| public market-place, the lanes, and the streets of Strasburg. Many | | of them ate nothing for days and nights, until their mania again | | subsided. The plague was called St. Vitus’s Dance.” | | | | [218] _Cæs. Baron._ Annales ecclesiastic. Tom. II. p. 819. Colon. | | Agripp. 1609. fol. See the more ample Acta Sanctorum Junii (The | | 15th of June is St. Vitus’s day) Tom. II. p. 1013. Antwerp. 1698. | | fol. From which we shall merely add that Mazara, in Sicily, is | | supposed to have been the birth-place of our Saint, and that | | his father’s name was _Hylas_; that he went from thence with | | _Crescentia_ (probably his nurse) and _Modestus_ to Lucania, with | | both of whom he suffered martyrdom under _Diocletian_. They are all | | said to have been buried at Florence, and it was not long before | | the miraculous powers of St. Vitus, which had already manifested | | themselves in his life-time, were acknowledged throughout Italy. | | The most celebrated of his chapels were situated on the Promontory | | of Sicily (called by his name), in Rome and in Polignano, whither | | many pilgrimages were made by the sick. Persons who had been bitten | | by mad dogs believed that they would find an infallible cure at | | his altars, though the power of the Saint in curing wounds of this | | kind was afterwards disputed by the followers of St. Hubertus, the | | Saint of the Chase. In 672, his body was with much pomp moved to | | Apulia, but soon after the priests of many churches and chapels | | in Italy, gave out that they were in possession of portions of | | the saint’s body which worked miracles. In the eighth century the | | veneration of this youthful martyr extended itself to France, and | | the honour of possessing his body was conferred on the church of | | St. Denys. By command of the Pope it was solemnly delivered on | | the 19th of March, 836, by the Abbot _Hilduwinus_, of St. Denys, | | to the Abbot _Warinus_, of Corvey, (founded in 822). On its way | | thither, which occupied three months (to the 13th of June), many | | miracles were performed, and the subsequent Abbots of Corvey were | | able for centuries to maintain the popular belief in the miraculous | | healing power of their relics, which had indiscriminate influence | | on all diseases, more especially on those of a demoniacal kind. See | | Monachi anonymi Historia translationis S. Viti. In _G. H. Pertz_, | | Monumenta Germaniæ Historica. Tom. II. Hannov. 1828. fol. p. 576. | | As a proof of the great veneration for St. Vitus in the fourteenth | | century, we may further mention that Charles IV. dedicated to him | | the Cathedral of Prague, of which he had laid the foundation, and | | caused him to be proclaimed Patron Saint of Bohemia, and a nominal |