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According to one version of the legend that had developed by the 12th century, Ursula was the daughter of a legendary British king, promised in marriage to Conan Meriadoc of Brittany (or sometimes St. Etherius). Reluctant to be married (like all holy girls back then), she acquired a delay and, with her companions (numbering either eleven or eleven thousand, no diff) floated out onto the English Channel for a three-year cruise, the purpose of which was to practice martial arts. However, a miraculous storm blew their fleet all the way to Rome, where Ursula convinced Pope Cyriacus* to go on a pilgrimage with them. On their journey north, they collected an enormous entourage of men, children, and even babies, whom they fed miraculously by allowing them to suck on their thumbs, from which a miraculous nectar flowed. Eventually the young ladies reached the city of Cologne, where they ran into some barbarian Huns. The Huns*, being rejected by the virgins, beheaded the whole company and shot Ursula dead with an arrow, the virgins’ earlier martial arts practice being of little practical use. These events were speculated to have occurred in the mid- to late- 4th century.
*A name not found in papal records.
*According to historical records, Huns never reached Cologne, so this detail seems embellished.
Although they were never mentioned by any historians at the time of their supposed death, the 11,000 Virgins were terrifically popular saints from the 1100’s through the Renaissance and beyond. Their feast was celebrated every October 21, until the cult was suppressed (which just means it was taken off the official calendar) in 1969, because they were so legendary and deemed not really relevant to the universal Church anymore.
Although Ursula is a saint and probably did exist and might have even gotten martyred in a similar way as in the legend, the story we have about her is more like King Arthur than like St. Josephine Bakhita. This is why St. Ursula, though immensely popular in the Middle Ages, was later “suppressed” and is now so obscure.
Now, someone might bring up the fact that both St. Elisabeth of Schönau (d. 1164) and Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich (d. 1824) had visions of the mass martyrdom, which explain, among other things, why the bones of men and children were found among the supposed bones of the virgins. But though they may be believed at an individual’s own discretion, dreams and visions can not be counted as historical evidence. Someone else might point out that the great St. Hildegard of Bingen and St. Angela Merici (foundress of the Ursuline nuns) had great devotion to St. Ursula. But on its own, this does not confirm any details of the legend of St. Ursula, just the fact that there is someone up there answering prayers addressed to St. Ursula 😉
None of the virgins were, in fact, ever officially canonized saints, because they lived before the 12th century, when papal canonization became canon law. However, like St. Patrick, the Church has allowed them to continue to be venerated as saints because of long-standing tradition.
So how did the legend grow?
In Cologne, the center of the cult, there is an inscription dating to the 4th-5th century, commemorating the martyrdom of a non-identified number of anonymous virgins. No mention of anyone named Ursula, let alone 11,000 others. This is the ONLY inscription or record of any kind dating from around the time the events were supposed to have occurred.
After that, there is no mention of the virgins in any text until the 9th century, when they begin to show up in various histories, martyrologies, hagiographies, and calendars. We have many references just to “holy virgins”, a few to “X” (ten), “XI” (eleven) or “XI milia” (eleven thousand) virgins, and some naming individual virgins: Martha, Saula, Pinnosa, Cordula, and others — but not anyone named Ursula.
Things really took off for the 11,000 Virgins in the 12th century, when a construction project in Cologne happened to uncover a Roman cemetery (which was situated next to an ancient Roman road, exactly where Roman cemeteries always were) — literally thousands and thousands of skeletons. Enthusiastic medieval archaeologists immediately declared these bones to be the very bones belonging to the holy virgins. In a frenzy to identify each virgin by name, they collected a total of over 9,000 names from grave inscriptions and/or visions (like those of St. Elisabeth of Schönau) when a holy person saw or touched a particular skeleton.
Since they had so darn many, Cologne began to send relics — skulls or even complete skeletons — to other cities all over Germany and Europe. Originally a lady named “Pinnosa” was venerated as the leader of the virgins, but when her relics were moved to the nearby town of Essen, the Colognian promulgators of the cult replaced her as leader with another skeleton named “Ursula”. With so many virginal relics floating around, Cologne had a political motive to promote a relic they possessed, Ursula, as the most important virgin — whichever city had the leader’s relics remained the main tourist-attraction pilgrimage destination.
Plenty of the skeletons kept in Cologne were installed and beautifully arranged on the walls in the Golden Chamber in the basilica of St. Ursula, which you can still see today!
For further reading, this book.
I have chosen to depict Ursula holding an arrow, wearing historically anachronistic clothing (approx. 1490 style, when the reference picture was painted). I have chosen not to depict everyone’s head getting hewn off, to keep it PG. Maybe next year? 😉
[…] her story being factually, veritably TRUE! (See St. Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins for discussion of thrilling, but mostly fictional, […]