Excerpt from The Church of Saint Ursula and Her Companions in Cologne: Its Memorials, Monuments and Curiosities

As early as the second century, Christianity was spread over the Southern part of the British island. This part was subject to the Roman Empire; and by that means a connexion between it and Rome, the capital of Christianity was kept up, and thus the Gospel easily found its way from Rome to Britain. The Picts and Scots ho wever, the inhabitants of the northern part of the Island, still remained in infidelity. At the beginning of the century, nearly the whole population of the many small kingdoms into which the Southern part was divided were Chris tians. About the middle of the same century when the Romans had left Britain, the Christians of the Southern part were sorely oppressed by their infidel neighbours, the Picts and Scots. To resist these enemies they called in to their aid the anglo-saxons, a courageous but infidel people who inhabited the countries now called Holstein and Schleswig as far as J iitland. The warlike anglo-saxons came in bodies, and landed on the neighbouring British shore in the year 449. Victory crowned their efforts against the Picts and Scots whom they compelled to retire from the South of Britain. But when they had seen the beauty of that country as well as learnt its fertility, they began to covet, it for their own. Accorddingly they turned their arms against thosewho had called them over, and a terrible fate met the Christians of Southern Britain. Driven from their own homes, some fled to the West, some crossed the sea, whilst slavery became the lot of others. Many of the British Christians fled to the Continent, some to Batavia and some to Gaul expecting to find a safe asylum there amongst the Christians. Of those who went to Batavia many proceeded still further along the Rhine in order to seek refuge in the districts of the Lower Rhine which still enjoyed peace and tran quility unter the Roman government. In this way, they reachad Cologne, the old Roman colony. Amongst these British fugitives, there were many virgins whose fathers and brothers had been slain 1n the wars with the anglo-saxons. One of them of royal blood surpassed the rest in nobility of birth and intelligence as well as in piety and virtue. Her name was Ursula. She was the leader and model of her companions and seems to have been acknowledged and honoured by them as their head. In the Christian city of Cologne where the British fugitives were received with great kindness, the royal virgin was honoured and venerated by all, and she soon became to all the women and maidens there, as she had before been of her companions, their model and example.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.