Kamila z Tuluzy

Who they were

Saint Camella is venerated as a martyr in the old diocese of Mirepoix in southern France, her veneration centred on the village of Sainte-Camelle in the Aude, which bears her name and keeps a spring traditionally held to cure eye diseases. Her history is uncertain: one theory places her among the 'Saintes Puelles', young women said to have been the first converts of Saint Saturninus, first bishop of Toulouse, who gathered his relics after his martyrdom under Valerian and were themselves arrested, tortured and expelled from Toulouse, dying at Ricaud in the fifth century.

A second theory makes her a thirteenth-century Cistercian nun killed during the Albigensian wars, but this is ruled out by the will of Hugh of Toulouse from the mid-tenth century, which already mentions a church dedicated to her. Her feast is kept on 16 September, distinct from the Saintes Puelles' feast of 17 October.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: she has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began.

Why that counted as sanctity

Martyr venerated at Sainte-Camelle near Mirepoix in southern France; tradition links her to the 'Saintes Puelles,' said to be the first converts of Saint Saturninus of Toulouse.