A Sienese childhood
Catherine was born in Siena, in Tuscany, in 1347, the year before the Black Death reached Italy. Her father, Giacomo Benincasa, was a cloth dyer, and she was one of a large family; the exact number of children is uncertain. Siena at the time was a self-governing city with a lively civic life, which mattered later because her letters often address city governments and factions as well as clergy.
Her earliest biographers, above all her confessor Raymond of Capua, describe visions beginning in childhood and an early decision to dedicate herself to God. These accounts were written by admirers and follow the conventions of saints’ lives, so the childhood stories should be read with caution. What is generally accepted is that she resisted pressure to marry, and that her family eventually allowed her to follow a religious path.
A religious life outside the convent
Catherine did not become a nun in an enclosed convent. She joined the Sisters of Penance of Saint Dominic, often called the Mantellate, a group of mostly widowed laywomen attached to the Dominican order who lived at home and wore a distinctive dress. This gave her more freedom than a cloister would have done. She spent a period of withdrawn prayer, then began caring for the sick and poor. Later tradition places her work in the Siena hospital and in times of plague, when such work was dangerous.
Her devotion included severe fasting. Medieval writers saw this as a sign of holiness, but modern readers, and some of her contemporaries, have questioned it, and it is not wise to treat her practices as a model. Historians often prefer to understand them within the religious culture of the time, in which bodily suffering was linked to imitation of Christ.
Visions and the Dialogue
Catherine’s spiritual life was marked by visions and what she described as conversations with God. One famous episode, a “mystical marriage” to Christ, is recorded by her biographers. The central idea of her teaching was that love of God and love of neighbor cannot be separated. She spoke often of Christ’s blood as a sign of divine love, an image that fits the wider medieval interest in devotion to Christ’s suffering.
She did not write in the way a scholar did. Her major work, now known as the Dialogue, is a conversation between a soul and God, and it was probably dictated to followers. Catherine may have learned to read later in life, and the extent of her own writing is debated. Her letters, which number in the hundreds, were also generally dictated to secretaries. They are written in Tuscan rather than Latin and are part of the early history of the Italian vernacular. Though she had no formal office, her writing was taken seriously.
Letters and papal politics
In the fourteenth century the popes had lived in Avignon, in southern France, rather than Rome, since early in the century. Critics, particularly in Italy, felt that this had made the papacy too dependent on the French crown, while also making it harder to govern the papal lands in Italy. Many Italians wanted the pope to return.
Catherine addressed letters to popes, cardinals, kings and city governments, urging peace and reform. Her tone was often direct, urging the pope to act with courage, yet she was respectful of the office. In the mid-1370s, Florence was in conflict with the pope and was placed under an interdict, a ban on public worship. Catherine was asked to help, and in 1376 she traveled to Avignon to plead with Pope Gregory XI. How much influence she had on his decision to go back to Rome is debated. He had many reasons to return, and some of the claims made for her come from admirers. Gregory did reach Rome in early 1377, and Catherine is generally counted among those who encouraged him.
The Great Schism
Gregory died in 1378. The cardinals elected an Italian, Urban VI, but soon afterward a group of them declared the election invalid and chose another pope, who returned to Avignon. This began the Great Schism, which divided western Christendom for decades. Catherine firmly supported Urban VI and went to Rome to help him. She wrote letters encouraging him and urging cardinals and rulers to recognize him. Urban was a difficult figure, and she did not hesitate to urge him to moderate his behavior.
The strain wore on her health. She died in Rome in 1380, aged about thirty-three. Her work had not ended the division in the church, which lasted many years after her death.
Canonization and legacy
Catherine was canonized in 1461 by Pope Pius II, who was himself from the Siena area. In 1970 she was named a Doctor of the Church, along with Teresa of Avila, the first women to receive the title. Her Dialogue and letters remain read as works of spiritual teaching and of Italian prose. Her cult grew from a small circle of followers to a wide devotion, and Siena still honors her as a patron.
Her life is also a useful example of women’s influence in a society that limited their formal roles. Catherine held no office, yet her reputation for holiness allowed her to speak to the most powerful people in Europe. That was possible only because the church of her time valued visionaries and held that holiness could carry authority, though it also meant her activities were questioned by some church figures and she was once called to answer to Dominican leaders. The records of that inquiry are limited, and the result is usually described as favorable to her.