Who’s Cecilia? What is She?

Abstract

Repeatedly critical voices within the arts declare that the legend of St. Cecilia is one of the most famous of all the accounts of the Roman martyrs. In truth, the story of her life is far less known among a non-critical public than is the frequent association of her name with music, an association insisted on by several decades of odes written to celebrate St. Cecilia’s Day. That connection has lasted well past the tradition itself, entering the lore of the “knowing” without the recollection of its impetus. On the other hand, the telling of the story of her life occurs even less than intermittently, so to find the written details of her narrative in a somewhat accessible form, one must hark back to the fourteenth century and Geoffrey Chaucer. “The Second Nun’s Tale” in The Canterbury Tales relates how Cecilia, Roman born and Christian reared, had secretly vowed her virginity to God. The Almighty in turn tendered her a guardian angel committed to helping her keep her vow even when she was constrained by her parents to marry a young pagan named Valerian. On her wedding night she revealed her secret to her new husband, who in return asked to see the angel. Cecilia agreed that that would happen if Valerian would become a Christian. To accomplish that conversion Cecilia sent him—and he agreed to go—to St. Urban, who became the