Matrull de Barcelona

Who they were

Madruyna was abbess of the Benedictine monastery of Sant Pere de les Puel·les in Barcelona, founded in 945, which she led through a turbulent period of frontier warfare between Christians and Muslims in Catalonia. Tradition remembers her as a martyr, killed together with some of her nuns during an enemy raid on the monastery, probably the sack of Barcelona by al-Mansur in 985, though some scholars place it later, in the early eleventh century.

According to the tradition, Madruyna and her nuns refused to abandon the monastery when the attack came, choosing to stay at their post to protect the younger sisters and the monastery's treasures; she was killed confronting the raiders. Her memory is kept on 5 September, and her relics are still venerated in the parish church of Sant Pere de les Puel·les.

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

Abbess of Sant Pere de les Puel·les in Barcelona, honoured as a martyr killed defending her nuns in a raid on the monastery, traditionally in 985.