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Mar. 17th, 2010 12:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stitchwhichAgricola (Aregle) (A.D. 580) S. Agricola was the son of a noble Gallo-Roman family; he became bishop of Chalon-sur-Saone in 532. His friend Gregory of Tours reports that Agricola was deeply spiritual, cared for the spiritual well-being of his flock, and beautified a lot of churches. He also said Agricola never dined, and only broke his fast in the evening, when he ate (while standing) a small amount of food. Agricola died at the age of eighty-three, in the year 580.
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Gertrude of Nivelles (d659) Gertrude was a daughter of the Carolingian Pepin of Landen and St. Ida (Itta). When Pepin died in 639, Itta built the double monastery at Nivelles and entered it with her daughter. Elected at age 20, Gertrude served as abbess from 639 until 656, when she resigned her position to spend the last three years of her life in prayer, being penitential, and having visions. She became known both for her learning and her charity. Gertrude had books brought from Rome and patronized Irish wandering monks to help improve the new foundation. By the time she died, at about the age of 33, she had built Nivelles into a major religious center. Gertrude's cult was popular in the Netherlands.
For cat fanciers, Gertrude does not take second place to St Patrick... she is known for protection from mice, and by extension has become the patron saint of cats and cat lovers. Gertrude became a saint especially beloved by farmers; according to legend, her prayer ended a plague of rats and mice, thus saving the harvest. (Alternately, because popular Teutonic superstition regarded mice and rats as symbols of souls, the rat and mouse became characteristics of S. Gertrude, and she is represented in art accompanied by one of these animals. In order to explain the significance of the mouse in pictures of S. Gertrude it was related that she was wont to become so absorbed in prayer that a mouse would play about her, and run up her pastoral staff, without attracting her attention.) She is also a patron of travellers, due to her care for pilgrims and to a miraculous rescue at sea of some of her monks, who invoked her name in a moment of great danger. Fine weather on her feast day is supposed to be the sign to start garden work.
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Guðmundr Arason of Iceland (1237), never officially canonized but the one of the three Icelandic holy men to maintain his position in folklore through the nineteenth century. The wells and springs he is supposed to have consecrated were legion. No snakes or druids in Iceland, but he dealt with a number of rather nasty trolls and the like.
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Withburga (d. c. 743) Withburga was an East Anglian princess, a sister of St. Etheldreda. She became a solitary. Her fame seems really to have begun when she was exhumed 50 years after her death, and the body was found to be incorrupt. In 974 the monastery of Ely stole the body under rather exciting circumstances (pursuit by the men of Dereham, escape by boat).
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I'm not going to post about St. Patrick - to tell the truth, he is my least favorite Celtic saint. The crimes he committed against the Irish get my dander up.
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Gertrude of Nivelles (d659) Gertrude was a daughter of the Carolingian Pepin of Landen and St. Ida (Itta). When Pepin died in 639, Itta built the double monastery at Nivelles and entered it with her daughter. Elected at age 20, Gertrude served as abbess from 639 until 656, when she resigned her position to spend the last three years of her life in prayer, being penitential, and having visions. She became known both for her learning and her charity. Gertrude had books brought from Rome and patronized Irish wandering monks to help improve the new foundation. By the time she died, at about the age of 33, she had built Nivelles into a major religious center. Gertrude's cult was popular in the Netherlands.
For cat fanciers, Gertrude does not take second place to St Patrick... she is known for protection from mice, and by extension has become the patron saint of cats and cat lovers. Gertrude became a saint especially beloved by farmers; according to legend, her prayer ended a plague of rats and mice, thus saving the harvest. (Alternately, because popular Teutonic superstition regarded mice and rats as symbols of souls, the rat and mouse became characteristics of S. Gertrude, and she is represented in art accompanied by one of these animals. In order to explain the significance of the mouse in pictures of S. Gertrude it was related that she was wont to become so absorbed in prayer that a mouse would play about her, and run up her pastoral staff, without attracting her attention.) She is also a patron of travellers, due to her care for pilgrims and to a miraculous rescue at sea of some of her monks, who invoked her name in a moment of great danger. Fine weather on her feast day is supposed to be the sign to start garden work.
---***---
Guðmundr Arason of Iceland (1237), never officially canonized but the one of the three Icelandic holy men to maintain his position in folklore through the nineteenth century. The wells and springs he is supposed to have consecrated were legion. No snakes or druids in Iceland, but he dealt with a number of rather nasty trolls and the like.
---***---
Withburga (d. c. 743) Withburga was an East Anglian princess, a sister of St. Etheldreda. She became a solitary. Her fame seems really to have begun when she was exhumed 50 years after her death, and the body was found to be incorrupt. In 974 the monastery of Ely stole the body under rather exciting circumstances (pursuit by the men of Dereham, escape by boat).
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I'm not going to post about St. Patrick - to tell the truth, he is my least favorite Celtic saint. The crimes he committed against the Irish get my dander up.
