258 ST. ELISABETH siBter nuns from Jolli to begin the OBtablisliment. Helyot, Ordres Mon.^ V. 46. St. Elisabeth (9) of Schonaa, June 18, 1129-1165, O.S.B. The memory of Elisabeth of Schonan comes down to the modern, busy, utili- tarian world chiefly as that of a dreamer of silly dreams, and a spinner of long, dull yarns; but her real importance was, like that of her neighbour and corre- spondent, HiLDEOABD (13) of Biugeu, as a denouncer of the vices of the age, and especially of abuses in the Church. Of obscure birth, she was a nun at Schonau or Schonaug, which means a beautiful field. Grermany contains many places of the same name. This one was, according to Prcger, about five German — i.e. about thirty English — miles north- east of the Bupertsberg at Bingen, where St. Hildegard was living. Elisabeth took the veil very young in the nunnery beside tho Benedictine abbey at Schonau. Earnest, observant, active-minded, she sought holiness for herself by great austerity, adding to the ill-health with which God afflicted her, the sufifering of a hair shirt, an iron chain, fasting of almost incredible rigour, and other self- inflicted tortures. In a state of bodily prostration and mental activity, she was inspired to utter prophecies of judgments to fall on the unfaithful shepherds of the Church, on the avarice, the worldli- ness, the selfishness in high places and low. She sent her warnings to bishops and archbishops ; she lifted up her testimony against the Pope on his throne, and against the most obscure among the clergy ; with the earnestness of a prophet and the truth of a looking- glass, she denounced, rebuked, and called them to repentance. She had very good judgment in common matters, was much esteemed by her relations and neighbours, and as highly thought of as St. Hildegard. Meditating on the lives of saints and the lessons and offices for their festivals, all that she had read of them took root in her mind, and was expanded and padded until it took the form of a revelation. The saint of each special festival ap- peared to her, and she described their personal appearance and gave minute details of their lives. Her brother Eckbert wrote down many of these visions from her dictation. He was a preacher of Cologne, but when she attained to such great fame, he became a monk at Schonau, and eventually abbot there. One of her most famous revelations was on the subject of St. Ursula and her companions. It is thus accounted for by Baillet. In 1156, Gerlac, abbot of Duitz, by the authority of St. Anno, bishop of Cologne, made a solemn trans- lation of the body of St. Ursula from the tomb where it had lain for hundreds of years, into the abbey, where it may be seen in a silver case. The head had been removed in the 7th century, and several churches in different places claimed the honour of its presence. After the translation of the body a great stimulus was given to the worship of this saint, and many churches were dedicated in her name. Gerlac soon began to search for the bodies of her companions. He spent nine years in this pious work, and found an immense number of bodies of women, and some of men, who were supposed to have been partakers of the adventures and martyr- dom of the virgins. The news of this great discovery appears to have deeply impressed the romantic and credulous mind of Elisabeth, and at the same time Gerlac urged Eckbert to obtain, if possible, some light on the subject from his favoured sister. She dictated a very long story about it, in which she arranged the relationship of some of the eleven thousand virgins, and mnny other particulars concerning them and their companions, male and female. Baillet says the news of this discovery was the source of the famous revelations on which Elisabeth, or — to spare the honour of this blessed one — those who governed her pen, established the fictions which they were not ashamed to hand down to Christian posterity as facts. The Bollandists' account of St. Ursula contains a copy of these "imaginary revelations," of the catalogue preserved at Duitz by G<3rlac, and of several in- scriptions reputed to have been found at the tombs of the eleven thousand.
