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Nabor and Felix
+ c 304. Martyrs in Milan in Italy under Diocletian. Their relics were enshrined by St Ambrose nearly a century after their martyrdom.
+ c 700. Wife of St Calminius, as a widow she became a nun at Marsat in France.
Namasius (Naamat, Namat, Namatius)
+ c 599. Twenty-second Bishop of Vienne in France.
+ c 462. Ninth Bishop of Clermont in France. He built the Cathedral there.
Namphamon and Companions
+ c? 180. Of Carthaginian descent, he was martyred with several compatriots at Madaura in Numidia in North Africa and called 'the Archmartyr'.
+ c 800. After a military career, he became a hermit near Marcillac in France.
Nanterius (Nantier, Nantère)
+ c 1044. Abbot of Saint-Mihiel in Lorraine in France.
Narcissus and Felix
+ c 307. A bishop and his deacon honoured as martyrs in Gerona in Catalonia in Spain.
Narcissus and Crescendo
+ c 260. Early saints in Rome.
? First Bishop of Bergamo in Italy.
6th cent. A monastic founder in the north of Ireland, he worked with St Columba. He was Abbot of Cill, Naile and Daunhinis. His holy well still exists.
+ 751. Bishop of Milan in Italy (740-751).
6th cent. Born in Benevento in Italy, he became a priest in Casale in Piedmont.
+ c 678. Born of a wealthy family in Scotland, he became a hermit and was praised for earning his living by tilling the soil, 'which comes closest to divine contemplation'. He became a bishop and lived in Tullicht.
+ c 610. Disciple of St Finian of Clonard. He became the founder and abbot of a monastery at Achonry in Sligo in Ireland where he was venerated as the patron saint.
Nazarius and Celsus
+ c ? 68. Martyrs in Milan in Italy under Nero.
+ c 450. A monk and Abbot of Lérins in France.
5th cent. A relative of St Patrick of Ireland at whose repose he was present.
+ c 527. Bishop of Egara near Barcelona in Spain, a city since destroyed.
6th cent. Born in Wales, he is the patron saint of Hartland in Devon, now in England, where he was a hermit.
+ c 550. Bishop of Autun in France and a friend of St Germanus of Paris.
+ c 445. Bishop of Vienne in France.
Nemesian, Felix, Lucius, another Felix, Litteus, Polyanus, Victor, Jader, Dativus and Companions
+ 257. Nine bishops of Numidia in North Africa who with numerous other clergy and laypeople were condemned to slavery in the marble quarries of Sigum where they ended their lives. A letter of St Cyprian addressed to them still exists.
? A saint venerated near Lisieux in France.
Nemesius and Lucilla
+ c 260. Nemesius, a deacon, and Lucilla, his daughter, were martyred in Rome under Valerian.
6th cent. A disciple of St Finian of Clonard, reckoned as one of the 'Twelve Apostles of Ireland'.
Nennoc (Nennocha, Ninnoc)
+ c 467. A holy virgin from Britain who followed St Germanus of Auxerre to France and who became abbess of one or more convents in Brittany.
Nennus (Nenus, Nehemias)
7th cent. He succeeded St Enda as abbot of the monasteries of the Isles of Arran and Bute in Ireland.
c 880. According to tradition he was a monk at Glastonbury in England, who became a hermit in Cornwall at the place now called Saint Neot. Some relics were later taken to the town now called St Neots in Cambridgeshire.
+ 395. Nephew of St Heliodorus, Bishop of Altino near Venice in Italy, by whom he was ordained after leaving his high position as an officer in the imperial bodyguard.
+ c 388. Bishop of Clermont in France (386-c 388).
Nereus and Achilleus
+ c 100. Pretorian soldiers, baptised by tradition by the Apostle Peter, and exiled with Flavia Domitilla to Pontia and later to Terracina in Italy where they were beheaded.
Nicasius, Eutropia and Companions
+ c 407. Bishop of Rheims in France who was martyred with his sister Eutropia and a number of his clergy and faithful.
Nicetius (Nizier) of Besançon
+ 611. Bishop of Besançon in France and a friend of St Columbanus of Luxeuil. He restored the episcopal see to Besançon after it had been transferred to Nyon on Lake Geneva after the invasion of the Huns.
+ 573. He became Bishop of Lyons in France in 553 and was pastor for twenty years.
+ 566. The last of the Gallo-Roman bishops of Trier in Germany, consecrated in 532. He had been a monk and abbot in his native Auvergne in France. As a bishop he withstood the cruelty of the Franks by whom he was exiled for a time. He restored discipline among the clergy, rebuilt the Cathedral and combatted heresy.
+ c 449. The fifteenth bishop of Vienne in France.
Nicholas the Pilgrim
1075-1094. A Greek Fool-for-Christ who went to the south of Italy and wandered through Apulia carrying a cross, crying 'Kyrie eleison', calling for repentance. Crowds of people, especially children, followed him repeating the same cry. He was taken for a simpleton but after his repose in Trani, aged nineteen, so many miracles took place at his tomb that he was recognised as a saint.
+ c 90. By tradition he was a priest martyred in Rome, perhaps under Domitian.
Nicon and Companions
+ c 250. Nicon was a Roman soldier of distinction who, while travelling in the East, became a Christian and a monk. His master left him with two hundred disciples. When persecution threatened Palestine, they fled to Sicily where they were martyred under Decius.
Nidger (Nidgar, Nitgar)
+ c 829. Abbot of Ottobeuren in Bavaria. He became Bishop of Augsburg in Germany.
Nilus the Younger
+ 1004. After a carefree youth in the south of Italy, he became a monk at the monastery of St Adrian in Calabria, where he later became abbot. In 981 the invading Saracens drove the monks to Vellelucio, where they lived on land given to them by the monastery of Montecassino. Shortly before his repose, Nilus designated that as the place where his monastery was to be definitively established. This monastery, of Grottaferrata, was for long faithful to Orthodoxy.
+ ? 432. A Briton who was sent to enlighten his native country. He established his mission at Whithorn in Wigtownshire in Scotland, so called because the church was built of stone plastered white. There was a monastery attached to it and it was from this centre that Ninian and his monks enlightened the northern Britons and the Picts.
5th cent. A convert of St Patrick of Ireland, he became Abbot of Montgarth (Mountgarret) in Wexford.
+ 845. A monk at Corbie in Saxony in Germany and a companion of St Ansgar whom he followed to Sweden as a missionary. He was martyred there by pagan Swedes.
+ c 670. Archbishop of Rheims in France.
Non (Nonna, Nonnita)
5th cent. The mother of St David, patron-saint of Wales, she probably came from a ruling family in Dyfed: a chapel and a well near her son's Cathedral still bear her name. Another can be found in Altarnum in Cornwall, where she may have moved and where her relics survived, even though she reposed in Brittany.
+ c 575. A monk at the monastery of Mt Soracte in Italy. His wonderful deeds were recorded by St Gregory the Great.
+ c 450. Bishop of Naples in Italy and a valiant opponent of Arianism and Pelagianism.
+ c 714. A nun at the convent of St Mary in the Capitol in Cologne in Germany.
+ 739. Eleventh Archbishop of Canterbury and a friend of St Bede and St Boniface.
c 840-912. Nicknamed Balbulus, i.e. the Stammerer. He was born near Zurich in Switzerland and when still a child entered the monastery of St Gall where he spent his whole life, excelling as a musician
+ c 151. Son of Pudens, senator of Rome, and brother of Sts Praxedes and Pudentiana.
? A holy virgin from Britain beheaded at Beignan in Brittany.
+ c 666. Son of a rich man in Trier in Germany, he first became a monk at Remiremont in France with St Arnulf and then went to the monastery of Luxeuil with St Waldebert. Later he became Bishop of Trier.
Numidicus and Companions
+ 251. A group of martyrs burnt at the stake at Carthage in North Africa under Decius. Numidicus was dragged still breathing out of the ashes of the funeral pyre and was ordained priest by St Cyprian.
+ 668. Abbot of a monastery near Mérida in the west of Spain. He was murdered by robbers and venerated as a martyr.
Nunilo and Alodia
+ 851. Two sisters born in Adahuesca in Huesca in Spain. Daughters of a Muslim father and Christian mother, they were raised as Christians. After the death of their father, their mother married another Muslim, who brutally persecuted them and had them imprisoned. They were finally beheaded in Huesca during the persecution of Abderrahman II.