Vitus (Guy), Modestus, and Crescentia (d. c.303), martyrs. Although the cult of these martyrs is extremely ancient, there has been much confusion over their identity and place of death. It is probable that there were two separate groups of saints: Vitus alone in Lucania (S. Italy) and Vitus, Modestus, and Crescentia in Sicily. What seems certain is that the cult of Vitus alone was the oldest, as in the Gelasian Sacramentary and an early South Italian Gospel book which assigns to his feast a pericope of the Gospel concerning cure from demonic possession and sickness. An ancient church on the Esquiline at Rome was dedicated to him. The Martyrology of Bede and the OE Martyrology also list Vitus alone. His relics were claimed by Saint-Denis (Paris) and by Corvey (Saxony). He was invoked as the patron of those who suffered from epilepsy and nervous diseases, including St. Vitus's Dance (= Sydenham's chorea), and from the bites of mad dogs and snakes. By transference from ‘St. Vitus's Dance’ he is also the patron of dancers and actors; he was reckoned in Germany among the Fourteen Holy Helpers. Modestus and Crescentia came to be attached to Vitus because their fictitious Acts made them his tutor and nurse respectively, responsible for his Christian education. Most of the medieval abbeys in England celebrated Vitus and Modestus without Crescentia, but five of them added her name (as did Sarum and R.M.) on their usual day: 15 June.

Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.

• AA.SS. Iun. II (1698), 1013–42 and C.M.H., pp. 319–20; B.L.S., vi. 109–10

The Oxford Dictionary of Saints. Copyright © David Hugh Farmer 1978, 1987, 1992, 1997, 2003, 2004. All rights reserved.