Storytelling Week 3: Saint Pelagien

Saint Pelagien

Pelagien was a very beautiful woman, and was also an extremely devout Christian. She was so concerned about staying chaste for God, that she would not even associate with men. However, one day her parents broke the news to her that she was set up to marry a very rich, and noble man.

She was upset by the news that she would be going off to marry a man, which would lead to her inevitable deflowering. She thought of ways to escape this terrible fate, and finally devised a great plan that would trick everyone, and still give her a chance to continuously worship God.

On the night of her wedding, she hid from her husband and their marriage bed. She snuck away and chopped off her hair. She grabbed the robe of a monk which she had stolen earlier that day, and put it on. And bang, she looked like a man! And from that day on, would act, walk, and talk like a man. A man of God. She went to a monastery and learned the ways of a monk, and thanked God for helping her escape losing her virginity and having to live a life of filth.

Photo Retrieved From Refinery29.

Photo taken from She's the Man.

Amanda Bynes disguises herself as a man.

As a monk, one of their main jobs is to help people in the community. Pelagien developed a small friendship with a woman who frequented the monastery for help. The woman started to have a small crush on Pelagien and was very upset went Pelagien stated, "Trust me, you're not my type." The women was very upset. Months later, people started to notice the stomach of the woman had begun to swell and that she was with child!

Because the woman was single, and had been for some time, talk spread across the town and people began to say that Pelagien was responsible. Seeing as how this was inappropriate behavior for a monk, Pelagien was kicked out of the monastery and exiled. She left rather than giving up her true gender in the fear that they would send her back to her husband to live a life she did not want.

She spent several years in a cave they had exiled her to. After a while, she accepted he fact she would die there and never be welcomed back into the monastery. She was so upset, for she did nothing wrong. All she wanted to do was live a pure, and chaste life for God. She decided that she would write down her thoughts about the situation and explain what had truly happened so that way they would understand. She was not in any way an adulterer, but quite the polar opposite. She wrote down her story in a letter, and let her soul be taken by God.

When the monks and nuns discovered that Pelagien had died, they took her body out. They found the letter and were extremely upset with themselves for exiling her, and for the woman who didn’t deny that Pelagien was the father. They couldn’t believe that she was a woman this entire time, and a devout Christian who gave her life up to live without sin.

They took her back to the monastery, and buried her with all the other honorable virgins. 


Author's Note: The story of Saint Pelagien reminds be of the movie She's The Man, for the sole reason that she dresses up and disguises herself as a man, and goes to live in a male dominant area. Everyone is shocked at the discovery of Pelagien being a woman, and they all feel bad for accusing her of a crime she clearly could not have committed. Once again, this is much like the movie She's The Man. I stuck pretty closely to the original story because I kind of feel bad for changing details about the life of a Saint.

Bibliography: The Golden Legend edited by F. S. Ellis (1900).
Saint Pelagien