ey (_c._ 1400), a recluse of Ledbury,
Hereford, who was reputed for piety and clairvoyance.

St Catherine, virgin and martyr.

Of two of these saints, St Catherine of Alexandria, _the_ St Catherine
_par excellence_, and St Catherine of Siena, something more must be
said. Of the former history has little or nothing to tell. The Maronite
scholar, Joseph Simon Assemani (1687-1768), first identified her with
the royal and wealthy lady of Alexandria (Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._ viii.
14) who, for refusing the solicitations of the emperor Maximinus, was
deprived of her property and banished. But Rufinus (_Hist. Eccl._ viii.
17) called this lady Dorothea, and the old Catherine legend, as recorded
in the Roman martyrology and by Simeon Metaphrastes, has quite other
features. According to it Catherine was the daughter of King Konetos,
eighteen years old, beautiful and wise. During the persecution under
Maximinus she sought an interview with the emperor, upbraided him for
his cruelties, and adjured him to give up the worship of false gods. The
angry tyrant, unable to refute her arguments himself, sent for pagan
scholars to argue with her, but they were discomfited. Catherine was
then scourged and cast into prison, and the empress was sent to reason
with her; but the dauntless virgin converted not only the empress but
the Roman general and his soldiers who had accompanied her. Maximinus
now ordered her to be broken on the wheel; but the wheel was shattered
by her touch. The headsman's axe proved more fatal, and the martyr's
body was borne by angels to Mount Sinai, where Justinian I. built the
famous monastery in her honour. Another development of the legend is
that in which, having rejected many offers of marriage, she was taken to
heaven in vision and betrothed to Christ by the Virgin Mary.

Of all these marvellous incidents very little, by the universal
admission of Catholic scholars, has survived the test of modern
criticism. That St Catherine actually existed there is, indeed, no
evidence to disprove; and it is possible that some of the elements in
her legend are due to confusion with the story of Hypatia (q.v.), the
neo-platonic philosopher of Alexandria, who was done to death by a
Christian mob. To the men of the middle ages, in any case, St Catherine
was very real; she was ranked with the fourteen most helpful saints in
heaven, and was the constant theme of preachers and of poets. Her
festival was celebrated in many place