Patron saint for epilepsy (IV)

In addition to the best known and most important patron saint for epilepsy during the Christian Middle Ages, St Valentine (see the parts (Patron saint for epilepsy I-III of this series), numerous other saints were invoked to help against this feared disease; for example St Anastasia in whose person the legends surrounding two female martyrs are mixed. Anastasia of Sirmium (Balkans) and Anastasia the Roman; 304 is cited as the year of death for both. During the Middle Ages, Anastasia had great importance as a "head-healer", namely as a helper for various disease and pains in the region of the head. This patronage, which was mainly cultivated in German, and especially in Bavarian, regions, is probably based on the fact that a relic of the head of the saint was preserved in the Abbey at Benediktbeuren, which was the centre of the mediaeval cult of Anastasia, but also on the fact that an influential Roman maliciously preyed on Anastasia and her three maidservants, she fell into insanity and experienced attacks of "raving madness".

Although during the Middle Ages there was a great lack of clarity concerning the cause of the "falling sickness" and its organic origin, with fanciful ideas sometimes prevailing, it was however mainly considered to be "a disease of the head". Thus Anastasia was invoked as a helper against this condition, as documented by a beautiful votive panel from Benediktbeuren:

St Anastasia is shown as a martyr in the upper left sector, while the upper right sector shows a Pieta with a supplicant kneeling below it. In the lower left sector there is a comparatively realistic picture of the Abbey at Benediktbeuren, and in centre the artist has placed a sick girl having a fit. The depiction of the position of the hands and fingers is particularly striking, as is that of the girl’s facial features with open mouth, wide open eyes and fixed stare, while the flexion of the large joints of the limbs is also reminiscent of a dissociative (psychogenic) seizure.

The text added to the votive panel explains that a "certain person" (the term "epileptic" or similar is avoided so as to avoid wishing the disease into existence by naming it) ‘pledged’ himself to Benediktbeuren (namely, made a vow there) and obviously received the help requested.

(The representation shown here is a reverse glass painting, the original being in the German Museum of Epilepsy in Kork, produced by the contemporary artist Friedbert Andernach from Frankfurt and based on a wooden votive panel from 1816).