Day of St. Ferdinand of Castile (30/05)

Saint Ferdinand III (1199—1252), King of Castile, canonized in 1671 by Pope Clement X, almost immediately became very popular among religious officials (governors, for example) and prisoners. And all because of your organizational data. Not only was he a successful administrator, but he is said to have forgiven his subordinates who organized conspiracies against him more often than other rulers. To top it all off, he was the happy father of nine sons and five daughters, and therefore has long been considered the patron of large families.

Ferdinand of Castile was the son of Alfonso, King of Leon, and a Castilian princess and became 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, decisively suppressed uprisings against his power, but after the suppression he equally decisively amnestied the rebels, thus preferring to neutralize them. The code of laws drawn up under him was used until modern times.

He tried not to raise taxes, even with pious motives; when the advisers insisted on a special tax for the crusade against the Moors, Ferdinand declared that he feared 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 Castilian possessions and had difficulty ending the matter peacefully. He swore to fight only non-Christians and kept his oath — at that time, it was already something almost incredible.

Ferdinand united two Christian kingdoms (Castile and Leon), liberated almost all of Andalusia from invaders, recaptured Cordoba in 1236, and then Seville, and founded a university in Salamanca. He was buried, as he bequeathed, in the attire of a Franciscan terciar (he took the corresponding vows many years before his death and kept them).

King — people of this profession are extremely few 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 him in 1671. The remains of the king rest in Seville Cathedral.

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