St. Nicholas of Tolentino

St. Nicholas of Tolentino was an Augustinian monk who lived in Italy in the 13th century. He had many visions of Purgatory and is known for praying for the souls there. In his iconography, he is often depicted in the black robes of the Augustinian order and he is also often holding white lilies as he is in this picture. This statue is in the church at Tolentino:



So, I went with a black and white floral theme for the day in his honor:



These are the shoes I had labeled as Too Fancy For Work. I have entirely changed my mind on that matter. They may be Too Fancy For Rain and Tornadoes, however, so I may be switching them for my pirate boots, at least around campus.

St. Adrian of Nicomedia

St. Adrian, like St. Sozon from yesterday, is an Orthodox saint, but he is also Kind of a Big Deal in the Catholic saint calendar. Both churches celebrate his feast day on Sept. 8.

The story goes that he was a Roman officer in the early 4th century serving as a bodyguard to Emperor Galerius in Nicomedia, which is now the city of Izmit in Turkey. Adrian participated in the torture of 22 Christians, and he was so impressed by their courage that he became a Christian himself. He was subsequently arrested and imprisoned, then executed.

I went with a military-ish look for today since St. Adrian started out as a Roman officer: fitted jacket, khaki skirt, and boots.

St. Sozon of Cilicia

I didn't know this when I was doing my research, but St. Sozon is primarily an Orthodox saint, and as far as I can tell, he's not really a big deal in the Catholic church. His feast day is today in the Orthodox church calendar.

St. Sozon was a shepherd in the region of Cilicia, which is part of modern southern Turkey. As he was tending his sheep, he had a vision of his own martyrdom. In order to fulfill the vision, he walked to the Roman-controlled city of Pompeiopolis. When he reached the city, he entered one of the temples and broke off the hand of one of the golden idols then distributed it in pieces to the poor. When the Roman officials discovered it, they arrested him and tortured him by forcing him to wear boots with iron nails sticking into the soles as he walked to his own trial. At the trial, they beat him to death and were about to burn his body when it began raining, and they could not light a fire.

Here is a lovely icon of him:

I think it is very interesting how the Catholic martyrs are almost always depicted with a symbol of their martyrdom (ie, St. Bartholomew and his skin suit). I think this is so you can identify the saint. Makes total sense to me. But in this icon at least, there is no evidence of St. Sozon's martyrdom. If there wasn't a little label next to his head that said "Sozon," I'd probably think he was Jesus or someone. And then I wonder if the average Greek person (or Orthodox, more generally) in the Middle Ages was more likely to be literate than the average Westerner. I have no idea.

Anyway, on to the outfit. I have no spiky boots, which would have been ideal. So I did red for fire, blue for rain, and gold shoes and accessories for the vandalized idol:

St. William of Roskilde

St. William of Roskilde was an Englishman who served as a missionary to Denmark in the 11th century. I couldn't find any really reliable sources on him except for the Catholic Encyclopedia which only states that he was bishop of Roskilde in Denmark from 1048-1076.

With so little information, I decided to focus on the location rather than the saint himself, and I incorporated the Danish flag into my outfit. I realize that Denmark wasn't really even a country in the 11th century, much less a country with a national flag, but I had to work with something. Here's a rendering of the Danish flag:

Pretty simple, so my outfit is also pretty simple:

However, it is raining today, so I've had to make a substitute shoe choice for walking around on campus. Those basket weave wedges will not stand up to the rain. So now I get a chance to show off my fantastic new rain boots! All the kids are wearing them. I love that they are pirate boots. Rain some more so I can wear them again!

St. Drithelm

St. Drithelm lived in Northumbria in the late 7th century. He was a nobleman with a wife and family. He fell ill and died, but returned to life the next morning having seen hell, purgatory, and heaven. He then gave all his possessions away to his family and to the poor and became a monk in Scotland.

I've taken my inspiration today from his description of Purgatory as related in Bede's Ecclesiastical History: "it was a vast and delightful field, so full of fragrant flowers that the odor of its delightful sweetness immediately dispelled the stink of the dark furnace, which had pierced me through and through. So great was the light in this place, that it seemed to exceed the brightness of the day, or the sun in its meridian height. In this field were innumerable assemblies of men in white, and companies seated together rejoicing" (Book 5, Chapter XII)

This top is another hand-me-down from my friend Erin and fits the Purgatory bill exactly. White and flowery. When I got it, it had a giant ruffle around the collar. I'm not really a giant ruffle kind of girl, so I took it off. This is a huge step for me. Typically, if a piece of clothing is not exactly right as is, I don't wear it. However, I am learning to be more flexible. If I don't like a certain feature, I can change it. And if I still don't like it even after the change, it's no real loss because it's not like I was going to wear it anyway!

I also wanted to make a special mention of the necklace I'm wearing. It was a gift from my father-in-law who got it for me when he was in China last year. It is a very pretty green jade butterfly. Last summer I was having dinner with Erin and another friend Kelly and both were wearing floral prints with necklaces that had bunny pendants on them. They both told funny little stories about how they imagine their bunnies hopping through the flowers on their shirts. That stuck with me, and all day today I've imagined my little jade butterfly flitting through the flowers on my top. But hopefully not through Purgatory, because that would be sad.

St. Aidan of Lindisfarne

St. Aidan of Lindisfarne was an Irish monk who served as a missionary to the people of Northumbria in the 7th century. He founded the monastery at Lindisfarne and he was buried there in 651. Today is his feast day.

The Venerable Bede, who wrote extensively of St. Aidan in his Ecclesiastical History, relates that during a raid on the monastery, St. Aidan's prayers caused the fires which the raiders had lit to blow back on themselves. Wikipedia claims that because of this incident St. Aidan is the patron saint of firefighters, although I haven't found anyone else who says that.

In any case, I went with it as inspiration for the outfit. Red!

St. Louis

Saint Louis, aka King Louis IX of France, lived from 1214-1270, and unlike most of the other saints I've mentioned so far, he left behind a large historical record. Most of what I know about him comes from a memoir written by Jean de Joinville, who served with him on the Sixth Crusade. At one point in the book, Joinville gives a description of St. Louis' summer outfit:


"I have sometimes seen him, in summer, go to administer justice to his people in the public gardens in Paris, dressed in a plain camel-hair tunic, a sleeveless surcoat of linsey-woolsey, and a black taffeta cape round his shoulders, with his hair neatly combed, but no cap to cover it, and only a hat of white peacock's feathers on his head" (Life of St. Louis, p. 277)



So, I've taken my inspiration from this description. I have a plain yellow tee to emulate the camel-hair and a patterned sleeveless tunic over it. Alas! No black taffeta cape or white peacock feather hat!