medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
25. December is also the feast day of:
1) Eugenia of Rome (?). Also known as Eugenia of Alexandria, Eugenia is the heroine of a popular and highly legendary Vita (BHL 2666-2668) that associates her with St. Protus and Hyacinth, who in this confection are said to have been eunuchs of her household, and that has her maintain her virginity against the wishes of her father, the Roman governor Alexandria. To do this she puts on men's clothing, assumes a male identity, and, taking the name Eugenius, enters a monastery in Alexandria. There she proves herself a paragon of virtue and is elected abbot. When she has to refuse the attentions of a woman named Melanthia who had fallen in love with her the latter denounces the supposed Eugenius to the authorities; tried before her father, who had supposed her dead, Eugenia reveals her true identity and is acquitted. Her entire family converts to Christianity. Eugenia's father is assassinated in a local persecution and her mother moves the family to Rome. There Eugenia refuses another suitor (this time male), is denounced as a Christian, undergoes numerous tortures, and finally is slain by the sword on 25. December of some very indeterminate year.
Eugenia as depicted among the female saints of the carefully restored earlier sixth-century mosaics on the triumphal arch in the Basilica Eufrasiana in Poreè:
http://nickerson.icomos.org/porec/u/ud.jpg
Eugenia as depicted in the heavily restored later sixth-century procession of female saints (ca. 561) in the basilica di Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna (photo courtesy of Genevra Kornbluth):
http://www.kornbluthphoto.com/images/ApNNorth2.jpg
Eugenia as depicted in the earlier eleventh-century mosaics (restored between 1953 and 1962) in the katholikon of the monastery of Hosios Loukas near Distomo in Phokis:
http://tinyurl.com/bnxqdm9
Eugenia between her accuser and her father as portrayed on a twelfth-century capital in the basilique Marie-Madeleine at Vézelay:
http://tinyurl.com/7lmp4ru
http://tinyurl.com/7by98bp
Two scenes of E. as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century copy (ca. 1335) of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Arsenal 5080, fols. 152r, 152v):
a) E. instructed by her father:
http://tinyurl.com/7adawck
b) E. baptized along with Sts. Protus and Hyacinth:
http://tinyurl.com/7r7g7fp
E.'s sufferings (at lower left, the martyrdom of Sts. Protus and Hyacinth) as depicted in a later fifteenth-century copy (1463) of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 51, fol. 26r):
http://tinyurl.com/7ssjvlz
2) Peter Nolasco (d. 1249/56 or 1258). A Spanish layman who had been born near Carcassonne in France, Peter was the earthly founder of the Order of Our Lady of Ransom (the Mercedarians). Its celestial founder, Peter maintained, was the BVM. Peter was canonized in 1628.
Best,
John Dillon
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