La mutilation d'Æbbe et de ses sœurs, devant leur monastère en flammes. Gravure de Giovanni Battista de' Cavalieri d'après une fresque de Niccolò Circignani au Collège anglais de Rome, parue en 1584 dans le recueil Ecclesiae Anglicanae Trophae.
Sainte Ebba la Jeune
Abbesse de Coldingham (+ 870)
En Ecosse, sainte Ebba, abbesse de Coldingham et ses compagnes, martyres. Les Danois ayant envahi l'Ecosse, sainte Ebbe craignit moins pour sa vie que pour sa chasteté et celle de ses religieuses : elle se coupa le nez et la lèvre supérieure. Toutes ses filles eurent le courage de l'imiter. Les barbares reculèrent d'horreur, mais ils mirent le feu au monastère dont toutes les habitantes furent brûlées vives.
SOURCE : http://nominis.cef.fr/contenus/saint/905/Sainte-Ebba-la-Jeune.html
Sainte Ebba la Jeune
Sainte Ebba la Jeune, Vierge & Martyre.
(Ebbe)
Morte en 879; ancien jour de fête le 23 août. Ebba était l'abbesse de la grande fondation monastique de Coldingham dans les marais sur la frontière écossaise, qui avait été fondée 2 siècles plus tôt par sainte Ebba l'Ancienne (25 août). Pendant l'invasion des Danois, sainte Ebba a craint pour sa virginité, à cause de la réputation de violeur des Vikings et à cause des massacres. Elle a rassemblé ses religieuses dans le chapitre et les a encouragées à suivre son exemple: avec un rasoir elle s'est coupé (ou ouvert) le nez et sa lèvre supérieure pour décourager le viol par les envahisseurs. La communauté entière a fait de même. Cela devait être un spectacle effroyable. Leur apparence a tellement dégoûté les assaillants que les femmes ont été épargnées du viol mais pas de la mort : Les Danois ont mis le feu au couvent en le quittant. La communauté entière a péri dans les flammes.
Bien qu'on n'ait pas conservé de trace écrite de sainte Ebba, elle devait se trouver dans les manuscrits perdus de Tynemouth, où un sanctuaire lui était dédié au 13ième siècle. A Coldingham, un autre manuscrit se réfère à une curieuse fête de l'élévation d'un autel de sainte Ebba le 22 juin, qui peut avoir rapport soit avec la Jeune, soit avec l'Ancienne Ebba (Bénédictins, Encyclopaedia, Farmer, Husenbeth).
SOURCE : http://home.scarlet.be/amdg/oldies/sankt/avr02.html
Also known as
Ebbe of Coldingham
Abb
Aebbe
Ebba
Profile
Abbess at
Coldingham, Berwickshire, Scotland,
a double
monastery that had been founded by Saint Ebbe
the Elder, and which was the largest in the country at the time. When
the monastery was
attacked by Scandinavian pirates,
Ebbe gathered her nuns and
exhorted them to save themselves from falling into the hands of the pirates by
voluntary disfiguring themselves. She then set an example by cutting off her
own nose and upper lip; the other nuns did
the same. When the Vikings broke into the convent,
they were so horrified and angry by what the women had
done to escape being raped,
they locked them all in, set fire to the house, and burned them all to death.
burned
to death on 2 April 870 at
Coldingham monastery,
Berwickshire, Scotland
Additional Information
Book
of Saints, by the Monks of
Ramsgate
Lives
of the Saints, by Father Alban
Butler
Saints
of the Day, by Katherine Rabenstein
books
Our Sunday Visitor’s Encyclopedia of Saints
other sites in english
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MLA Citation
“Saint Ebbe the Younger“. CatholicSaints.Info. 29
May 2020. Web. 16 March 2021.
<https://catholicsaints.info/saint-ebbe-the-younger/>
April 2
St. Ebba, Abbess, and Her Companions, Martyrs
IN the ninth century St. Ebba governed the great monastery of Coldingham, situated in Merch, or the Marshes, a province in the shire of Berwick, which was for some time subject to the English, at other times to the Scots. This was at that time the largest monastery in all Scotland, and had been founded by another St. Ebba, who was sister to St. Oswald and Oswi, kings of Northumberland. 1 In the year 870, according to Matthew of Westminster, or rather in 874, according to the Scottish historians, in an incursion of the cruel Danish pirates, Hinguar and Hubba, this abbess was anxious, not for her life, but for her chastity, to preserve which she had recourse to the following stratagem: Having assembled her nuns in the Chapterhouse, after making a moving discourse to her sisters, she, with a razor, cut off her nose and upper-lip, and was courageously imitated by all the holy community. The frightful spectacle which they exhibited in this condition protected their virginity. But the infidels, enraged at their disappointment, set fire to the monastery, and these holy virgins died in the flames spotless victims to their heavenly spouse, the lover and rewarder of chaste souls. See Matthew of Westminster, Baronius ad an. 870, Cressy, &c.
Note 1. The monastery of Coldingham was burnt by John, king of England, and after it was rebuilt retained only the rank of a priory till the change of religion. A nephew of bishop Lesley, a Scottish Jesuit, tells us, in the lives of Scottish Saints, which he compiled in Latin, that he found the ruins very stately when he took a survey of them in 1610. See this MS. History of Scottish Saints, p. 98.
Rev. Alban Butler (1711–73). Volume IV: April. The Lives of the Saints. 1866.
SOURCE : http://www.bartleby.com/210/4/025.html
Calendar
of Scottish Saints – Saint Ebba, Virgin and Abbess, and her Companions,
Martyrs, A.D. 870
Article
The monastery of Coldingham, in the ancient kingdom of
Northumbria, founded in the seventh century by Saint Ebba, sister of the kings
Oswald and Oswy, was governed in the ninth century by another Ebba, who
presided over a band of holy virgins following the Rule of Saint Benedict.
About the year 867 several thousand Danish warriors, under the command of the
brothers Hinguar and Hubba, landed on the coast of East Anglia and desolated
the whole north country. When Abbess Ebba received tidings of the near approach
of the pagan hordes, who had already wrecked vengeance upon ecclesiastics,
monks, and consecrated virgins, she summoned her nuns to Chapter, and in a
moving discourse exhorted them to preserve at any cost the treasure of their
chastity. Then seizing a razor, and calling upon her daughters to follow her
heroic example, she mutilated her face in order to inspire the barbarian
invaders with horror at the sight. The nuns without exception courageously
followed the example of their abbess. When the Danes broke into the cloister
and saw the nuns with faces thus disfigured, they fled in panic. Their leaders,
burning with rage, sent back some of their number to set fire to the monastery,
and thus the heroic martyrs perished in the common ruin of their house. Some
chronicles give the 23rd August as the day of their martyrdom, but Scottish
writers assign this as their feast day.
MLA Citation
Father Michael
Barrett, OSB.
“Saint Ebba, Virgin and Abbess, and her Companions, Martyrs, A.D. 870”. The Calendar of Scottish Saints, 1919. CatholicSaints.Info.
9 March 2014. Web. 16 March 2021. <http://catholicsaints.info/calendar-of-scottish-saints-saint-ebba-virgin-and-abbess-and-her-companions-martyrs-a-d-870/>
St. Ebba the Younger, Martyr, of
Coldhingham, Northumbria
Saint Ebba and the nuns of Coldingham- a
9th century perspective
Den hellige Ebba av Coldingham (d.y.) og ledsagere (d.
~870)
Minnedag: 2.
april
Den hellige Ebba (Æbbe, Ebbe) den Yngre ble født på
begynnelsen av 800-tallet i England eller Skottland (?). Hun var abbedisse i
klosteret Coldingham på kysten av Northumbria, nord for Berwick i Merse i
Berwickshire ved grensen til Skottland (Berwickshire er nå en del av regionen
Borders i Skottland). Dette klosteret var grunnlagt to hundre år tidligere av
hennes navnesøster Ebba
den eldre, som også var den første abbedissen, og det var nå det største
klosteret i Skottland. Det var opprinnelig et dobbeltkloster, men etter den
ødeleggende brannen i 686 ble det kanskje gjenoppbygd som et rent nonnekloster,
for historien om Ebba den Yngre nevner ikke noen munker.
I følge Chronica Majora av Matthew Paris,
som kanskje bruker en eldre, tapt kilde fra Tynemouth, led Ebba martyrdøden
sammen med sin kommunitet i Coldingham da danske vikinger angrep rundt 870. Men
historien finnes ikke hos noen andre enn Matthew Paris. Skotske historikere
mener vikingangrepet skjedde i 874. De erobrende vikingene navngis delvis som
de grusomme danske piratene Hinguar og Hubba, eller i en annen versjon de syv
piratsønnene av Ragner Lothbroc, konge av Sjælland og Uppsala, som etter å ha
beseiret Norge, invaderte England.
Vikingene hadde et rykte for massakre og voldtekt, og
de ankom til klosteret kort etter at Ebba hadde advart sin kommunitet. Hun
samlet alle søstrene i kapittelhuset og oppmuntret dem til å følge sitt eget
eksempel. Hun ville vokte sin jomfruelighet med alle midler, og hennes metode
var å skjære opp nese og lepper med en barberkniv. Dette ble også gjort av de
andre nonnene, og de må ha vært et fryktelig syn. Angriperne ble så frastøtt av
deres fremtoning at de vek tilbake, så nonnene slapp å bli voldtatt. Men
vikingene vendte snart etter tilbake og brente ned klosteret med alle dets
innbyggere. Det skal ha skjedd den 2. april 870. I den samme ekspedisjonen ble
mange andre klostre også ødelagt og innbyggerne massakrert.
Det finnes ingen bevarte skrifter om denne Ebba som er
eldre enn Matthew Paris, men det kan ha vært noe blant de tapte manuskriptene
fra Tynemouth. Det var heller ingen gammel kult, men det fantes et skrin på
1200-tallet. En minnedag er den angivelige dødsdagen 2. april, men noen kilder
nevner også 5. oktober, 23. august og 25. august (som egentlig er minnedag for
Ebba d.e. Et manuskript fra Coldingham nevner en kuriøs fest for en vigsling av
et alter for den hellige Ebba den 22. juni – det kan referere til denne Ebba
(eller hennes navnesøster).
Kilder: Farmer,
Benedictines, Bunson, Schauber/Schindler, KIR, CSO, Patron Saints SQPN,
Heiligenlexikon, en.wikipedia.org, britannia.com, celt-saints, zeno.org -
Kompilasjon og oversettelse: p. Per Einar Odden
Opprettet: 13. mai 1998
