Columba

ON SAINT COLUMBA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR IN ENGLAND.

Columba, Virgin and Martyr in England (S.)

[1] There are three Virgins and Martyrs of this name, of whom the principal one is the one of Sens in Gaul who, under the Emperor Aurelian, having overcome fire, was slain by the sword on the thirty-first of December, S. Columba, Virgin and Martyr, the other of Sens of whom we have very many Acts both handwritten and printed, and we ourselves venerated her sacred relics at Sens in the church dedicated to her. The celebrity of this Saint Columba was so great throughout the Church that it seems to have absorbed the memory of the other two. This is observed by Ambrose Morales in his Notes to book 3 of the Memorial of the Saints published by Saint Eulogius, Archbishop of Toledo and Martyr, who in chapter 10 presents the martyrdom of Saint Columba the Virgin who suffered at Cordoba in Spain under the Saracens in the Era 891, the other of Cordoba, that is, the year of Christ 853, on the seventeenth of September. In whose place, because her Life and passion were unknown, Morales laments that the Spaniards themselves had adopted the veneration of Saint Columba, Virgin and Martyr of Sens. That dispute is now settled, and both are inscribed in the calendar of the Roman Martyrology.

[2] England proposes a third, and especially Cornwall, the last province in Dumnonia, the other British, called in Brittonic Kernaw, because it runs out into the sea on every side as if in horns, which the Britons call Kern. Camden adds that the Saxons, conquerors of Britain, called everything foreign and strange Wealsk, and so called the inhabitants of this province Cornweales. In this Cornwall, which in more recent Latin is also called Cornubia, there is a market town still called by the name of Saint Columba in the Hundred or territory of Pyder, from whom a town of Cornwall is named, which Camden says was consecrated to the memory of Saint Columba, Virgin and Martyr, as he asserts he was certainly informed from her Life. We have not been able to obtain this Life up to now, from which it would have been possible to learn the time and manner of her Martyrdom. In Speed's geographical tables of England the town of Saint Columba is also presented, but without further explanation.

[3] In the later edition of the English Martyrology, citing Camden, Speed, and the Catalogue of the Saints of Britain, she is venerated on March 16. at the sixteenth of March, the following encomium is set forth: On the same day in Cornwall, the Commemoration of Saint Columba, Virgin and Martyr, who for a long time was famous in that province both for holiness of life and for miracles performed, where to this day many monuments of her name exist, which can be seen. This alone has it been possible to obtain so far, and we believe that if this holy Virgin and Martyr had been the Columba either of Sens or of Cordoba, Camden should have indicated it: who warns the reader that the town is not named from Saint Columba, or Columban, Abbot of Scotland, or of the island of Hy, who is venerated on the ninth of June.

[4] Alford in his Index of the Saints of England, printed at the end of volume 3 of the Annals of English History, has the following: or an Ursuline? Columba, Virgin and Martyr, from the companions of Saint Ursula's thousand Virgins, as Usuard narrates. There exists a church in Cornwall named from Saint Columba, who is called a Virgin and Martyr, why not from this Virgin? Our Martyrology mentions her at the sixteenth of March. Alford treats of the Ursuline Virgins at the year 453, and at number 25 lists that sacred troop divided into Leaders, Centurions, and Chiliarchs, citing the words of Usuard, but who is that author? In the Martyrology of Usuard no mention is made of these Virgins. Those words that are put forward are excerpted from book 2 of the Revelations which are attributed to Blessed Hermann of Steinfeld by Hermann Crombach, and in chapter 14 Saints Columba and Cordula are said to be daughters of King Avitus, and Columba is said to have led the thousand Virgins. But why did Camden not indicate this, who indicates that he read her Life? Whoever brings that Life to light will be able to reveal the truth of the matter. Moreover, this question can be taken up again on the twenty-first of October, when we shall treat of the Ursulines.