igather:

Catalina de Erauso was daughter and sister of soldiers from the city of San Sebastian, Basque Country. She was expected to become a nun but abandoned the nunnery after a beating at the age of fifteen, just before she was to take her vows. She had not ever seen a street, having entered the convent at the age of four.

She dressed herself as a man, “Francisco de Loyola”, and left on a long journey from San Sebastian to Valladolid. From there she visited Bilbao, where she enrolled on a ship with the assistance of other Basques. She reached Spanish America and enlisted as a soldier under the name Alonso Díaz Ramírez de Guzmán. She served under several captains, supposedly including her own brother, who never recognized her.

After one fight in which she killed a man and was wounded apparently fatally, she revealed her gender in a deathbed confession. She however survived after four months of convalescence and left for Guamanga.

To escape yet another trouble, she confessed her sex to the bishop. Induced by him she entered a convent and her story was spread across the ocean. In 1620, the archbishop of Lima called her. In 1624, she arrived in Spain, being changed of ship after another fight.

She went to Rome and toured the rest of Italy, where she eventually achieved such a level of fame that she was granted a special dispensation by Pope Urban VIII to wear men’s clothing.

via wikipedia

Badass Nun #2