Iconography and a Cult the Church Has Questioned

In art Barbara is known by her attributes: above all the tower with three windows in which her legend imprisoned her, and which she made confess the Trinity; she also carries the martyr's palm, and often a chalice and Host, marking her as patroness of a good death fortified by the sacraments, and sometimes a cannon or peacock feather. Yet the Church has long been candid that her story is legend, not history. No early source attests her; her Acts are late and follow a stock pattern of the virgin martyr, and even the place and date of her supposed martyrdom vary wildly between versions.

In the reform of the Roman calendar after the Second Vatican Council, her feast on 4 December was removed from the universal calendar in 1969 precisely because of the unhistorical character of the legend, though her veneration was permitted to continue locally, and remains vigorous, in the Eastern Churches, among artillery and mining communities, and in popular devotion worldwide.