Emerenciana was a foster sister of St Agnes and was stoned to death when she was found praying at Agnes’s tomb. She is often represented holding stones and lilies and is the patron saint of stomach problems and colic.
The feast day of St Emerenciana (also known as St Emerentiana) is celebrated by the Catholic Church on 23 January.
The following prayer is said on St Emerenciana’s feast day:
‘Let blessed Emerenciana, thy virgin and martyr, win for us pardon for thee, O Lord, we beseech thee, for both by her chastity and by her confession of thy power, she ever pleaseth thee well.’
Sherborne claims not only a chapel dedicated to the saint, but her feast day is mentioned in the Sherborne Missal, and the Church of Sacred Heart & St Aldhelm has a statue of her.
St Emerentiana’s chapel
St Emerentiana’s chapel at Nethercombe in Sherborne appears to be the only religious building in the country dedicated to her memory. Why Sherborne should have any particular connection to St Emerenciana is not known, but she was a popular saint in Mediaeval Europe.
St Emerentiana’s chapel stood on land belonging to the Bishops of Sarum and is mentioned by the antiquary John Leland (c. 1503–1552) in his Itinerary. Leland records a visit he made to Sherborne in around 1542 when he saw a ‘Paroche Chirch’ of St Emerenciana, which he described as being ‘of old tyme’ and ‘now faullen clene downe’.
The chapel is now redundant and forms part of the Sherborne International School site bequeathed to Sherborne School in 1988 by Louisa Bow.
The Sherborne Missal
The feast day of St Emerenciana was considered an important enough date in the Sherborne calendar for it to be included in the Sherborne Missal. The Missal dates from about 1400 and was the work of John Sifrewas (a Dominican friar) and John Whas (a Benedictine monk and local boy). The Missal would have been used on the high altar in Sherborne Abbey on special occasions.
The Sherborne Missal is now held at the British Library, but a digital copy can be viewed at Sherborne Museum.
Statue of St Emerenciana
A statue of St Emerenciana, holding her trademark stones and lilies, can be seen set high on the north wall of the Catholic church of St Aldhelm and the Sacred Heart in Westbury, Sherborne.
The statue was a gift from Belgium, the original home of the sisters of the Religious of Christian Instruction who had arrived in Sherborne in 1891 to set up a convent. Although it is unlikely that the saint’s historic connection to the town was known when the gift was made, it is fitting that the saint’s presence is still felt in the town where her feast day was previously celebrated.
Rachel Hassall
For further reading:
Joseph Fowler, Medieval Sherborne (1951)
J.H.P. Gibb, The Book of Sherborne (1981)
Historic England listing for St Emerenciana’s chapel, Sherborne
Find out more about St Emerenciana