Eulalia of Mérida
Martyred at 13, St. Eulalia (d. 304) became the best known virgin martyr of Spain. Legends say that she rebuked a Roman magistrate, Dacian, for causing Christians to apostatize and/or for persecuting them. He attempted to persuade her to offer a sacrifice to an idol, and when she refused, he ordered her tortured. She was eventually burned. Prudentius, whose poem about her is said to have been used in the Visigothic church on Eulalia's feast day, says a white dove seemed to fly from her mouth as she was dying.
Her cult spread from Spain to Africa, Gaul, Italy, and England. Augustine, Adhelm, and Bede mention her, and the oldest extant French-language poem, Cantilène de Sainte Eulalie, recounts her life.
Karen Rae Keck
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