Baring-Gould’s sources: Florarius and Ferrarius on Sept. 16. Greven on Sept. 15. So also the German Martyrology of Canisius. At Prag on Sept. 16. Another festival on Nov. 10. Authority: — A Life by Christian de Scala, monk, great nephew of the saint, which is not, however, as trustworthy as one would have desired. See Dobrowsky, Versuche d. alteste bbhmische Geschichte von spateren Erdichtungen zu reinigen, Prag, 1809. S. Ludmilla, the daughter of Slavobor, a Sclavonic prince, was born at Wielnik, at the junction of the Elb and the Moldau. She was married to Borzivoi, Duke of Bohemia. This prince having visited the court of Swatopluk, King of Moravia, he was invited by him to a banquet, but was not suffered to sit with the Christians, but apart on the rushes of the floor. S. Methodius, the apostle of the Moravians, then spoke to him, and promised him, if he would embrace Christianity, that all his enemies should be made his footstool, and that his descendants should become mighty as a river swollen by many torrents. Inflamed with ambition, Borzivoi at once and eagerly demanded baptism. He was first instructed in the Christian faith, made to fast, 1 Bishop Forbes: “ Kalendars of Scottish Saints,” Edin. 1872. It is much to be The immeasurable inferiority of the later volumes of this great series, produced during this century, to those earlier in the series, in scholarship, critical sagacity, and in choice of documents, is to be regretted and then given the sacrament of regeneration. He was provided with a priest, and returned to his castle of Hradecz (Konigingratz), where he built a church, and dedicated it to S. Clement. His attempts to enforce Christianity on his people led to an insurrection, and he was obliged to fly to the court of Swatopluk. But the Bohemians soon tired of Stragmir, the chief they had set up in his room. He was assassinated, and Borzivoi returned. Ludmilla was not long after her husband in receiving baptism. Borzivoi died early, at the age of thirty-five, leaving two sons — Spitigew and Wratislaus. Spitigew succeeded his father, and died at the age of forty, when he was succeeded by Wratislaus, who married Drahomira of Saas, a woman of great pride and ungovernable temper. Wratislaus had by her two sons — S. Wenceslas and Boleslas — and he committed his children to the care of his mother, that they might be brought up by her in the fear of God. Drahomira bitterly resented the slight, and on the death of her husband resolved on revenge. Ludmilla was a woman of exemplary piety, who had made herself universally beloved by her gentleness and charities, and Drahomira saw that she would be her rival in the attempt to secure the regency of the kingdom during the minority of the young king.

She had her seized at Tetin, a castle near Podjbrad, whither Ludmilla had fled for safety, and strangled with a cord. The holy woman was buried by her servants, but her body was translated to Prag by S. Wenceslas, the son of her murderess, with great pomp and devotion. The date of the murder cannot be fixed with certainty, but it was between 920 and 929.

The relics [the bodily remains of a saint, or objects they used, kept with honor] of S. Ludmilla are preserved in S. George’s church at Prag. The head separate in a silver shrine, an arm in the cathedral.