Not one, but TWO saints – meet St Eulalia

Today, I am going to introduce you to St Eulalia. Both of them, because yes, there are two.
Why St Eulalia, you may ask. Well, that’s all Alma’s fault. Alma is the main character in my WIP and at present (well, in the year 1337) she is in Mérida, one of those very, very ancient cities that dot the Iberian peninsula. Founded by Augustus as Augusta Emerita, this city boasts the most impressive collection of Roman remains in Spain. And it is also in its Roman past that we find the roots to the story of St Eulalia of Mérida.

By the time Alma visits Mérida , St Eulalia has been venerated for centuries, held by the locals to be the “real” St Eulalia. More of that later.

Our Eulalia was no retiring violet—something she has in common with most of the female saints. These were women of strong convictions—so strong they were willing to risk everything to hold on to them. Born in 292 AD or so in Augusta Emerita (some argue she was born fifty years earlier, but consensus seems to be around 290), she was the daughter of a Roman senator called Liberius. Her entire family was Christian and Eulalia was soon to prove the most devout of them all.

Enter Emperor Diocletian, who in 303 AD issued a decree ordering the destruction of all Christian churches and forbidding the Christian faith. Instead, his Christian subjects were obliged to bow before the Roman gods—and the emperor himself.

In Augusta Emerita, the decree caused quite some upheaval—at least for Eulalia’s family. While it seems her parents and other family members were sufficiently pragmatic to be willing to pay lip service to the Roman gods and the Emperor while waiting for all this to pass, little Eulalia was not. Accordingly, late in 304 AD her mother swept up her daughter and carried her off to their country estate, a safe distance from the town. The likelihood of the local governor, Dacian, demanding that a child disavow her faith was considered low, so as long as Eulalia remained out of sight, things would blow over. Or so Eulalia’s mama hoped.

Eulalia, however, was having none of it. She, all of twelve or so, was determined to make a stand for her faith, which is why she slipped away from the country estate and undertook a hazardous journey to return to Augusta Emerita. She reached her hometown on December 10 of 304 AD—or so the legend tells us—and marched straight into the presence of the governor and told him that she never—never!—would abjure the only true faith.

I imagine Dacian initially found this slip of a girl somewhat amusing, if annoying. So he settled himself in his chair and tried to wheedle with her. He promised her gifts if she would just take a piece of bread and sacrifice to the old gods, burn some incense before their images. Eulalia threw the bread to skid across the floor and stated that she would only sacrifice and worship God—and his son.

The governor changed tactics: a snap of his fingers, and his guards came in carrying various instruments of torture.
“Look,” he told the girl. “We will continue hurting you until you submit. Much better to just do as I say now, don’t you think?”
No, Eulalia did not think so.
After some further attempts, the governor gave up and ordered his guards to beat some sense into the girl.

Poor Eulalia was stripped and  beaten. When that didn’t have her recant, the soldiers lit torches and set to burning her skin. One of the torches came too close to her magnificent mane of hair, and just like that, our little saint was on fire. She died in agony, and upon the moment of her death a white dove miraculously flew out of her mouth, so scaring the soldiers they fled, leaving her abandoned and alone. Moments later, there was yet another miracle, when snow began to fall, covering the dead little girl with a blanket of white. (Mérida rarely sees temperatures under zero, hence the snow being a miracle)

Some days later, a few brave Christians snuck in and retrieved her body, burying it just outside the city walls. By the mid fourth century, a basilica had been constructed on the site of Eulalia’s martyrdom, her hastily buried remains having been reinterred with pomp and circumstance in the crypt. In time, the basilica was to become the most impressive of Visigoth Spain, pilgrims coming from far and wide. In the 8th century, her remains were transferred to Oviedo where they still remain.

When the Moors conquered Mérida, the basilica suffered major damage. But when the Christians began that long, long slog to reclaim their lands from the Muslim invaders known as the Reconquista, it was St Eulalia’s name they invoked, this first Spanish saint.

In the 12th century, Santiago took over as the warrior saint—I imagine a male saint sat better with the soldiers—and the Order of Santiago, founded in 1160, were to have a large centre in reconquered Mérida, where work more or less immediately began on rebuilding the basilica of St Eulalia.

The story of St Eulalia makes me sad. A child, tortured to death—how can that serve any purpose? Obviously, many would disagree with me, pointing out that little Eulalia’s death gave the Spanish Christians the saint they needed to withstand the Moorish invasion. Hmm. (I am happy to report that Alma echoes that ‘hmm’, going on to mutter that it seems to her most Christian saints are people who have suffered horrible, horrible deaths. Then she bites her lip and says no more—wise, I suppose, when only a few generations back her ancestors were Muslims before they were more or less forcibly urged to convert)

St Eulalia is celebrated on December 10 (today, just by chance. Not…)  and is the patron saint of torture victims (!), runaways and widows. She is also one of Spain’s national saints and holds a protective hand over both Oviedo and Mérida.

So, that was St Eulalia number one, presently at rest in Oviedo, but venerated all over Spain, with the largest temple in her honour being the basilica in Mérida. But I promised you the story of two Eulalias, so let us leave Mérida behind and take a giant leap across the Iberian peninsula, to land in Barcelona.

Sometimes, a picture says more than a thousand words, and one such picture is this:

Yup, that is a depiction of the martyrdom of St Eulalia of Barcelona, co-saint of Barcelona. There are a lot of similarities in the story of this Eulalia and the first one. Both were very young when they died—Eulalia of Barcelona was thirteen, a year older than Eulalia of Mérida—both were devout Christians who escaped their homes and their worried families to seek out governor Dacian to protest the Diocletian decree. In both cases, a frustrated Dacian ordered the girls to be tortured—but here there is a significant difference, in that Dacian ordered Eulalia of Barcelona to be subjected to thirteen types of torture, one for every year of her life.

Eulalia was flogged, stuffed into a barrel filled with crushed glass and nails which was rolled downhill, she was subjected to pincers ripping out her flesh, she was stood in a glowing brazier, had her budding breasts burned . . . and that is only five of the chosen tortures. As a final humiliation, she was walked naked through the city—dragged, more likely—and tied to a saltire cross on which she died. And the moment she expired, a white dove flew out of her mouth, while moments later, a gentle snowfall covered the poor, dead girl. Just like what happened at the death of St Eulalia of Mérida.

There are doubts as to whether Eulalia of Barcelona really was a different person than Eulalia of Mérida. Rather, it seems Eulalia of Barcelona is a (much bloodier) local version of Eulalia of Mérida’s martyrdom. This is borne out by the fact that while the legend of St Eulalia of Mérida was established in the fourth century, the story of Eulalia of Barcelona doesn’t appear until the seventh century. Also, this latter Eulalia had no known remains—well, until a certain Bishop Frodoino in the ninth century propitiously discovered her bones. (His contemporaries seem to have dismissed this as his ‘invention’)

Whatever the case, since 2004 Eulalia of Barcelona is no longer part of the Roman Martyrology, having been relegated to the position of a ‘traditional, local saint’.
“Told you,” the cook in Mérida who told Alma about the ‘true’  St Eulalia says. “A farce, that one!”
I share a quick look with Alma. She rolls her eyes—but some days later she’ll be kneeling before the saint’s tomb, wiping at her eyes. Why? Well, that’s another story entirely!