Saint Leonard of Noblac

Leonard was born in Gaul around 496, into a family of Frankish nobles close to the court. Tradition says that Clovis, king of the Franks, was his godfather on Christmas night of 496 — the same night on which, according to the story, the king himself was baptized. He turned down the positions his birth had set aside for him and withdrew to live as a hermit in the forest of Noblac, near Limoges. The story he’s famous for is this one. The queen, seized by labor pains during a hunt in that forest, was about to die in childbirth; Leonard helped her, and mother and child were saved. The king offered him all the land he could cover in one night riding a donkey, and there he founded a monastery, around which grew the town now called Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat. And he asked the king for a privilege: to be allowed to free any prisoners he came across. That’s where his patronage comes from, which in the Middle Ages made him one of the most invoked saints in Europe: he’s the protector of prisoners, and in his churches people hung up the chains of those who had been set free. Because of the queen’s story, he’s also the patron of women in labor. He died at Noblac on November 6, in 545 or 559. In Italy his name is very widespread, and hundreds of churches are dedicated to him. If your name is Leonard, today is your name day.