The legend of St Ursula or: Why is this church filled with bones?

When you think of Cologne, you immediately think of its cathedral (the “Kölner Dom”). But did you know that not too far from it, there’s a church filled with bones? When we learned about it on our recent trip to Cologne, we just had to see it! But what’s the reason behind it?

Introducing St Ursula and her 11 (thousand) virgins! So let’s get into it – and see some bones at the end!

As you might know, I love myself some folklore and legends, so after hearing this story from a tour guide in Cologne, I wanted to know more. There are multiple versions of the legend which got seriously confusing at one point.

In one version, she’s a Breton princess, daughter of King Maurus and called Ursula, in another she’s the daughter of the semi-legendary King Dionotus of Cornwall, Wales, and called Winnosa (or Pinnosa). To make it easier for our story, we’ll make her British and call her Ursula.

The Catholic version of the story and the “regular one” are pretty different. In the first, Ursula is a good Christian who wants to join a nunnery and gets convinced by an angel to accept Prince Etherius as a husband. In the latter, there’s no mention of it and she’s supposed to marry a guy called Conan. To not make it too complicated, I’ll just go with the Catholic version which is more important for Cologne’s history. They’ve made her one of their city’s patron saints after all! So let’s get started.

St Ursula and her 11,000 virgins

According to medieval legends like the “Legenda Aurea”, St Ursula was a princess, virgin and martyr who lived in the 4th century. According to one version, she was the daughter of King Dionotus of Cornwall, Wales, and was famous for her beauty. Many princes came from afar to ask for her hand in marriage. But Ursula had other plans: Christian as she was, she didn’t want to get married but wanted to join a nunnery.

A heathen Prince from the North called Etherius heard of Ursula’s beauty and went to see her… but let’s just put a quick pin in that and talk about the other version: In this story, she was supposed to marry nonetheless than legendary British Celtic leader Conan the barbarian – sorry, I meant Conan Meriadoc of Armorica (which is an ancient region in northwest France, corresponding to modern-day Brittany). An interesting character by himself by the way, if you’re a history buff or like me into useless knowledge. But let’s continue with our story:

Although Ursula was attracted to Etherius, she declined due to her nunnery plans. Etherius’ father kind of freaked out after hearing this and threatened her with violence if she didn’t change her mind. The next night, Ursula had a vision from an angel telling her to accept Etherius’ proposal. When she woke up, decided to follow the angel’s advice but agreed to the marriage on two conditions: One: that she could go on a three-year pilgrimage to Rome with 10 virgin friends of hers (because being a virgin was all the rage back then), to see holy Christian places. Two: he had to get himself baptised in the meantime. Her wish was their command and the trip could begin!

Let’s just quickly see what the other Ursula was up to – which was entirely different:

This non-nunnery version of Ursula simply did what she was told when Daddy found a husband for her. Planning to join her future husband on the mainland, she set sail from Cornwell with another 11,000 (!) virgins who were to be used as handmaidens. Why someone needs so many handmaidens, and where you even get so many girls from, I do not know. Maybe they were supposed to be backups in case of the plague or other early demises. As long as Queeny doesn’t need to lift a finger, that would be unthinkable!

Anyways, on their way, they get into a miraculous storm which brings them to a Gaulish port within a day. So Ursula declares that before her marriage, let’s all go on a pilgrimage to Rome. Because nothing is easier than travelling with 11,000 virgins to Rome.

Now that both Ursulas are on their way to Rome, back to the Catholic version:

After preparing a fleet of ships for their trip, Ursula and her entourage start their pilgrimage. Travelling by ship down the river Rhein, the first station was Cologne where they were received by the bishop. Once again, Ursula had a vision in the night: if she returned to Cologne on their way back from Rome, she’d be martyred there. So they went to Rome, got married, took a different route home and lived happily ever after – one could think. But no, that would make for a very boring story!

Ursula and her entourage continued by ship until Basel and continued their journey on foot. Now imagine the version of 11,000 virgins travelling to Rome. And that too via the Alps, which is hard even if you wear fancy trekking gear. Whether it were 11,000 or only 10 virgins (of course with a big entourage, the 11 women weren’t travelling alone), it was quite hard. After a long and difficult journey, enduring hunger, bad weather (it gets pretty cold there too!), and diseases, they finally reached Rome. The Pope received them and all of them got baptised again by the Man himself.

They started their return journey and even Etherius who couldn’t wait to marry her, decided to set out from home to meet her halfway in Mainz (spoiler alert: big mistake, he should’ve stayed home!). While having their happy reunion, he received his baptism. Whether they got married there is not clear. There’s a painting of their wedding, but where, when and if – who knows? They continued their journey to Cologne – again, don’t ask me why, after having that vision! From here on, there are again different versions, most of which don’t make much sense to me.

Version 1: Martyrdom and Atillas’ Vision

On their way to Cologne, they got to know that the city was attacked by Huns and their famous king Attila. They fearlessly disembarked to accept their destiny and died – all except Ursula, even Etherius. When Atilla saw the beautiful Ursula, he was immediately smitten and told her that he’d spare her if she agreed to be his wife. She of course refused (that part I understand, after him having slaughtered pretty much everyone around her), which angered Attila so much that he shot and killed her with a single arrow – which has become part of her iconography.

After all this killing, Attila wanted to subdue Cologne for good. But he had a vision in the same night in which the martyred virgins appeared to him in a dream. He got so scared that he broke camp and ran away. The citizens of Cologne were so thankful to the virgins for saving the city that they buried them and built a Church on top of it.

In this version, it simply doesn’t make sense that they disembark and get themselves killed. There was no point to it in my opinion. Someone, please explain it to me so that I can rewrite it!

Version 2: Senseless Killing and an Angel Attack

After their return to Cologne, she and her followers were attacked by Huns who besieged the city. They started slaughtering all of the Christian pilgrims who came with her. Smitten by her beauty, the king of the Huns was so taken by her that he offered to stop the slaughter if she’d only marry him. So one would think, let’s do it to save thousands, right? But no, she rejected him and got everyone killed, including herself. After the massacre, 11,000 angels appeared thanks to which the Huns fled in fear.

Now this version, I seriously dislike for obvious reasons. Let’s continue to the last version, taken from the “Reimchronik” of the City of Cologne.

Version 3: Vive la Resistance!

When Ursula and her 11,000 virgins returned to Cologne and the Huns attacked, she called on her entourage to resist and die for the city of Cologne like Jesus Christ died for people on the cross. This is how all 11,000 became martyrs and Ursula was declared the patron saint of the city. (Whether there were angels involved or a vision, I don’t know).

So that’s the story of St Ursula and why she is so important to Cologne. Which version did you like best?

11,000 or eleven – that’s the question!

Now the big question is: why 11,000, why do people think that it was that many? One theory is that it was a mere translation error from Latin: someone translated “11,000 virgins” (11 milia virgines) instead of “eleven martyred virgins” (11 martyres virgines). That some holy virgins were killed seems to be sure thanks to an inscription from c. 400 in the Church of St Ursula in Cologne, which states that the basilica had been restored on the site where they were killed.

However, a cleric called Wandelbert (I love the name 😀 ), wrote in his martyrology from 848 that thousands of saints were slaughtered on the boards of the River Rhine. Another source, the Passio from the 970s says that there were 11 maidens who each commanded a ship containing one thousand virgins.

Our guide from Cologne had the following explanation which is connected to selling relics in the Middle Ages: having saint’s bones is good for business because many people were willing to pay for it. And since they found so many bones, around the church, 11 became 11,000.

The legend of the holy virgins and the distribution of their relics started in the 12th century in the whole of Europe. The first planned relic excavations happened in 1121 around the church, planned by bishop Norbert von Xanten who had visions of the resting places. Whatever graves they found, they declared them to be relics, although they even found bones of men and children. But if a legend doesn’t fit, let’s make it fit: they started saying that Etherius came to meet her in Cologne with his entourage and was killed alongside them as a martyr. That’s why you can find his reliquary next to hers in the church.

Since so many bones were found, the burial ground around the church became one of the most abundant relic-finding places north of the Alps.

Thanks to today’s research, we now know that a lot of the bones are around 2000 years old, most likely from Roman times. The area used to be outside the city walls back then and was used as a graveyard. When they extended the city walls and started digging there, they discovered the bones.

Let’s show some bones: The Basilica of St Ursula in Cologne

When our tour guide told us that there was a church filled with thousands of bones, I got excited! Hubster and I just LOVE visiting churches – cathedrals and basilicas to be precise, because you never know what you’re going to find. Sometimes a church or even a temple seems very inconspicuous from the outside but is insanely beautiful inside. I always remember the Jain temple in Mount Abu, Rajasthan, which looked so boring from the outside that I almost left, but my God, did it blow my mind! Of course, it’s often monotonous, after all, they’re very similar. So when we hear about something unique like this, we’re all ears.

I had expected it to be at the main altar and was slightly disappointed when entering. I searched for almost 10 minutes until I finally asked someone who just finished a tour. It’s called the “Golden Chamber” (“Goldene Kammer” in German), directly to your right when you enter. They often keep the door locked for obvious reasons and it costs 2 EUR entry, so you might have to find someone to open it. The guide (let’s just call him that, although I’m sure he works at the church in a different capacity) is incredibly nice and he’ll tell you quite a bit about the story.

Today’s basilica was built in the 12th century, and the Baroque refurbishing was added in the 17th century. The Golden Chamber was added to the church in 1643 during the 30-year war to store and showcase the collection of relics.

Apart from the bone decoration all over, all these figures you see contain skulls! One can open the head part of the sculpture and put a skull inside.

In some of the niches you even find visible skulls, only wrapped in some embroidered cloth.

The church itself isn’t very spectacular but you can visit St Ursula herself.

You can also take a look at the “Ursulazyklus” which is a depiction of the whole story. If you find the nice “guide”, he might explain it to you.

If you reached here: Thanks for reading! I hope you liked this little tale. Stay tuned for more posts about Cologne and our recent trip to Germany 🙂 If you haven’t yet, do subscribe!