WILGEFORTIS, saint. – She is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on 20 July as a virgin and martyr.
The Bollandists, who were the first to concern themselves with her, stated that they did not know the origin of the legend (Acta SS. Iulii, V, Paris 1868, p. 70); in 1940, however, their successors were more categorical and wrote that W. nunquam extitit (Martyr. Romanum, p. 289).
Her cult, propagated especially in the countries bordering the North Sea from the end of the fourteenth century, is a typical example of how hagiographical legends were formed in the Middle Ages. The great veneration that the people of Lucca had for their miraculous Crucifix, the so-called “Holy Face,” meant that wherever they happened to be in Europe, a confraternity of the Holy Face of Lucca arose there. Thus, for example, in fifteenth-century Paris a place is designated “par le Vou de Lucques de la rue aux Lombars.”
The northern peoples, who were no longer familiar with representations of Christ with open eyes, a beard, and a long tunic, saw a woman in that figure. From this arose a new legend. The woman on the cross was a martyr; in order to preserve her virginity and avoid being forced to marry the son of a pagan king of Sicily, she asked the Lord to take away all her beauty; God granted her request and caused a black beard to grow on her. The origin of this legend was fully demonstrated by G. Schnürer. Proof of this is found in the fact that the figure of the musician condemned to death for having stolen a silver shoe from the Holy Face and miraculously saved by the same Crucifix is always found in all images of W. From the Netherlands, the cult of the new Saint spread throughout Europe under the most diverse names, such as Ontcommer, Kümmernis, Regenfiedis, LIBERTÀ (v.). In Germany she became a martyr saint, by analogy with the Dutch virgin St. Ontcommer, that is, “she who frees from ‘kommer’” (= worry). The title of the Crucifix of Lucca, moreover, namely “Adiutor,” gave rise to the cult of a St. Helper, Hulpe, Hilfe, Gehülfe in Germany, and Helpert in the Netherlands.
From the folkloric and iconographic point of view, the veneration of W. is very important because it links Italy with almost the whole of Europe, from Spain to the countries of the North Sea and onward to those of the Baltic Sea.