Note 3 — Chapter I

Roger of Wendover, in his Flowers of History, relates a similar instance of admirable courage on the part of the nuns of Coldingham in Berwickshire, when the country was invaded by the merciless Danes in the year 870. Assembling all the sisters, the holy abbess addressed them, and having obtained from them a promise of implicit obedience to her maternal commands, she “took a razor, and with it cut off her nose, together with her upper lip unto the teeth, presenting herself a horrible spectacle to those who stood by. Filled with admiration at this heroic deed, the whole community followed her example, and each did the like to themselves. With the morrow’s dawn came those most cruel tyrants, to disgrace the holy women dedicated to God, and to pillage and burn the monastery; but on beholding the abbess and all the sisters so frightfully mutilated and stained with their own blood from the sole of their foot unto their head, they retreated in haste from the spot, thinking a moment too long for tarrying there. But as they were retiring, the leaders ordered their wicked followers to set fire and burn the monastery, with all its buildings and its holy inmates. Which being done, the holy abbess and all the holy virgins with her attained the glory of martyrdom.”