Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/241

Rh Chester, Gloucester, Oxford, and Peterborough. The con stitution of these cathedrals was similar to those of the other monastic cathedrals, and the codes of statutes almost identical. In all the cathedrals of the New Foundation the precentor, instead of being a chief dignitary second only to the dean, is one of the minor canons. The cathedrals of the Old Foundation, whose constitution has not been materially changed since the 13th century, and which are in some instances still governed by pre- Reformation statutes, are those of York, London, Chichester, Exeter, Hereford, Lichfield, Lincoln, Salisbury, and Wells, together with those of the four Welsh bishoprics Bangor, Llandaff, St Asaph s, and St David s. Monastic cathedrals being nearly peculiar to England and Germany, these Old Foundation cathedrals &quot; are those whose history and con stitution has most in common with the churches of Scotland, Ireland, and Western Christendom generally&quot; (Freeman, u.s., p. 139). To these must bs added the two recently-erected cathedrals of Manchester and Kipon. In each of these cases advantage was taken of an existing collegiate establishment on which to graft a cathedral. No provision is made in the Act for the founding of the see of St Alban s for the creation of a capitular body. The legislation of 3 and 4 Victoria reduced all the cathedrals of England and Wales to a uniform constitution. The normal type is that of a dean and four canons. Canterbury, Durham, and Ely, however, have six canons a-piece, and Winchester and Exeter five. To remove still further the distinction between cathedrals of the Old and New Foundation, a body of honorary canons was called into being in the latter to correspond to the prebendaries of the former foundations. The prebendal estates having been alienated, the honour in each case is equally a barren one. In not a few of the English cathedrals the due perfor mance of the choral service is provided for by a corporation of &quot; lay vicars,&quot; forming in some cases an independent body endowed with estates of their own. The chorister boys also in some cases are supported and educated from the proceeds of separate estates. The &quot; priest vicars,&quot; or &amp;lt;; minor canons,&quot; in several instances, also have their own estates and form a corporation by themselves. It does not fall within the scope of the present article to cuter upon the ritual and architectural history of cathedrals. In neither of these respects do they differ essentially from other important and dignified churches.

1em  CATHERINE,. The Roman hagiology contains the record of no less than six saints of this name, viz. : 1. St Catherine, virgin and martyr, whose day of com memoration recurs on the 25th of November; 2. St Catherine of Sweden, who died abbess of Watzen, on the i)4th March 1381, and is commemorated on the 21st of that month; 3. St Catherine of Siena, born in 1347, whose festal day is observed on the 30th of April; 4. St Catherine of Bologna, whose family name was Vigri, and who died abbess of the Convent of St Clairs in that city on the 9th March 1463; 5. St Catherine of Genoa, who belonged to the noble family of Fieschi, was born about 1448, spent her life and her means in succouring and attending on the sick, especially in the time of the plague which ravaged Genoa in 1497 and 1501, died in that city in 1510, was canonized by Clement XII. in 1737, and had her name placed in the calendar on the 22d of July by Benedict XIV.; and 6. St Catherine de Ricci, of Florence, born of that noble family in 1522, who became a nun in the convent of the Dominicans at Prato, died in 1589, and was canonized by Benedict XIV. in 1746, who fixed her festal day on the 13th February. All these women are recorded by the chroniclers of tho Roman Church to have worked miracles. Indeed without this essential qualification they could not have been canonized. The lives of all, save, that of Catherine of Genoa, whose career was a more active one, having been spent mainly in the hospitals of her native city, were passed in the practice of the ordinary monastic virtues. St Catherine de Ricci was subject to long trances and visions. And of St Catherine of Genoa it is recorded, that that miracle of levitation (or being raised from the ground), which is asserted with such curious frequency to have happened to various saints, frequently happened to her, when she was in the act of receiving the Holy Communion. Of all these saints, however, it will only be necessary here to say a few words of the earliest of the name, who is ths person intended when the Roman Church speaks of St Catherine without any additional designation, and then to give a somewhat more detailed account of tho far most celebrated and historically important of them all, St Catherine of Siena.

History has exceedingly little to tell of this saint; more properly so called, indeed, has nothing at all. She is said to have been of royal parentage, and her life is referred to the early part of the 4th century. She was martyred at Alexandria. She was especially celebrated for her learning and philosophical culture, and has always been considered the especial patron of philosophical schools. But in proportion to the scantiness of authenticated fact, legendary fable has been abundant in furnishing forth lives of the saint. And it is to one of these legends that the well-known presentiment of the saint, which alone is likely to cause modern readers to feel any interest in her name, is due. It is said that in revenge for the discomfiture of a company of heathen philosophers, with whom she had been compelled to dispute, the holy and learned lady waa bound to a wheel armed with spikes, in such sort that every turn of the machine would cause the spikes to pierce her body. But the cords were miraculously broken, and the malice of her enemies foiled. Hence St Catherine, virgin and martyr, is always represented with a wheel, and tho extreme popularity of this saint, and consequent common ness of the pictures of her, is indicated by the fact that a wheel of a certain construction and appearance is to the present day called a Catherine wheel. The lover of mediaeval painting may be warned against mistaking the pictures, which he so constantly meets with, of St Catherine with her wheel, for representations of St Catherine of Siena, or of any of the other saints Catherine, who all of them lived a thousand years or more later than the first and original saint of the name.

St Catherine of Siena, born in that city in the year 1347, was a daughter of Giacomo Benincasa, said by the hagiographers to have been a descendant of the noble family of Borghese, also of Sienese origin, a connection, however, which has been repudiated by the nobles of that subsequently Papal family. It seems certain, however, that the two families were sprung from the same stock. The researches of Signer Grottanelli, the present librarian of the municipal library at Siena, have enabled him to construct a pedigree of the saint, which may be considered as perfectly authentic, from which it appears that she was one of thirteen children; and that her father Giacomo, v/ho died when she was one-and-twenty, in 1368, had been ons of ten. Her mother Lapa, who was the grand-daughter of a &quot; poeta volgare,&quot; that is to say, a poet who wrote in the then nascent Italian tongue, lived to be eighty-nine. 