Perpetua

Who they were

Vibia Perpetua was a young married woman of noble birth at Carthage, still a catechumen, when she was arrested with the slave Felicitas and others under a decree of Septimius Severus forbidding conversion to Christianity. She was baptised before being taken to prison, where she nursed her infant son, and she and Saturus wrote down what they suffered and the visions they received; this account is one of the most moving records of the early martyrs.

Her pagan father begged her again and again to give up her faith, but she refused to sacrifice for the emperor. On 7 March 203 she and her companions were led into the amphitheatre, wounded by wild beasts and then put to the sword. Their feast was honoured even at Rome in the fourth century, and a basilica was built over their tomb at Carthage.

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

A young noblewoman of Carthage whose own account of her imprisonment survives, martyred with Felicitas.

Connected on this site

• Perpetua and Felicity Saint honoured together