ON ST. TRIDUANA, VIRGIN, VENERATED IN THE DIOCESE OF ABERDEEN IN SCOTLAND,
Perhaps in the sixth century.
SYLLOGE
Concerning her cult and deeds.
Triduana, virgin, venerated in the diocese of Aberdeen in Scotland. (S.)
BHL Number: 8315
BY C. S.
David Camerarius, book 3, On the piety of the Scots, records on this day thus: Saint Triduana, Her name is inscribed in few Martyrologies: a most holy virgin, most celebrated among the Scots: and he adds a lengthy eulogy of her, praising Regius in the Calendar (the Scottish one, namely) and others, whom he does not name. Thomas Dempster in his Scottish Menology likewise announces her on the same day, but (certainly wrongly) in Gaul. Among the Usuardine Auctaria related in Du Sollier, Greven alone mentions her, with no place either of death or of cult added, saying: On the same day (8th of October), of saint Triduana, virgin. On the contrary, Chastelain announced the place of cult in the Index of the Saints to his Universal Martyrology, where is read: Triduana invoked at Aberdeen on the 8th day of October; yet she is not found in the Martyrology itself and its Supplements, either because she was passed over in these through forgetfulness, or because she came to the knowledge of Chastelain too late. However that may be, we prove that her ancient cult in Scotland is certain.
[2] Father N. Wemyss, a Scot by birth, priest of our Society, her cult is proved, both from elsewhere and from the Breviary in his manuscript Annotations on the undoubted Saints of Scotland, which he formerly communicated to our Du Sollier, asserts that he found the name of St. Triduana in ancient Litanies. Camerarius too, praised above, says: That this most holy Virgin was in great honour among the Scots on account of the holiness of her life and the glory of her miracles, Hunther the Dominican testifies, and various chapels built in her honour give credence. This Hunther, a Scot, is said in Échard, volume 2 of the Library of the Preachers, page 211, to have flourished after the middle of the sixteenth century, and, from Camerarius, is believed to have written a book on the Scottish Saints, which has not come into my hands. Concerning the cult of the same Virgin in Scotland it is established more certainly also from the Breviary of the diocese of Aberdeen, printed at Edinburgh in the year 1509 with the types of Walter Chepman, in which she has an annual Office of nine Lessons, of which the first six are proper, concerning her deeds, the last three from the exposition of the Gospel The kingdom of heaven is like, from the Common of one Virgin not a martyr, from which also the rest are assigned, except the Prayer, which is this: O God, who dost gladden Thy faithful by the glorious solemnity of blessed Triduana, grant, we beseech Thee, that by her merits we may deserve the joys of both lives. Through our Lord, etc.
[3] Since we have nothing else, I subjoin here in unbroken series the six first proper Lessons, as I said, of Aberdeen, whose Lessons, which we have copied by hand from the same Breviary, intending afterwards to annex my judgement on them. The blessed and glorious virgin Triduana, born of Colosia, came with Blessed Regulus to the parts of the Scots by angelic admonition, and with two virgins, Potentia and Eremia, led a holy life in a hermitage at Rostby. A certain tyrant named Nectanerus, petty king of that region, hearing of the fame of the virgin, taken with love, burned with lust; he hastens envoys to the virgin to obtain her consent. When she had learned this, and fearing the tyranny of the prince and that her chastity would be overpowered, she decided to leave her homeland, and remained for some time in Atholl at the place which is called Dusallad.
[4] narrating the deeds of the Saint, Messengers are sent to seek out the Virgin, who, being at length found, when she could not satisfy them with words, said to the messengers: What is it that so great a prince seeks to desire of me, a poor Virgin of God? And they answered: Desiring the most excellent beauty of your eyes, if he does not obtain it, he will perish. Then the Virgin answered with an affable voice: What he seeks of me, he shall obtain. And turning into a more secret place, plucking out her eyes, she held them out transfixed on a stake, saying: Take what your prince loves. And the messengers, presenting to their king the eyes of the Virgin thus transfixed on a stake, related what had been done. And the king, admiring the immovable constancy of the blessed Virgin, turned the hatred he formerly had into love. Meanwhile the blessed virgin Triduana, devoting herself to fasts and prayers, departed to the heavenly places at Lestalrick in Lothian.
[5] are given here, A certain woman of the nation of the English, noble by birth, had lost the light of her eyes; and when she had devoutly travelled through many holy thresholds for the restoration of her sight, and had not obtained what she desired, at length the virgin Triduana appeared to her in her sleep, saying: Go into Scotland to the place which is called Lastalrick, and to my sepulchre, from which you will return healed: and she, unwearied in fulfilling the commands, deserved to receive the light of her eyes. Afterwards also the little daughter of the same woman fell from a window of the house from a height of thirty feet, almost all her limbs being broken; from the impact of that fall her eyes were torn out. But the mother, grieving at the misery of the girl, yet not unmindful of the power of Blessed Triduana, devoutly besought her for the health of her daughter; and immediately the little girl, sound, received back also the integrity of her eyes. Thus far the Life of St. Triduana, divided into six short Lessons in the Breviary of Aberdeen.
[6] with our animadversions on them, If anyone now asks me what I think of these things, I answer that they seem to me fabulous, and compacted from uncertain little popular traditions, as is often wont to happen when a long age and the negligence of our forebears have obliterated the deeds of Saints who enjoy certain cult. She is said to have been born of Collosia, which place, if indeed it is rightly expressed here, where in the world it may be I have searched in vain: yet that it is to be sought in Scotland is argued by the fact that, when the Saint is narrated below to have removed from one place of Scotland to another, she is said to have left her homeland. Regulus, with whom she is asserted to have come into Scotland, has an Office in the same Breviary at the 17th day of this month of October, which makes him an abbot, and brings him from the city of Patras in Achaia into Scotland, adding a few companions to him, but among these no woman. If Triduana had been the companion of Regulus, she would have to be called Greek, not Scottish. That Office can be examined at the cited day; which meanwhile I judge to be of no better mark than today's Lessons of St. Triduana.
[7] The companions added to the same Virgin, Potentia and Eremia, are wholly unknown to me from elsewhere; not at all favourable. likewise unknown is the place Rostoby, near which the Saint is said to have inhabited a hermitage. Atholia is known, commonly Athol and Athole, a province of Northern Scotland, that is, beyond the river Tay; but the place Dusallad I have not found. And Laudonia, that is, Lothiana, in the vernacular Lothian, is a province of Southern Scotland; but again unknown to me is the place Lestalrick, or Lastalrick, in which the given Lessons assert that the body of the Saint rests, as does the title prefixed to them by another, as appears, who copied them, in which is read thus: Whose bones rest in honour at Lestalrick. Perhaps these names of places were either wrongly copied by a careless person, or have become obsolete and changed in the lapse of time, like many others. The deed of the Saint praised in the same Lessons, by no means to be imitated, of plucking out her eyes to preserve her virginity, is so wonderful and unusual that it finds no credence with me without a more certain author. For which reason I pass over recounting the eulogy from Camerarius and Dempster, since these indeed vary from the Lessons in many circumstances, but agree in the spontaneous digging-out of her eyes for the same cause.
[8] The time in which she flourished is uncertain. It remains that we say a few things about the time in which St. Triduana is said to have lived. The coming of St. Regulus, with whom the Lessons say she arrived in Scotland, is referred in his Aberdeen Office on the 17th day of October to the reign of Constantius, son of Constantine the Great, and therefore to the advanced fourth century. But, whatever may be the case with Regulus, she has nothing in common with him. In the title just praised, prefixed to our copy of the Lessons, she is narrated to have died under king Conran … in the year DXXXII; and the Wemyss praised above notes that Regius agrees; Camerarius, however, likewise praising Regius,
places the death of the same Saint about the year of Christ DXXXVIII, in the reign of Eugenius III. These two are read in the Catalogues of the kings of Scotland to have succeeded each other immediately; and that slight difference of six years would not be hard to neglect in so obscure a matter, provided it were established by some probable reason that neither opinion strays from the truth by many years, or even by some few centuries: since I cannot prove this, I have placed St. Triduana above in the margin in the sixth century, with the word of doubt Perhaps added.