On November 16 the Church permits the commemoration of either St. Margaret of Scotland or St. Gertrude the Great — two medieval women whose memorials fall on the same day.
St. Margaret of Scotland (c. 1045-1093) was a princess of the Anglo-Saxon house of England who, after the Norman Conquest, fled to Scotland and married King Malcolm III. As queen she reformed the Scottish Church, founded Dunfermline Abbey, and was known for her care for the poor. She died on November 16, 1093, and was canonized by Innocent IV in 1250. Her relics were originally at Dunfermline Abbey in Scotland; the surviving relics were translated to El Escorial in Spain after the Scottish Reformation. She is patron of Scotland.
St. Gertrude the Great (1256-1302) was a Benedictine Cistercian mystic at the monastery of Helfta, near Eisleben in Saxony. Her writings — the Herald of Divine Love and the Spiritual Exercises — are among the great mystical texts of the medieval Church, and she was the first to propagate devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She died around 1302 and is patron of nuns and of the devotion to the Sacred Heart. A guide to Dunfermline appears in this directory; Helfta does not yet have one.
