medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
According to Prudentius, whose very stylized and probably largely fictional hymn celebrating her (_Peristephanon_, 3) constitutes the earliest documentation of her cult, Eulalia of Mérida (d. 304, supposedly) was a girl of twelve whose savage martyrdom under the emperor Maximianus culminated in her being burned to death. Following her late antique Passio (BHL 2700, 2700b), which has her persecuted by a Roman official named Datianus or Dacianus (the well traveled villain of the Passiones not only of several Iberian saints but also of George of Lydda), the Old French _Cantilène (_aliter_, Séquence) de sainte Eulalie_ has her burned and then decapitated, with her soul flying to heaven in the form of a dove.
There is of course a St. Eulalia of Barcelona, celebrated on 12. February and one of that city's principal patron saints. Opinions are divided on whether she is just a doublet, differently localized, of Eulalia of Mérida or else an altogether different person whose hagiographic dossier (principally her Passio BHL 2693-2696d) has been strongly colored by elements of the legend of her much earlier attested homonym from Mérida. Eulalia was already associated with Barcelona well before her Inventio there in 878 (recorded in BHL 2697): her hagiographic dossier as a saint of that city is said to begin in the seventh century. In the mid-ninth century the recognition of two saints Eulalia, one of Barcelona and one of Merida, is evident in the martyrology of Wandelbert of Prüm (completed in 848) which enters each under her particular feast day in February or December. The later ninth-century martyrology of Usuard of Saint-Germain, so influential in the construction of subsequent calendars, includes only Eulalia of Barcelona.
A text of Prudentius' poem is here:
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/prudentius/prud3.shtml
And an English-language version is here:
https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ElAnt/V1N4/baker.html
A copy of a Passio of Eulalia as transmitted in the ninth- / tenth-century section of St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 561, pp. 137-139:
http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/csg/0561/137
Although the notes for the manuscript at the _e-codices_ site associate this text with BHL 2696 and 2696d (see <http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/description/csg/0561/>, those are versions of the Passio of Eulalia of Barcelona whereas this is clearly a Passio of Eulalia of Mérida.
A text of the _Cantilène de sainte Eulalie_ ("Buona pulcella fut Eulalia"), with a facsimile of the original manuscript text (Bibliothèque de Valenciennes, ms. 150, fol.141v) and a translation into modern French, is here:
http://www.restena.lu/cul/BABEL/T_CANTILENE.html
Another text, accompanied by notes on grammar and vocabulary:
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/ofrol-4-X.html
Today (10. December) is Eulalia of Mérida's feast day in the dioceses of Coria-Cáceres, Mérida-Badajoz, and Oviedo (mandatory in the first two, optional in the case of Oviedo). It is also her day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology (revised ed., 2001).
Some period-pertinent images of St. Eulalia of Mérida:
a) as depicted (at far left, following her fellow female child-martyr St. Agnes) in the heavily restored later sixth-century mosaic procession of female saints (ca. 561) in the nave of Ravenna's basilica di Sant'Apollinare Nuovo:
http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/saint.jpg
A more distant view in better color (Eulalia now at far right; photograph courtesy of Genevra Kornbluth):
http://www.kornbluthphoto.com/images/ApNNorth19.jpg
b) as depicted (on trial before her persecutor) in a French-language Passio in a thirteenth-century copy of a collection of saint's lives in Francoprovençal translation (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 818, fol. 245v):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10507337z/f496.item.r=Fran%C3%A7ais%20818.zoom
c) as depicted (martyrdom by fire) in an earlier fourteenth-century copy of books 9-16 of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (ca. 1335; Paris, BnF, ms. Arsenal 5080, fol. 262v):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b7100627v/f530.item.zoom
d) as depicted (martyrdom by fire) in a later-fourteenth-century copy of books 11-13 of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (ca. 1370-1380; Paris, BnF, ms. Nouvelle acquisition française 15941, fol. 112v):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8449688c/f232.item.zoom
e) as depicted in semi-grisaille (martyrdom by fire) in a late fourteenth-century copy of books 9-16 of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (1396; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 313, fol. 249r):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84557843/f503.image.zoom
f) as thrice depicted (before Maximianus; tortures: mastectomy, fire) in a later fifteenth-century copy of books 12-22 of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (1463; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 51, fol. 82v):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b52506706r/f170.item.zoom
Best,
John Dillon
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