Legend of Saint Ursula
On these pages you will find 21 Chromolithographs (first method for making true multi-color prints), reproductions of painting originally found in the Church of Saint Ursula in Cologne, Germany. These reproductions were scanned from the 1861 edition of La légende de sainte Ursule, princesse britannique et de ses onze mille vierges. |
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Ursula ("small female bear" in Latin) is a British Christian saint. Her feast day in the Roman Catholic Church is October 21, though her feast was removed from the general calendar of saints in 1969. For a version of the story of Saint Ursula: Ursuline Sisters - Saint Ursula |
Her legend, probably unhistorical, is that she was a Romano-British princess who, at the request of her father King Donaut of Cornwall, set sail to join her future husband, the pagan Governor Conan Meriadoc of Armorica (Brittany), along with 11,000 virginal handmaidens. However, a miraculous storm brought them over the sea in a single day to a Gaulish port, where Ursula declared that before her marriage she would undertake a pan-European pilgrimage. She headed for Rome, with her followers, and persuaded the Pope, Cyriacus (unknown in the pontifical records), and Bishop of Ravenna, Sulpicius, to join them. After setting out for Cologne, which was being besieged by Huns, all the virgins were beheaded in a dreadful massacre. The Huns' leader shot Ursula dead, supposedly in 383.
