Engratia of Segovia

Holy Martyr Engratia of Segovia lived in the 7th and 8th centuries (about 642-715) at Segovia and was martyred by the Saracens, together with her two brothers, Frutos and Valentine, at their invasion of the Iberian Peninsula. She was the sister of Saint Frutos of Segovia.

Little is known for certain about her life. She came from a family of some means and strong Christian faith. When her parents died, Engratia and her brothers were left to themselves and, from boredom, led a disorderly life of ease and envy. Things changed when Frutos, for no known reason, decided to leave this way of life. Engratia and Valentine followed his example: they gave their goods to the needy and began a life of asceticism, prayer and penance for the sins of men. They left the city and settled by the river Duratón, where they made three hermitages, one for each, near the present Sepúlveda, in the Hoces del Duratón.

Engratia was martyred and beheaded by the Saracens, together with her brothers. Frutos always had the most active role, helped many victims of the Muslims, and is for this reason the best remembered at Segovia. The bodies of the three were kept and venerated in the hermitage of Frutos until the 11th century. After the Christian reconquest, in 1076, King Alfonso VI gave the hermitage to the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos, which renewed the place, and it was consecrated in 1100 by Archbishop Bernard of Toledo. In 1125 the relics of the three saints passed to the cathedral of Segovia. She is honored as a saint of the undivided Church.