Eulalia

Historical scholarship

Passages quoted verbatim from public-domain reference works. They reflect the scholarship of their time, not current consensus, and may use obsolete spellings.

• 1884From the archives

  EULALIA— “fair speech”

  The feminines were more enduring than the masculines. Eulalia was a child of ten or twelve years old, who, with that peculiar exaggeration of feeling that distinguishes Spanish piety, made her escape from the place of safety where her parents had taken refuge, entered Merida, and proclaiming herself a Christian, was martyred with the utmost extremity of torture in the persecution of Diocletian, and was sung by the great Christian poet Prudentius, himself a Spaniard. His…

  Read the full historical passageShow shorter excerpt

  The feminines were more enduring than the masculines. Eulalia was a child of ten or twelve years old, who, with that peculiar exaggeration of feeling that distinguishes Spanish piety, made her escape from the place of safety where her parents had taken refuge, entered Merida, and proclaiming herself a Christian, was martyred with the utmost extremity of torture in the persecution of Diocletian, and was sung by the great Christian poet Prudentius, himself a Spaniard. His verses spread her fame into the East, where the Russians carry on her name as Jevlalija; the Servians, as Evlalija or Lelica. Another virgin martyr of the same name, under the same persecution, died at Barcelona, whence her relics spread into Guienne and Languedoc, and thus named the villages of Ste. Olaille, Ste. Aulazie, and Ste. Aulaire, the last a familiar seignoral title! Eulalia and Eulalie have been often used in Spain and France, and the former is found in the register of Ottery St. Mary, Devon—also frequently in Cornwall.

  Yonge, History of Christian Names (1884), Part III, Chapter IV (Historical Greek Names Consisting Of Epithets), Section IV (Eu) · Public domain (Project Gutenberg)