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n the executioner approached her with a
sword, and struck her thrice therewith, but was unable to strike off her
head. But she commended herself to the pope, who was named Urbanus; and
then, in the pope's presence, distributed all that she had, and gave it
him, and said: "For three days' space I have prayed to the Lord that I
might give thee this, in order that thou mightest hallow my house for a
church." And thereupon she gave up her spirit to God.'

The Life of St. Cecilia occurs also in Ælfric's Lives of the Saints, as
given in MS. Julius E vii, a portion of which I have edited for the Early
English Text Society, though this passage is not as yet in type. I do not
find that this Life differs from that in the Aurea Legenda in any
particular that deserves especial mention, except that it is somewhat
briefer, and omits, as might be expected, the passage in Chaucer's Tale,
ll. 270-283.

The chief interest of the Life of St. Cecilia in Caxton's Golden Legende is
that, as Dr. Kölbing has shewn, his translation exhibits clear traces of
the influence of Chaucer. A single example will perhaps suffice. In l. 432,
Chaucer has: 'Of whennes comth thyn answering so rude?' And Caxton has:
'Fro whens cometh thy rude answer?' Yet neither of the Latin texts suggests
this exact expression. LA has: 'Unde tibi tanta praesumtio respondendi?'
Lip.: 'Undenam est tibi haec fiducia?'

In The Military and Religious Life in the Middle Ages, by Paul Lacroix, at
p. 426, is the following brief account of Saint Cecilia: 'Under the reign
of Alexander Severus, many illustrious martyrs were put to death: St.
Cecilia, her husband, and her brother-in-law among the number. St. Cecilia
was descended from a very ancient family which dated back to the time of
Tarquin the Proud; she belonged to the same house as Metella, many of whose
children were raised to the honours of triumph and of the consulate in the
heyday of the Roman republic. Her parents gave her in marriage to a young
Roman patrician, named Valerian. But Cecilia had dedicated her virginity to
God, and her husband, converted to the faith by her arguments and
entreaties, respected her vow, and himself converted his brother Tiburtius.
They all three relieved their persecuted brethren, and this Christian
charity betrayed them. In spite of their distinguished birth, their wealth
and their connexions, they were arrested, and their refusal to sacrifice to
the false gods led to their being condemned to death. We find a multitude
of analogous occurrences in Gaul, and also in the most distant provinces of
the East.' On the preceding page of the same book is figured a copy of a
piece of mosaic work of the third or fourth century, which was taken from
the cemetery of St. Sixtus, and is preserved in the church of St. Cecilia,
at Rome. It represents St. Cecilia and St. Valerian, with roses and lilies
in bloom at their feet, and having on each side of them a palm-tree laden
with fruit, a symbol of their victories and of their meritorious martyrdom.
Upon one of the palm-trees is a phoenix with a 'gloria' round its head, the
ancient symbol of resurrection.

The following interesting account of the church and statue of St. Cecilia
is extracted from Mrs. Jameson's beautiful work upon Sacred and Legendary
Art:--

'According to her wish, the house of Cecilia was consecrated as a church,
the chamber in which she suffered martyrdom being regarded as a spot of
peculiar sanctity. There is mention of a council held in the church of St.
Cecilia by Pope Symmachus, in the year 500. Afterwards, in the troubles and
invasions of the barbarians, this ancient church fell into ruin, and was
rebuilt by Pope Paschal I. in the ninth century. It is related that, while
engaged in this work, Paschal had a dream, in which St. Cecilia appeared to
him, and revealed the spot in which she lay buried; accordingly search was
made, and her body was found in the cemetery of Calixtus, wrapt in a shroud
of gold tissue, and round her feet a linen cloth dipt in her blood: near
her were the remains of Valerian, Tibertius, and Maximus, which, together
with hers, were deposited in the same church, now St.
Cecilia-in-Trastevere. The little room, containing her bath, in which she
was murdered or martyred, is now a chapel. The rich frescoes with which it
was decorated are in a state of utter ruin from age and damp; but the
machinery for heating the bath, the pipes, the stoves, yet remain. This
church, having again fallen into ruin, was again repaired, and sumptuously
embellished in the taste of the sixteenth century, by Cardinal Sfondrati.
On this occasion the sarcophagus containing the body of St. Cecilia was
opened with great solemnity in the presence of several cardinals and
dignitaries of the Church, among others Cardinal Baronius, who has given us
an exact description of the appearance of the body, which had been buried
by Pope Paschal in 820, when exhumed in 1599[163]. "She was lying," says
Baronius, "within a coffin of cypress wood, enclosed in a marble
sarcophagus; not in the manner of one dead and buried, that is, on her
back, but on her right side, as one asleep; and in a very modest attitude;
covered with a simple stuff of taffety, having her head bound with cloth,
and at her feet the remains of the cloth of gold and silk which Pope
Paschal had found in her tomb." Clement VIII ordered that the relics should
remain untouched, inviolate; and the cypress coffin was enclosed in a
silver shrine, and replaced under the altar. This re-interment took place
in presence of the pope and clergy, with great pomp and solemnity, and the
people crowded in from the neighbouring towns to assist at the ceremony.
Stefano Maderno, who was then in the employment of the Cardinal Sfondrati
as sculptor and architect, and acted as his secretary, was not, we may
suppose, absent on this occasion; by the order of the Cardinal he executed
the beautiful and celebrated statue of "St. Cecilia lying dead," which was
intended to commemorate the attitude in which she was found. It is thus
described by Sir Charles Bell:--"The body lies on its side, the limbs a
little drawn up; the hands are delicate and fine,--they are not locked, but
crossed at the wrists: the arms are stretched out. The drapery is
beautifully modelled, and modestly covers the limbs. The head is enveloped
in linen, but the general form is seen, and the artist has contrived to
convey by its position, though not offensively, that it is separated from
the body. A gold circlet is round the neck, to conceal the place of
decollation (?). It is the statue of a lady, perfect in form, and affecting
from the resemblance to reality in the drapery of white marble, and the
unspotted appearance of the statue altogether. It lies as no living body
could lie, and yet correctly, as the dead when left to expire,--I mean in
the gravitation of the limbs."

'It must be remembered that Cecilia did not suffer decollation; that her
head was _not_ separated from the body; and the gol
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