required her to make. She went to Borne, and obtained the confirmation of her order by Urban V. in 1370. After visiting Naples and Sicily, she was inspired to go to Jerusalem, although, being in her seventieth year, she had some misgivings about her infirmities. Her son Charles, father of the younger St. Brigid of Sweden, set off with her, but died at an early stage of the journey. She was comforted by a revelation of his having entered into eternal bliss. Her daughter, St. Catherine of Sweden, and her son Birger, went with her to Jerusalem. She was taken ill on the return journey, and died in 1373, soon after her arrival in Rome.
It is recorded that she was never known to be angry or jealous. She caused the Scriptures to be translated into her native language.
She had four sons and four daughters, one of whom was Abbess of Wadstein; another daughter, Mareta, was the mother of Ingrid, abbess of Wadstein. There is extant a volume of the Revelations of St. Brigid, presented by her daughter St. Catherine to Pope Gregory XI., who commissioned three learned cardinals to examine them; they found in them nothing contrary to the Catholic faith. Her denunciations of the abuses of the time in high places were somewhat like those of St. Hildegard, but much more explicit. A coarse sort of guipure lace, made in Sweden, is said to have been introduced by St. Brigid, who learned the art on her pilgrimages, and taught it to her nuns.
The tomb of Brigid’s father and mother is still shown in the cathedral of Upsala. Their recumbent statues lie on a slab, a lion at his feet and a dog at hers; their seven children are represented on the border of the tomb. Two sheets of her handwriting are shown in the Library at Stockholm.
Her canonization was begun by Boniface IX., and was completed by Martin V., in 1419.
R. M., Oct. 8. Fant and Annerstedt, Rerum Suecicarum, iii. Helyot, Hist. Ord. Mon., part iii., chap. 4. Butler. Baillet. Mésenguy. Duffy. Mrs. Jameson. Geijar, Hist. of Sweden, i. 290, etc. Karamsin, Hist. de Russie, iv. 327. Report of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, Oct., 1878. A very interesting book, The Mirrour of our Lady, edited for the Early English Text Society, by Miss Toulmin Smith, and written for the monastery of St. Saviour and St. Brigid at Isleworth, near Twickenham, gives some particulars of her life, and an account of the establishment, in 1406, of this first Brigittine monastery in England. Paul du Chaillu, Land of the Midnight Sun, ii. p. 333, etc., gives a charming description of the country where Wadstein is situated, and some legends collected from the people of the district.
St Brigid (20) the Younger, of Sweden, V. † 1398. Granddaughter of St. Brigid of Sweden, being the daughter of her son Charles, who died on pilgrimage. The younger Brigid was brought up in the convent of Vreta, on the Wettern Lake. When she was seven, her grandmother appeared to her and predicted her death. She made her last confession, and, although it was January, she begged persistently for strawberries, and, by a revelation from St. Brigid, some were found under the snow, on a hill near the convent. She was buried at her grandmother’s monastery of Wadstein. Vastovius, Vitis Aquiloniæ.
B. Brigid (21) of Holland. 3rd O. S. D. Supposed 14th century. She was so full of love to God that He adorned her with the stigmata. Pio, Uomini e donne, p. 506. Choquet, Sancti Belgi, O. S. D., chap. xxv.
Brigidona and Mary, May 6, MM. AA. SS., Præter. MS. Calendar of Tamlaght.
St. Briid, Brigid (2).
B. Briolaya, Oct. 28, V. † c. 1500. Cistercian nun at Ebora, in Portugal. Remarkable for silence. She is praised by several hagiologists, but has no authorized worship. Arturus calls her “Saint.” Bucelinus calls her “Blessed.” Boll., AA. SS., Præter.
St. Brita, Brigid (19).
St. Brites, Beatrice.
SS. Britta (1) and Maura, July 3. Honoured at Tours. See Brigid (14).
