Leocadia of Toledo

The Holy Martyr Leocadia of Toledo was a Christian virgin of Toledo, in Spain, who suffered in the persecution of Diocletian, around 304, and died on 9 December. She is the patroness of Toledo and, according to some, of all Spain. Her feast is on 9 December.

Martyrdom

According to the Roman Martyrology, Leocadia was a Christian of Toledo. In the time of the emperor Diocletian, the governor Dacian (Decianus), described in the martyrology as the most furious persecutor of Christians in Spain, ordered all who professed faith in Christ to be imprisoned; among them was Leocadia. She was seized and cruelly tortured in order to make her apostatize, first being tried with flattery and promises, then with threats; she remained steadfast and was sent back to prison, where she died from the effects of the torture, in 304. More recently compiled Acts relate that Leocadia was filled with a desire for martyrdom through the story of the martyrdom of Saint Eulalia.

Her name is not mentioned by Prudentius in his hymn on the martyrs of Spain. Nevertheless, in very early times there was a church dedicated to her at Toledo. In the first half of the seventh century "the church of Saint Leocadia" is mentioned as the meeting-⁠place of the synods of Toledo of 633, 636, 638 and 694; according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, therefore, Leocadia must have been publicly honoured as a martyr long before, and the basilica was evidently erected over her grave. The historical fact of her martyrdom is not in doubt, and the date of 9 December rests on the tradition of the Church of Toledo; the historical martyrologies of the ninth century have 9 December.

Her relics

She was buried in the city cemetery, near the Tagus, where a cult soon sprang up at her grave. It is thought that a basilica was built in the fourth century, improved in 618 by Sisebut; the metropolitan of Toledo, Helladius, ordered a basilica built at the tomb. The seventh century saw a flourishing of her cult: each year, on 9 December, the people of the city and its surroundings came to the shrine, among them the king and the primate, and a sermon was given at the tomb; a special relic was her veil. During the reign of Alfonso X of Castile the prison where she is said to have been held still carried proof of her presence; a contemporary witness records: "There still existed, and we touched it, a sign of the cross impressed in the stone because the martyr constantly touched the walls with her fingers, making that sign of our redemption."

In the ninth century, during the persecutions of Abd ar-⁠Rahman II (according to another view, in the eighth, because of the Arab invasion), her relics were moved to Oviedo, where Alfonso the Chaste erected a basilica in her honour. In the eleventh century a Count of Hainault, come as a pilgrim to Compostela, fought alongside Alfonso VI of Castile in the campaigns of the Reconquista and received in recompense the relics of Saint Leocadia and Saint Sulpicius; so her relics were taken out of Spain, to the Benedictine abbey of Saint-⁠Ghislain, in present-⁠day Belgium. There they were venerated by Philip the Handsome and Joanna of Castile, who recovered for Toledo a tibia of the saint. The abbey suffered depredations in the wars of the sixteenth century; Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba, attempted unsuccessfully to rescue the rest of the relics. A Jesuit, Miguel Hernandez, a native of Toledo Province, found her relics in 1583 and, after many travels, brought them to Rome in 1586, then by sea to Valencia, and finally from Cuenca to Toledo. Philip II of Spain presided over a solemn ceremony for the final translation of her relics to Toledo, in April 1587.

The small town of Leocadia, near Samaraes, between Braga and Guimaraes in northern Portugal, is named after her. Her attributes are the martyr's palm and a tower.