Cecilia
[200-230]
Cecilia is the patron saint of musicians (!) in thanks, singlehandedly, for the great performance she gave at her wedding. Chaucer and countless others have told her story, but William Caxton, in 1483, phrased it best. Cecilia, a Christian, was not particularly enthused about being married to a pagan; that night, everyone else was partying, but “heeryng the organes making melodye she sang in hir herte onelye tu god.”
(That night, Cecilia managed to convince her husband not to sleep with her, and they lived together as virgins till she was struck in the neck with a sword — which didn't quite behead her, though it led to her death three days later.)
She has inspired poems by Dryden and Pope and songs by Handel and the Foo Fighters. The best known work in her honor is the composer Benjamin Britten's collaboration with W. H. Auden, “Hymn to St. Cecilia,” which debuted in 1942. Someone commented this on a YouTube video of the song: “I was in complete terror through all the rehearsals - but after the concert, when it was all over, I went into withdrawal - I wanted to keep singing it - forever...“