Saturnin of Toulouse

Sent into Gaul around 250, he settled at Toulouse and became its first bishop. His passion, written in the fifth century, tells that the way he took to his church passed before the Capitol, where sacrifices were made: the pagan priests, blaming his presence for the silence of their oracles, seized him on a day of sacrifice and ordered him to honour their gods. At his refusal they tied him by the feet to a bull driven down the steps. Two women gathered up the body. The street descending from the Capitol is still called rue du Taur — the street of the bull — and the church built over his tomb, Saint-Sernin, is one of the largest surviving Romanesque churches in Europe.