Saint Leonard of Noblac

Hermit and Confessor
(6th century)

Saint Leonard of Noblac is one of the most widely venerated saints of medieval France, the patron of prisoners and captives, whose shrine at Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat in Limousin became one of the important stopping points on the pilgrimage road to Compostela. Despite his immense medieval popularity, the earliest account of his life dates from the eleventh century and belongs more to hagiographical convention than to verifiable biography, yet his cultus is clearly ancient and his patronage of the imprisoned has comforted countless souls.

According to his Life, Leonard was a Frankish nobleman who was converted to Christianity by Saint Remigius, the bishop who baptised Clovis, the Frankish king. He refused the bishopric that was offered to him and chose instead the life of a hermit in the forest of Limousin, where he lived in prayer and penance, sustaining himself on the produce of a small garden. He was granted by the king the privilege of freeing any prisoner whom he visited in prison, a concession that gave rise to his patronage of captives.

The liberation of prisoners became the most celebrated aspect of his intercessory power, and from the eleventh century onwards his shrine received as votive offerings the chains and fetters of those who had been freed from captivity after invoking his intercession, whether from prison, from slavery, or from captivity in war. Crusaders captured by the Saracens who obtained their freedom attributed it to his intercession, and the chains they brought back to his shrine were hung in the church in great number.

He is the patron of prisoners, slaves, and those held captive, as well as of women in labour and of miners, and his feast is celebrated on November 6th.