Catherine of Alexandria, St (lived early 4th century)
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An excerpt from the Simon Marmion Book of Hours depicting the martyrdom of St Catherine of Alexandria. St Catherine was tortured on a spiked wheel and became the patron saint of those who worked with wheels – wheelwrights (who made wheels for carriages and pushcarts), millers (who used millwheels to grind the grain), and the spinners of thread (who used spinning-wheels). Her legend dates only from the 9th century.
Christian martyr. According to legend she disputed with 50 scholars, refusing to give up her faith and marry Emperor Maxentius. Her emblem is a wheel, on which her persecutors tried to kill her (the wheel broke and she was beheaded). Her feast day is 25 November; removed from the church calendar in 1969.
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