Saint Vincent of Saragossa, also known as Vincent Martyr, Vincent of Huesca or Vincent the Deacon, the Protomartyr of Spain, was a deacon of the Church of Saragossa. He is the patron saint of Lisbon and Valencia. His feast day is 22 January...

Martin of Tours was Bishop of Tours, whose shrine in France became a famous stopping-point for pilgrims on the road to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Around his name much legendary material accrued, and he has become one of the most famil...

Julian was Roman emperor from 361 to 363, as well as a notable philosopher and author in Greek. His rejection of Christianity, and his promotion of Neoplatonic Hellenism in its place, caused him to be remembered as Julian the Apostate by th...

Aurelius Ambrosius, better known in English as Saint Ambrose, was a bishop of Milan who became one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the 4th century. He was one of the four original doctors of the Church. According to legend...

Theodosius also called Theodosius I and Theodosius the Great, was Roman Emperor from 379 to 395. Reuniting the eastern and western portions of the empire, Theodosius was the last emperor of both the Eastern and Western Roman Empire. After h...

Saint Jerome was an Illyrian Latin Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, who also became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia. He is best known f...

Augustine of Hippo was an early Christian theologian and philosopher from Numidia whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy. He was the bishop of Hippo Regius in north Africa and is viewed as o...

Alaric I was the first king of the Visigoths, from 395 to 410. He rose to leadership of the Goths who came to occupy Moesia—territory acquired a couple of decades earlier by a combined force of Goths and Alans after the Battle of Adrianople...

Pope Leo I or Leo the Great, was pope of the Roman Catholic Church from September 29, 440 to November 10, 461. He was a Roman aristocrat and the first Pope of the Roman Catholic Church to whom the title "the Great" was attached. He is perha...

Saint Patrick was a Romano-Briton and Christian missionary, who is the most generally recognised patron saint of Ireland (although Brigid of Kildare and Columba are also formally patron saints). Two authentic letters from him survive, from...

Flavius Valerius Leo (401–18 January 474), known in English as Leo the Thracian or Leo I, was a Byzantine Emperor who ruled from 457 to 474. He was known as Magnus Thrax (the "Great Thracian") by his supporters, and Macellus ("the Butcher")...

Attila the Hun was the Emperor of the Huns from 434 until his death in 453. He was leader of the Hunnic Empire which stretched from Germany to the Ural River and from the River Danube to the Baltic Sea. During his rule, he was one of the mo...

Theoderic the Great, often referred to as Theodoric, was king of the Germanic Ostrogoths (475–526), ruler of Italy (493–526), regent of the Visigoths (511–526), and a patricius of the Eastern Roman Empire. His Gothic name translates into "p...

Clovis or Chlodowech was the first King of the Franks to unite all the Frankish tribes under one ruler, changing the leadership from a group of royal chieftains, to rule by kings, ensuring that the kingship was held by his heirs. He was als...

Dionysius Exiguus has left his mark conspicuously, for it was he who introduced the use of the Christian Era according to which dates are reckoned from the Incarnation, which he assigned to 25 March, in the year 754 from the foundation of R...