St. Ferdinand III ( 1199 — 1252 ), King Castille, ranked among the saints in 1671 by Pope Clement X, almost immediately became very popular among religious officials ( governors, for example ) and prisoners. And all because of their organizational data. Not only was he a successful administrator, they say that he more often than other rulers forgave subordinates who organized conspiracies against him. To top it off, he was the happy father of nine sons and five daughters, and therefore has long been considered the patron of large families.
The Castille Ferdinand was the son of Alfonso, King Leon, and the Castilian princess and became the heir to both thrones. He married Princess Beatrice, daughter of the German king Philip, and his marriage was extremely happy and harmonious.
He became famous as a strict and fair judge, resolutely suppressed the rebellion against his power, but after the suppression he equally decisively granted amnesty to the rebels, preferring to neutralize them in this way. The code of laws drawn up under it was used until the New Age.
He tried not to raise taxes, even out of pious motives; when advisers insisted on a special tax for the crusade against the Moors, Ferdinand said that he was afraid of the curse of some poor old woman more, than an entire army of Moroccans.
However, instead of the Moors, he had to deal with his own father, who decided to attack his Castille possessions, and with difficulty put an end to the cause of peace. He vowed to fight only with non-Christians and kept the oath — at that time, it was already something almost unbelievable.
Ferdinand united the two Christian kingdoms ( Castile and Leon ), freed almost all of Andalusia from the invaders, conquering Cordoba in 1236, and then Seville, founded the university in Salamanca. He was buried, as he bequeathed, in the garment of the Franciscan-tercium ( he took appropriate vows many years before his death and observed them ).
The king of — there are rarely few people in this profession among the saints glorified by the Church. The people revered Ferdinand as a saint for more than four centuries, until they finally decided to canonize it in 1671. The remains of the king rest in the Seville Cathedral.