BEATRICE de SILVA MENESES, blessed. — Born in Ceuta (1424) of noble Portuguese parents. Sister of Blessed Amedeo. She was a lady-in-waiting to Isabella of Portugal, queen of Castile from 1447, and later retired to the Cistercian monastery in Toledo. In that city, in 1484, she founded the Order of the Conceptionists, which was approved by Innocent VIII (1489). She died in 1490 (or, according to others, in the summer of 1491). Her cult was approved on 28 July 1926. The Franciscan Order celebrates her feast on 18 August.
BIBL.: E. Gelin, Relatio de vita et virtutibus b. Beatrixis de S., in Acta Ordinis Fratrum Minorum, 28 (1909), pp. 467-470; AAS, 18 (1926), pp. 496-99; R. Conde, Vida de la b. Beatrix de S., 1931; C. Silva-Tarouca, s. V. ENOCH. Ital., VI, p. 446.