ORSOLA, Saint, Martyr. — She is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on 21 October together with other unnamed virgins as martyrs of Cologne. The notice derives from a misinterpretation of texts, the origin of a fanciful legend.
An ancient inscription in the cathedral of Cologne, datable between the 4th and 5th centuries, refers to a certain senator Crematius who, following visions, restored a church dedicated to certain virgins. These were unknown to St Gregory of Tours, who nonetheless recalls the famous basilica of the so-called “Golden Saints” of Cologne, and to the 7th-century recension of the Hieronymian Martyrology. From a discourse of the second half of the 8th century, the first source to mention them, it is inferred that up to that time information about the Saints was scant and contradictory. The author indeed explicitly states that nothing was known except that they were martyrs; regarding their origin, some said they had come from the East, others that they had come from Britain; their number, their lives, and even their virginity were uncertain, and not all would have been virgins, but only the majority; and it is even more noteworthy that at the head of the group did not appear O., but a certain Pinnosa, daughter of a king of Britain. Between the 9th and 10th centuries, the legend took a further step forward: in the lists of litanies of the saints, the name of some of these virgins began to appear sporadically, still fluctuating in order, until in the 10th century eleven names are recorded with O. at their head. The change from Pinnosa to O. may derive from a very ancient inscription discovered in 1893 that was in the church dedicated to the virgins, in which mention is made of an 8-year-old girl named O.; in the absence of anything else, recourse was had to that name, and O. became the first of a host of eleven thousand companions. A number so
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