ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA. 1347-1380.
By the HON. MRS. ARTHUR PELHAM.
To grasp the true significance of history we should endeavor to look beneath the surface of the current accounts of remarkable events, which are found in ordinary history books, and in the effort to do this, nothing is of more assistance than the careful, sympathetic consideration of the thoughts and habits of individual men and women as recorded by themselves in their writings, buildings, paintings, and other handiwork.
We have chosen today a woman of the fourteenth century, St. Catherine of Siena, as our center of interest, with the idea that dwelling upon the personal records which we possess of her life may assist us in freshening and vivifying our conceptions of history, and may possibly be found to have some bearing on the problems of the present day.
We think that there will be found much of real living interest in the life of Cath^ erine, the “ Beata Popolana ” of the Republic of Siena—the city peacemaker. She was the correspondent and counselor of popes and queens, of proud churchmen and nobles, of independent plebeian magistrates and lawless captains of mercenary troops, The true value and significance of the life of Catherine of Siena has lately been rescued from the atmosphere of legend, which had too long obscured it, by Mrs. Josephine Butler’s admirable biography, and a delightful essay by the late Mr. Symonds on Siena and St. Catherine.
Catherine, one of the twenty-five children of Giacome Benincasa, a dyer of Siena, was born in 1347 and died in 1380. She was, therefore, a contemporary of Chaucer, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Froissart, Wycliffe, Edward III. of England and Philippa of Hainault. One hundred years before Columbus started for Portugal she died.
She successfully resisted the desire of her parents that she should marry at the age of twelve, and after a short period of domestic persecution was allowed to follow her own inclinations in the adoption of a life of retirement and prayer. At the age of sixteen she became a member of the third order of St. Dominic, wearing the Dominican habit, but living at home and not bound by monastic vows.
At seventeen years of age she represented herself as having received a Divine inspiration to mix more with the world, and though this at first seemed contrary to her idea of a religious life, she obeyed the impulse, and henceforth joined in family life, and devoted much of her time to labors among the sick and poor. Her desire and power to preach became so strong as to overcome the prejudices of religious ideas and mediaeval customs. We find interesting traces in her writings of the mental struggles she went through on this subject, and allusions in her biographies show that she began to make evangelizing journeys in the neighborhood during this period.
In 1368 there was a great revolution in Siena, and we now first hear of Catherine, aged twenty-one, as employed as peacemaker between various factions and persons, and of her addressing two thousand people in the streets, cohorting them to peace.
It must have been at this time (1370) that she taught herself to read and write, for she received no instruction of this sort in her youth. It is hardly surprising that her biographers regarded her literary attainments as miraculous, when we find that in spite of this drawback she is included by some writers as among those who formed the Italian language. She wrote some poems of merit, but her letters, her “ dialogue,” or spiritual auto-biography and her written prayers are the chief evidences of her literary merit.
Catherine’s active life in her native city continued, and we have interesting details in her own words and those of her contemporary biographers, of her power and
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