Saints Nunilo and Alodia, and Their Ivory Reliquary

October 22nd is the feast day of two Spanish virgin martyrs, sisters called Nunilo (or Nunilone) and Alodia, who died on this day in the year 851. Their martyrdom is described in book called the Memorialis Sanctorum, written by a priest of Córdoba named Eulogius, which gives an account of many of the martyrs killed by the Islamic emirs of Córdoba in a persecution that last for about ten years, from 849-59. Eulogius is sometimes referred to as “of Toledo”, because he was canonically elected to that see, but he was never consecrated, being first imprisoned and then martyred about eight years after the two sisters. His feast is kept on March 11.

An altar dedicated to Ss Nunilo and Alodia, in the monastery of Leyre which had their relics for many centuries.

Nunilo and Alodia were born in Huesca, close to the frontier of the lands still held by Christians in the north of Spain, known as the Spanish Marches. Their father was a Muslim, but allowed them to be raised in the faith of their Christian mother. However, when he died, their mother married another Muslim, who was not as tolerant as their father had been, and so they were sent away to live with a Christian aunt in Castile. The girls had decided to remain virgins, and dedicate themselves to the service of God, but the local governor, seeing their great devotion and holiness, decided to try to force them to apostatize. Like many of their illustrious predecessors in the days of the Roman persecutions, they were given over to the custody of women “endowed with knowledge of the profane rites”, as Eulogius delicately puts it. The two young women rejected all enticements to abandon their faith, and all possibility of marriage (presumably to Muslim husbands), and were therefore at last beheaded.

St Eulogius records that their bodies were left to rot in the public forum where they died, with soldiers posted to prevent the Christians from taking them and giving them a decent burial, but that they were nevertheless somehow recovered and kept in a place where “they shine forth with signs and miracles.” About 30 years later, they were translated to the monastery of the Most Holy Savior in the Christian kingdom of Navarre, about 75 miles to the northwest.

At some point during the Reconquista, an elaborately carved ivory casket made in Córdoba just after the turn of the millennium was taken by the Christians, and donated to this monastery, where it was used as a reliquary for the two martyrs. The monastery was suppressed in 1836, and the Saints’ relics were taken to a church in the Canary Islands; the casket is now kept at the Navarre Museum in Pamplona.