More about Saint Catherine

The Cult of St Katherine of Alexandria in Late Medieval England  has proven to be fairly interesting. It told a version of her story that encompasses every recorded version with embellishments over time. The details of her martyrdom have been pretty static, other than at some point they decided that angels appeared and took her body to Mt. Sinai.

The details of her life were embellished a lot over time. One of the later additions is that of her "mystical marriage" to Jesus. Not "she became a nun" but she married Jesus, upon Mary's suggestion. He gave her a ring and everything. That is how she was converted, a messenger came and told her how awesome Jesus was and all about his religion. She was one of those uppity young princesses who refuses to marry a man who isn't as perfect as she is. Katherine also refused to marry a man whose mother was not a virgin. So really that's only one option - lucky thing Jesus was available.

After her marriage she obviously didn't see her husband (It's ~300 AD. He's gone). Her parents died and she ruled her kingdom until she was 18 - about four years - and then Maxentius butted in. The story follows from there about as I told it. One detail of her death - after the spiked wheel broke she was sentenced to be beheaded. The executioner couldn't cut through her neck. He gave the back of it three blows and some sort of law prevented him from administering more. So she suffered a slow, painful, bleed-out kind of death during which she continued to try and spread the word to people who visited her.

Neat, huh?!