Pudentiana, supposed Roman martyr of the 1st–2nd century. She is mentioned in the Itineraries of Rome of the early Middle Ages and in the Reichenau manuscript of the Martyrology of Jerome, but in no earlier known sources. In early Christian Rome a senator Pudens existed on whose land or house a church was built which was called titulus Pudentis or ecclesia Pudentiana; it seems likely that from this name came the supposition that it was dedicated to a ‘St. Pudentiana’. Benedict XIV's commission for revising the breviary declared the Acts of Praxedes and Pudentiana were spurious and unworthy of credence. Feast: formerly 19 May, in many English and other calendars, suppressed 1969.

Bibliography
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• AA.SS. Maii IV (1685), 296–301 with C.M.H., p. 263; R. Krautmeier, Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae, iii (1967), 277–302; B. Vanmaele, L'Église pudentienne de Rome (1965)