Catherine of Siena

Lived

1347–1380

Era

Medieval

Where

Siena and Rome

Tradition

Roman Catholic

Telling the pope to go back to Rome

The twenty-fourth child of a Sienese dyer, who refused marriage, lived three years in silence in her family home, then went out to nurse plague victims and prisoners and became a public figure without holding any position whatever.

Why it matters

She wrote hundreds of letters to rulers, cardinals and two popes, and travelled to Avignon to press Gregory XI to return the papacy to Rome, which he did months later. Her Dialogue is a major work of theology dictated by a woman who could barely write. She backed the Roman claimant when the Western Schism opened and died at thirty-three, exhausted, having eaten almost nothing for years.

In the record

1. 1378–1417 AD Division

   The Western Schism

   Backed the Roman claimant, and pressed Gregory XI to return the papacy to Rome

All the figures, from the apostolic age to the present, or the timeline they stand in.