Overview
Nunilo and Alodia (also called Nunilone and Alódia; died ) were a pair of child martyrs from Huesca in north-eastern Spain. They appear in the Roman Martyrology and in the calendars of the Mozarabic rite. Their martyrdom is described by Eulogius of Córdoba in 851 in his account of the Cordoban martyrs in the Memoriale Sanctorum, even though they were from Huesca because of their addition to the Roman Martyrology. Eulogius describes in the Sanctorum how religiously mixed families functioned during the early Islamic period. According to art historian Julie Harris, the sisters "received more detailed treatment" in the Passional of Cardeña, during the eleventh century. The exact date of their martyrdom is uncertain. Eulogius asserts that they were martyred in 851, a date that has been generally adopted. However, scholars have long questioned Eulogius' recorded chronology.
Art historian Ann Rosemary Christys has proposed that the sisters may have been killed earlier in the ninth century, possibly around 813, although the evidence remains inconclusive. The relics of Nunilo and Alodia were translated to the Monastery of Leyre in Navarre during the ninth century, though the exact date remains unclear. The Acta Sanctorum gives the year 880 for the translation, but this may reflect a misreading of the Hispanic era as Anno Domini (AD), which would instead correspond to 842 and places the sisters’ martyrdom around 813. The Leyre Casket, an ivory casket produced in 1005 in the Caliphate of Córdoba (756–1031), was later brought to the Monastery of Leyre, though the circumstances of its transfer remain undocumented; there, it was repurposed as a reliquary to contain the relics of Nunilo and Alodia.
According to art historian Julie Harris, this conversion may have coincided with the consecration of the monastery's crypt in 1057. When the monastery was suppressed in 1836, Nunilo and Alodia's relics were moved to San Ginés Church in Arrecife.
External links
* Image of Saints Nunilo and Alodia, on their way to martyrdom, statue on the Monastery of San Salvador of Leyre in Spain