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| Chapter 7: A MISCELLANY | |||
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| Personal names | |||
| As noted earlier, Hanks and Hodges in A Dictionary of Surnames, gave one source of the English surname Lucy, as being the medieval female first name Lucie, which is the equivalent of the male Lucius, or Luke. The Oxford (?) Dictionary of Saints has the following entry: | |||
| LUCY (d. 304) virgin and martyr. She died at Syracuse
in the persecution of Diocletian. Her cult was both early and widespread:
an inscription of c.400 referring to her survives at Syracuse; her name
is included in the Canons of the Roman and Ambrosian rites, and occurs
in the oldest Roman sacramentaries, in Greek liturgical books, and in the
marble calendar of Naples. Churches were dedicated to her in Rome, Naples,
and eventually Venice. Here, in a church near the railway station survives
a partially incorrupt body claimed to be hers. Two ancient churches were
dedicated to her in England, where she has been certainly known from the
time of Aldhelm, who praised her in his treatises on Virginity in the late
7th century.
Her historically valueless Acts, make her a wealthy Sicilienne, who refused marriage offers, gave her goods to the poor, and was accused by her suitor to the persecuting authority. The judge ordered that she should be violated in a brothel, but she was made miraculously immovable; he then tried to have her burnt, also unsuccessfully; so she was finally killed by the sword. Her iconography is based on these Acts, her usual emblem being her eyes, which were reputed to have been torn out and miraculously restored. This element occurs especially in late mediaeval representations: the earliest surviving image is a simple one without attributes, in the frieze of virgins in the 6th-century mosaics of S. Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna. Especially in Sweden, her feast on the shortest day of the year has become a festival of light: the youngest daughter, dressed in white, awakens the rest of the family with coffee, rolls, and a special song. There and in Sicily, 'Santa Lucia' remains popular. Feast: 13 December. |
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September, 1999 |
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