For refusing to recant her Christianity, the Romans subjected her to thirteen tortures, including – putting her into a barrel with knives (or glass) stuck into it and rolling it down a street (according to tradition, the one now called Baixada de Santa Eulalia “Saint Eulalia’s descent”), cutting off her breasts, crucifixion on an X-shaped cross. She is depicted with this cross, the instrument of her martyrdom. Finally, she was decapitated. A dove is supposed to have flown forth from her neck following her decapitation.
One of the most well-known and endearing parts of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia of Barcelona is the crypt of Saint Eulalia. The magnificent Gothic tomb incorporates Romanesque elements from other sources, such as the bases and capitals holding up the structure of the polychromed marble sarcophagus solemnly inaugurated in 1339. The sculptor is known to have come from the region of Pisa.
St Eulalia’s the sarcophagus is crowned by five images – four angels with candlesticks and, in the centre, the image of the Eulalia. The crypt has a keystone representing the Saint Eulalia and the Christ Child placing a crown on the Saint of Barcelona.
Behind the Gothic sepulchre is the original sepulchre of Saint Eulalia, which was found by the bishop Frodoino in 878 in the cemetery of Santa María del Mar and a piece of broken marble with the original inscription commemorating her.
Eulalia is commemorated with statues and street names throughout Barcelona. Her body was originally interred in the church of Santa Maria de les Arenes (St Mary of the Sands, now Santa Maria del Mar, St Mary of the Sea). It was hidden in 713 during the Moorish invasion and only recovered in 878. In 1339, it was relocated to an alabaster sarcophagus in the crypt of the newly built Cathedral of of the Holy Cross and St Eulalia. The festival of Saint Eulalia is held in Barcelona for a week around her feast day on 12 February.
From the Catholic Encyclopedia
The Acts of her life and martyrdom were copied early in the twelfth century, and with elegant conciseness, by the learned ecclesiastic Renallus Grammaticus (Bol. acad. hist., Madrid, 1902, XLI, 253-255). Their chief historical source is a Latin hymn of the middle of the seventh century by Quiricus, Bishop of Barcelona, friend and correspondent of St. Ildephonsus of Toledo and of Tajo, Bishop of Saragossa. This hymn, identical with that of Prudentius (Peridstephanon, III) for the feast of St. Eulalia of Mérida (10 December, 304), was preserved in the Visigothic Church and has reached us through the Mozarabic Liturgy.
There is no reason to doubt the existence of two distinct saints of this name, despite the over-hasty and hypercritical doubts of some. The aforesaid Quiricus of Barcelona and Oroncius of Mérida were present at the tenth council of Toledo (656). The latter had already founded (651) a convent of nuns close by the basilica of the celebrated martyr of his episcopal city, had written a rule for its guidance, and given it for abbess the noble lady Eugenia. Quiricus now did as much for the basilica and sepulchre of the martyr of Barcelona, close to whom he wished to be buried, as we read in the last lines of the hymn.
The inscriptions on many Visigothic altars show that they contained relics of St. Eulalia; except in the context, however, they do not distinguish between the martyr of Barcelona and the one of Mérida. On an altar in the village of Morera, Province of Badajoz, we find enumerated consecutively Sts. Fructuosus and Augurius (Tarragona), St. Eulalia (Barcelona), St. Baudillius (Nimes, and St. Paulus (Narbonne). The Visigothic archeology of Eastern Spain has been hitherto poor in hagiological remains; nevertheless, a trans-Pyrenean inscription found at Montady near Béziers mentions a basilica dedicated to the martyrs Sts. Vincentius, Iñes, and Eulalia (of Barcelona).
Until 23 November, 874, the body of the Barcelona martyr reposed outside the walls of the city in the church of Santa Maria del Mar. On that date both the body and the tomb were transferred to his cathedral by Bishop Frodoinus. In memory of this act he set up an inscription yet preserved in the Muséo Provincial of Barcelona (no. 864); see also volume XX of Florez, "España Sagrada", for a reproduction of the same. Not long before this the martyr, St. Eulogius, having occasion to defend the martyrs of Cordova for their spontaneous confession of the Christian Faith before the Muslim magistrates, quoted the example of St. Eulalia of Barcelona, and referred to the ancients Acts of her martyrdom. Her distinct personality is also confirmed by the existence of an ancient church and monastery in Cordova that bear the name of the Barcelona martyr; this important evidence is borne out by the Mozarabic calendars examined by the learned Dom Ferotin.
