An uneducated, almost certainly illiterate mystic played an important role in Dominican spirituality and was one of the first women made a Doctor of the Church

We sometimes think of saints as frozen, passionless, anaemic.  This is far from an apt description of Catherine of Siena, perhaps the most remarkable woman of the fourteenth century. When Fra Bartolomeo Dominici, one of her earliest disciples, met her as a young woman, he was struck by her joy. Raymond of Capua, her confessor and friend, was drawn to her “affectionate nature” and “outgoing affability … and a charming graciousness in her dealings with others”.

She easily laughed and cried. Once, she was thrown from her donkey and landed painfully on the ground. Her companions found her laughing at herself. When the animal fell on top of her, she smiled wryly and said: “This little donkey is keeping me warm.”

Caterina Benincasa was born in a Siena still ravaged by the Black Death in 1347, and died in Rome in 1380, aged 33. She was one of several children of a local dyer and his wife. It seems that people were always attracted to her.