Daniel and companions were seven
Friars Minor
The Order of Friars Minor (also called the Franciscans, the Franciscan Order, or the Seraphic Order; postnominal abbreviation OFM) is a mendicant Catholic religious order, founded in 1209 by Francis of Assisi. The order adheres to the teachi ...
martyred at
Ceuta
Ceuta (, , ; ar, سَبْتَة, Sabtah) is a Spanish autonomous city on the north coast of Africa.
Bordered by Morocco, it lies along the boundary between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of several Spanish territorie ...
on 10 October 1227, according to the ''
'' (). Their story is likely a legend or fabrication. The names of Daniel's companions are borrowed from the authentic account of the martyrdom of
Berard of Carbio
Berard of Carbio, O.F.M., was a thirteenth-century Franciscan friar who was executed in Morocco for attempting to promote Christianity. He and his companions, Peter, Otho, Accursius, and Adjutus, are venerated as saints and considered the Francis ...
and his companions in 1220.
[Christopher MacEvitt, "The Franciscans", in Paul Middleton (ed.), ''The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Christian Martyrdom'' (John Wiley & Sons, 2020), pp. 365–380. According to MacEvitt, "it is most likely that the martyrs themselves never existed".]
Daniel and his companions are venerated as saints by the
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
.
Story
The martyrdom of
Berard of Carbio
Berard of Carbio, O.F.M., was a thirteenth-century Franciscan friar who was executed in Morocco for attempting to promote Christianity. He and his companions, Peter, Otho, Accursius, and Adjutus, are venerated as saints and considered the Francis ...
and his companions in 1219 had inflamed many of the religious of the Order of Friars Minor with the desire of preaching the
gospel
Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...
in non-Christian lands; and in 1227, the year following
Francis of Assisi's death, six religious of
Tuscany
it, Toscano (man) it, Toscana (woman)
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 = Citizenship
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographics1_title1 = Italian
, demogra ...
, Agnellus (Agnello), Samuel, Donulus, Leo, Hugolinus (Ugolino), and Nicholas, petitioned
Elias of Cortona
Elias of Cortona was born, it is said, at Bevilia near Assisi, ca. 1180; he died at Cortona, 22 April 1253. He was among the first to join St. Francis of Assisi in his newly founded Order of Friars Minor. In 1221, Francis appointed Elias Vicar Ge ...
, then vicar-general of the Order, for permission to preach the gospel to the
Muslims
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
of the
Maghreb
The Maghreb (; ar, الْمَغْرِب, al-Maghrib, lit=the west), also known as the Arab Maghreb ( ar, المغرب العربي) and Northwest Africa, is the western part of North Africa and the Arab world. The region includes Algeria, ...
.
[Donovan, Stephen. "St. Daniel and Companions." The Catholic Encyclopedia]
Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 2 August 2018
The six missionaries went first to
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
, where they were joined by Daniel, Minister Provincial of
Calabria, who became their superior. They set sail from Spain and on 20 September reached the coast of
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
, where they remained for a few days in a small village inhabited mostly by Christian merchants just beyond the walls of the
Saracen
upright 1.5, Late 15th-century German woodcut depicting Saracens
Saracen ( ) was a term used in the early centuries, both in Greek and Latin writings, to refer to the people who lived in and near what was designated by the Romans as Arabia Pe ...
city of Ceuta.
[
Finally, very early on Sunday morning, they entered the city, and immediately began to preach the gospel and to denounce Islam. They were soon apprehended and brought before the sultan who, thinking that they were mad, ordered them to be cast into prison. Here they remained until the following Sunday when they were again brought before the sultan, who, by promises and threats, endeavoured in vain to make them deny the Christian religion. They were all executed under the Islamic death penalty. Each one approached Daniel, the superior, to ask his ]blessing
In religion, a blessing (also used to refer to bestowing of such) is the impartation of something with grace, holiness, spiritual redemption, or divine will.
Etymology and Germanic paganism
The modern English language term ''bless'' likely ...
and permission to die for Christ. They were all beheaded
Decapitation or beheading is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the ...
.[
Daniel and his companions were canonized by ]Leo X
Pope Leo X ( it, Leone X; born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, 11 December 14751 December 1521) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 9 March 1513 to his death in December 1521.
Born into the prominent political an ...
in 1516. Their feast is kept in the Franciscan Order on the thirteenth of October.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Daniel and companions
13th-century Christian saints
Medieval Italian saints
Italian Friars Minor
Groups of Christian martyrs of the Middle Ages
1227 deaths
History of Ceuta
13th-century Roman Catholic martyrs
Christian saints killed by Muslims
People from the Almohad Caliphate
Groups of Roman Catholic saints
Year of birth unknown