Many an artillerist has gone into battle with a Saint Barbara medallion tucked quietly inside of his shirt. Ever since the cannon first took the field around 1313, the 4th-century saint has been called upon to protect the men behind the guns.
Hold everything! How could a saint who died a thousand years before artillery first appeared on the battlefield become the artillerists’ patron saint? What did this woman do to be remembered for a millennium and become attached to the artillery from its inception?
The facts concerning the life of Saint Barbara are far from definite. Several versions of her story exist, with some large variations. Most Western accounts have Barbara, whose name means “female barbarian,” living in Heliopolis, in present-day Egypt, or in Nicomedia, in modern Turkey. In either case, it was within the Roman Empire.
Barbara was a very attractive young lady. This concerned her father, Dioscorus, who feared he would lose her company through her marriage. To insulate her from potential suitors, Dioscorus physically isolated Barbara from the world.
He had a tower built in which Barbara lived, and where she spent her days in study. Through her studies, she learned of another scholar who espoused a concept in which she had also come to believe — that man-made idols were not, in fact, gods.
She sent a letter to the scholar, the Alexandrian physician Origen, to learn more about his views. He wrote back to her about Christianity, converting her to the still young faith. Some sources have her even being covertly baptized.
At about this same time, Dioscorus went on a journey, but not before starting a new construction project on behalf of his daughter. The structure was to be a new tower to house a bathing chamber.
While he was absent, Barbara, overcome with her new religious zeal, ordered the plans for the tower altered. It was intended to have two windows, but Barbara convinced the workers to include a third to symbolize the Trinity. When he returned, Dioscorus noted the change and questioned Barbara about the third window. She explained her new beliefs to her father, a Roman gent who, as chance would have it, had a vicious dislike of Christianity.
He responded with fiery rage wrapped in religious zeal. Dioscorus dragged his daughter by the hair, beat her, and placed her in a prison. Later, with Barbara still steadfast in her new beliefs, Dioscorus, now at wits end, took her to the local Roman proconsul.
The proconsul attempted to get her to perform sacrifices to the Roman gods. She refused and was flogged for her disobedience. Eventually, for her beliefs, she was put to death either by her father’s choice or by order of the proconsul.
In either case, her father took her into the mountains and beheaded Barbara with his sword in about 306 A.D.
But wait ... Barbara is already martyred in the 4th century. What’s the connection to artillery, still a thousand years in the future?
That question is answered by the event that immediately followed Barbara’s martyrdom. As Dioscorus was climbing back down the mountain after executing Barbara, he was struck by lightning and his body consumed in the flames.
Since Dioscorus’ destruction seemed to be in retribution for her death, Barbara became a patron saint for people who feared instantaneous death, such as miners, and eventually those who worked with black powder.
When artillery came into being, the men who served the guns would find themselves drawn to Barbara and her protection. Not only did the artillerists work with black powder, throughout history they have had to contend with faulty gun tubes subject to explosion, and eventually counter-battery fire.
In art depicting Saint Barbara, she is usually shown in a red cloak, maybe the source of the color red being associated with artillery. Interestingly, the color red, in heraldry, is associated with fire, boldness, and, in an ironic twist for Barbara, the planet Mars, named for the Roman god of war.
Barbara is usually depicted carrying a cup and a wafer representing the sacrament of Communion, and is the only female saint who is represented in this way. This is significant because, though Saint Barbara was called upon to protect people against sudden death, more importantly, she was implored to intercede to give the person enough time to at least receive the last sacrament, Last Rites or Extreme Unction, prior to his or her death.
Throughout history Barbara has been celebrated and honored in many ways. These honors have continued into modern times. For instance, at least as late as World War I, the ammunition magazines on French warships were known as “la Sainte Barbe.” She was still popular with the artillery during the Great War in spite of a tendency for some gunners to be drawn to Saint Joan of Arc instead.
During World War II, one newspaper reporter described with some surprise the veneration which the Greek artillerists had for Saint Barbara. On her feast day, December 4, the day dedicated to her memory in the West, the Greeks were involved in the bombardment of the Italian positions at the Albanian town of Porto Edda. During the action, the Greeks kept up steady cannonade of the Italian positions.
Whenever there was a break in the firing, the Greeks, red eyed from exhaustion, would either kneel beside their guns or at makeshift altars and pray to the saint. Later, in the years after the Korean conflict, Saint Barbara was honored by the U.S. military by one of their Korean bases, where the 319th Artillery was stationed, "Camp St. Barbara.”
However, in 1969 Barbara’s history was reviewed and the Roman Catholic Church decided that there was, in fact, no evidence that the venerable lady in red ever existed! The source for her story was attributed to a 7th-century legend, which spread so rapidly that by the 9th century she had already become one of the most celebrated of saints.
With her origins in question, Saint Barbara was lowered in status and is no longer listed as a universal saint by the Roman Catholic Church, a move that was also made in the case of Saint George.
In spite of this change, Saint Barbara’s feast day today is still remembered through ceremonies such as the annual blessing of the cannons in some locales and by the U.S. military with the Field Artillery’s honorary society known as the Order of Saint Barbara.
Even the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (N.A.T.O.) has given Saint Barbara her due. For instance, Brig. Gen. Argyries Lagerias issued orders on the saint’s feast day in 1971 stating that “...At this formal moment of the ceremony in memory of Saint Barbara, our patron, let us reverently turn our thoughts toward the glorious past of the Artillery ... and [may] the favor of Saint Barbara protect and help our work. Long live the Artillery, Rocket and Guided Missile Units.”
Though Barbara’s following has dwindled somewhat in the West, her relics can still be seen by her followers in various locations around the world, including in Kiev, Ukraine; Rome, Italy; Egypt; and even Winnipeg, Canada.
As the men behind the guns today find themselves invoking the name of Saint Barbara, it may be good to remember that hers is a story that has been taken to the cannoneer’s heart from the very inception of the art of artillery.
About the author: Patrick McSherry is editor of the Spanish-American War Centennial Website (www.spanamwar.com), a member of the living history crew of the USFS Olympia and Independent Battery I, Pennsylvania Light Artillery, as well as a historical freelance writer. His most recent Artilleryman articles were about Aberdeen Ordnance Museum and navy dynamite guns.