Writing this month’s feature on church wall paintings (see Lost and Found: wall paintings and rood screens in Welsh Churches) got Sherds thinking about the reasons for the popularity of St Catharine (other spellings are available!). She must rank with St Christopher as the saint most-frequently depicted in medieval wall paintings and stained glass. The Church of the Holy Rood in Woodeaton, Oxfordshire, has a 14th-century St Christopher with a Norman French inscription that explains why every church in Britain probably once had some representation of him on the north wall, facing the main entrance to the church. Ki cest image verra la jur de male mort ne murra, it says, meaning ‘Who looks on this image, that day shall not suffer an ill death’, which is to say will not die without the last rites. Visiting the church and addressing a quick prayer to St Christopher before setting out on any journey was therefore an advisable policy.
But why St Catharine? According to the hugely popular Golden Legend, a gathering of saints’ lives first compiled c.1260, St Catharine prayed before her martyrdom to ask God to look kindly on anyone who appealed to her for help at the moment of their death. A voice from heaven affirmed that a place in heaven awaited anyone who devoutly revered St Catharine.
Perhaps to bolster this passport to Paradise, in 1473 Robert Wodelarke marked the feast of St Catharine – 25 November – by founding a college of priests in Cambridge, commanding them to pray for their founder daily while completing their theological studies. St Catharine’s College continues to mark her feast day by remembering women and girls facing violence and persecution around the world. In 2000, the United Nations officially designated 25 November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
