The Illegiterati

And now for a fun and exciting weekly feature of the Illegiterati: Friday Obscure Saint Blogging. Every Friday, I’ll pick an obscure saint, usually from either Roman Catholicism or some sort of Christian Orthodoxy, and write about them.

First up is St. Wilgefortis. I can’t tell when she lived, but her cult came about sometime in the 14th century, during the gothic period. Ms. Fortis was a young princess from Portugal, daughter to a pagan king. Her father bethrothed her to another pagan king, possibly the King of Sicily, and arranged for their wedding. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the young Wilgefortis had already taken a vow of chastity, and so to avoid the marriage she prayed that God would make her somehow unappealing to her future husband. Lo and behold, within the day she sprouted a beard and moustache, and her fiance decided he didn’t want her anymore.

Because the patriarchy is awesome, her father flew into a rage and had Wilgefortis crucified. She’s now prayed to by women who wish to be “unencumbered” of abusive husbands.

The very best part is that even the Roman Catholic church admits it’s totally untrue.

When the Vatican council convened in the 1960’s–aka Vatican II–one of the things they did was to take a good hard look at the liturgical calendar of saints. These days, there’s a whole process that someone has to go through to become a saint, from veneration to beatification to sainthood, but back in the day saints were made basically by popular proclamation. Meaning, there was no quality control. During Vatican II, the Church researched the historicity of a whole lot of these old saints, and ultimately a whole slew of saints, somewhere around 200, were taken off the international liturgical calendar. That doesn’t mean they were decanonized–it’s still perfectly legal in the church to revere Wilgefortis all you like–but every church in the world isn’t required to give her some sort of recognition once a year.

Along with Wilgefortis, big name saints like Christopher, Nicholas, George and Patrick were taken off the calendar (though obviously, they remain on most local calendars, and even most country calendars). The fact that they still get worshipped even though the Church itself says they didn’t exist is a matter for a whole ‘nother post. And in case you’re wondering, no, the Church has not taken that same history magnifying glass to the Bible, either.

The real story of Wilgefortis is better than the fake one. In the 11th century, or so art historians think, a popular statue of Jesus that got lots of pilgrims and veneration was the Volto Santo of Lucca. Oddly for a Western sculpture, it was clothed (Jesus is usually just rocking the loincloth) in a long tunic. A copy made its way up to Northern Europe sometime in the next few hundred years. Since the North was also the Land Where Men Wore Pants, they thought it was a woman, and made up the legend of Wilgefortis.

I started Friday Obscure Saint Bloggin with Wilgefortis not only because I love that even the Church knows she wasn’t real, but also because her story is a pretty good analogy for the way religion works in general. First something happens, and then people make up an explanation for it. What sorts of explanations they come up with is the reason I’ve got a blog.

Wilgefortis on Wikipedia
St. Wilgefortis on Catholic Online
Wilgefortis on Curious Expeditions