Saints Carrying Their Heads!

Have you ever wanted to become a saint? One popular route to saintdom is to be a REALLY GOOD person and then have your head chopped off for it. Sadly, this opportunity doesn’t come up much, but back in the old days, it happened all the time!

Decapitated saints are shown in LOTS of statues and paintings. Artists must love this, since they get to show the saint’s body holding its head! There are so MANY examples of this, there is even a word for them: cephalophore (meaning “head carrier”)!

Usually, cephalophores just carry their own heads, like Saint Denis (top & below right). According to Denis's story, after having his head chopped off, he picked it up and then walked for miles, preaching the whole way. Talk about distracting!

St. Denis: If I could have your attention—

Me: Blimey! He’s carrying his own head!

St. Denis: Right, but if you could just focus—

Me: This guy’s got his whole NOGGIN in his hands!

St. Denis: Perhaps I’ll go talk to THESE people…

There are also female head carriers. But since they’re so dainty, they need assistance carrying their noggins, as is the case with Saint Valerie.

Oh, and you don’t actually HAVE to be a saint to be a cephalophore, as the poet and thief Bertran de Born shows us here.

I think the weirdest cephalophore I’ve seen so far is Saint Alban. In this painting, he is holding his head…and looking down at it with ANOTHER head!

Credits:

Thanks to Dr. Michael Milone for the brainstorm! Top image of Saint Denis from here. Below him is the Bishop of Paris, from here. The images of Saint Denis next to the dialogue, Saint Valerie, and Saint Alban from here. The shot of Betran de Born is on the Wikipedia page on this subject here.