People know my interests and usually ask me, "Who is so-and-so saint?" They don't realize there's literally thousands of these fuckers running around and unless you specialize in it, I have no idea unless they're a major one like St. Paul or St. Helen. Nevertheless it's kinda embarrassing to reveal my ignorance, so now whenever I encounter a saint I don't know, I try to look him or her up quickly on wikipedia and write a few bullet points. It really reveals the range of saints. Nowadays there're strict rules: A local bishop starts an investigation and puts it before the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in the Vatican. At that point, the person is a "Servant of God." If the Congregation approves, they put it before the pope and the person is called "Venerable." A person can move onto being "Blessed" if he's a martyr or has one miracle under his belt. If there are two miracles proven, then finally the person moves from "Blessed" to "Saint."

Before, whoever the hell seemed like a good candidate became a saint by the local congregation. "Saint" is derived from the Latin word sanctus, meaning "holy," so really you just had to be a well-liked, religious individual. So let's take some examples: St. Hilary of Poitiers (c.300-c.370) is considered a "doctor of the church" (meaning a person who wrote several theological tracts that helped change Christianity) and fought against the Arians. By doing so, he helped definite an orthodoxy that we hold to this day.

Then we have St. Maxentiolus (d. 5th century), who founded Our Lady of Cunault Abbey. That's it.

Nowadays when you have a saint in the news, they're usually a really, really big figure like John Paul II or Mother Theresa. But Maxentiolus was known in his area and was acclaimed before this Congregation was set up. No one needed to consult Rome and for many years once central authority was set up, Rome had to send out representatives around the countryside to assess what the locals did. I've read a report of a disgusted prelate to discover a shrine was built to a dog who saved a girl drowning in a lake. Although great, an animal can't be a saint. In recent years the church has been divesting themselves of superfluous saints and to be honest I'm not certain if St. Maxentiolus was cut from the list. And I can see why; Maxentiolus may have been a nice guy and I'm certain Cunault Abbey did a lot for its community, but you want the title "saint" to have a greater sense of reverence.