ROLENDIS, ST.

Also known as Rollandis, virgin who lived in the seventh or eighth century. Her vita, composed probably in the 13th century, relates that Rolendis was the daughter of a Gallic king (J. Molanus and F. Zutman claim that she was a daughter of the Lombard King Desiderius; J. Roland identifies her as the princess divorced by charle magne). She was supposed to marry a Scottish prince. To escape this marriage she fled to the convent of St. Ursula in cologne, but died en route in Villers-Poterie near Gerpinnes (Hainaut), Belgium. In 1103 her relics were exhumed by Bishop Othbert of liÈge. Her cult developed early in the Gerpinnes area around the relics contained in her eighth-century sarcophagus, rediscovered in 1951. Annually on Whitmonday a solemn procession is held, in which her relics, in an early 17th-century reliquary, are carried.

Feast: May 13.

Bibliography: Acta Sanctorum May 3:241–244. c. paradis, La Vie de S. Rolandis (Namur 1620). f. zutman, La Princesse fugitive (Liège 1667). j. l. roland, S. Rolende, vierge royale (Namur 1933). m. coens, "La Vita Rolendis dans sa recension gerpinnoise," Analecta Bollandiana 78 (1960) 309–335; Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 8:1367–68. j. mertens, Bulletin de la Commission royale des monuments et des sites 12 (1961) 1–72. É. lempereur, ed., Gerpinnes: bouquet de textes inspirés par Gerpinnes, sainte Rolende et sa "marche," depuis des siècles (Loverval 1973).

[m. csÁky]