Saints Maura and Brigid

This young man had as much aversion to command as the ambitious have a passion for obtaining it. The scepter and the diadem, which appeared to others to be laden with flowers, appeared to him to be bristling with thorns. The difficulty he felt in governing himself made him believe that it would be impossible for him to govern a great people well. Thus, unable to resolve to reign, he begged his sisters, whose prudence and virtue he knew, to take charge of his states and take the helm in his place. This proposal extremely surprised these holy virgins, especially as they saw clearly that, if they presented themselves as queens, the great men of the country and the commoners would force them to marry to have heirs to their crown. Thus, without hesitating on this matter, they resolutely told their brother that they could not accept his offer, because, having entirely consecrated themselves to Jesus Christ, they could no longer have any other care than to please Him. However, as they had reason to fear that the counts and lords of Scotland, who might aspire to their alliance, would force them to be their queens, they determined together to secretly abandon their country and go to a foreign land to free themselves from their pursuits. Hyspade, their brother, from whom they could not hide their resolution because of the great union of heart and spirit that reigned between them, wanted to be part of it. Thus, having escaped on foot from Edinburgh one night, they promptly made their way to the port of the British Sea that faces France.

God showed on two occasions that these chaste princesses were under His special protection. Having been obliged to spend one night at the home of a poor widow, they were miraculously delivered from the insolence of this woman's son, who cast an unchaste look upon Saint Maura, without the radiance of her face, which shone in the middle of the night like a sun, being able to enlighten his understanding or dampen the violence of his passion. The chaste virgin, having perceived his evil design and the danger she was in, had recourse to prayer and urgently asked her Spouse that it might please Him to change the heart of this wretch, and, from the unchaste and lascivious man he was, make him pure and a friend of continence. Her prayer was heard: for, at that very hour, such a great change took place in the soul of this sacrilegious man that he himself extinguished the fire of his passion with his tears, and, throwing himself at the feet of the Saint, he begged her insistently to forgive his folly and to obtain for him the pardon of the mercy of God. The second occasion was even more miraculous. In another inn, a man also dared to come with a criminal desire to the room where the two virgins were resting. He believed that they could in no way escape his passion; but, while they slept, their angel, watching over them, was beside them to guard them. Indeed, when this man entered, he saw a priest, in priestly vestments, who held in one hand a lighted lamp with which he illuminated the whole room, and in the other a censer with which he perfumed it. Full of spite, he set fire to the room to take revenge.

The fire was great and spared neither the furniture, nor the walls, nor the floors of the room; but, by a prodigy of divine power, the bed where the chaste sisters were could not be attacked by the flame, and they were found there both safe and sound like the three children in the midst of the furnace of Babylon.

These wonders would have led to their discovery had they not promptly crossed the sea. They therefore came to France, and from there traveled to Rome to visit the tombs of the blessed apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul, to whom the English and the Scots had a very particular devotion. We know nothing of what happened to them during this great journey; but their history tells us that while in Rome, they stayed with a man named Ursicin; they delivere d him b Ursicin Traveling companion of the saints, healed of possession and a wound. y their prayers from a demon that obsessed him. From there, they made the journey to Jerusalem with their brother and this Ursicin, who, in gratitude for the grace he had received through their intercession, vowed himself to their service and would no longer leave them; after visiting the holy places, which they watered with their tears, they returned to Italy, and then to France, where God was preparing for them a most glorious martyrdom. The place where it is said they landed was the port of Marseille, on the coast of Provence. From there they came to Anjou, where Ursicin, having broken his leg, was miraculously healed by the mere touch of Saint Maure 's veil, which she ga voile de sainte Maure Relic used to heal Ursicinus. ve him to serve as a bandage. A kiss from Saint Brigid also restored sight to a little blind girl: which brought the chaste sisters great reputation, and caused them to be honored as Saints.

However, their faithful companion having fallen ill again, after eight days of fever, was rapt in ecstasy; he learned by divine revelation that these glorious princesses, with their brother, would soon receive the palm of martyrdom. The news he gave them was so pleasing to them that, as a reward, they merited a second healing for him: afterwards, they entered Angers and lodged with an honest widow named Aldegonde, who had j Aldegonde Widow of Angers whose son was resurrected by Saint Maura. ust lost her son; Saint Maure resurrected this young man and returned him alive to his mother. A grace so little hoped for filled the son and the mother with extraordinary gratitude, and, as two or three days were not enough to worthily thank their benefactress for this signal favor, seeing her resolved to leave with her company to go to the tomb of Saint Martin, they accompanied her and would not leave her. It was on this journey that the same Saint Maure also resurrected the son of a lord named Géronce, who was called Johel, and who had been killed by accident by an arrow shot; but she predicted to him at the same time that he would soon lose his life for the faith: which would procure for him the honor and the crown of martyrdom. Indeed, he had his head severed at twenty-two years of age by the enemies of our holy religion. Besides this resurrection, she restored health to the son of a shoemaker, afflicted with paralysis, which deprived him of the use of his limbs: on the other hand, Saint Brigide, her sister, and Saint Hyspade, their brother, delivered many possessed persons and healed several feverish people who came to present themselves to them in the house of Géronce, or who were found in the village. It is for this reason that this house, which is near Sainte-Catherine de Feribois in Touraine, has since been changed into a church that bears the name of Sainte-Maure.

We do not know by what path these admirable pilgrims came into the Beauvaisis; but their history teaches us that having arrived there near a fountain, with their companions, in a place named Balagny, to take some food, they were encountered by brigands, or rather by barbarians with whom France was then filled: for it was after the invasions of the Alans, the Vandals, the Suebi, and other peoples of the North. They massacred those who refused to satisfy their superstition or their avarice, or their brutality. Saint Hyspade prepared to defend his siste rs, but a swo Saint Hyspade Brother of Saints Maura and Brigid, martyred with them. rd blow severed his head. It is said that this blessed prince picked up his head at the same time, and carried it to the feet of Saint Maure, while pronouncing these last words of the Lord's Prayer: *Sed libera nos a malo*, to which the holy sisters replied: *Amen*. The cruelty of these impious men was not sated by the blood of Saint Hyspade; they threw themselves upon Aldegonde, that pious widow of Angers whose son Saint Maure had resurrected, and upon this same son named John, who had followed the sisters following his mother's example, and put them both to death; and as our two princesses nonetheless continued to resist with all their strength the desires of these barbarians, they were also massacred.

Ursicin, of whom we have spoken in this history, was not present at this cruel execution: he soon knew what had happened to the two saints by a celestial light that appeared over the place of their torment; he also saw a troop of blessed spirits who were carrying their souls to heaven, and, on the other hand, he perceived the barbarians who were slaughtering one another as a just punishment for their crime. He gave notice to the inhabitants of Balagny of what had passed, and the holy martyrs were rendered the honor of burial. The Bishop of Beauvais made an inquiry into the matter, and, having recognized the truth, he permitted the honoring of Maure and Brigid as two holy virgins and martyrs.

[APPENDIX: CULT AND RELICS.]

Saint Bathilde, Queen of France, having learned of the miracles performed through their intercession, went to the village of Balagny to honor their sacred bodies and to have them transported to the Abbey of Chelles, which she was building near Lagny with great magnificence.

Indeed, they were loaded onto carts, and they were already on the road to Paris to go to Chelles. But when they reached the crossroads of Nogent, near Creil, the oxen pulling them stopped short, and it was impossible to make them move forward. They were therefore forced to leave them the freedom to go where instinct would lead them; and, immediately, they turned of their own accord toward the place called *la Croix de Sainte-Maure*; and, from there, taking the path to the church of Nogent, they carried the sacred burden with which they were charged. It was placed in the cemetery opposite the altar, on the eastern side, and remained there until the pontificate of Urban III, who was made Pope in the year 4185. This Pontiff, informed of the miraculous healings that were continually taking place through the merit and at the tomb of these illustrious Martyrs, ordered the bishops of Beauvais and Senlis to raise their precious bones: which they did with great ceremony; and, to preserve the memory of this elevation, they granted, by the authority of the Holy See, one hundred days of indulgence in perpetuity to all those who would visit the church of Nogent, from the Sunday in the octave of the Ascension until the day of Saint John the Baptist. The village, because of our Saints, is called *Nogent-les-Vierges*.

I n the year 4242, K Nogent-les-Vierges Final burial place and center of the cult. ing Saint Louis, o ut of a singula roi saint Louis King of France who visited the relics of Saint Hildevert. r devotion toward Saint Maure and Saint Brigide, visited their church, and, finding it too small, he had it enlarged by the entire choir, and had their relics transferred into new shrines: which was executed by Eudes, coadjutor to the bishopric of Beauvais, as was recognized in the opening made of them in the year 4343 by Jean de Marigny, bishop of the same city, and later archbishop of Rouen. Finally, these shrines being too old, the Ordinary had them renewed in the year 4635: which reawakened the devotion of the people toward our holy Virgins. It became even more fervent in the city of Beauvais, through the powerful help that the people received from them two years later, during a great contagion that had spread in the parish of Saint-André. The parish priest and all the parishioners made a vow to go to the chapel of Saint Maure and Saint Brigide, in Balagny, to obtain through their intercession the extinction of this pestilential fire, and they immediately fulfilled their promise; this was so effective that, on the very day of the procession, this scourge ceased: so that no one was struck by it thereafter, and all those who were afflicted recovered in a short time, without anyone dying from it.

We have used, to complete this biography, the *Life of the Saints of the Diocese of Beauvais*, by Abbé Sabatier.