SAINTS 101
The fun-but-true explainer.
Two-minute read. The saints respect your time.
Why does this app exist?
Because of Patroclus of Troyes — a martyr nobody venerated until his story turned up. No story, no saint. The hagiographer makes the saint as much as the saint makes the hagiographer. Saint Me is that service.
What's a hagiography?
The formula, lightly: a miraculous childhood, a conversion, miracles, a memorable death, and posthumous fame. Monks made the rules. We follow them.
Who decides who's a saint?
First the hagiographer; then the local bishops; then, in 993, the first papal canonization (Ulrich of Augsburg); then, from 1234, the papal monopoly. Saint Me operates on the oldest and most elegant system. Our hagiographer vouches for you.
Why is my name taken?
Because it's shared. There are dozens of Saint Johns, disambiguated by place and epithet. First come, first sainted; ordinals are extremely traditional.
What's a feast day?
A saint's death day, treated as their birthday into heaven. Yours is your canonization day. Demand cake.
What's a patron saint?
Brutal literalism. Apollonia had her teeth knocked out, so she patrons dentists. A cheese-shaped reliquary makes a cheese-saint. Yours is built the same way — from what you love, what you hate, and what you'll be remembered for.
What's a shrine?
A place a saint is present (praesentia). Your shrine is a URL. Pilgrims light candles there.
What's an attribute?
The object a saint is shown holding so you can spot them in a crowd of paintings: Catherine's wheel, Peter's keys, Jerome's lion. The icon in your Card's circle is yours.
What's a confessor?
The medieval word for a saint who bore witness to the faith without being martyred. (A vocabulary term — not one of Saint Me's saint types.)
Is this serious?
The jokes are jokes. The structure is real. See the About page and the Bibliography below.
The Bibliography— yes, really, the app has receipts.
Brown gave us the shrine, and Patroclus — proof that no story means no saint.
Brown, Peter. The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.
Vauchez gave us the three criteria of sanctuary, the candles, and the badges.
Vauchez, André. Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages. Translated by Jean Birrell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Geary gave us relics — and the cheerful medieval habit of stealing them.
Geary, Patrick J. Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages. Rev. ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.
Bynum gave us the food rule: fasting and feasting are first-class hagiographic material.
Bynum, Caroline Walker. Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
Spencer-Hall gave us celebrification and the language of autohagiography.
Spencer-Hall, Alicia. Medieval Twitter: Modern Media, Literary Criticism, and Medievalism. Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2024.
Self gave us the frame: saints as the original celebrities.
Self, Will. "On Saints and Celebrity." In Junk Mail. London: Bloomsbury, 1995.
Morgan gave us the working roster and the brutal logic of patronage.
Morgan, Giles. Saints. Harpenden: Pocket Essentials, 2008.