In St Francis of Assisi we have the first example of the alleged
miraculous infliction of stigmata. (For an earlier instance
pronounced by the Church to be an imposture see Fleury,
Hist. Eccl. lxxviii. § 56, ann. 1222.) While meditating on the
sufferings of our Lord, in his cell on Mount Alverno in 1224, we
are told by his biographers, Thomas of Celano and Bonaventura,
that the Lord appeared to Francis as a seraph and produced
upon his body the five wounds of Christ ; of these we are told
that the side wound bled occasionally, though Bonaventura
calls it a scar, and the wounds in the feet had the appearance
and colour of nails thrust through. After his death St Clare
endeavoured, but in vain, to extract one of these. Pope
Alexander IV. and other witnesses declared that they had seen
these marks both before and after his death (Raynaldus, ad
ann. 1255, p. 27). The divinely attested sanctity of their
founder gave to the newly established order of Franciscans a
powerful impulse, so that they soon equalled and threatened
to overshadow in influence the previously founded order of
St Dominic.
The reputation of the latter order was, however, similarly raised in the next century by the occurrence of the same wonder in the case of a sister of the third rule of St Dominic, Catherine Benincasa—better known as St Catherine of Siena. From her biographer’s account, we gather that she was subject to hystero-epileptic attacks, in one of which, when she was twenty-three years old, she received the first stigma (see v. 230). In spite of her great reputation, and the number of attesting witnesses, this occurrence was not universally believed in. Pope Sixtus IV. published a bull in 1475 ordering, on pain of anathema, the erasure of stigmata from pictures of St Catherine, and prohibiting all expressions of belief in the occurrence. Pope Innocent VIII. similarly legislated “ne de caetero S. Catherina cum stigmatibus depingatur; neve de ejus stigmatibus fiat verbum, aut sermo, vel praedicatio ad tollendam omnem scandali occasionem” (see references in Raynaud, De Stigmatisme, cap. xi. 1665). In the years which followed cases of stigmatization occurred thick and fast—now a Franciscan, now a Dominican, very rarely a religieuse of another order, showing the marks. Altogether about ninety instances are on record, of which eighteen were males and seventy-two females. (There are about thirty other cases sometimes included in the catalogue, of which there are no particulars recorded.) Most of them occurred among residents in religious houses, after the austerities of Lent, usually on Good Friday, when the mind was intently fixed on our Lord’s Passion; and the possibility of the reception of the marks was constantly before the eyes and thoughts of the members of the two orders to which St Francis and St Catherine belonged. The order of infliction in the majority of cases was that of the crucifixion, the first token being a bloody sweat, followed by the coronation with thorns; afterwards the hand and foot wounds appear, that of the side being the last. The grade of the infliction varied in individual cases, and they may be grouped in the following series:—
I. As regards full stigmatization, with the visible production of the five wounds, and generally with the mark of the crown as well, the oldest case, after St Francis, is that of Ida of Louvain (1300), in whom the marks appeared as coloured circles; in Gertrude von Oosten of Delft (1344) they were coloured scars, and, as in the case of St Catherine, disappeared in answer to prayer as they also did on Dominica de Paradis; in Sister Pierona, a Franciscan, they were blackish grey. They were true wounds in Margaret Ebnerin of Nuremberg (d. 1351; see her Life, Augsburg, 1717), in Brigitta, a Dominican tertiary (1390), and also in Lidwina. An intermission is described in the marks on Johanna della Croce of Madrid (1524), in whom the wound in the side was large, and the others were rose-coloured circular patches. The marks appeared on each Friday and vanished on Sunday. These emitted an odour of violets; but in Sister Apollonia of Volaterra they were fetid while she lived. Angela della Pace (1634) was fully stigmatized at nine years of age, being even marked with the sponge and hyssop on the mouth; while Joanna de Jesu-Maria at Burgos (1613), a widow, who had entered the convent of Poor Clares, was marked in her sixtieth year. To her in vision two crowns were offered—one of flowers and one of thorns; she chose the latter and immediately was seized with violent pain and her confessor heard a sound as of her skull breaking. This case was investigated by the officers of the Inquisition. The stigmatization of Veronica Giuliani (1696) was also the subject of inquiry, and in this case the nun drew on a paper a representation of the images which she said were engraved on her heart. On a post-mortem examination being made in 1727 by Professor Gentili and Dr Bordiga, the image of the cross, the scourge, &c, were said to have been impressed on the right side of the organ (Vita della Veronica Giuliana, by Salvatori, Rome, 1803). The case of Christina Stumbelen, a Dominican at Cologne, is noteworthy, as on her skull there was found a raised ridge or crown which was at first green, with red dots. In Lucia di Narni (1546) the marks were variable, as they also were on Sister Maria di S. Dominico. On the body of St Margaret of Hungary the stigmata were found fresh and clear when her body was exhumed some time after her death for transportation to Presburg. Other stigmatized persons were Elizabeth von Spalbeck, a Cistercian; Sister Coleta, a Poor Clare ; Matilda von Stanz; Margaret Bruch of Endringen (1503) ; Maria Razzi of Chios (1582) ; Catharina Januensis; Elizabeth Reith of Allgau; Stieva zu fiamm in Westphalia; Sister Mary of the Incarnation at Pontoise ; Archangela Tardera in Sicily (1608) ; Catharina Ricci in Florence (1590) ; and Joanna Maria della Croce, a Poor Clare at Roveredo (d. 1673), upon whom the markings of the thorn crown and spear wound were especially deep.
2. In some cases, although the pains of stigmatization were felt, there were no marks apparent. This occurred to Helen Brumsen (1285); Helena of Hungary (1270); Osanna of Mantua (1476); Columba Rocasani; Magdalena de Pazzis; Anna of Vargas; Hieronyma Carvaglio; Maria of Lisbon, a Dominican; Joanna di Vercelli; Stephania Soncinas, a Franciscan; Sister Christina, a Carthusian; and Joanna Rodriguez, a Poor Clare. In the case of Ursula Aguir de Valenza, a tertiary of St Dominic (1608), and Catharine Cialina (d. 1619) the pain was chiefly that of the crown of thorns, as it was also in Amelia Bicchieri of Vercelli, an Augustinian.
3. In a third series some of the marks were visible on the body, while others were absent or only subjectively indicated by severe pains. The crown of thorns only was marked on the head of Vincentia Ferreria at Valencia (d. 1515) and Philippa de Santo Tomaso of Montemor (1670), while according to Torellus the Augustinian Ritta von Cassia (d. 1430) had a single thorn wound on the forehead. The crown was marked on Catharina of Raconizio (b. i486), who also suffered a severe bloody sweat. In the case of Stephano Quinzani, in Soncino (1457), there was a profuse bloody sweat and the wounds were intermitting, appearing on Friday and Saturday, vanishing on Sunday. Blanche Gazinan, daughter of Count Arias de Sagavedra (1564), was marked only on the right foot, as also was Catherine, a Cistercian nun. The heart wound was visible in Christina Mirabilis (1232). Gabrielda de Piezolo (d. 1473) died from the bleeding of such a wound, and similar wounds were described in Maria de Acosrin in Toledo ; Eustochia, a tertiary of St Francis; Clara de Bugny, a Dominican (1514); Cecilia Nobili, a Poor Clare of Nuceria (d. 1655). In the last instance the heart wound was found after death—a three-cornered puncture. A similar wound was seen in the heart of Martina de Arilla (d. 1644). Maria Villana, a Poor Clare, daughter of the margrave of La Pella, was marked with the crown and the spear thrust, and after her death the impresses of the spear, sponge and reed were found on her heart (d. 1670). The wound was usually on the left side, as in Sister Masrona of Grenoble, a tertiary of St Francis (1627); it was on the right in Margareta Columna, also a Clare. In Maria de Sarmiento it was said to have been inflicted by a seraph in a vision.
4. In a fourth set of cases the imprints were said to have been found on the heart, even though there was no surface marking. Thus the Dominican Paula de St Thomas was said to have had the stigmata on her heart. The heart of Clare of Montfaucon (1308) was said to have been as large as a child’s head and impressed with the cross, the scourge and the nails. Similar appearances were found in Margaret of Citta di Capello and Johanna of Yepes (1591).
The instances of masculine stigmatization are few. Benedict di Rhegio, a Capuchin at Bologna, had the marks of the crown (1602); Carolus Sazia, an ignorant lay brother, had the wound in his side. Dodo, a Praemonstratensian lay brother, was fully stigmatized, as also was Philip de Aqueria. The marks after death were found on the heart of Angelos del Pas, a minorite of Perpignan, as also on Matheo Carery in Mantua, Melchior of Arazel in Valentia, Cherubin de Aviliana (an Augustinian), and Agolini of Milan. Walter of Strassburg, a preaching friar (1264), had the heart-pain but no mark, and the same was the case with a Franciscan, Robert de Malatestis (1430), and James Stephanus. On Nicholas of Ravenna the wounds were seen after death, while John Gray, a Scotsman, a Franciscan martyr, had one wound on his foot.
Several later instances have been recorded. Anna Katherina Emmerich, a peasant girl born at Minister in 1774, afterwards an Augustinian nun at Agnetenberg, was even more famous for her visions and revelations than for the stigmata. Biographies,
