[3] See “De Translatione corporum Sanctorum Martyrum,” etc., sec. 11.  “Non enim, quos martyres faciunt, venerari Saraceni permittunt.”  See above, p. 38.  The bodies of earlier martyrs were more freely given up at the request of the Christians.  See “Chron.  Silen.,” secs. 95-100; Dozy, iv. 119, for the surrender of the body of Justus; and Eul., “Ad Wiliesindum,” sec. 9, where Eulogius mentions that he had taken the bodies of Saints Zoilus and Austus to Pampluna.  Later, Hakem II. (961-976) gave up the body of the boy Pelagius at Ramiro III.’s request.  Mariana, viii. 5.

However, in spite of these regulations, many bodies were secretly carried off and entombed in churches, where they were looked upon as the most precious of possessions; and martyrs, who, by the admission of their admirers themselves, had never worked any miracles when living, were enabled, when dead, to perform a series of extraordinary ones, which did not finally cease till modern enlightenment had dissipated the darkness of the Middle Ages.

We happen to possess a very interesting account of the circumstances under which the relics of three of these Cordovan martyrs were transferred from the troubled scene of their passion to the more peaceful and more superstitious cloisters of France.[1]

It was in 858 that Hilduin, the abbot of the monastery of St Vincent and the Holy Cross, near Paris, learning that the body of their patron saint, St Vincent, was at Valencia, sent two monks, Usuard and Odilard, with the king’s[2] permission, to procure the precious relics for their own monastery.  On their way to perform this commission, the monks learnt that the body was no longer at Valencia.  It had been, in fact, carried[3] by a monk named Andaldus to Saragoza.  Senior, the bishop of that city, had seized it, and it was still held in veneration there, but under the name of St Marinus, whose body the monk had stoutly asserted it to be.  Senior apparently doubted the statement, and tortured Andaldus to get the truth out of him, but in vain; for the monk, knowing that St Vincent had been deacon of Saragoza, feared that the bishop would never surrender the body if aware of its identity.  However, Usuard and Odilard knew not but that the body was that of Marinus, as stated.

    [1] De Translatione SS. martyrum Georgii, Aurelii, et Nathaliae
    ex urbe Cordobae Parisios:  auctore Aimoino.—­“Migne,” vol. 115,
    pp. 939 ff.

    [2] Charles the Bald.

    [3] “Under a divine impulse,” as usual.

Disappointed, therefore, in their errand, they lingered about at Barcelona, thinking to pick up some other relics, when a friend, holding a high position in that town, Sunifridus by name, mentioned the persecution at Cordova, news of which does not seem to have travelled beyond Spain.  They determine at once to go to Cordova, relying on a friend there, named Leovigild, to help them to obtain what they wished.  Travelling in Spain, however, seems to have been by no means safe[1] at this period, and their bold resolution is regarded with fear and admiration by their friends.  The lord of the Gothic marches, Hunifrid, being on friendly terms with the Wali of Saragoza, writes to him on their behalf, and he entrusts them to the care of a caravan which chanced to be just starting for Cordova.