ST

VITUS (

See also:

• GERMAN
• GERMAN, DUTCH AND SCANDINAVIAN

German,

See also:

• VEIT, PHILIPP (1793-1877)

Veit;

See also:

• FRENCH
• FRENCH, DANIEL CHESTER (1850– )
• FRENCH, NICHOLAS (1604-1678)

French,

See also:

• GUY, THOMAS (1644–1724)

Guy)  . According to the legend, where he is associated with Modestus and Crescentia, by whom he had been brought up, St Vitus suffered martyrdom at a very early age under the emperor Diocletian . Son of a Sicilian nobleman who was a worshipper of idols, Vitus was converted to the Christian faith without the knowledge of his father, was denounced by him and scourged, but resisted all attacks on his profession . Admonished by an angel, he crossed the sea to Lucania and went to Rome, where he suffered martyr-dom . His festival is celebrated on the 15th of June . The Passion of St Vitus has no historical value, but his name occurs in the Martyrologium hieronymianum . In 836 the abbey of Corvey, in Saxony, received his relics, and became a very active centre of his cult . In the second half of the gth century the monks of Corvey, according to Helmold's Chronica Slavorum, evangelized the island of Rugen, where they built a church in honour of St Vitus . The islanders soon relapsed, but they kept up the superstitious cult of the saint (whom they honoured as a god), returning to Christianity three centuries later . At Prague, too, there are some relics of the saint, who is the patron of Bohemia and also of Saxony, and one of the fourteen " protectors " (Nothhelfer) of the church in Germany . Among the diseases against which St Vitus is invoked is chorea, also known as St Vitus's Dance . See Acta sanctorum, June, iii .

1013-42 and vi . 137-40; Bibliotheca hagiographica

Latina (Brussels, 1899), n . 8711-23; J . H . Kessel, " St Veit, seine Geschichte, Verehrung and bildliche Darstellungen," in Jahrbilcher des Vereins von Alterthumsfreunden im Rheinlande (1867), pp . 152-83 . (H .