Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/62

Rh  of a pope, Cyriacus, otherwise unknown to history. The scepticism aroused by these wholesale discoveries was silenced by the visions of Elizabeth of Schönau (d. 1165), which provided elaborate explanations of all difficulties and inconsistencies. Further and even more extravagant explanations were supplied after Elizabeth's death by two books written in 1183 and 1187, probably by the blessed Hermann, popularly called Hermann Joseph. Geoffrey of Monmouth first interwove the legend with the general history of the time, embellished it with many fanciful details and historical anachronisms, and gave universal currency to what was originally a purely local tradition (see his Hist. Brittonum, lib. v. chaps. ix.–xix.). By the end of the twelfth century the saint had become one of the most widely revered in Europe. At Cologne a famous church, served first by nuns and afterwards by canonesses, rose on the site of the discoveries, which by an extension of the city became included within its walls. This church still contains the tomb of St. Ursula and a wonderful collection of relics of the virgin-host (see, Wegweiser zur Kirche der heiligen Ursula in Köln). Relics were scattered throughout Europe with a lavish hand until Boniface IX (d. 1404) forbade further translations of them. Churches were dedicated to St. Ursula all over Europe, especially in North Germany, but also in Italy, Hungary, Spain, and Britain (for the hospital of St. Ursula at Leicester, see, Monasticon, vi. 765). Heligoland was often called the ‘island of St. Ursula,’ and the story grew that she stopped there on her way to the Rhine. She came to be looked on as the special patron of maidens; gilds and societies were established under her patronage, especially in the Rhineland and Swabia; the oldest was founded at Cracow in the fourteenth century, and they were generally called ‘St. Ursula ships,’ a symbol intimately associated with the saint (cf., Lives of the Saints, Oct. ii., p. 544; Ein fast grosse lobliche Bruderschaft genand Sandt Ursulas Schifflein, Nuremberg? 1525; The Confraternity of St. Ursula at St. Lawrence Jewry, London, 1550). The cult of Ursula was never more universal than in the fifteenth century, when she held almost a unique position as a favourite subject both of German and Italian painters. One of the earliest religious orders founded during the counter-reformation was that of the Ursulines in 1537 (see Chronique de l'Ordre des Ursulines, Paris, 1576, 2 vols.); and special devotion was shown to St. Ursula by the jesuits, who in 1588 organised a brilliant translation of Ursulan relics to Lisbon.

A representation of St. Ursula painted before 1450 is preserved in one of the wings of the famous Dombild at Cologne, and in the Ursula church in the same city her story is told in a series of old but much restored pictures. In the Wallraf Richartz Museum, Cologne, are at least fourteen pictures, by early German masters, treating of her history. Of infinitely greater merit than these is the series of exquisitely finished small pictures painted by Hans Memling about 1486 to adorn the shrine of St. Ursula at Bruges, in which a portion of her relics is preserved. Her history is also delineated in the series of nine pictures painted about 1495 by Vittore Carpaccio, and now in the academy at Venice. An especially fine Moretto at Brescia has Ursula as its central subject (, Miscellaneous Studies, p. 97). Lorenzo di Credi, Palma Vecchio, and Martino da Udine have also painted what was evidently a favourite subject with Venetian artists (cf. The Legend of St. Ursula, 1869; Mrs., Sacred and Legendary Art, pp. 297–306; , La Légende de Sainte Ursule d'après les anciens tableaux de l'Eglise de Sainte-Ursule à Cologne, 1860; , Ursule d'après les Peintures d'Hemling, Ghent, 1818; and for Carpaccio, , Fors Clavigera, 1872, No. xx. pp. 14–16, and 1876, pp. 339–41, 350–7, where he apparently follows late Italian versions of the legend).

[The earliest form of the developed legend is taken from a Passio Sanctarum Undecim Millium Virginum, generally called, from its opening words, Regnante Domino, which is printed in Crombach's Ursula Vindicata, pp. 1–18, the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum, Oct. ix. pp. 157–63, and, with a German translation, in Kessel's St. Ursula und ihre Gesellschaft, pp. 168–95; it is also summarised in Sigebert of Gemblours' Chronographia in Mon. Germ. Hist. Scriptt. vi. 310. The Sermo in Natali is printed in Acta SS. pp. 154–5, and in Kessel, pp. 156–67. The books of Hermann, sometimes attributed to the Englishman, Richard the Premonstratensian [q. v.], are printed in the Acta Sanctorum, pp. 173–202, which also contains a list of the names of the eleven thousand (pp. 202–7, 258–69). An attempt to reconcile the version in the Regnante Domino with the Schönau visions is made in a twelfth-century Prologus in Novam Editionem Passionis XI Millium Virginum, first printed in Kessel, pp. 206–19. The sceptical view first maintained by J. de Montreuil, who died in 1418 (see Martene and Durand's Vet. Script. Collect. Ampliss. ii. 1417–18), was naturally adopted by the reformed churches, and even Baronius toned the legend down to vague generalities. J. Sirmond (d. 1561) suggested that ‘undecim millia’