Contents

Rev. Alban Butler (1711–73). Volume IX: September. The Lives of the Saints. 1866.

September 19

St. Lucy, Virgin

SHE was daughter to a king of the Scots, and retired into France to serve God in obscurity. She chose for herself a solitary place on the north side of the river Meuse in the diocess of Verdun, where she lived in the practice of the most sublime virtues, till God called her to a happy immortality in the year 1090. She was buried in a church built by herself on the summit of a mountain near her own cell; and was enrolled in the number of the saints by Henry, bishop of Verdun. 1 Her relics are kept during the summer season in the church of Mount St. Lucy, but in winter in the parish church of Sampigny; of both which churches she is the titular patroness. The former belonging to the Minims was erected under her invocation, in 1625, by the Prince of Phalneburg, of the house of Guise, and by his wife, who was sister to Charles IV. duke of Lorraine. The shrine of St. Lucy is much resorted to by pilgrims; it was visited in 1609 by the Duchess of Lorraine of the house of Mantua, and in 1632 by Lewis XIII. king of France, who was then at the siege of St. Myhel in Lorraine. See the Hist. of Lorraine, t. 3, p. 218; Cle. Act. SS. t. 6, Sept. p. 101. Dempster, Camerarius, Lahier, and her MS. life, written in 1747.

1

Note 1. This Henry, called Blois or Winchester, was brother to Stephen king of England, and nephew to the empress Matilda; he was obliged to quit the see of Verdun in 1129, but afterwards became bishop of Winchester and cardinal. [back]