Medieval Life: the Fourteen Holy Helpers

Medieval spiritual life centered around a bewildering array of saints who were patrons of various ailments, predicaments or life situations.  There were officially approved saints and local saints.  What to do when in a pinch, perhaps taken with a serious illness.  Medieval practice boiled down the army of saints into a hand compendium of 14 who were known to be especially beneficial in certain common times of need.  They were:

Agathius (headaches), Barbara (fever or sudden death), Blaise (sore throats or illness of domestic animals), Catherine of Alexandria (sudden death), Christopher (plague and dangers of traveling), Cyriacus (deathbed temptation), Denis (headache), Erasmus (intestinal ailments), Eustace (family problems), George (protection for domestic animals), Giles (plague, good confessions, cripples, beggars and blacksmiths), Margaret of Antioch (childbirth and protection from devils), Pantaleon (protector of physicians, against cancer and tuberculosis), and Vitus (for protection of domestic animals and against lightening and epilepsy).  This list is particularly revealing concerning things that Medieval people feared most, sudden death, death-dealing diseases, headaches, accidents and protection for domestic animals.  Not surprisingly, veneration of the fourteen holy helpers began during the Bubonic Plague of the 14th century and spread throughout Europe, receiving official Church sanction in the 15th century.  Often, the 14 saints or subgroups of them are depicted together in religious paintings.