ON ST. COLUMBA VIRGIN AND MARTYR
AT COIMBRA IN PORTUGAL
A Collection concerning her cult.
Columba, Virgin and Martyr, at Coimbra (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
Here we adduce a Portuguese Saint, synonymous with others, but, like the others, unknown to all the ancient Fasti, A Saint otherwise unknown on this sole title, that at Coimbra, and there in the royal monastery of the Holy Cross, her sacred relics are attested to be exposed to veneration by the popular writers Antonio Vasconcellos in the description of the Portuguese kingdom page 451, and Ludovicus ab Angelis
in the Portuguese Viridarium chapter 33 page 96, and other more recent writers, to whom in this part we believe faith can be given. On their authority, I suppose, she was inscribed by Tamayo de Salazar in the Spanish Martyrology with this elogium: At Coimbra in Portugal, of St. Columba virgin and martyr, who, sprung from that same city, adorned it with her own blood, that she might preserve the flower of chastity and the whiteness of virginity, which she had promised inviolate to Christ her spouse, in the very peril of her life. The same disputes more things, but with little profit of labor, in his notes, which we shall briefly salute below. Meanwhile thou hast here nearly the whole compendium of the life, or rather of mere tradition, as will presently be clear.
[2] she became known by chance. We treated on the 4th of this month of July concerning St. Elizabeth queen of Portugal, and in the preliminary Commentary number 6 we treated of a larger manuscript codex containing not only the Life of St. Elizabeth, but also of other Portuguese Saints, translated from the Portuguese tongue into Latin at Rome. In that codex is had also a process instituted in the year 1576 at Coimbra by the bishop of the place concerning the deeds of a certain St. Columba virgin and martyr. There are found there no ancient deeds, nor is it credible that any were ever written: nor indeed did any Martyrologists before the 17th century make mention of such a St. Columba: but whatever was deposed concerning her in the said process rests almost on popular tradition. Yet thence it is learned that she was publicly worshipped from time immemorial. Nothing more certain can be brought forward on that matter than the process itself already indicated, which under this title, A Summary of some miracles of St. Columba, thus begins:
[3] On the twenty-seventh day of the month of September of the aforesaid year, from a process instituted in the year 1576, in this city and monastery of the Holy Cross of Coimbra, to which came the licentiate Francisco de Magalhaes; he himself said to the chief porter Father Don Nicholas, that he had applied great diligence to finding the Legend and Life of this St. Columba, and had issued a mandate that the priors, rectors, and curates of the churches of this city should with great diligence search their old archives, that is to say should investigate the ancient charters or examine the archives, to see whether in them they might find anything pertaining to this business: and that there had been found only in the chapter of the cathedral see of this city a certain most ancient book written on large and old parchment, where lies a Legend in this manner, namely. Where thou wilt presently observe St. Columba of Sens, who is worshipped on 31 December, confounded with this Portuguese one, which in those regions is neither rare nor unusual. Hear again the process.
[4] The Life of St. Columba, who suffered in the city of Sens; concerning her sepulchre, oratory, and that by the common tradition of this people it is held for certainty how this St. Columba was another, who suffered martyrdom near this city in the valley Das cellas, which is distant a quarter of one league from the said city, where it is said that she was found by her spouse, since she fled from him, saying that she by no means wished to contract matrimony, and wished to fulfill the vow which she had vowed to the Lord our God concerning her chastity: and therefore he slew her in a pit, where a certain hermitage of her oratory was built, from which the faithful of Christ take earth, and place it on their necks on certain days, and recover the health of their infirmities. These things are handed down a little differently in the Viridarium, but in the matter itself they agree well enough. Let us proceed with the process.
[5] And according to what was said to the said Licentiate, and her cult. several years ago, by a great deluge of waters, a great part of the archive of the said monastery was lost, where the life of this Saint ought to lie. Concerning which, that it might be established, both of the miracles and of the faith which this people and the religious have in her, and how her body lies in this monastery; there was need to make a summary of witnesses, which was inserted into the Lives and miracles of the blessed Martyrs Marochius and Theotonius, since this treasure and the relics of all of them exist in this house. And he asked of the Father General that he would enjoin this on his elder religious: which message the said chief Doorkeeper carried to the Father General, who came to speak with the said Licentiate Francisco de Magalhaes, and said that the elder religious ought immediately to come, who came; and the summary which was made concerning the contents in this term, on which the witnesses were interrogated, is as follows. I, Diogo Cotinho, wrote it.
[6] Five witnesses were cited and heard, sworn upon the holy Gospels to speak the truth, Witness 1 deposes concerning the relics of whom the first, Father Don Nicholas, canon of the said monastery of the Holy Cross; interrogated concerning the contents in the above act, said it to be true, that for thirty-six years to the present, during which he has been a religious in this monastery, he has always seen and knows that in its sacristy, where lie kept the relics of the wood of the Cross of Christ, and of the holy Martyrs Marochius, there exist relics of the body of St. Columba, which he always heard said to have been found under a stone sepulchre, which now lies in the chapel of St. John of the said monastery beside the wall, with an epitaph of quite ancient characters, in which it is said: Here rests the body of St. Columba: and that near this city is a certain hermitage of the oratory of this Saint, to which flows a great number of persons sick with fevers and quartans, who commend themselves to the said Saint and receive health; and carry with them earth from the altar on their necks for a relic and out of devotion; because they believe by faith that the said Saint there suffered martyrdom, and that there also she was buried. The aforesaid witness said moreover that there is not found in the archive of this monastery anything pertaining to her life or martyrdom; yet it is held for probable that at the time when, by reason of the great inundation of waters, the greater part of the writings of the archive of the said monastery was lost, together with the writings consumed by the water there had also been consumed the Life of this Saint.
[7] Witness 2, 3, etc. say nearly the same things, Lest anything in the above remain obscure, I think it sufficiently understood that by "oracula," "oraculum," "oraculi" is indicated a small sacred building, built in honor of the Saint with a hermitage. Now let us enumerate the remaining witnesses more briefly. The second witness, Father Don Dionysius, canon in the same place, said that for forty years he has been a religious in this monastery, within which time, while he himself was Prior, transferring the relics of the five Martyrs of Marochius from a certain chest, where they lay wrapped in the altar-cloths, to another chest newly made, he found with the aforesaid relics the bones and relics of St. Columba, which were wrapped in the same altar-cloths, and separated by themselves from the others. The rest of his deposition, though perhaps expressed in other words, plainly agrees with those which we heard Father Don Nicholas above testifying. Nor do they differ from those which the third witness deposed, Father Don Clement, a religious in the same place for fifty years.
[8] the fifth adds concerning his own cure. The fourth witness, Father Don Jerome, Vicar in the same monastery, a religious for thirty-four years, besides what has been already related, said that he himself, while he was very sick, received a relic of this Saint from those which this monastery has, and had it on his neck for some days, and remained free from the fevers with which he labored; which happened twenty years ago, and he never afterward labored with a like infirmity. The fifth witness, Father Gaspar Lopez, prior of St. Bartholomew of this city, after he had reported certain things which are narrated in the first deposition, said that when he himself was very sick and labored with tertian fevers for six or seven months, he made a devotion and slept in the little building of the said Saint one night, and on the following day cleaned the said little house of hers, and celebrated Mass there. On which day he received health: for he never afterward labored with the said fevers.
[9] The rest concerning this and other St. Columbas is uncertain. And these things indeed are somehow certain, but not likewise those which Tamayo disputes at length on this day concerning three other different holy Columbas; one, namely, of Évora, crowned with martyrdom together with her brother the bishop, whose deeds or age thou wilt seek in vain: another, Columba Osores or Osorii, who is said to have been abbess in a most ancient monastery at Arca in the diocese of Lamego in the time of Almanzor, who leveled the monastery to the ground, and beheaded the holy Virgin with other nuns of the same monastery for the constancy of her faith and the honor of her chastity. The third is said also to have been a virgin and martyr of Entre-âmbolos-rios in the diocese of Braga, who by some is divided, by others confounded with another; more truly I should say that all these are known almost by name alone, and that of their cult nothing is hitherto established. But let it suffice, on occasion of the other, the Coimbran, to have here noted these things in few words. Of the present one, moreover, Tamayo reports some verses, easily to be fitted to all virgin martyrs. A schema of a certain Life, from the cited Portuguese Viridarium, translated into Latin, I for my part will not refuse to admit, so far as it does not deviate from the process already given; for the things which besides are said rest on no certain faith: more certain things will be given of the synonymous Virgin and Martyr of Córdoba on 17 September.