The patroness of Poirino is Saint Ursula, celebrated on 21 October with the annual feast dedicated to her; a princely crown still tops the town's coat of arms today. According to tradition, it was precisely near the pillar shrine of Saint Ursula, at the junction of the road to Chieri with that to Turin, that in the turbulent 13th century the population rose up against two petty tyrants, a certain Benedetto and a Bonifacio Biandrate, who claimed the «ius primae noctis», driving them out after a clash between two small armies.
In 1372 Amadeus VI of Savoy, the Green Count, ceded Poirino as a fief to Aimoneto Roero for 19,000 florins, setting its boundaries for the first time, roughly the same as today. The Roero surrounded the town with fortifications, towers and a wide moat, but the feudal lord, disliked by the population for his methods, was driven out: the Savoy then rewarded the citizens of Poirino by granting several of their requests, including a weekly market, an annual fair and the end of the feudal regime, placing them under direct Savoy rule. The Saturday market, born at that time, is still active today.
