ON ST. AURELIA OF STRASBOURG, VIRGIN, IN ALSACE,
Fourth or fifth century.
SYLLOGE.
The memory of St. Aurelia in the sacred Fasti, Acts of whatever kind, sacred cult, and her distinction from the namesake of Regensburg.
Aurelia, Virgin, at Strasbourg in Alsace. (S.)
BHL Number: 0818
BY J. B.
Argentoratum, or Argentina, in the vernacular Strassburg, The Saint among the Martyrologists the capital of Alsace and an episcopal city on the Rhine under the metropolis of Mainz, supplies us today with St. Aurelia, as one who laid down her mortal remains there, and became famous for prodigies, as will be said below, and obtained sacred cult from many times back. Of a Martyrology which mentions her I have found none older than that which Matthias Friedrich Beck published at Augsburg in the year 1687, written already then, as he says, seven hundred years before; but it records only the bare name of the holy Virgin in this way: Ides of October. Of Aurelia, Virgin. [Schoepflin makes mention of a Martyrology older than Beck's Alsat. Illustr., vol. I, p. 341.: The people of Strasbourg, he says, have from of old venerated the memory of a certain Virgin Aurelia, as that Martyrology of Strasbourg, written in the eighth or ninth century for the use of the churches of Alsace, demonstrates, where at the Ides of October is read: “Of St. Aurelia, Virgin,” namely the memory: nor is there doubt that the Aurelian temple took its name from her.] More frequent mention of her is made among the more recent martyrologists: the present Roman Martyrology adds a place in these words: At Strasbourg, of St. Aurelia, Virgin. Molanus uses the same words
in Sollerius in the Auctaria to Usuard, if you except the name of the place, which he calls Argentina. A somewhat fuller notice of the Saint is offered by the Lübeck-Cologne edition of Usuard, saying: At Argentina, the birthday of St. Aurelia, Virgin, who was one of the eleven thousand Virgins, and, falling ill on the return from Rome, died there. You may read things similar to these in Greven: similar things likewise in the German Martyrology called Canisius's; and in our MS. Florarium. Very many others I dismiss, because they supply nothing peculiar about our Saint besides what has already been adduced.
[2] mention, But one cannot pass over in silence the Paris Martyrology, published by the authority of Cardinal de Noailles, archbishop of Paris, in the twenty-seventh year above the twentieth of this century namely the 18th, which at this day specially records this about St. Aurelia: At Strasbourg, of St. Aurelia, Virgin, in whose honour an oratory was built anciently, and consecrated with her relics, which Saint Columban, coming into Alemannia, found at Bregenz, and renewed the altar which had been profaned by the barbarians. Singular indeed, but not equally true, are the things which Tamayo brings forward at this day in his Spanish Martyrology about St. Aurelia from the pseudo-Julian: let him be heard: At Strasbourg in Germany, he says, of St. Aurelia, Virgin and Martyr (against this martyrdom is everything that exists elsewhere among martyrologists and writers), daughter of Bl. Agathopus, freedman of Augustus, sprung from Galicia in Spain, who, converted to the faith by the Apostle James, the teacher of the Spains, with her father and sister, manfully embraced the rules of the faith, for the observance of which she came to the crown of martyrdom. To Agathopus, namely, as Tamayo adds in his Notes, the Martyr of Antioch, there were two daughters of the same name, of whom the one at Anagni in Italy, the other at Strasbourg in Germany, merited the crown of martyrdom. The fictitious adversaria of Julian, archpriest of Toledo, have already often been exploded, and what Tamayo brings from them at this place the reader has abundantly refuted by Suysken Vol. VII Septemb., p. 141. at the 25th day of September, where he treats of St. Aurelia venerated at Anagni; so that it is not worth the trouble to dispute more about these things.
[3] and the Acts In agreement with the Lübeck-Cologne Usuard, the German Martyrology and our MS. Florarium cited above, which ascribe St. Aurelia to the fellowship of St. Ursula, are her Acts, such as they are, inserted in the Breviary of Strasbourg published in the year 1489 at the expense of John Reynald (otherwise Grüninger) fol. 476., which, although proceeding from the tradition of the inhabitants rather than from undoubted testimonies of antiquity, and no older than the thirteenth century, we here set before the reader from it: they run thus: Lesson I. At the time when, by divine ordinance, most blessed Ursula with her retinue, having embarked on ships, had arranged to return from the city of Rome by the course of the Rhine, as is more fully contained in her Deeds, Aurelia, a most illustrious Virgin, who had been in the retinue of the aforesaid holy Virgin, divine grace favouring, being seized with fever on the water which is called Caltahe (Kaltau, an arm of the Rhine), and brought to a place outside the walls of the city of Strasbourg, where she now rests, breathed out her spirit; where the benefits of God are bestowed on all who venerate her with sincere faith. II. For it is related of her, among other things, that when once king Philip, inflamed with excessive zeal of envy, was besieging the city of Strasbourg, a certain tyrant entered the crypt of St. Aurelia, asserting that there was a treasure hidden there; and immediately when he had struck the tool to open the sarcophagus, the evil spirit entered into him, and he ended his life eating his hands and feet with his own teeth. III. And when he had been buried in the cemetery, a second and a third time his body was found unburied, lying on the ground, the grave being closed: that what was said by the Lord through the Prophet David might be fulfilled: He sent from heaven and delivered me. He gave to reproach them that trod me down. IV. Seeing which, the faithful of the same church put a rope on the trunk, and dragged it into the water flowing not far from the place, and let it go away, a censer being set beside it, filled with horse dung. And all the people who saw it gave praise to God, who, through the intervening prayers and merits of the same St. Aurelia, Virgin, may lead us to the haven of perpetual salvation.
[4] from the Breviary of Strasbourg V. There followed on a certain day of the aforesaid feast a wonderful sign, or rather a lamentable one. People of both sexes of the city of Strasbourg, holding the feast of Aurelia of small account, went out of the city to carry loam, of which there is much at the red church. VI. They came, therefore, to a certain pit situated there, and worked, and when they had begun to dig it in their accustomed manner, in a moment twenty-three virgins were crushed there and shut in. Which no one of sound mind doubts was done for this purpose, that the Lord, who willed and wills to be worthily praised in His Saints, might prove of how great merit and how great the aforementioned feast is before Him and His holy Angels in the heavens, and that we and our followers ought to venerate it with perennial donation (I believe devotion should be read). King Philip, of whom mention is made in Lesson 2, is Philip, duke of Swabia, who, on the death of the emperor Henry VI, his brother, was saluted king of the Romans by a party of the princes, others standing by Otto, duke of Brunswick, among whom was Conrad II, bishop of Strasbourg, whom Philip attacked in war: concerning which matter you have this in Urstisius, in a Fragment of an uncertain author Rer. Germ. Script., vol. II, p. 86.: In the year 1199, king Philip, having again gathered an army, at harvest time made for Alsace, and ruined all the corn, broke down hostile houses at Rouffach: destroyed many strongholds of the bishop of Strasbourg and of count Albert, and besieged the city itself. [The Breviary of Constance of the year 1575 attributes the siege in question to Philip, king of the Franks: but wrongly; for among the kings of the Franks of this name none is found who was hostile to the city of Strasbourg.]
[5] of little antiquity: This siege of the city of Strasbourg of the year 1199, related in the Acts, caused me to say at no. 3 that they are no older than the thirteenth century: indeed they are perhaps to be referred to the fourteenth century, since they speak of that siege as of a thing once or long past. But whether these Acts were first written in the thirteenth, or the fourteenth or following century, the age of them, so remote from the age of St. Aurelia, certainly causes me to think that what is said in them about St. Aurelia's fellowship with St. Ursula was drawn from the tradition of the natives rather, as I said above, than from records of undoubted credit and approaching sufficiently near to the age of St. Aurelia. On the same tradition rests what is carried about concerning the companions of St. Aurelia, and likewise holy Virgins, Einbetta, Vorbetta and Vilibetta, joined by St. Ursula to the sick Aurelia, and, at Strasbourg, where they too rested in peace, honoured with the honour of the heavenly ones. When Aurelia exchanged this life for the heavenly one we do not define; but we leave it to be investigated more accurately by him who will treat of St. Ursula at the 21st day of October: wherefore above, at the head of this Sylloge in the margin, we have noted the fourth or fifth century, on account of the discrepancy of authors in the matter.
[6] the more certain sacred cult of the same We have things more certain than these about the sacred cult of St. Aurelia: for not only does the Strasbourg Breviary of 1489 comprise her Office, but it also contains Litanies fol. 63 verso., in which the patronage of St. Aurelia, placed between St. Attala and St. Mary Magdalene, is invoked. To the Office is prefixed a Prayer of this kind: O God, who didst cause blessed Aurelia, Virgin, seized with fever, to pass to thee, grant, we beseech thee, to all of us who keep her feast, that by her prayers with thee we may be freed from all power of fevers and from all evil, and that thou mayest make us sharers of all good things to come. Through. [The more recent Breviary or Proper of the church of Strasbourg exhibits another Prayer, which approaches more nearly the common norm: Our prayers, we beseech thee, O Lord, which we offer on the feast of B. Aurelia, thy Virgin, mercifully hear: and make us ever to serve thee with pure minds. Through. What is said below, that the Constance Breviary has the same lessons, but divided into only three parts, does not square with the edition cited above, inasmuch as this exhibits a somewhat more compressed legend.] Aurelia is joined with St. Hedwig on the Ides of October in the Calendar of the Missale Speciale printed at Strasbourg in the year 1512. She likewise has at Strasbourg a church dedicated to her name, as Franz Guillimann teaches in the Bishops of Strasbourg, chapter IX p. 61., in these words: Besides these four collegiate churches (the cathedral sacred to the Virgin Mother of God, St. Peter the Elder, St. Thomas and St. Peter the Younger) there were as many parishes, of St. Aurelia, St. Andrew, St. Martin, St. Nicholas. They say it was founded in the sixth century, and so frequented that, houses having been built around it, the city's precinct had to be enlarged in the year 700: now the city embraces it in its bosom, situated in the very place where Aurelia was buried. She moreover obtained sacred cult in the diocese of Constance, as is clear from the Breviary of that church of the year 1561 extant in our possession; in which likewise are read in the same words, divided into three Lessons, the things which are contained above in the first four, but with a prayer less proper to St. Aurelia: Grant, we beseech thee, almighty God, that we who keep the birthday of blessed Aurelia, thy Virgin, may both rejoice in the annual solemnity and profit by the example of so great faith. Through.
[7] sacred cult Now it has passed to the use of the Lutherans, by whom in the year 1524 her Relics were reduced to ashes; but they could not abolish her cult. [This was done in the twenty-fourth year of the sixteenth century, as our Louis Laguille teaches us in his History of Alsace Hist. d'Alsace, part II, p. 61., and it is confirmed from the protestation of the Canons of the churches of St. Thomas, St. Peter the Younger and St. Peter the Elder, given on the 6th day of January of the following year, in the cited Laguille Ibid., part III, p. 111., in which it is said: It is better known than known how, especially in the said city of Strasbourg, the followers of that Lutheran sect, in the said three collegiate churches and their parishes, every rite and observance salutarily instituted by Holy Mother Church, both in administering the Sacraments and in celebrating the solemnities of Masses, not only attempted to overturn, but indeed actually subverted, as was noted above: and what is worse, lately in the parish church of St. Aurelia, which is subject by full right to the said Lords of the Chapter of St. Thomas, they sacrilegiously exhumed the bones of St. Aurelia, Virgin, laid up in the same church, rashly shook the tomb, etc.] There exists besides a striking record of the sacred cult formerly accustomed to be paid to St. Aurelia, from the Paris Martyrology cited at no. 1, which makes mention of an Oratory sacred to the holy Virgin and cleansed by St. Columban from the profanation of the pagans: that part of the announcement was drawn from the Life of St. Gall which Walafrid Strabo, abbot of Reichenau, wrote, snatched from this mortal life in the year 859, as
Mabillon Saec. II Bened., p. 227. notes from Hepidannus, monk of St. Gall, in his Observations on the Life of St. Gall written by Walafrid. Hear the matter itself in the very words of Walafrid, Life of St. Gall, chapter VI: When, therefore, they desired to go thither (from Arbon to Bregenz, which are towns situated on the lake of Zürich), the presbyter (Willimar, with whom they had lodged for seven days) prepared a little boat and put rowers in it. And the venerable abbot (Columban), embarking on the boat with his companions and a certain deacon, having invoked the name of the Lord, came by a straight way to the desired place (Bregenz). Having stepped out of the little boat, they approached an oratory built in honour of St. Aurelia, which afterwards Bl. Columban renewed to its pristine honour. For it had yielded at that time to the superstitious rites of the pagans: then Walafrid, having narrated the conversion of the inhabitants, at least in great part, to the faith of Christ through the work of St. Gall, proceeds to our matter in this way: Blessed Columban ordered water to be brought, and blessing it, sprinkled the temple with it, and while they went round singing psalms, he dedicated the church. Then, having invoked the name of the Lord, he anointed the altar, and placed Relics of Blessed Aurelia in it, and the altar being vested, they duly completed the Masses. All things having thus been duly performed, the people returned to their homes with great joy. The same things, but more briefly, are narrated also by Ratpert, monk of St. Gall, book I, chapter I, On the Origin and Fortunes of his monastery [Goldast. Scriptt. rer. Alaman., part 1, p. 1, and Pertz Monum. Germ., vol. II, p. 61.].
[8] at Bregenz and at Strasbourg. The date of the temple of St. Aurelia, purged by St. Columban from the superstitions of the pagans, must be referred to the beginning of the seventh century: for Jonas, the almost contemporary writer of the Life of St. Columban, writes in chapter LIX of the same Life in Mabillon Saec. II Bened., p. 28. that Columban, having left Gaul and Germany, went away into Italy when he had seen Theodebert (king of Austrasia) defeated by Theodoric (of Burgundy): which happened in the year of Christ 612; after, namely, as Walafrid testifies in the Life of St. Gall, chapter VI, he had stayed at Bregenz three years or thereabouts: whence the expiation of that temple must have been made about the year 610; and if at that time, as Ratpert, monk of St. Gall, in Goldast in the work already cited, says, it had already long before been dedicated to the Christian religion, surely already before that date, and perhaps indeed long before, the sacred cult of St. Aurelia flourished not only in Alsace, but also in the neighbouring regions of Germany beyond the Rhine. For these things do not seem able to be taken of any other holy Virgin Aurelia than of ours, who died at Strasbourg, was buried there, and was always venerated there. In the fifteenth century, such is the inconstancy of human nature, the cult of St. Aurelia cooled among the people of Strasbourg; but in the same century, on the occasion of an apparition of the same holy Virgin made to a certain pious person, it was restored to its pristine vigour, her body being elevated, and the temple which is dedicated to her being rebuilt. The affair, in the year 1460, from a German MS., rendered into Latin by himself, but first written by a contemporary author, Crombach sets out thus in volume II of St. Ursula Vindicated, chapter XXX: A few years ago, within our memory, it happened, about the year of the Lord 1460, that when a person pious as few are was pouring out fervent prayers to God in St. Aurelia's, the Virgin St. Aurelia came forth from the tomb in visible form, full of light, redoubling complaints that she lay hidden there without glory, and that mortals deemed her worthy of no cult: and so, when she wished to go out towards the door, the said person becomes a suppliant to the holy Virgin, and asks humbly to what places she would withdraw. Aurelia answered that she was thinking of Cologne, of going to her remaining Companions, that she might enjoy a common honour and cult with them, she who alone was resting here destitute of all reverence: here the person adjured, prayed, indeed prevailed upon her not to desert that place and station, saying that she would act so that she should henceforth be celebrated with fitting honour. At once she who had seen the prodigy went to the consuls and the magistracy of the city of Strasbourg: she sets out the complaints of the holy Virgin, and especially that she had said the underground vault lying over the sepulchre was already threatening ruin, and was so low and abject that it was despised by the common people. The fame of the miracle being spread abroad, the citizens took pains that the tomb should be renewed: so while, the covering being removed, the sarcophagus is unlocked, she is found entire, clad in linen garments: then, the tomb being closed, they carve on the sepulchral stone the effigy of St. Aurelia, the monument being raised: and her crypt they adorn with most elegant paintings: then the citizens solemnly promise that they will henceforth show more honour and reverence to the holy Virgin than they had hitherto, acknowledging and deprecating their negligence. The inspection was made not so accurately of the body as rather of the sarcophagus of St. Aurelia, at least as it is described in the words just cited, that it could not easily have happened that some portion of the sacred body, although it was found so composed as to show to the eyes the appearance of an entire and whole body, was once translated to Bregenz, and laid up in that place in the temple of St. Aurelia; and so that inspection does not make it necessary to separate the Aurelia of Strasbourg from the one of Bregenz.
[9] Aurelia venerated at Strasbourg But is the same to be determined about Aurelia of Regensburg? For there too the memory of an Aurelia is celebrated. I plainly do not think so. Rader wove a lengthy elogium for this Aurelia in Bavaria Sancta Vol. II, p. 166. from the Records of St. Emmeram, Wolfgang Selender and others. The principal heads of the elogium are roughly these: Aurelia, born at Paris, her father being Hugh Capet (anointed king of France in the year 987), when she was already marriageable, destined as wife to Eluvianus, easily the prince of the youth of Paris, fled secretly for love of preserving her virginity, and, unknown to all, in the year 975 came to Regensburg to St. Ramuold, abbot of St. Emmeram, by whom she was enclosed outside the precinct in a cloister which was afterwards called St. Andrew's, and after 52 years spent piously and holily away from the din of men she rested in a blessed end in the year 1027, on the 15th day of October. Whether she is the same as Aurelia of Strasbourg, or different, Rader says is not clear to him; from whom Saussay, transferring the same elogium into his Gallican Martyrology at this day, with the style somewhat changed here and there, concludes it thus: Her most pure body, brought into the monastery of St. Emmeram, is seen in the peristyle, standing out today rather high above the ground with its own epitaph, and her memory is honoured there with anniversary rites, already for more than six hundred years. Whoever reads Saussay's last words will judge that they were written with this aim, that sacred cult might be claimed for Aurelia. And yet Rader, from whom Saussay composed the Elogium of Aurelia, wrote that this anniversary rite was not of the kind which is accustomed to be celebrated in honour of the Heavenly ones enjoying the title of Saints or Blessed, but a funeral one, such as is also accustomed to be celebrated for those to whom neither of those titles fits. [There are renewed, says Rader, yearly for her funeral rites at St. Emmeram's, never interrupted now for five hundred and eighty-nine years, as Wolfgang Selender testifies.] With Saussay seems to agree Brunner, Annals of the Boii, part II, book IV, no. 7, at the year 1027, where he says: Her body (Aurelia's), left as a pledge to Bavaria, is venerated as a Saint's: but in what that cult consists is explained by John Adlzreiter, likewise in the Annals of the Boii, part I, book XVI, no. 15, in these words: Her tomb is celebrated every year with a tapestry hung up and candles lit, by a custom received from the year 1027 (Aurelia's death year) up to the year 1599, when Selender (whose lucubration on Aurelia we lack) was writing: which kind of cult surely, if nothing accrues to it from elsewhere, is not so proper to Saints and Blessed as to suffice of itself for founding the title of Saint or Blessed. I observe indeed from Mabillon in his German Journey Vet. Analect., p. 10. that a funeral cult of this kind is shown in the monastery of St. Emmeram to St. Ramuold, abbot; that he, however, is venerated there as a Saint: for he says thus: His anniversary they observe yearly, although in private prayers he is invoked as a Saint: but of Aurelia, of whom he had treated a little before, he records nothing of this kind, nor does he attribute to her the title of Saint or Blessed, contrary to what he does in the case of Ramuold.
[10] is to be distinguished Mabillon, moreover, the one cited, and an eyewitness of what he writes about Aurelia of Regensburg and her tomb, has this: At the door of the cloister, by which the entrance into the church lies open, is seen a rather elegant tomb, over which stands the effigy of a certain Aurelia, whom they think the daughter of Hugh Capet, raised upon four stones. On the margin of the upper stone these words are read: “Here the pious virgin Aurelia, buried, flourishes, Who knows no pains, upheld by the sweetness of heaven.” “Lieutwin Camer. (perhaps Camerarius), canon and scholasticus of the Major church.” Caelestinus, abbot of St. Emmeram Ratisb. monast., p. 109., reads: Gamerius, Gamedus, or Gemeroldus. There is hung, Mabillon goes on, at the head a small tablet on which are these verses, not inelegant, but more recently written: “I am covered by this tomb, the most illustrious offspring of kings, Whom Gaul bore, whom now Imbripolis holds. Hither I came a fugitive, fleeing the fellowship of a bridegroom, That I might keep a chaste couch for thee, O Christ. Hence Ramuold lent his aid while life remained, That I might offer pious incense and prayers to God. Wouldst thou know the time of my life? I enjoyed the breezes of life Ten lustres; to these add two years besides. Here I await thy strict tribunal, O Christ; Thou wilt grant me then to sit on the right among the sheep.” Mabillon observes here that in these verses Aurelia is not celebrated as the daughter of Hugh Capet or of another king of France, but as royal offspring, that is, born of royal stock; and rightly indeed this was omitted by the poet: for I do not think it will be proved from any records of good stamp sought from elsewhere that Aurelia was the daughter either of Hugh Capet or of Lothair (of whom others say she was born), kings of France.
[11] from the Regensburg one. On the lower stone, Mabillon further says, which is laid beneath this upper one, covering the tomb like a lid, in Roman, that is, very ancient, letters, these words are set on the margin of the stone… O. M. (others read I. O. M., that is, To Jupiter Best and Greatest) and to the perpetual security and memory of the most sweet Aurelia (instead of one, others seem to themselves to detect two Aurelias here, namely mother and daughter), daughter of M. Aur., P. AEL. Silvanus (for which others read: A. E. L. Juvianus) to his incomparable wife. [The variant readings or interpretations exhibited here are excerpted from Rader's Bavaria Sancta Vol. II, p. 169..] Here, finally, is Mabillon's conclusion in this matter: From this inscription we gather either that there were two Aurelias, of whom one, married, lived in the ancient times of the Romans, the other a virgin and indeed more recent: or certainly one, who lived in the first times, whose epitaph when later generations could not
read it, they falsely attached it to a certain later Aurelia. Truly, whoever placed upon the tomb of Aurelia, the recluse of Regensburg, an inscription dug out of Roman ruins acted ill-advisedly, and in that way gave occasion not only for confusing the pagan Aurelia with the younger Christian one, between whom there was nothing in common, but also for doubting whether that inscription covered her tomb from the death of the recluse Aurelia, and whether we have her true name ascertained; for what if, some time having elapsed after her death, later generations, deceived by that inscription, began falsely to believe that the name of the pagan woman was that of the virgin enclosed at Regensburg, just as it is evident that this happened in the case of Eluvianus, or Ael. Juvianus, her betrothed, as they say? These things have been said somewhat more fully, both so that I might not dismiss the reader wholly ignorant of matters concerning Aurelia of Regensburg, and so that he might perceive why she was placed above among those Passed Over, and finally so that he might understand even from this that Aurelia of Strasbourg is plainly different from the one of Regensburg: for it cannot be that the body of the same Aurelia was entombed and preserved hitherto at Strasbourg and at Regensburg at the same time, and that the one of Regensburg obtained cult at Strasbourg and elsewhere many centuries before she began to enjoy this light. Care must therefore be taken lest she be confused with the Aurelia announced today in the Martyrology at Strasbourg, into which error fell Arnold Wion in the Additions to the Lignum Vitae p. 900., and Castellanus in the Universal Martyrology: the one indeed when he says that Aurelia of Regensburg is inscribed today in the Roman Martyrology; the other when, announcing only one Aurelia, and that at Strasbourg, he assigns in the margin as her death year 1027, in which Aurelia of Regensburg departed from this life. Undeservedly likewise is Ferrarius beaten by Arthur du Moustier in the Gynaeceum Sacrum, because in the Topography of the Roman Martyrology he placed one Aurelia at Strasbourg, the other at Regensburg. [By way of a coronis let there be the lesson which is recited in the more recent Breviary on the feast of St. Aurelia: They relate that the Virgin Aurelia was of the choir of those virgins who clung to St. Ursula as companions and associates. Of her homeland, birth and course of life nothing certain is found in the records of histories. This one thing has been ascertained by constant tradition, that about the year of Christ three hundred and eighty-three she arrived at Strasbourg, and there, seized by illness, died, and that her cult has flourished in the Church of Strasbourg from time immemorial; since indeed her name is read inserted in the fasti of the Saints already at the beginning of the ninth century; and also that the faithful venerated her with such holy devotion and trust that in the suburb of the city of Strasbourg they built a church under her invocation, in which the body of St. Aurelia was religiously preserved up to the year one thousand five hundred and twenty-fourth, when by the innovators trampling on all sacred things the tomb was broken open, the relics taken out and given to the flames. In Bue's sylloge, no. 6, a tradition is reported as though the temple of St. Aurelia had been founded in the sixth century; but the biographer of the Saints of Alsace, Hunckler, refers its building to bishop Ruthard, who died in the middle of the tenth century Hist. des Saints d'Alsace, p. 443.. The Head of St. Aurelia is read to be laid up at Lisbon, Act. SS. vol. II of January, p. 612. But whether it is the head of ours or of some other Aurelia the writers do not explain.]