See Adam. Vit. German. Theologorum; Heppe, Gesch, d. deutsch. Protestantismus ; id. Dogniatik d. deutsch. Pro- testantismus, i, 158-160; Sudhoff, Olevianus v, Uisinus (Elberfeld, 1857) ; id. Lebeu d. Vdter d. refurmirt, Kirche,
vol. viii; Gillet, Crato von Crafftheim (Frankf. 1860); Herzog, Real-Enci/Hop. s. v.; Smith's Hagenbach, JJist. of Doctrines, ii, § 222, and § 223 a, 4.
Urstier, in Chinese and Persian mj'thology. There is said to be erected in China, at Miako, in a large pago- da, a statue of a bull entirely of gold. If the reports of the Holland expeditions are true, it is marvellous wliat a similarity there is in the fable of this bull and that worshipped by the Persians and Egyptians. He is rep- resented as in the act of springing, with the intention of breaking an egg that lies swimming in the water close by a rock. The Chinese, Egyptians, and Persians agree in saying that in this egg the world lay bidden. This egg was swimming about the water until a rock appeared in the water, against which it leaned itself. Then the Urstier came, cracked the shell with his horns, and from this egg there sprang the world and all that is in the world, and the breath of the bull gave man life. — VoUmer, Worterb. d. Mythol. s. v.
Ursula ( St. ) and The Eleven Thousand Virgins. The legend states that Ufrsiila was the daughter of The- onotus, or Diognetus, of Britain. She was demanded in marriage by a heathen prince named Holofernes, and consented to his demand on condition that he should become a Christian and allow her three years before the marriage in which to make a pilgrimage. He conform- ed to her will, and, with his religion, changed his name into .Etherius; and she took ship with eleven thousand virgins. They went first to the port of Tila, in Gaul, and thence up the Rhine to Cologne and Basle, after- wards continuing the pilgrimage by land as far as Rome. When they returned, pope Cyriacus, with a retinue of clergy, joined the immense procession ; and at Basle the bishop Paid, or Pantulus, likewise. At Cologne the re- turning pilgrims were attacked, while disembarking, bj-- hordes of wild Ilunnish barbarians and were all massa- cred,though the heathen king, Attila(Etzel), admired the beauty of Ursula and desired to spare her, that she might
St. Ursula. (From a pi( line hv St. Cattarina de' Vigri,in the Bologiiu Giillery.)
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become his wife. She fell pierced with an arrow, which has become her peculiar attribute in artistic represen- tations of this saint. Immediately after the massa- cre heavenly hosts, equal in number to the murdered virgins, appeared and put the barbarians to flight. The delivered inhabitants nf the city thereupon buried the fallen pilgrims, and erected to each one a stone bearing her name — the names having been obtained from .lames, a bishop, who was in the train of the pilgrims and who had found a refuge in a cave from the fate of his com- panions. Soon afterwards Clemantius, a pilgrim from Greece, having been urged in repeated dreams, erect- ed a church among the graves in honor of Ursula and her eleven thousand comi)anions. The sanctity of this place of burial is ai>parent from the fact that no oth- er interments, even tlioiigh they be of the bodies of baptized children, can be performed in its hallowed soil.
The origin of the Ursula legend is probably to be found in the ancient martyrologies and saints' chron- icles of a date earlier than the 12th century, the legend having been current in this form in (iermany since that period, while a somewhat tiifFerent version has prevailed in England. This rehearses that Maximus, the usurper in Gaid (383-388) and former commander in Britain, had required of king Dionotns of Cornwall a number of marriageable girls for his legionaries, and that the king at once forwarded sixty thousand virgins of com- mon and eleven thousand of noble rank, among them his own daughter Ursula. They were driven by storms, "ad barbaras insulas appnls.T," and murdered by the Huns and Picts ('?). The earliest mention of any sim- ilar event is found in the poetical martyrology (ad Oct. 21) of Wandelbert of Pri'im, who died in 870 (see D'Achery, Spicilcg. ii, 54). The martyrology of the monk Usuard of St. Germain, written about 875, men- tions two virgins of Cologne, "Martha et Saula. cum aliis pluribus" {Acta SS. [Boll.] Jun. 7, G13), and vari- ous ecclesiastical calendars of Cologne of scarcely more recent date mention eleven virgins and give their names. The massacre itself is with great unanimity at- tributed to the Huns, under the command of Attila. For a thorough discussion of the extent to which the legend involves credible truth we refer to Zijckler, in Herzog's Real- Encyklop. s. v. See Crombach, Ursu- la Mndicul a, etc. (Col. 1647, fob), the most extensive work ; id. A uct. sive Lib. XI f S. Ursulce Vindic. (4to) ; a Iso Vad ian , Oratio de XI Millihus I 'irgin «m ( Vien . 1 5 1 0) ; Usher in Antiq. Eccles. Briian. (Lond. 1C87), p. 107 sq. ; Baronius, Martyrol. Rom. ad Oct, 21 ; id. Annales, ad an. 383, No. 4, etc. ; Jameson [Mrs.], Lec/endary A rt, ii,501 sq.
Ursulines, the name borne by the nuns and The- atines of a charitable order in tlie Church of Rome, which was founded Nov. 25, 1.535, at Brescia by Angela Merici (q. v.), and became prominent among the benev- olent orders instituted in the 16th century to impede the progress of the Protestant Reformation. Their original rule did not require ascetical retirement from the world nor the wearing of a peculiar dress. Even the obligation to chastity was ratlier recommended than imposed. But, after the papal confirmation of the order had been obtained (June 9, 1544), the rule be- came more strict. Formal congregations were organ- ized, whose members, for the most part, lived together in convents. A girdle of leather to sj'mbolize virgini- ty was added to the garb. JMore extended measures to uniform and regulate the order were taken under the direction of cardinal Borromeo. who was from t)ie first its zealous patron. By the end of the 16th centu- ry the order had become estal dished in France, and rapidly increased the number of its convents. The sin- gle congregation of Paris possessed over eighty such houses. In time this congregation devised a new rule which was approved by pope Paul V, and has become the model for the rules of the congregations of Bor- deaux, Dijon, and Lyons (see Co/istitnt. d. Rtliyeuses de <S. Urs. de la Cowjrefj. de. Paris, 1648, and R'eylement,