Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 3.djvu/808

 CHRISTINE

724

OHKISTMAS

was five years old she went to Paris with her father, Thomas de Pisan, who had been appointed astrologer and secretary to King Charles V. She was reared at the court, and educated in the ancient languages and literatures. At the age of fourteen she married a nobleman from Picardy, Etienne du Castel. When her husband died she was only twenty-five years old. Her father and her protector, King Charles, having died several years before, she found herself in strait- ened circumstances, with three children to provide for. Henry IV, King of England, and Galeazzo Vis- conti, Tyrant of Milan, each invited her to come and live at his court, but she refused to leave France, where she had been so well treated, and resolved to make a living with her pen. Her writings in prose and verse soon gained her great renown. Her con- temporaries compared her eloquence with that of Cicero and her wisdom with that of Cato. Prompted by necessity she wrote incessantly. She declares herself that "in the short space of six years, between 1397 and 1403, she wrote fifteen important books, without mentioning minor essays, which, compiled, make seventy large copy-books." Among her works in prose we may cite: " Le Livre des Faitz et bonnes Mceurs du Saige Roy Charles", an elaborate bio- graphy, written at the solicitation of Philip of Bur- gundy, who was rearing her eldest son as his own child; this book is full of moral lessons, but its merit is somewhat impaired by a useless display of erudi- tion and a diffuse style; " Le Livre de Paix", a trea- tise dealing with the education of princes, who, ac- cording to the author, should be trained in honesty and uprightness, rather than in diplomatic trickery; "Tresor de la Cit6 des Dames" and "Lettre a, Isa- beau de Baviere", in which she endeavours to re- habilitate the character of a woman who had been defamed by the " Roman de la Rose".

Her poetical works consist mostly of long poems, such as "Le Livre des Mutations de Fortune", "Le Chemin de Longue Etude", "Le Livre des cent His- toires de Troie", etc. These are ambitious and heavy compositions. Her ballades, rondeaux, and lesser poems are more commendable; they are clear and graceful. As a complete edition of Christine's works is being made, her talent will no longer be judged from extracts and separate poems. Though she is by no means a great poetess, she was mentioned with praise eighty years after her death by Marot. She is superior to Eustache Deschamps, her master.

Petit de Julleville, Histoire de la tongue et de la litteraturr frantaise (Paris. 1S96>. XI; Paris, La htUrature jrancaise au moyen-age (Paris. 1S90); Robineau, Christine de Pisan (.Saint-Omer, 1882); Roy, (Euvres de Christine de Pisan (Paris, 1895), 3 vols.; Minto, Christine de Pisan, a Medieval Champion of her Sex, in Macmillan's Magazine (1886), LIII, ■' . I I .11 NBEE, Christine de Pisan and .S'l'r John Mandeville in Romana (1892) XXI, 228-39.

Louis N. Delamarre.

Christine of Stommeln, Blessed, b. at Stom- meln near Cologne, in 1242; d. 6 November, 1312. Stommeln, called in the fourteenth century Stumbcln, is situated about nine miles north-west of Cologne and about six miles west of the Rhine. Christine's father was a well-to-do peasant named Heinrich Bruso; the Dame of her mother was Hilla. When five years old Christine had visions of the Christ Child to whom she was mystically married in her tenth year. When eleven years old she learned to read the Psalter, but could not write. When twelve her parents wished to give her in marriage, but she went to the convent of t he Beguines at ( iologne, where she led a life of severe pi aance, spent much time in prayer, and often fell into convulsions. In her fifteenth year she received the stigmata on her hands and feet and the marks of the Crown of Thorns on the head. She suffered many It -: of the devil, had many trials of her faith, and was tempted to suicide. The Beguines thought her crazy and treated her with contempt, so she went

back home. As early as 1267 the parish priest, Johannes, took Christine into his house, where she made the acquaintance of Peter of Dacia, a Domini- can from Gotland who was at Cologne as a pupil of St. Albert the Great. A mystical bond of devotion, the object of which was God, was formed between the two. Peter visited Christine in 1270 on his way back from Paris to Gotland, and again in 1279: in his ac- count of her he mentions altogether fifteen visits. Christine's brother followed Peter to Gotland anil entered the Dominican Order. Peter became lector and in 1283 was prior in Gotland, where he died in 12S8. In this same year the torments which Chris- tine suffered through the devil ceased, and she lived a peaceful life, wearing always the dress of the Beguines, until her death. Her body was first buried in the churchyard at Stommeln and then in the church itself; in 1342 her remains were carried to Niedeggen in the Eifel; a couple of centuries later, 22 June, 1569, they were transferred to Julich, where a monument to her still exists. At Julich are also to be seen the notes made by Peter of Dacia and the collection of her letters which the Bollandists have published under the date of 22 June (IV, 271-430). It is diffi- cult to decide just how much literal truth exists in Christine's visions and apparitions from Purgatory. But even Renan did not doubt the puritv of her life (Hist. lift, de la France, XXVIII, 1-26). The ven- eration of the Church has not been granted to Chris- tine; however, the anniversary of her death, 6 Novem- ber, is observed in Julich.

Wollersheim, Das Leben der ckstatischen und stigmatischen

Jungfrau Christina von Stommeln (Cologne, 1859); Paulson*

edited the Latin life (Gotaburg, 1S96); Bone in Kirchenlex.,

III. 236; Michael, Gesch. des deutschen Volkes, III, 165-167.

Gabriel Meier.

Christmas. — The word for Christmas in late O. E. is Cristes Maesse, the Mass of Christ, first found in 1038, and Cristcs-messe, in 1131. In Dutch it is Kerst-misse, in Lat. Dies Natalis, whence Fr. Noel, and Ital. // natale; in Ger. Weihnachtsfest, from the preceding sacred vigil. The term Yule is of disputed origin. It is unconnected with any word meaning "wheel". The name in A. S. was geol, feast: geola, the name of a month (cf. Icel. idl, a feast in December).

Early Celebration. — Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church. Irenaeus and Tertullian omit it from their lists of feasts; Origen, glancing perhaps at the discreditable imperial Naia- litia, asserts (in Lev. Horn, viii in Migne, P. G., XII, 495) that in the Scriptures sinners alone, not saints, celebrate their birthday; Arnobius (VII, 32 in P. L., V, 1264) can still ridicule the "birthdays" of the gods. The first evidence of the feast is from Egypt. Clement of Alexandria, c. 200 (Strom.. I, xxi in P. G., VIII, 888), says that certain Egyptian theologians ''over curiously" assign, not the year alone, but the day of Christ's birth, placing it on 25 Pachon (20 May) in the twenty-eighth year of Augustus. [Idcler (Chron., II, 387, n.) thought they did this believing that the ninth month, in which Christ was born, was the ninth of their own calendar.] Others reached the date of 24 or 25 Pharmuthi (19 or 20 April). With Clement's evidence may be mentioned the "De pascha computus", written in 24.' > and falsely ascribed to Cyprian (P. L., IV, 963 sqq.), which places Christ's birth on 28 March, because on that day the material sun was created. But Lupi has shown (Zaccaria, Dissertazioni ecc. del p. A. M. Lupi, Faenza. 17s,',, p. 219! that there is no month in the year to which re- -pe. -table authorities have not assigned Christ's birth.

Clement, however, also tells us thai the Basilidians celebrated the Epiphany (q. v.). and with it, prob- ably, the Nativity, on 15 or 1 1 Tybi (10 or 6 January).

At any rate this double commemoration became pop- ular, partly because the apparition to the shepherds was considered as one manifestation of Christ's glory,