The personal history of St. Vitus is by no
means important in this matter. He was a Sicilian youth, who,
together with Modestus and Crescentia, suffered martyrdom at the
time of the persecution of the Christians, under Diocletian, in
the year 303. The legends respecting him are obscure, and he
would certainly have been passed over without notice among the
innumerable apocryphal martyrs of the first centuries, had not the
transfer of his body to St. Denys, and thence, in the year 836, to
Corvey, raised him to a higher rank. From this time forth it may
be supposed that many miracles were manifested at his new
sepulchre, which were of essential service in confirming the Roman
faith among the Germans, and St. Vitus was soon ranked among the
fourteen saintly helpers (Nothhelfer or Apotheker). His altars
were multiplied, and the people had recourse to them in all kinds
of distresses, and revered him as a powerful intercessor. As the
worship of these saints was, however, at that time stripped of all
historical connections, which were purposely obliterated by the
priesthood, a legend was invented at the beginning of the
fifteenth century, or perhaps even so early as the fourteenth,
that St.
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