yrs
were more freely given up at the request of the Christians. See
"Chron. Silen.," secs. 95-100; Dozy, iv. 119, for the surrender
of the body of Justus; and Eul., "Ad Wiliesindum," sec. 9,
where Eulogius mentions that he had taken the bodies of Saints
Zoilus and Austus to Pampluna. Later, Hakem II. (961-976) gave
up the body of the boy Pelagius at Ramiro III.'s request.
Mariana, viii. 5.

However, in spite of these regulations, many bodies were secretly
carried off and entombed in churches, where they were looked upon as
the most precious of possessions; and martyrs, who, by the admission of
their admirers themselves, had never worked any miracles when living,
were enabled, when dead, to perform a series of extraordinary ones,
which did not finally cease till modern enlightenment had dissipated the
darkness of the Middle Ages.

We happen to possess a very interesting account of the circumstances
under which the relics of three of these Cordovan martyrs were
transferred from the troubled scene of their passion to the more
peaceful and more superstitious cloisters of France.[1]

It was in 858 that Hilduin, the abbot of the monastery of St Vincent and
the Holy Cross, near Paris, learning that the body of their patron
saint, St Vincent, was at Valencia, sent two monks, Usuard and Odilard,
with the king's[2] permission, to procure the precious relics for their
own monastery. On their way to perform this commission, the monks learnt
that the body was no longer at Valencia. It had been, in fact,
carried[3] by a monk named Andaldus to Saragoza. Senior, the bishop of
that city, had seized it, and it was still held in veneration there, but
under the name of St Marinus, whose body the monk had stoutly asserted
it to be. Senior apparently doubted the statement, and tortured Andaldus
to get the truth out of him, but in vain; for the monk, knowing that St
Vincent had been deacon of Saragoza, feared that the bishop would never
surrender the body if aware of its identity. However, Usuard and Odilard
knew not but that the body was that of Marinus, as stated.

[1] De Translatione SS. martyrum Georgii, Aurelii, et Nathaliae
ex urbe Cordobae Parisios: auctore Aimoino.--"Migne," vol. 115,
pp. 939 ff.

[2] Charles the Bald.

[3] "Under a divine impulse," as usual.

Disappointed, therefore, in their errand, they lingered about at
Barcelona, thinking to pick up some other relics, when