St Stanislaus (11th April)

St Stanislas (died 1079), Bishop of Cracow excommunicated King Boleslaus II.  The king responded by killing him with a sword as he celebrated Mass, an event that led Pope Gregory VII to impose an interdict on Poland. 

The example of St Stanislas, who had been the subject of a local cult in Poland since his death, appealed to Pope Innocent IV in the difficult political situation of the 1240s and 1250s.  He had already canonised two men who had suffered exile at the hands of lay rulers:

• William Pinchon (died 1234, canonised 1247); and

• Edmund of Canterbury (died 1240, canonised 1247).

He instigated a canonisation process for St Stanislaus in 1250, and duly canonised him at San Francesco in 1253.