Page:A Dictionary of Saintly Women Volume 2.djvu/32

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20 B. MARGARET as she had no wish to leave her cloister. Her parents bailt her a monastery at Bnda, on the island in the Danube after- wards called in honour of her St. Mar- garet's Island. She was abbess there. She was honoured as a saint from the moment of her death and the whole kingdom of Hungary demanded her canonization of Clement V. but it was never accom- plished. She continued, however, to work miracles ; one of the first was, that when her nephew. King Ladislaus IV.,, was at the point of death, her veil was brought to him and placed on his head ; he immediately opened his eyes and returned to consciousness, and soon re- covered. As soon as he was able, he visited her tomb and busied himself about her canonization. Her life was written in 1340, by a Dominican monk, from the original docu- ments collected five years after her death with a view to her canonization. A.B.M,, Jan. 26. AA,SS., Jan. 28. Ferrarius. Lopez, Hist de Sancto Domingo. Mailath. Falacky. Ribadeneira Baillet. B. Margaret (16), June 4, -|-1277. Second abbess of Yau-le-duc (Yallis ducis), a Cistercian nunnery founded in 1232, by her father Henry 1., duke of Lorraine and Brabant. She is called "Blessed" by the Benedictine and Cister- cian chroniclers. Her worship was pro- ably kept up as long as the convent was of the Order of St. Benedict and forgotten when it passed to Dominicans. AAJSS, OaUia Christiana. Bucelinus. Honriquez. Stadler. B. Margaret (17) Colonna, Sept. 25, Dec. 30, V. O. S. F., + 1284. Daughter of one of the great historical princely houses of Rome. Her parents died while she was very young and some of her brothers wished to settle her in a suitable marriage, but one of them, of a more religious turn than the rest (and afterwards a cardinal), en- couraged her wish to be a nun; she went to a Franciscan convent near Rome, where she was occupied with the care of the sick but the veil was re- fused her on account of her delicate health. She founded a convent for nuns of St. Clara at Palestrina ; Hono- rius IV. (1285-1288) gave to this com- munity the convent of San Silvestro in Capite and thither her relics were trans- ferred. Her virtues and miracles at- tracted public veneration from the time of her death. Pius IX. in 1847 con- firmed her immemorial worship and pro- nounced her Blessed, A,B.M. Bomano Seraphicum. Wadding. Diario di Boma, Dec. 17, 1847. Her life is promised by the Bollandists. St. Margaret (18) of Cortona, a penitent, 3rd 0. S. F., Feb. 22, trans- lation Nov. 22, 1247-1297. Repre- sented with a spaniel or lap dog. She was bom in the little town of Laviano, eight miles from Cortona. She grew up so beautiful that wherever she was, people would look at nothing but her face ; she liked this admiration and took great pains to dress nicely, curling her hair with hot irons. When she was eighteen, a young man of Montepulciano, having great riches, went about seeking some vicious way of spending them. He seduced Margaret and carried her off to his own home where she lived with him for nine years in a handsome house, dressing expensively, plaiting her hair with gold ribbons, eating dainty food, riding about on a beautiful horse and wearing jewels. Notwithstanding her sinful life, she was always kind and liberal, and had a respect for religion ; often when, in her rides, she came to a lonely place, she said, "It would be nice to pray here." She had a son, and she hoped that her lover would marry her to legitimize his child, but he kept putting it off. One day he went out and as he did not return that day nor the next she became very anxious. At the same time her little pet dog disappeared. In vain she sent servants to look for their master. His absence had con- tinued for some days, and as she was looking up and down the road, sud- denly the spaniel rushed to her, seized the end of her dress in its teeth and, without jumping up or making any signs of joy like a dog that has been absent from his mistress for a week and suddenly finds her, he showed great eagerness to lead her on. She followed and the dog led her to a thicket, and