Barbara was the daughter of a wealthy man named Dioscorus, who kept her locked in a tower to keep her away from avid suitors — a popular motif in many morality tales. As a symbol of the Holy Trinity, Barbara had three windows added to her bathhouse, revealing to her father that she had become a Christian.
Joan was a peasant farmer’s daughter from eastern France. The third of five children, Joan grew up with no education other than religion. From a young age, Joan heard the voices of saints, including St. Margaret. The saints ordered her to lead the French resistance to the English invasion in the Hundred Years War and assist the King of France in regaining his kingdom.
At the age of thirteen, Agnes refused to marry the Governor of Rome in favor of a life of chastity, purity, and devotion to God. In retaliation, he ordered that she be dragged through the streets, naked, to a brothel. On the way, she prayed and her hair grew long, shielding her nakedness.
Liberata was one of the King of Lusitania’s (now Portugal) nine daughters. Her father wished her to marry the King of Sicily, but she declared that she had privately taken a vow of celibacy. She prayed on the eve of her wedding to be freed of the marriage. In answer to her prayers, she sprouted a luxuriant beard. Horrified by her appearance, her suitor departed. In anger, her father had Liberata crucified.
Agatha lived around 250 CE. Her story shares similarities with that of Saint Lucy, as she refused many offers of marriage and instead chose to devote herself to God. But when Agatha denied her hand to Quintian, a Roman prefect, he had her imprisoned in a brothel, tortured and eventually put to death.