11,011 Virgins

On the banks of the upper Rhine in the Swiss city of Basel, 400 schoolgirls named Ursula assembled one day last week to welcome home their patron saint. St. Ursula's diamond-studded gold and silver bust sailed royally up the river in a ceremonial barge, much as, centuries ago, the saint herself had sailed on her way to Rome with her 11,010 virgins.

Skeptical modern scholars suspect that this statistic represents a medieval copyist's error, and that there were only eleven of them, if any. But the legend of St. Ursula, patron saint of young girls and the martyr for whom the Ursuline order of nuns was named, continues to live despite scholarly quibbles.

Miraculous Seamanship. Somewhere between the 3rd and 5th centuries, so goes the legend, there lived in Brittany a princess named Ursula, whose beauty and piety were spoken of even across the water in the wild and savage land called England. When a pagan English prince named Conon sent ambassadors to ask Ursula's hand, she set three stringent conditions: that 1) she receive ten noble virgins as ladies-in-waiting, each to have 1,000 attendants, plus an additional 1,000 for herself; 2) she have three years "to honor my virginity, and, with my companions, to visit the holy shrines"; 3) Prince Conon and his court be baptized Christians.

Ursula's three conditions were granted, and the 11,011 virgins set out in a fleet of ships on their pilgrimage to the holy places. "It was a wonder," says one account, "to see with what skill these wise virgins steered the vessels and managed the sails, being miraculously taught." Eventually they sailed up the Rhine to Basel, where they disembarked and journeyed over the Alps to Rome. Pope Cyriacus was so impressed that, against the remonstrances of his clergy, he decided to join the ladies on their travels, which, Ursula assured him, would end in martyrdom at Cologne.*

Arrows in the Breast. When they reached Cologne after their return from Rome, they found the city under siege by the Huns. Cyriacus and the 11,010 were slaughtered by the pagans, and Ursula herself died with three arrows through her breast when she spurned the advances of their leader.

The bust of St. Ursula, which came back to Basel last week, was made by an unknown 13th century goldsmith when the Basel cathedral received a number of relics of St. Ursula and her 11,010. Auctioned off to a Berlin antique dealer in the 13th century for about $60, the bust turned up in Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum after World War II. The Dutch agreed to return St. Ursula to Basel for $50,000, which was raised by popular subscription.

Last week crowds lined the Basel streets and wept as the mayor, The Netherlands minister and the 400 Ursulas escorted their patroness home.

* For this papal willfulness, according to legend, church historians struck Cyriacus from the records.

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