Ursula
Ursula names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Ursula ST. tiful and pious daughter named Ursula
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ST. tiful and pious daughter named Ursula. She was sought in marriage by the heathen prince Holofernes. His suit was granted, but under the following conditions-the prince must become Christian, and wait for three years while the bride-elect went with her companions on a pilgrimage to Rome. The suitor was immediately baptized under the name of Etherius, and Ursula set out with 11 vessels, in each of which there were 1,000 companion virgins. The company crossed the sea and sailed up the Rhine as far as Basel, from thence they proceeded overland to Rome, where they were honorably received by Pope Cyriakus. The pious and gallant pontiff, along with a multitude of dignified ecclesiastics, accompanied his fair guests a great part of the return journey, and according to some accounts even shared in the final destruction that suddenly overtook the ban band; for as they were about to land at Köln they were set on by a horde of heathen Huns, by whom they were all slaughtered. Ursula was at first reserved as a bride for Etzel, the Hun king, and on her steadfast refusal of the offer she was transfixed by an arrow, and thus she is represented in mediæval art. But the bloody deed was the no sooner accomplished than 11,000 celestial warriors appeared, who completely routed the Huns and freed Köln. The citizens buried the unhappy maidens with pious care by the Rhine, held afterward sacred, and there too Clematius, a Greek pilgrim, built a church in their honor. The story excited suspicion even in a credulous age. But confirmations were not wanting. St. Elizabeth, abbess of the cloister Schönau, by Oberwesel, held spiritual communication with St. Verena, irgins, and saw the one of the murdered virg whole tragedy enacted as in a vision. Moreover, Egbert, brother of the abbess, and inspired by her, wrote down an explanation and defense of the story. In this several awkward inconsistencies were smoothed away. Thus there was no mention by Roman chroniclers of a Pope Cyriakus; but this (explained the narrator) was because the cardinals were angry at his leaving the city, and blotted out all mention of him from the records of the Church. If it was asked how the virgins made such excellent sailors, it was replied that King Deonatus had with prudent foresight concealed a number of mariners in the hold of each vessel, and so on. Later critics have striven to explain the vastness of the number. It has been ingeniously conjectured that the number, at first 11, became 11,000 by reading the letter M. (meaning martyred) as the Roman numeral 1,000. However this may be, it seems probable that some Christian maidens were really murdered by heathen invaders near Köln, and that the story has thus some basis of fact.
Ursula er'su-la, an English princess
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
er'su-la, an English princess. According to the Christian legend of St. Ursula, she was returning from a pilgrimage to Rome, when, near Cologne, a horde of Huns fell upon her band and put herself and 11,000 attendant virgins to death barbarously. Some accounts reduce the number to as low a figure as eleven. The date is given as 384, also 453. The church of St. Ursula in Cologne was built to commemorate the name. In digging foundations for walls in the early part of the twelfth century the citizens of Cologne came upon an immense collection of bones. Despite the fact that there were skeletons of men and children they were declared to be the bones of St. Ursula and her companions. They were piously cared for and are still preserved in cases placed around the church. They are believed to have miraculous properties of healing. The legend is told also in a series of paintings on the walls of the church. The 21st of October is St. Ursula's day. An attempt is made to identify the St. Ursula of the Catholic church with the goddess Ursel, the Venus of Teutonic mythology. The religious order of Ursuline Sisters, represented in the United States at St. Louis, Alton, and elsewhere, was named for St. Ursula.
Ursula ST., the heroine of a very curious legend of the Middle Ages
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ST., the heroine of a very curious legend of the Middle Ages, whose origin may be ascribed to the 12th century, and which runs as follows: Deonatus, King of Britain, had a very beau-
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's already treated the story as "a very curious legend" and guessed that a handful of Christian women really were killed near Cologne — and that is roughly where scholarship still stands, tracing the whole cult to the fourth- or fifth-century Clematius inscription in the church of St Ursula, which mentions virgin martyrs but no Ursula and no number. The bones Aiton's describes, dug up when Cologne extended its walls around 1106 and admitted even in 1910 to include men and children, are now understood as an ordinary Roman-era cemetery; they are still stacked and arranged in the church's Golden Chamber, a major tourist sight. The one clear break came in 1969, when the revised Roman Calendar dropped Ursula's 21 October feast from the universal Church on the grounds that nothing historical could be established about her, though the Ursuline sisters, founded in 1535, still keep the day and still teach worldwide.
Written for this edition, 2026.