Saint Casilda of Toledo

According to tradition, Casilda was the daughter of a Muslim king of Toledo in the eleventh century. Moved by compassion, she secretly carried bread to the Christian captives held in her father's prisons. One day the king stopped her and asked what she was carrying in her skirt; when she opened it, the bread had turned into roses.

Casilda later fell gravely ill with a hemorrhage that no physician could cure. She traveled north to the healing waters of San Vicente near Briviesca, in Christian Castile, where she was cured. She was baptized and chose to remain there, living as a hermit in prayer and penance near the springs until her death, around 1050 by most accounts. Her shrine near Briviesca, in the province of Burgos, became a place of pilgrimage, and part of her relics were later venerated in Toledo.

Pilgrims visit the sanctuary of Santa Casilda near Briviesca, especially women hoping for a child or healing, a custom linked with her own cure at its springs. In Toledo she is honored as a daughter of the city, and her miracle of the roses is a favorite subject of Spanish painters, including Zurbarán.