STIGMATIZATION, the infliction of stigmata, used with specific reference to the supposed supernatural infliction of wounds like those of Christ.
In St. Francis of Assisi we have the first example of the alleged miraculous infliction of stigmata. Remembering the sufferings of our Lord, in his cell on Mount Alverno in 1224, we are told by his biographers, Thomas of Celano and Bonaventura, that the Lord appeared to Francis as a seraph and produced upon his body the five wounds of Christ ; of these we are told that the side wound bled occasionally, though Bonaventura calls it a scar, and the wounds in the feet had the appearance and colour of nails thrust through. After his death St. Clare endeavoured, but in vain, to extract one of these. Pope Alexander IV. and other wit nesses declared that they had seen these marks both before and after his death. The divinely attested sanctity of their founder gave to the newly established order of Franciscans a powerful impulse, so that they soon equalled and threatened to overshadow in influence the previously founded order of St. Dominic.
The reputation of the latter • order was, however, similarly raised in the next century by the occurrence of the same wonder in the case of a sister of the third rule of St. Dominic, Catherine Benincasa-better known as St. Catherine of Siena. From her biographer's account we gather that she was subject to hystero epileptic attacks. In one of these attacks, when she was twenty three years old, she received the first stigma. In spite of her great reputation, and the number of attesting witnesses, this occurrence was not universally believed.
The instances of masculine stigmatization are few. Benedict di Rhegio, a Capuchin at Bologna, had the marks of the crown (1602) ; Carolus Sazia, an ignorant lay brother, had the wound in his side. Dodo, a Praemonstratensian lay brother, was fully
stigmatized, as also was Philip de Aqueria. The marks after death were found on the heart of Angelos del Pas, a minorite of Perpignan, as also on Matheo Carery in Mantua, Melchior of Arazel in Valentia, Cherubin de Aviliana (an Augustinian), and Agolini of Milan. Walter of Strassburg, a preaching friar had the heart-pain but no mark, and the same was the case with a Franciscan, Robert de Malatestis (1430, and James Stephanus. On Nicholas of Ravenna the wounds were seen after death, while John Gray, a Scotsman and Franciscan martyr, had one wound on his foot.
Several later instances have been recorded. Anna Katherina Emmerich, a peasant girl born at Munster in 1774, afterwards an Augustinian nun at Agnetenberg, was even more famous for her visions and revelations than for the stigmata. Biographies, with records of her visions, have been published by Brentano at Munich in 1852 and the Abbe Cazales at Paris (1870). Colombe Schanolt of Bamberg (1787) was fully stigmatized, as also was Rose Serra, a Capuchin of Ozieri in Sardinia (i8oi), and Made leine Lorger (1806).
The last case recorded is that of Louise Lateau, a peasant girl, at Bois de Haine, Hainault, upon whom the stigmata appeared on the 24th of April, 1868. This case was investigated by Professor Lefebvre of Louvain, who for fifteen years was physician to two lunatic asylums. In her there was a periodic bleeding of the stigmata every Friday, and a frequent recurrence of the hystero cataleptic condition. Her biography has been written by Lefebvre and published at Louvain (1870).