms and the books of Moses and the Prophets.

When Mary returned to her husband's house, it became manifest that she was with child. While Joseph was grieved and perplexed, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and told him that she was about to become the mother of the Saviour of the world. They both suffered some suspicion and abuse from the priests, but they rejoiced because they were favoured by God.

Soon they set out for Bethlehem, in obedience to the decree of the Emperor Augustus that all the Jews should be taxed.

The Virgin Mother brought forth her son in a cave used as the stable of the overcrowded inn. At the moment of the Lord's birth everything stood still : the clouds were astonished, the birds stopped in the midst of their flight, people sitting at table did not move their hands to feed, and those who had meat in their mouth did not go on eat ing ; but all faces were looking upwards ; the kids that had their mouths touching the water did not drink. Then came SALOME and would not believe that a virgin had brought forth a child; and her hand withered, but she acknowledged her fault, repented of her presumption, and worshipped the new-born King ; she was allowed to carry the Child, and as soon as she took Him in her arms, her hand was made well. One of the legends of the Nativity — popular in Spain — was that the cow and the ass in the stable were quiet to let the Madonna rest, but the ox and the mule made their noises and disturbed her, and that is the reason that the ox and the mule never have any young ones to this day.

Next came the Wise Men from the East, led by a star of wondrous bright ness, to the place where the young Child and His mother were. They worshipped the Child and presented their gifts and returned to their own country. The shepherds in the fields and SS. Simeon and ANNA (2) in the temple acknow ledged the Divinity of the new-born Saviour, and Simeon foretold to the B. Y. Mary the martyrdom of grief that she was to suffer. Then Herod, fearing that a rival king of Judea was born in Bethlehem, sent men to kill all the children there of two years old and under. Mary was afraid, wrapped her Child in swaddling clothes and hid Him in an ox-manger ; but Joseph, warned of God that Herod was seeking to kill the Child, fled into Egypt, taking his wife and her Infant on an ass while he and his son Simeon walked beside them. Many legendary details of this journey are told in the various apocryphal books. As the holy family sat resting under a tree, the divine Child commanded the branches to bend down that His mother might gather the fruit to refresh herself. When dragons and other monsters came out to trouble them, He stood before them and they went peacefully away. Lions and wild asses carried the baggage the little party brought with them.

During part of their journey they were pursued by Herod's men, and at one place they passed through, the in habitants were sowing corn in the fields. Mary said to them, " If people come here asking for us, tell them we passed through your place when you were sowing corn." They promised to do so. The corn grew up and ripened in one night. Next day, when the same men were reaping it, Herod's soldiers arrived and asked them whether a young woman with an infant and an old man had passed that way. They said, "Yes, they passed through when we were sowing this corn." The soldiers thought that must have been months ago, but a wicked black beetle lifted up its head and said, " Yesterday, yesterday." However, nobody listened to it, and the soldiers gave up the pur suit as hopeless. I have heard an amiable French child say, " Kill that

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beetle, always kill a beetle, it comes from hell." Peasants in our own country a generation ago would say to a beetle in the fields, with an accent of reproof or menace, '* Yesterday, beetle, yester day."

Once the holy family drew near to a great city where there were many images of false gods. They all fell down at the approach of the true God and His mother. Mary was afraid that as Herod had sought to kill the Saviour, much more would the Egyptians be jealous of Him when they heard that their great idol had fallen down at His coming. They went therefore to the wild places where rob bers lived. The robbers at their approach heard a noise as of a king with a great army coming, they were terrified and fled in haste, leaving all their booty. Upon this, the prisoners whom they had taken, arose and loosened each other's bonds, and each taking his own property, went off. They met Joseph and Mary, and asked where the king and the soldiers were who had frightened away the robbers. Again they passed through a region infested with robbers, and saw a number of them lying asleep, two were lying on the road. Their names were Titus and Dumachus. (The Gospel of Nicodemus calls them Dimas and Gestas.) Titus said to Dumachus, " Let these persons go safely on their way and do not awake our companions." Dumachus refused, and Titus said, " I will give thee forty groats. Here, take my girdle as a pledge," and he gave it him at once that Dumachus might not speak or make any noise. When Mary saw the kind ness of the good robber, she said, " The Lord God will receive thee at His right hand and grant thee pardon for thy sins." Then the Lord Jesus said to His mother, " When thirty years have passed, the Jews will crucify me at Jerusalem, and these two men will be crucified with me, Titus on my right hand and Dumachus on my left, and Titus shall go with me into Paradise that day." She said, " God forbid that this should be Thy lot."

They next went to another city where there were many idols, and as soon as they came near it, the city was turned into heaps of sand. Thence they went

to a sycamore tree, and there the Lord caused a well to spring forth in which Mary washed her Son's coat. A balsam grows in that country from the sweat which ran down from our Lord.

A great many miraculous cures, espe cially of leprosy and demoniacal posses sion, were performed by Mary, by means of the water in which she had washed her Son or His clothes. She defeated many cruel sorceries : one was in connec tion with a young man, the only pro tector of his sisters. A malignant sor cerer had changed him into a mule, but his sisters having hospitably received the holy travellers, revealed their grief to a young girl whom Mary had cured of leprosy and who had begged leave to remain with her and attend upon her. The Blessed Mary took her Son, set Him on the mule's back, and bade Him re store the animal to his true form ; which he instantly did. The grateful sisters, with Mary's consent, married their brother to the girl who had had the honour of being her servant and had induced them to seek her aid.

After the return of the Holy Family to their own country, they lived at Na zareth, and many incidents are told of the next few years there and of the child hood of the Saviour. That of the Child Jesus tarrying behind in Jerusalem when Joseph and Mary had taken Him there on their yearly visit, at the feast of the passover, and His talking with the Eab- bis there, and being missed and found again by His parents, is told both in the Gospel of St. Luke (ii. 41-50) and in the first Apocryphal Gospel of the In fancy, with the addition (in the latter) that the doctors said, " Oh, happy Mary, who hast borne such a son ! "

From this time until the beginning of our Lord's ministry, little is recorded of St. Mary. Smith's Dictionary says that she was probably — at all events from the time of Joseph's death — living with her sister MARY (o), who, contrary to the legendary account of St. Anne and her family, was older than the Blessed Virgin and whose children were much older than the Lord.

St. Mary was at the wedding-feast in Cana of Galilee, where our Lord's first

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public miracle provided wine for the occasion. The marriage was apparently that of a relation, as she seems to have had some authority in the household (St. John ii. 1-11). Soon after this, she and her sister and nephews heard that He was going about teaching and doing good and had no leisure so much as to eat, and in their anxiety for His health and safety they determined to remon strate with Him. They could not, for the crowds of people, gain access to Him. It was told Him that His mother and His brethren stood without, desiring to see Him. He gave the answer that we know, St. Matt. xii. 4-6 ; St. Mark iii. 31 ; and St. Luke viii. 19. St. Mary is next met with at the time of the Crucifixion (St. John xix. 25, 26, 27), when the dying Saviour saw His mother and St. John standing by the Cross, and commended her to the care of the disciple " whom He loved," " and from that hour that disciple took her to his own home." They are both named among those who, after the Lord's Ascension, continued at Jerusalem in prayer and supplication (Acts i. 14). It is probable that she spent the rest of her life there, although one account says that she accompanied St. John to Ephesus and died there in the year 48.

Concerning her death, her burial and assumption into Paradise, the Syriac Apocrypha says that when the apostles dispersed to preach in all the world, Mary, still in great sorrow, was constant in prayer every hour at the tomb and at Golgotha ; and as those who had cruci fied her Son and Lord hated her, they wished to kill her also, and set people to watch for her with orders to stone her if she went there to pray. Therefore Mary prayed to her Son to take her out of the world, and when the spies tried to speak to her or touch her, they could not for they saw the angel of God talking to her. The Jews then begged her to depart from Jerusalem, so she went to her own house at Bethlehem, and the three virgins who dwelt with her and who were daughters of the chief men of Jerusalem, went with her. She knew that she was soon to die and she wished to see her Son and all the Apostles be

fore she departed out of the world. St. John was going into church at Ephesus and was warned by the Spirit of God to go and see his adopted mother. He was conveyed to her house instantly in a cloud of light. St. Peter was brought from Eome, St. Paul from Tiberias, St. Matthew from Beyrout, St. Bartholomew from Armenia, St. Thaddc^ous from Lao- dicea, and St. James from the cave of fiion. Five of the Apostles were dead, but they were awakened and brought to Bethlehem, and she took leave of them and blessed them. They carried her on a litter to Jerusalem. One of the priests of the Jews tried to throw down the litter into the valley that she might be burnt, but an angel smote off-iris arms ; the merciful Mary, however, forgave him and bade St. Peter give him back his arms. Then came EVE, HANNA, ELISA BETH, the patriarchs and the angels. The Saviour took her soul and the Apostles carried her body to the valley of Jehoshaphat, St. John going first and carrying the palm branch which an angel had brought to her from heaven before her death. They laid her in a new tomb and sat at the mouth of it as the Lord Jesus had commanded them. He then asked them what He should do, and they prayed Him to raise up the body of His mother and take it with Him to Heaven, and He did so. St. Thomas was in India, and when he was called was in the act of baptizing the king's nephew (see ST. MIGDONIA). Therefore he did not arrive in time to see all the wonders that the others had seen. He begged them to tell him everything, and when they had done so, he said he must see the empty tomb, "For I am Thomas, and you know that unless I see, I cannot believe/' They showed him the tomb ; the body of the blessed woman was not there, but instead (says the Portuguese tradition) the grave was quite full of roses. Then Thomas confessed that he had seen on his way to Jerusalem, the mother of the Saviour being carried to Heaven by angels, and that as he had not been able to come and stand with the others beside her deathbed, she had given him her girdle.

Another legend is that she died and

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was buried at Antioch, and that when they sought for her body in the tomb it was not there, but crowds of beautiful lilies were growing in the place where the Blessed Virgin had lain.

Tillemont (Hist. Ecc. I. 4(5;}) says that although the tradition of her being brought up in the temple is founded en tirely on apocryphal writings, it is clear from 2 Kings xi. 2,'>, 2 Chron. xxii. 11, 12, and St. Luke ii. ;>7, that under some circumstances women did live in the temple and bring up children there. Exodus xxxviii. 8 appears to have been taken by St. Ambrose to mean that there were women set apart for the service of the house of God. Tillemont further says that, although the Jewish traditions quoted by Epiphanius and Gregory were supposed to imply that the Virgin con secrated to God was to remain a virgin, and although the story of her marriage takes for granted not only that she had a vow of celibacy but that such a vow was of ordinary occurrence, " or I'un et lautre est sans apparence"

Whereas the Jewish writers disparaged Mary and stigmatized her Son as illegiti mate, Mohammedan tradition makes her identical with Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron, and says that she was miraculously kept alive for centuries in order to be the mother of Christ. It represents her as a holy virgin dedicated to God before her birth, by her mother Hannah ; educated by the priests in the temple, where angels ministered to her and where St. Gabriel appeared to her with the salutation, " O Mary ! verily God sendeth thee good tidings that thou shalt bear the Word proceeding from Himself. He shall be called Christ Jesus the son of Mary." Her child was born under a palm tree, and there God provided a stream of water for her and ripe dates fell from the tree for her to eat. The holy Infant spoke and taught and de clared His mission. " This," continues the story, " was Jesus the son of Mary, concerning whom they doubt." Neither Mary nor her Son were guilty of sin like other children of Adam, for, at their birth, God placed a veil between them and the evil spirit, because Mary's mother Hannah had prayed that they

should be protected from Satan. This is the germ of the doctrine of the Im maculate Conception. During the first six centuries this doctrine was not heard of. So far was Mary from being con sidered faultless, that the " sword " which was to " pierce through her own soul " was interpreted by St. Basil, in the fifth century, to mean the pang of unbelief in her Son's divinity that she experienced when she witnessed His cruci fixion ; and her going with her nephews to try to interrupt His preaching and labours was attributed by St. Chry- sostom to arrogance and ambition. St. Ambrose describes her as a pattern of a young girl. St. Augustine says she was under original sin, but that perhaps the grace of God protected her entirely from actual sin.

The observance of a feast of the Im maculate Conception is said to have been established in England by St. Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, in 1109. St. Bernard opposed the inno vation. From the 14th century the Mohammedan belief in Mary's entire sinlessness grew and spread, until a decree of Pius IX., in 1854, established it as a dogma of the Church. As her worship increased, many passages in the scriptures were discovered to be pro phetic or mystical references to her. She was the Bride of Solomon's Song ; the Woman clothed with the Sun ; the East Gate of Ezekiel's Temple, by which the Prince of the people entered once, and which was shut for evermore (Eze- kiel xliv. 2) ; Jacob's ladder (Gen. xxviii. 12); the burning bush (Exodus iii. 2) ; Aaron's rod (Numbers xvii. 8) ; Gideon's fleece (Judges vi. 37).

The Church of St. Mary in Trastevere, in Home, claims to stand on the site of one built about 222 by Pope Calixtus. Other places claim to have had the first church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, but it is thought that the worship of Diana, virgin-nurse of the universe, was transferred to St. Mary and led to the building of the first church at Ephesus, in the fourth century, when " the Peace of the Church " was granted by Con- stantine. Until that time monuments were erected to martyrs only. After

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the council of Ephesus, many churches were called by her name. St. PULCHERIA, the empress, built four great churches in Constantinople in her honour.

As to relics, no part of her body ever was to be had, because it had been taken to heaven ; but in many places there were articles held in great veneration, as having belonged to her ; many locks of her hair were shown in divers places, and a festival in honour of one at Oviedo was held on May 2. Her robe, her sash, her ring, each had a fete ; and her veil, scarf, cloak, distaff, combs, gloves, bed, and many small household articles were treasured. Some of these were found near Jerusalem in the fifth century. When her comb and her sash were worshipped her husband could not escape: St. Joseph's day is March 19. His name began to be inserted in the martyrologies towards the end of the ninth century. Some of the traditions of the childhood of St. Mary are of the second century.

E.M. Apocryphal Gospels. Smith, Die. of the Bible. Butler. Baillet. Tillernont, Hist. Eccles. Trench, Mediae val Church History. For " Merg " as one of her names, my authority is Miss Eckenstein's Woman under Monasticism.

St. Mary (3) Magdalene, MADE LEINE, or MADDALENA, July 22, 1st century. The first person to whom our Lord appeared after His resurrection. One of " Les trois Maries" the others being Mary (5) and Mary (6). Mary Magdalene is the patron of penitent women, and of Provence and Marseilles.

Eepresented with great quantities of fair hair ; often in a desert place, lying or kneeling on the ground ; frequently in tears ; with a vase of ointment near her ; sometimes carried by angels.

The sign for her day, in ancient Norwegian calendars, is a chair, from the legend that on her arrival in heaven, the BLESSED VIRGIN MARY rose and gave her own chair to Mary Magdalene.

In St. Luke viii. 1, 2, we read that our Lord " went throughout every city and village preaching . . . and the twelve were with him and certain women which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene

out of whom went seven devils, and JOANNA . . . and SUSANNA, and many others, which ministered unto Him of their substance." Such attendance on a beloved and revered Rabbi and such contributions to his maintenance were quite in accordance with the customs of the time and country. The associa tion of Mary Magdalene with these women of honourable station makes it unlikely that she had been until that time " a notorious evil liver."

The next Biblical mention of Mary Magdalene, refers to the day of the Crucifixion. She is spoken of at one time as standing afar off (St. Matt. xxvii. 55, 56 ; St. Mark xv. 40) ; at another as close to the Cross (St. John xix. 25). With " the other Mary," she watched the entombment (St. Mark xv. 47), and when Joseph of Arimathea departed in the evening, he left them sitting by the grave (St. Matt, xxvii. 61). Through the sabbath day that followed, the GalilsBan women "rested" (St. Luke xxiii. 56), but "very early in the morning" (St. Mark xvi. 2) of Easter Day, they made their way back to the sepulchre. They found it open, the stone rolled to one side and angel-watchers without and within (St. Matt, xxviii. 2 ; St. Mark xvi. 5 ; St. Luke xxiv. 4). The anointing spices which they had brought were needless, for they learnt that their Lord was risen (St. Matt, xxviii. 6 ; St. Mark xvi. 6 ; St. Luke xxiv. 6). They "fled from the sepulchre," says St. Mark, " they trembled and were amazed, neither said they anything to any man" (xvi. 8). St. Matthew's account is different ; he tells us that they departed " with fear and great joy, and did run to bring His disciples word " (St. Matt, xxviii. 8). "As they went to tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail." And they " held Him by the feet and worshipped Him." From His own lips they received the command to carry His message to His brethren. No further mention of Mary Magdalene is found in the New Testament, although she is doubtless included among the women referred to in Acts i. 14. Tradition has added many details, and

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it is a disputed point whether Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, and the " woman who was a sinner " were three different persons or not.

The Legenda Aurea says that St. Mary Magdalene was to have been married to St. John the Evangelist, and that Christ called him from the wedding. To compensate them for the loss of domestic happiness, Ho bestowed upon each of them an abundant love toward God. The same legend says that after the Ascension of the Lord, Mary, MARTHA, Lazarus, Maximus or Maxi- minus, and MARCELLA were set adrift by the Jews in a boat without sails or oars. They were driven ashore at Marseilles, where the inhabitants refused them food or shelter. They took refuge in the porch of a heathen temple, and there Mary preached to the people who, after a time, were touched by her eloquence, and by the miracles performed by Lazarus and the others. Mary con verted the King and Queen, and per suaded them to destroy the temples and build Christian churches. Lazarus was unanimously chosen bishop of Mar seilles, and Maximian bishop of Aix.

Mary then withdrew to a cave (la Sainte Beaume) in a treeless, waterless desert, where she lived in prayer and penance for thirty years. She was fed, from time to time, by angels, and at every canonical hour they lifted her from the earth and she heard the songs of the blessed with her bodily ears. When her death was near, the angels carried her to the oratory of St. Maxi mian on Easter Monday. He saw them holding her two or three cubits above the ground. She begged him to give her the holy sacrament, which he did in presence of many priests. She im mediately died, and they buried her honourably at the place now called St. Maximin. This and la Sainte Beaume, the tomb of Martha at Vezelay, of Lazarus at Autun, of Mary (5) and (6) at Aries and Tarascon were famous places of pilgrimage in the middle ages. EM. Mrs. Jameson. Villegas. The Golden Legend. Smith, Die. of the Bible. Pere Lacordaire. Paul Lacroix, Vie reJigieuse au moyen age, " Pelerinages."

St. Mary (4) of Bethany, July 29, is the pattern of the contemplative re ligious life, as MAKTHA is of the active. Twice reproached as unpractical or wasteful, our Lord in both cases ap proved the course she took. She was sister of SS. Lazarus and Martha. All three were beloved by the Saviour. The first mention of the sisters is in St. Luke x. JJ8-42. Martha received Him into her house and " was cumbered about much serving, but Mary sat at His feet and heard His word." Martha com plained that her sister was not helping her, and Christ gave her the memorable answer, "Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things, but . . . Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her." St. John xi. tells of the death and resurrection of Lazarus. St. John xii. 1-8, tells how, after the raising of Lazarus, and six days before the Passover, the Lord again paid a visit to the family at Bethany and they made a feast for Him, Lazarus sitting with Him at the table, Martha again serving. " Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard very costly and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair : and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment." Judas blamed her as wasteful, but the Lord commended her action. In the legends she is identified with Mary Magdalene and with the " sinner " of St. Luke vii. o7, but the circumstances of the anointing in St. Luke are quite different from those of the incident recorded by St. John. Compare with MARTHA (1) and MARY MAGDALENE.

St. Mary (5) of Clopas, April y, May 2:> (MAUY JACOBI or JACOBE, MARY UNGUENTIFERA (MS. Syuaxary at Dijon j), one of those who brought spices, etc., to embalm the body of the Lord ; one of " les trois Manes" (See MARY (3).)

Represented carrying a vase.

In the Bible she is called the " wife of Cleophas," but modern criticism says the name is Clopas, which is identical with Alphaaus, and different from Cleopas mentioned by St. Luke xxiv. 8, at Emmaus. Tradition calls her sister

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ST. MAJEIY SALOME

of the VIRGIN MARY, and from a com parison of St. John xix. 25, St. Matt. xxvii. 50, St. Mark xv. 40, it would appear that she was so, but it is not certain. Mary was the mother of Joses or Joseph and of St. James the Less — the apostle who was the first bishop of Jerusalem — and probably step-mother of Simon, and of St. Jude or Thaddeus. Compare St. Mark vi. 3, and xv. 40. She is also said to have had several daughters ; St. Epiphanius mentions two, whom he calls Mary and Salome. Other accounts speak of Mary Salome as one person and sister of Mary Clopas. (Compare SALOME.) Some traditions say Mary was married first to Alphseus, who was the father of St. James ; and secondly to Clophas or Clopas, who is said to be the brother of Joseph, husband of the Virgin Mary. Hege- sippus identities Simon, the son of Clopas, with Symeon, second bishop of Jerusalem, who was put to death under Trajan, as being of the house of David and a relation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Mary followed Christ during the three years of His ministry, assisting Him in His journeys and listening to His teaching ; she followed Him to Calvary and stood by His cross with His mother and Mary Magdalene. She was one of those who followed Him to the grave and beheld where He was laid ; then, with Mary Magdalene and Mary Salome, she prepared spices and all that was necessary to embalm His sacred body ; and having rested the Sabbath day, according to the commandment, they came to the sepulchre before day break, to fulfil this last duty of love and reverence. There they saw the angels, and hearing from them that the Lord was risen, they returned to the city with fear and great joy. On the way they met Him and embraced His feet. They then went to tell the disciples what had happened ; but they at first would not believe them.

It has been pretended, without au thority, that the bodies of Mary of Clopas, and Mary Salome are preserved at a little town called Les Trois Maries near the mouths of the Rhone ; and that Mary Clopas and Mary Salome

settled at Varoli in Italy, after the death of the Virgin Mary ; also that Mary Clopas went to Spain with MARY MAGDALENE and died at Ciudad Eodrigo. The legend of St. ANNE says that Mary Clopas was the daughter of ANNA (3) by her second husband, consequently she was younger than the mother of our Lord ; but Smith's Dictionary says she was probably older than the Blessed Virgin Mary, and her children very much older than our Saviour. He adds that Clopas was probably dead before the ministry of the Lord began ; St. Joseph was also probably dead. The two widowed sisters lived together; their children were therefore regarded as brothers and sisters, in a more decided sense than that in which southern and eastern nations call all cousins bro thers. Possibly the B. V. Mary lived with her sister before her marriage or on her return from Egypt. St. Matt, xii. 47, and xiii. 55 show that they were one household. R.M. Baillet.

St. Mary (6) Salome, SALOME (2). St. Mary (7), June 29. 1st century. Mother of John whose surname was Mark. She has been called the sister of St. Barnabas, but was more probably his aunt, for, according to Bishop Light- foot and the Revised Version of the Bible, the expression " sister's son to Barnabas" (Colossians iv. 10) does not mean that Mark was son of the sister of Barnabas, but that Barnabas and Mark were sons of two sisters. Sister's son is the common name in the East for first

cousin.

It is related of Mary that having heard of the holy teaching and miracles of the Lord Jesus, she at once perceived that He was the Messiah, and leaving what she had in her hands, went directly to the temple, and throwing herself at His feet, prayed Him to come to her house that His entrance there might bless her and her family; that He accepted her hospitality then and every time He came to Jerusalem ; and that in her house He instituted the sacrament of the Last Supper. These things are not told in the New Testament nor in any of the oldest