A Case of Mistaken Identity
Few people today would take the legend of St. Wilgefortis literally. Even before the Reformation, the bearded lady saint had started to fall out of favor as people began to question her story. Since then, some people have speculated that the legend of St. Wilgefortis was influenced by classical myths about hermaphrodites. In fact, historians today believe that St. Wilgefortis’s story is based on a case of mistaken identity. The clue to how this came about lies in a church in Lucca, Italy.
The Volto Santo of Lucca is a wooden figure on a cross in one of Lucca’s churches. The image on display today is a medieval copy of the original that was supposedly brought to Lucca in the eighth century. The same Nicodemus who helped Joseph of Arimathea deposit the body of Christ in its tomb reputedly sculpted the image. The carving consists of a crowned figure with long unbound hair and a full beard, hanging from a cross. It is dressed in a full-length tunic which enhances the strange appearance of the figure. The Volto Santo looks and sounds just like the depictions of St. Wilgefortis. However, the bearded figure is, in fact, a representation of Christ- not a woman.
The similarities between the Volto Santo and St. Wilgefortis do not end there. For in the twelfth century, a legend began to grow up around this strange Christ figure. It told of a poor fiddler who would play to the statue. One day, as a reward, for his devotion, the statue kicked a shoe over to the fiddler. This shoe was either made of silver or filled with coins- and led to the fiddler being accused of theft. So, to prove his innocence, he insisted on playing to the statue again- and the figure gave him its other shoe.
From this, it is clear that the legend of St. Wilgefortis is a distortion of the femininely dressed Volto Santo. That distortion rose because of a change in artistic fashion. Before the eleventh century, the crucified Christ was usually depicted wearing a long eastern style robe. However, in the eleventh century, trends changed, and artists began to strip Christ down to his loincloth. So when visitors to Lucca saw the Volto Santo, they did not see an old-fashioned cross. Instead, they saw a bearded female martyr. And so, the legend of St. Wilgefortis was born.
However, while the image of a bearded Wilgefortis may have been due to a misunderstanding, that does not mean the legend itself could not be some vaguely remembered truth. The subtle originality and striking local details of the version of Wilgefortis’s story as it is told in Bayona suggest the community was remembering a young woman or women who had died for standing up to overbearing male authority. Such legends could have attached themselves to the stories that traveled from Lucca, creating a hybrid figure of fact and fable. However, more importantly, the story of St. Wilgefortis gave hope to women that, like her, they too could hope for deliverance from their cruel menfolk- one way or another.
Where Do We Get this stuff? Here are our sources:
Wilgefortis, Catholic Encyclopedia
Statue of St. Wilgefortis, A crucified and bearded female saint, Atlas Obscura
Sacred Mysteries: An alarming cult at the seaside, Christopher Howse, The Telegraph, August 2, 2013