medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Wiborada was a Swabian of noble birth who became a recluse at Sankt Gallen and who was killed by Hungarian raiders when they attacked the town and monastery in 926. She has a late tenth- or eleventh-century Vita by the monk Hartmann (BHL 8866) and an eleventh-century Vita et Miracula by the monk Herimann (a.k.a. Hepidannus; BHL 8867, 8868). Clement II canonized her in 1047 in the presence of the emperor Henry III. Wiborada is the first woman saint to have been formally canonized for the Roman Church as a whole.
In art, Wiborada is shown with a book, representing the monastery's precious books that are said to have been transported at her insistence from Sankt Gallen to safety on Reichenau in advance of the Hungarian attack, and with an halberd, representing the axe that is said to have killed her. Here's an example from ca. 1430-1436: the title miniature of a German-language Vita of Wiborada (St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 586, p. 230):
http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/csg/0586/230
And here's the only slightly later depiction (ca. 1451-1460) of Wiborada's suffering at p. 345 (fol. 163r) of St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 602:
http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/csg/0602/345
Links to further depictions of Wiborada in St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 602, are here, starting at fol. 291:
http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/description/csg/0602
Best,
John Dillon
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