St melania the younger biography of william

Granddaughter of melania the elder, heiress and ascetic; b.

St melania the younger biography of william shakespeare

Rome, 383; d. Jerusalem, Dec. 31, 439. The daughter of Valerius Publicola and Albina Ceionia, and heiress to great wealth, Melania at 14 was forced to marry her cousin Valerius Pinian. After the early death of their two infants, she persuaded St.

Pinian to live in married continence and to dispose of their wealth in favor of the poor.

St melania the younger biography of william

After the death of her father (c. 405) and despite the opposition of the Senate, fiscal agents, and her relatives, she converted her house on the Via Appia into a hostel for pilgrims and began the sale of her vast properties with the consent of the Emperor honorius.

With Pinian she visited paulinus of nola (406) and, fleeing before the Gothic invasion from the north, settled in Sicily in the company of rufinus of aquileia. When he died (410), she and Pinian visited North Africa for seven years, met augustine and alipius in Hippo, and encouraged the spread of asceti