Jan-Maat’s Reviews > Legenda: Hoe vrouwen werden gebruikt in de mythevorming van Europa > Status Update

Aged 21 Catherine had a vision that she was marrying Jesus Christ. At the wedding were: the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist, and Saint Dominic. King David provided the music. The wedding ring was made out of Jesus's foreskin (a popular relic).

After her death, aged 33 - naturally, the Basilica of St. Domenic (where she prayed regularly) kept Catherine of Siena's head and one of her fingers as relics. It does not say who got the rest of her fingers.

Catherine of Siena was the youngest of 24 children!

Story of Edgardo Mortara, a Jewish boy who at age 6 in 1858 eas removed by police from his family home and brought up as a Catholic, he eventually became a priest. He had been secretly baptised as a baby by a catholic servant who was frightened that the boy was going to die. This was a huge international cause celebre - there were even reports about it in the New York Herald.
Somehow this links to Catherine of Siena

The chapter on Germany begins with Lola Montes, the mistress of a King of Bavaria. I had her mixed up with Eliza Lynch who was the wife of the Dictator of Paraguay (similar place to Bavaria, but the beer tradition isn't as rich and their waterfalls are bigger).
Though both women were born in Ireland and baptised with the name Eliza. Still, odd to mix them up.

Interesting reading this after Femina. Here the saint Maria of Oignies starved herself to death. In Femina we read that starving yourself to death (the endura) was a feature of Cathar practice, however since in Femina Ramirez commited herself to real existence of "catharism" she can't draw the link and see this as part of religious practice that might be judged as heretical or holy depending on the context.

Ramírez thinks that Laskarina Bouboulina, a leader in the Greek war of Independence probably had read Anna Komene's Alexiad. This seems a bit unlikely to me even if she did name one of her ships Agamemnon.

Ramirez relates following Ladero-Quesada (1975) that the war to conquer Grenada cost 450 million maravedis, which was cinanced by borrowing from Spain's Jews. In 1492, the war is over and the Jews were given the choice of exile or conversion to avoid repaying the loans.
A good cynical story but maybe too neat and tidy?

isabella of Castile travelled a great deal around her kingdom, in some years more than 1500 kilometres.
A contrast with her great grandson king Philip II who rarely moved from his palace, but that maybe was only possible because of great-grandma's work, going around, showing her face, giving justice...