Ulphia (also Ulphe, Olfe, Wulfe, Wolfia, or Wulfia and other variants; d. 8th century AD) of

Amiens Amiens (English: or ; ; pcd, Anmien, or ) is a city and commune in northern France, located north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in the region of Hauts-de-France. In 2021, the population of ...

is a Christian saint, venerated particularly at Amiens. She was said to be a young girl living on the banks of the

Noye The Noye (; pcd, Noée) is a river in the Hauts-de-France region of northern France. The Noye is located in the northern part of the Picard plateau. It is the left tributary of the Avre river, which is itself a left tributary of the Somme. T ...

in the who became a

hermit A hermit, also known as an eremite (adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions. Description In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Ch ...

at what would become

Saint-Acheul Saint-Acheul is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. It is not to be confused with Saint-Acheul, a suburb of Amiens after which the Acheulean archaeological culture of the Lower Paleolithic is named. Geog ...

, near Amiens in the

Kingdom of the Franks Francia, also called the Kingdom of the Franks ( la, Regnum Francorum), Frankish Kingdom, Frankland or Frankish Empire ( la, Imperium Francorum), was the largest post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Franks duri ...

, under the spiritual direction of

Saint Domitius Saint Domitius (Domice) of Amiens (fl. 8th century) is a French saint, venerated especially in the diocese of Amiens. He is remembered for providing spiritual guidance to Saint Ulphia. Domitius is said to have been a deacon of the church of Am ...

(Domice). At the end of her life, she formed and directed a community of religious women at Amiens. Her

feast day The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context d ...

is January 31. Legend states that Ulphe placed the

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely Carnivore, carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order (biology), order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-f ...

s in the area around her hermitage (which was built in a

swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

y area) under

interdict In Catholic canon law, an interdict () is an ecclesiastical censure, or ban that prohibits persons, certain active Church individuals or groups from participating in certain rites, or that the rites and services of the church are banished from ...

as a result of their loud croaking, which kept her awake at nights. Thus, in her

iconography Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct fro ...

, she is depicted as a young nun seated in prayer on a rock with a frog in the pool near her. A 19th century

hagiographer A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies might ...

noted that the frogs in the area around the oratory of Saint Ulphe were, indeed, very quiet. However, if these frogs were taken elsewhere, they became boisterous once again. A statue of Ulphia stands in the portal of

Amiens Cathedral , image = 0 Amiens - Cathédrale Notre-Dame (1).JPG , imagesize = 200px , img capt = Amiens Cathedral , pushpin map = France , pushpin label position = below , coordinates = , country ...

Les saints amiénois sainte Ulphe, saint Acheul et saint Honoré (80)
/ref> and a painting of Ulphia with

by the 19th century painter Jean de Franqueville, hangs inside the cathedral.

Notes

External links

Saints of January 31: Ulphia

Domitius (Domice)
* http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/Mcahweb/facade/footnotes.html {{Authority control People from Amiens French hermits 8th-century Frankish saints Female saints of medieval France 8th-century Frankish women Medieval French saints 711 births 750 deaths