Casilda of Toledo

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Saint Casilda of Toledo ((Spanish) Santa Casilda de Toledo) (d. ca. 1050 AD) is venerated as a saint of the Catholic Church. Her feast day is April 9.

According to her legend, St. Casilda was a daughter of a Muslim king of Toledo (called Almacrin or Almamun) who showed special kindness to Christian prisoners. She would carry bread hidden in her clothes to feed these prisoners. Once, she was stopped by Muslim soldiers and asked to reveal what she was carrying in her skirt. When she began to show them, the bread turned into a bouquet of roses.

She was raised a Muslim, but when she became ill as a young woman, she refused help from the local Arab doctors and traveled to northern Spain to partake of the healing waters of the shrine of San Vicente, near Buezo, close to Briviesca. When she was cured, she was baptized at Burgos (where she was later much venerated) and lived a life of solitude and penance not far from the miraculous spring. It is said that she lived to be a hundred years old.

Concha Espina wrote a book in 1938 called Casilda de Toledo. Vida de Santa Casilda.

[edit] Zurbarán's Painting

Painted between 1638 and 1642, Zurbarán's Santa Casilda used as its model a lady of the Spanish court. She wears the fashions for courtiers of the time.