Many people will have heard tell of San Fermin, and at least recognize the name, thanks to the Fiestas that are held each year in Pamplona in his honor.
However, there are few people who realize that his history, like that of many other saints, is based on legend. According to many scholars there is no historical authenticity to be found for his life. The legend around San Fermin apparently arose around about the eleventh century in the French town of Amiens, then the capital of the region of Picardy. From there, it eventually reached the city of Pamplona about one century later, where this saint became a figure of devotion for the local population.
Just recently there has been a serious study made by the historian Roldan Jimeno, son of an equally illustrious local historian, Jimeno Jurio, which has only served to confirm the lack of any real foundation to the story of the saint. Earlier studies made in 1970 by various historians and investigators from Pamplona and Amiens had already reached the same conclusion while making independent studies on the saint. They all conclude that there is no real historical base at all to the saint. In spite of this, both in Amiens and in Pamplona, the devotion to the saint is maintained by the citizens of both towns. And of course, the name has taken on worldwide fame thanks to the annual fiestas celebrated in his name each year in Pamplona.

THE LEGEND FROM AMIENS

The legend relates that there was a senator, Firmus, who lived in the time of the Roman emperors, Diocleciano and Maximiano, and who was the governor of the region. This senator had a son whom he called Fermin. This source comes from one of the earliest documents on the saint, written by a man called Jacobo de Voragine, under the title “The Golden Legend” and which dates from 1254. According to this legend, Firmus handed over his son to be educated under the tutelage of the priest, Honesto. This man sent Fermin to Tolosa to receive an education and he asked the local archbishop of that place to ordain him in order to make him a missionary of the Christian faith to convert the pagans. This was done and Fermin came back to Pamplona to preach the faith having already been made a bishop. He remained there until the age of 31 before crossing over into France to preach to the heathens. He first went to Agen then on to the region of Beauvais and finally arrived at Amiens. Here, he suffered from the persecution of the Roman pagans, but according to the legend, he managed to convert around 3,000 people to Christianity in only 40 days. It seems the local Roman governor was not happy about this and he was arrested and put in jail. Soon after, on the 25th of September he was murdered through having his throat cut and today this date is celebrated as the day of his martyrdom.

This legend written down by Jacobo Voragine comes from the middle ages and from the region of Picardy, whose capital was Amiens, which lies about 150 kilometers from Paris. While there is no exact date to be found it is reckoned that the legend had arisen about a century earlier in this region.
According to the historian Roldan Jimeno, it was normal around that time to
“ select a foreigner which would give the event a more exotic relevance, as the person responsible for bringing Christianity to the region.” The people of Amiens chose Fermin because he was both a Basque and a Roman at the same time and this would have been an attractive combination in order to satisfy this need to have a person from abroad as their saint. Thus, the legend began and was amplified and altered as time passed from one generation to the next.”

The legend arrived to Pamplona for the first time during the twelfth century, when the archbishop of Pamplona at that time, Pedro de Paris, heard of it and had a relic brought to the Cathedral of Pamplona where it was put on the high alter. As time passed, the cult to the saint spread around the rest of the province. For the people of Pamplona at that time, the idea that they had a saint who it seemed had once been a bishop from their town, was something to be valued. Inevitably, they started to change or adorn the legend to include the christianization of their own town in the 1st century - instead of the 3rd century as the people from Amiens had dated it. Over the following years different scribes enlarged and modified the original legend.
So devotion to the saint continued in the two areas -Amiens and Pamplona,
but each with their own version of the legend.
In the eighteenth century Miguel Joseph de Maceda produced a Pamplona version of the legend in his manuscript “Sincere Acts”. Some time later when the text reached Amiens it created a polemical argument as to the veracity of the dating, since it stated that San Fermin had lived in the 1st century, while in Amiens it was believed that he had lived in the 3rd century.
Finally, it was decided to combine the two traditional legends in one new text.

WITHOUT ANY HISTORICAL BASIS

Arriving to the twentieth century, the librarian of the Cathedral of Pamplona, José Goñi Gaztanbide, in the decade of the seventies, made a study of the origins of the saint. He reached the conclusion that the story of San Fermin was “a legend and quite implausible” as there was no basis of historical facts. Later, the historian, J.M. Jimeno Jurío carried out a penetrating work of investigation which only served to confirm these facts. Some discussion arose on the validity of this study among the academics and other authors also confirmed these conclusions. The recent thesis made by Roldan Jimeno has also served to collaborate the earlier findings. “One of the key points which helps to confirm that it is all based on legend is the dating of the arrival of Christianity to these areas. In the case of Pamplona Christianization did not take place until the 3rd century, while in Amiens it happened only some centuries later. Moreover, until the 12th century, there is no clear reference made about the saint.” Also the fact that there is no church dedicated to the saint, nor even a hermitage, helps to confirm this fact. “It would not make sense that a city like Pamplona would be without a church named after this saint, had he existed.” In Pamplona the first church dedicated to the saint was only built in the 1950’s in the new suburb of the Milagrosa, and even the first hermitage only dates from the seventeenth century.

In spite of the criteria which came about in the Catholic Church after the Council of Trent and which caused the repudiation of the validity of some saints, there has never been any official estimation made by the Church on this Navarran saint. “There have been several saints which have been declared apocryphal by the Church, such as St. Christopher, for example, and this has not had any excessive consequences. In any case, with local saints such as San Fermin, it would be the responsibility of the local diocese to make a declaration in this respect. Then of course the response of the people would have to be considered.”

At present, the cult to San Fermin continues to exist both in Pamplona and in Amiens for many people, and the Fiestas which are held in his honor in Pamplona each year continues to attract thousands and thousands of visitors from all parts of the world, who even if they don’t know his background, have heard tell of this Patron of Navarra.