Baya and Maura

ON SS. BAYA AND MAURA, VIRGINS IN SCOTLAND,

NINTH CENTURY?

Baya, virgin, in Scotland. (S.)

Maura, virgin, in Scotland. (S.)

BHL Number: 1061

BY C. D. S.

[1] [SS. Baya and Maura, celebrated with ecclesiastical office at least from the beginning of the sixteenth century,] Once again on the holy virgins Baya and Maura we have one principal document, the lessons of the Aberdeen Breviary, first printed in the years 1509 and 1510 [Printed again according to that first edition in the same kind of type at London in the year 1854.], at the 3rd of November Which is established from the calendar prefixed to the volume., six in number, composed thus:

First lesson. There is present to us, most beloved brothers, the splendid festival of the holy virgins Baya and Maura, which in their honor under one celebration at times in the Church of God we ought to venerate and strive to worship on account of their continence and the crown of virginity which they have happily deserved to receive from the Lord, since we find both continent and both chaste, modest, sober and bashful: who entered with the Lord to the marriage feast not like the foolish virgins with their oil gone out, but like the wise with their oil alight because of good works.

Lesson II. One of whom, namely Beya, whom Dunbar of Lothian now worships and venerates, we read to have lived in Cumbria, an island of the ocean sea, found to be surrounded by marine waves over very long distances: which island indeed is inhabited by no dweller, but left to wild beasts and birds alone, to which no entry lay open except by ship. To this Blessed Maura was often accustomed to come to enjoy divine conversations with Blessed Beya.

Lesson III. Whatever Blessed Maura learned from the aforesaid virgin Beya in the aforesaid island, through frequent conversation, away from the company of men, of the grace of gaining the heavenly kingdom, she openly told it without pause to her other fellow virgins. And on this side and that she consoled with fitting words Blessed Beya and her parents, sisters and friends, to whom access to her was denied.

Lesson IV. For so they deserved to bear the yoke of the Lord, as each helped the other's burden by turns in the charity of Christ. For what could they have lacked, when Christ the Lord chose them to dwell in his tabernacles? Nor will it be permissible to assert that they were not chaste, when they chastised the flesh and the devil by fasting and assiduous prayer, abstinence from food and frugality of diet, which are hostile to the devil of lust, the world and its fleeting and fragile glory, adorned in the slightest of habits too, that they might flee not only the guilt of sin, but the very occasion of it?

Lesson V. But when they were thus lacerating and restraining their virginal and most tender flesh, Blessed Maura, seized by infirmity, put in to land, and in the place that is commonly called Kilmaurs, in holy old age she ended her life in the Lord. Blessed Beya, however, shortly afterward in the aforesaid island, persevering in fervent love of God until death, commended her soul to God on the third day before the Nones of November, and in that same place was given to burial. In whose honor afterward

a chapel is found built quite fittingly: those who come piously to it are not cheated of their just desires.

Lesson VI. For just as in life she led a solitary life, so also in death she by no means allows her body to be taken out of the aforesaid island. For when a certain rector of the parish church of Dunbar, which is dedicated in her veneration, as above, had arranged to translate there the relics of the holy virgin, and ships being prepared, he came to the island with a favorable wind; but when he placed her bones in a certain wooden sarcophagus in a small boat, time after time the wind and the storm of the sea so increased that they were giving them over to drowning; but at once, the relics being put down, they went back again on the desired course Brev. Aberd., fol. cxlvv-cxlvir..

[2] they are recorded from the same time To this legend I add the announcements of the martyrologies and calendars, the oldest of which are the Aberdeen martyrology and the calendar prefixed to the breviary of the same church, from which the lessons just recited were copied. In the martyrology, at the 3rd of November, is read: In Scotland, the holy virgins Baya and Maura, not martyrs, at Kylmawar; and in the calendar of the breviary: Baya and Maura, many * virgins. At the same day Baya alone is marked in the Lübeck-Cologne edition of the martyrology of Usuard: On the same day, the blessed virgin Baya, and in that of Greven: In Scotland, Baya [So in the first edition of the year 1515, but in the second of the year 1521, Haya.], virgin. In other more recent Scottish martyrologies, however, St. Baya is recorded at the 1st of November, and St. Maura at the 2nd. Thus the Calendar of Adam King: (1 Nov.) St. Baya, virgin in Scotland under King Donald, 896; (2 Nov.) St. Maura, virgin in Scotland, from whom Kilmaurs in Cunningham took its name, under King Donald, 899. The Scottish Menology of Thomas Dempster: (1 Nov.) In Scotland, Bey, a most holy virgin, a familiar of King Donald VI; (2 Nov.) In Cunningham, Maura, virgin, most famous for the abstinence of her anchoretic life, who attained to King St. Constantine III, whence the place Kilmaure. The Scottish Calendar of David Camerarius: (1 Nov.) St. Beia, virgin and abbess, was in great honor with Donald, king of the Scots, sixth of this name; (2 Nov.) St. Maura, virgin, famous for miracles, from whom that place called Kilmaure in the province of Cunningham is named.

[3] in martyrologies; From Dempster's Menology Philip Ferrari manifestly took what he noted concerning the holy virgins in his General Catalogue, namely: (1 Nov.) In Scotland, St. Bey, virgin, with the annotation added: From the Scottish Calendar. She lived in wonderful sanctity around the year 896. Under King Donald, whose familiar she was; (2 Nov.) In Scotland at Cunningham, St. Maura, virgin, with the annotation added: From the Calendar of Scotland. She lived under King St. Constantine, leading an anchoretic life. The place Kilmaure is named from her. From Camerarius's Calendar, on the other hand, Arthur du Monstier in his sacred Gynecaeum: (1 Nov.) In Scotland, St. Beya or Baya, as is read in the note added, virgin, Benedictine abbess, who adorned with every kind of virtue shone with outstanding examples, and with the merits of copious sanctity gained fell asleep in Christ. And from the same source, to which he explicitly appeals, Gabriel Bucelin or Robert Schindele in the supplement to the Benedictine Menology at the 1st of Nov.: In Scotland, St. Beya, virgin, nun and Benedictine abbess, adorned with every ornament of virtues, who, most prepared for the marriage of the Lamb, about the year of Christ 896 most eagerly awaited the message of the coming bridegroom. Finally Richard Challoner in his English Martyrology written in English, passing over St. Baya, announced St. Maura at the 2nd of November in these words: In Scotland, the festival of St. Maura, virgin, which is celebrated on this day in the Aberdeen breviary; whose blessed death is there recorded to have happened in the year 899: her name is still preserved by the town named after her, Killmaure.

[4] but their age uncertain. But certainly in this elogium Challoner committed a double error about the Aberdeen breviary. For neither is it indicated in this breviary that the memory of St. Maura is to be celebrated on the 2nd of November, but on the 3rd; nor is anything noted of the year of her death. From where, moreover, Adam King, Dempster and Camerarius took it that St. Baya lived under Donald VI, king of Scotland, that is, at the end of the ninth century G. Buchanan, Rer. Scotic. Hist. (Edinburgh, 1715), p. 96., I cannot divine. Certainly nothing of this kind is reported by the lessons of the Aberdeen breviary, which Adam King also contradicts, when he indicates that Maura survived Baya. But the old litanies of Dunkeld too Published in Al. Forbes, Kalendars of Scottish Saints, p. lvi. indicate that both flourished at an earlier and perhaps far earlier time, if indeed it may be indicated that that document is genuine and whole, and not interpolated. That these litanies, namely, were customarily sung in the time of King Gregory, the predecessor of Donald VI Cf. Buchanan, p. 95., is gathered from that invocation which is read among others of the same kind: That you would guard and defend our king Girich (that is, Gregory) with his army from all the plots of enemies, we beseech you, hear us Forbes, p. lxiii end.. Now among the Names of holy virgins and widows there appear St. Bega and St. Maara Ibid., p. lxi., by the latter of which names no one would doubt that the other of the saints of whom we now treat is designated. But Alexander Penrose Forbes proved Ibid., p. xxxiv. that those litanies were at least interpolated by a very strong argument (to pass over others brought by him, which are not so unshakable), namely that among the names of holy confessors there is recited in them St. David the king Ibid., p. lx., by whom again it seems certain that David I, king of Scotland from the year 1124 to the year 1153, is signified Cf. Buchanan, p. 119 – 22., especially since that name is inserted in fourth place in a series of six kings, of whom the other five are most certainly kings of Scotland celebrated as saints among their own people. And so no altogether firm demonstration for the antiquity of the cult of SS. Baya and Maura can be drawn from those litanies; and finally it must be confessed that we have no solid argument at hand by which it might be determined with sufficient probability at what age they lived. St. Baya was not a Benedictine abbess.

[5] But altogether to be rejected is the rashness of Arthur du Monstier and of Bucelin, who declare that St. Baya was a Benedictine abbess Cf. above, num. 3.. No monuments support this assertion, and the Life of the holy virgin, which we have recited from the Aberdeen breviary, opposes it. According to this, she led an altogether anchoretic manner of life until her death on the island of Cumbria. Traces of her cult on an island of the county of Bute.

[6] Concerning this island and the traces of the memory of St. Baya in it these things are read in Samuel Lewis Topogr. Dict. of Scotland, vol. I, p. 251.: Lesser Cumbrae (for another island of the same name lies next to it, which is called Great), an island in the county of Bute , has eight inhabitants. That island is situated in the estuary of the river Clyde , between the island of Bute and the headland of Portincross, about two miles distant on either side… It extends to about one mile in length and a half in breadth… It seems always to have been uncultivated. A few ash trees appear at its far end, where it looks to the south and east, the rest plainly bare of trees and bringing forth from the rocky soil nothing but thin pasture for feeding small flocks of sheep and young cattle. (In the middle of the island) there are still seen traces of an ancient chapel dedicated to St. Baya , who was buried there in a sarcophagus at the north side of the small building; namely walls partly demolished, about three feet thick, built in rude work, by which an area is enclosed reaching thirty feet in length and fifteen in breadth. The tomb seems to have been surrounded by four stone walls; but no more than two squared stones survive, of which one is broken in two parts. These stones are adorned with lines in a net pattern, but display no appearance of an epitaph. So far Lewis. Concerning the church in the town of Dunbar which the Life reports to have been dedicated under the title of St. Baya, and concerning the cult of St. Maura at Kilmaurs, I have found nothing further noted anywhere.

* sic

* sic

* sic

* Cumbray

* Bute

* Clyde

* Vey