a Chapter, as hitherto there had been no canons. In this important
undertaking he followed the model of Lincoln Cathedral and
established the rite of that church in the ceremonial of the
services. The dignitaries and canons were ten in number, and there
were also sufficient vicars choral, or minor ecclesiastics, to enable
the sacred offices to be celebrated with becoming solemnity.

St. Gilbert worked many miracles during life; among them is recorded
the bestowal of {59} speech on a dumb man by means of prayer and the
sign of the cross. The saint was laid to rest under the central spire
of his cathedral, and a century after his death the dedication, which
had previously been to St. Mary, had been changed to St. Mary and St.
Gilbert.

The relics of the saint were greatly honoured in Catholic ages. No
trace of St. Gilbert's resting-place remains now except a portion of
a broken statue which probably formed part of it; like those of so
many of our holy ones, his ashes are left unhonoured in the
desecrated church wherein they repose. St. Gilbert's Fair was
formerly held annually at Dornoch; it lasted for three days.

2--St. Ebba, Virgin and Abbess, and her Companions, Martyrs, A.D. 870.

The monastery of Coldingham, in the ancient kingdom of Northumbria,
founded in the seventh century by St. Ebba, sister of the kings
Oswald and Oswy, was governed in the ninth century by another Ebba,
who presided over a band of holy virgins following the Rule of St.
Benedict. About the year 867 several thousand {60} Danish warriors,
under the command of the brothers Hinguar and Hubba, landed on the
coast of East Anglia and desolated the whole north country. When
Abbess Ebba received tidings of the near approach of the pagan
hordes, who had already wrecked vengeance upon ecclesiastics, monks,
and consecrated virgins, she summoned her nuns to Chapter, and in a
moving discourse exhorted them to preserve at any cost the treasure
of their chastity. Then seizing a razor, and calling upon her
daughters to follow her heroic example, she mutilated her face in
order to inspire the barbarian invaders with horror at the sight. The
nuns without exception courageously followed the example of their
abbess. When the Danes broke into the cloister and saw the nuns with
faces thus disfigured, they fled in panic. Their leaders, burning
with rage, sent back some of their number to set fire to the
monastery, and thus the heroic martyrs perished in the co