Solange (died 10 May, c. 880) was a

Frankish Frankish may refer to: * Franks, a Germanic tribe and their culture ** Frankish language or its modern descendants, Franconian languages * Francia, a post-Roman state in France and Germany * East Francia, the successor state to Francia in Germany ...

shepherdess A shepherd or sheepherder is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. ''Shepherd'' derives from Old English ''sceaphierde (''sceap'' 'sheep' + ''hierde'' 'herder'). ''Shepherding is one of the world's oldest occupations, i ...

and a locally

venerated Veneration ( la, veneratio; el, τιμάω ), or veneration of saints, is the act of honoring a saint, a person who has been identified as having a high degree of sanctity or holiness. Angels are shown similar veneration in many religions. Etym ...

Christian saint and

cephalophore A cephalophore (from the Greek for "head-carrier") is a saint who is generally depicted carrying their own severed head. In Christian art, this was usually meant to signify that the subject in question had been martyred by beheading. Depicting th ...

, whose cult is restricted to

Sainte-Solange Sainte-Solange () is a commune in the Cher department in central France. Population See also *Communes of the Cher department The following is a list of the 287 communes of the Cher department of France. The communes cooperate in the fo ...

, Cher. Saint Solange was the patron of the traditional Province of Berry, of which Cher is a part. Solange was born to a poor, but devout family in the town of Villemont, near Bourges, and consecrated her virginity at the age of seven; according to some, her mere presence cured the sick and

exorcised Exorcism () is the religious or spiritual practice of evicting demons, jinns, or other malevolent spiritual entities from a person, or an area, that is believed to be possessed. Depending on the spiritual beliefs of the exorcist, this may be ...

devils. The son of the count of Poitiers was highly taken with the beauty and popularity of Solange and approached her when she was tending to her sheep, but she rejected his suit. He argued with her to no avail, and so he decided to abduct her. At night, he came and took Solange by force, but she struggled so violently that she fell from his horse while he was crossing a stream. Her abductor grew enraged and beheaded her with his sword. According to the fully-developed legend, Solange's severed head invoked three times the

Holy Name In Catholicism, the veneration of the Holy Name of Jesus (also ''Most Holy Name of Jesus'', it, Santissimo Nome di Gesù) developed as a separate type of devotion in the early modern period, in parallel to that of the ''Sacred Heart''. The ...

of Jesus, and like Saint Denis and other saints in

Gaul Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during ...

ish territories, Solange picked up her head in her own hands and walked with it as far as the church of Saint-Martin in the village of Saint-Martin-du-Crot (which now bears the name of Sainte-Solange, the only commune in France to bear this name), only dropping truly dead there."Sainte Solange, bergère..."
/ref>

Veneration

Immediately, a cult surrounding her grew up. Many miraculous cures were attributed to her intercession. In 1281, an altar was erected in her honor at that church, and it preserved her severed head as a relic and began to call itself the church of St. Solange, while a nearby field where she had prayed began to be referred to as the "Field of St. Solange". It was a habit of the locals, in times of great stress, to form a procession through Bourges with the reliquary head before them and to invoke her against drought. Solange's feast day in the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

is May 10. File:Sainte-Solange (CHer, Fr), l'église.JPG, Church of St. Solange. Sainte-Solange, Cher, France.

References

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{{authority control 880 deaths 9th-century births 9th-century Christian saints 9th-century French people 9th-century French women Saints of West Francia Catholic martyrs Cephalophores Christian child saints Female saints of medieval France Executed French people Executed people from Centre-Val de Loire Kidnapped French children Medieval French saints Women from the Carolingian Empire Miracle workers Murdered French children Year of birth unknown