Saint Ansbert of Rouen Earlier reports of stigmatics do exist, however there is a lack of consensus on how the concept of stigmata was understood pre-Saint Francis. St.
Ansbert of Rouen (d. 695 AD) could be considered the earliest stigmatic due to the claims of witnesses following his death: "When they had opened his tomb and they thought his body would stink because of the amount of time that had elapsed since it had been buried, such a sweet fragrant odor like a diversity of flowers flowed forth, and the whole church was filled with little drops of balsam. And when the brothers who had come to see him from the neighboring province... removed the clothes in which he had been buried because they wanted to change them wishing to dress him in new clothes, they found on his forearms the sign of the dominical cross, bearing the likeness of a red color. It was evident to all the faithful that this was given to be understood that while he lived he bore the arms of Christ in his heart, therefore, Christ's stigmata were revealed on the body of the dead man."
Saint Francis of Assisi by
Giotto , by
El Greco St.
Francis of Assisi is widely considered the first recorded stigmatic in Christian history. In 1224, two years before his death, he embarked on a journey to
Mount La Verna for a forty-day fast. The legend states that one morning, near the feast of the
Exaltation of the Cross, a six-winged angel appeared to Francis while he prayed. As the angel approached, Francis could see that the angel was crucified. He was humbled by the sight, and his heart was filled with elation joined by pain and suffering. When the angel departed, Francis was left with wounds in his hands, feet, and side as if caused by the same lance that pierced Christ's side. The image of nails immediately appeared in his hands and feet, and the wound in his side often seeped blood.
Pope Alexander IV and other witnesses declared that they had seen these marks both before and after his death. St. Francis' first biographer,
Thomas of Celano, reports the event in his 1230
First Life of St. Francis: When the blessed servant of God saw these things he was filled with wonder, but he did not know what the vision meant. He rejoiced greatly in the benign and gracious expression with which he saw himself regarded by the seraph, whose beauty was indescribable; yet he was alarmed by the fact that the seraph was affixed to the cross and was suffering terribly. Thus Francis rose, one might say, sad and happy, joy and grief alternating in him. He wondered anxiously what this vision could mean, and his soul was uneasy as it searched for understanding. And as his understanding sought in vain for an explanation and his heart was filled with perplexity at the great novelty of this vision, the marks of nails began to appear in his hands and feet, just as he had seen them slightly earlier in the crucified man above him. His wrists and feet seemed to be pierced by nails, with the heads of the nails appearing on his wrists and on the upper sides of his feet, the points appearing on the other side. The marks were round on the palm of each hand but elongated on the other side, and small pieces of flesh jutting out from the rest took on the appearance of the nail-ends, bent and driven back. In the same way the marks of nails were impressed on his feet and projected beyond the rest of the flesh. Moreover, his right side had a large wound as if it had been pierced with a spear, and it often bled so that his tunic and trousers were soaked with his sacred blood. From the records of St. Francis' physical ailments and symptoms, Edward Frederick Hartung concluded in 1935 that St. Francis had an eye ailment known as
trachoma and
quartan malaria. Quartan malaria infects the
liver,
spleen, and
stomach, causing the victim intense pain. One complication of quartan malaria is known as
purpura, a purple hemorrhage of blood into the skin. According to Hartung "If this were the case of St. Francis, he would have been afflicted by
ecchymoses, an exceedingly large
purpura. The purple spots of blood may have been punctured while in the wilderness and there appear as an open wound like that of Christ." A later medical hypothesis was proposed in 1987 to explain the wounds, it claimed that St. Francis may have contracted
leprosy.
Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina showing the stigmata For over fifty years, Padre
Pio of Pietrelcina reported stigmata which were studied by several 20th-century physicians, whose independence from the Church is not known. The observations were reportedly inexplicable and the wounds never became infected. His wounds healed once, but reappeared. The wounds were examined by Luigi Romanelli, chief physician of the City Hospital of
Barletta, for about one year. The physician Angelo Maria Merla noted that the wounds were not
tubercular in origin but could not make an official diagnosis without further tests. The surgeon
Giorgio Festa, a private practitioner, also examined them in 1920 and 1925. Pio maintained that the carbolic acid was used to sterilize syringes used for medical treatments and that after being subjected to a practical joke where veratrine was mixed with snuff tobacco, causing uncontrollable sneezing after ingestion, he decided to acquire his own quantity of the substance in order to play the same joke on his confreres.
Amico Bignami in a report wrote that the wounds were caused by "
neurotic necrosis". He suggested they had been inflicted unconsciously by
suggestion and artificially maintained by
iodine that Pio had used as a disinfectant. Gemelli also speculated that his wounds were kept open with carbolic acid. Throughout his life, Pio had hidden his wounds by wearing fingerless
gloves. At death there were no wounds, only "unblemished skin".
Mariam Thresia Chiramel The first saint from
India with stigmata was nun
Mariam Thresia Chiramel. She was canonised on 13 October 2019 by
Pope Francis. == Stigmata and gender ==