Wilgefortis (Portuguese: Vilgeforte) is a female folk saint whose legend arose in the 14th century,[4] and whose distinguishing feature is a large beard.

According to the legend of her life, set in Portugal and Galicia, she was a teenage noblewoman who had been promised in marriage by her father to a Moorish king.

[7] While venerated by some Catholics, Wilgefortis was never officially canonised by the church, but instead was a popular intercessor for people seeking relief from tribulations, in particular by women who wished to be liberated ("disencumbered") from abusive husbands.

Art historians have argued that the origins of the art can be found with Eastern-style representations of the crucified Christ, and in particular the Holy Face of Lucca, a large 11th-century carved wooden figure of Christ on the Cross (now replaced by a 13th-century copy), bearded like a man, but dressed in a full-length tunic that might have appeared to be like that of a woman instead of the loin cloth familiar and by the Late Middle Ages normal in depictions in the West.

Any Byzantine influence is very remote, as the face and hair are typical of German crucifixes, and many Ottonian manuscripts show robes in crucifixions.

This derives from a legend, also attached to the Volto Santo of Lucca, of a silver shoe with which the statue had been clothed dropping spontaneously at the feet of a poor pilgrim.