Sts. Crispin and Crispinian

So, Shakespeare fans will be happy to know that this past Monday was St. Crispin's Day. For non-Shakespeare fans, the St. Crispin's Day speech in Act IV, Scene iii of Henry V is one of the most famous speeches in literature. It's the pre-battle motivational speech that King Henry gives the English troops before the Battle of Agincourt. Here is the last bit of it:

"And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by

From this day to the end of the world,

But we in it shall be remembered,

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile

This day shall gentle his condition;

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."

The British went on to win a decisive victory against the French. The Charge of the Light Brigade also happens to have occurred on St. Crispin's Day, although with a much less desirable result for the English.

Saints Crispin and Crispinian were supposedly brothers in the late 3rd century who became Christian missionaries to Gaul (now France). They were shoemakers by trade so they are now the patron saints of shoemakers, saddlers, and tanners. They were tortured and martyred under the emperor Diocletian on Oct. 25, 286.

So, I wish I had a leather skirt or jacket or something to celebrate these saints with, but I only have my leather shoes, which I suppose is most fitting for them anyway.

St. Cuthbert

Well, I have just re-read this saint's life, and I can find no correlation at all between his life and what I'm wearing. In my notes, I've written - "St Cuthbert - purple/gold." No explanation, and I can't find any mention in his biography of anything purple or anything gold. So, hmmm. Never mind. I'll just post my outfit. Except I completely forgot to wear my yellow shoes today, and so I slummed around in black flip flops. Much less cute.

St. Ursula

The feast day of St. Ursula was actually October 21 until she was removed from the calendar, but I'm celebrating her a day early. The legend of St. Ursula - now commonly believed to be almost total fiction (hence her removal from the feast calendar) - goes that she was the daughter of a British nobleman in about the 4th century. She was engaged to marry a foreign governor, but she decided to go on pilgrimage before the wedding. So, she and 11,000 other virgins set sail for the continent. While on pilgrimage, she stopped in Cologne. Unfortunately, the Huns were attacking the city, and they massacred the young women.

The Ursuline order was founded in the 15th century in honor of the saint, and it is especially concerned with young women's education. St. Ursula is, therefore, the patron saint of students.

Well, I don't have a particularly student-like outfit, but tweed pants and a cardigan seemed appropriate. I don't really like this picture, but I'm too lazy to take another one, so here you go.

St. Luke

So this is my second favorite outfit of the semester. Or maybe my favorite. I can't decide.

Today's outfit is inspired by St. Luke the Evangelist. I was surprised to learn when I took a class on Byzantine Iconography that St. Luke is considered to be the first iconographer. There are even a few extant icons which have been attributed to his hand directly. They are all icons of the Virgin Mary, said to be painted from life rather than mere renderings from memory. One of the most famous one is the Panagia Portraitissa which is housed in the Iviron Monastery on Mount Athos in Greece. Here is a photo:

And here is a lovely painting of St. Luke painting from a 15th century manuscript. He is the patron saint of painters, and in the Middle Ages, many of the painting guilds were called the Guilds of St. Luke.

And here is my outfit. Paint splatter shirt! And pink corduroy pants. Very artsy.

St. Mungo

This might be my favorite outfit of the semester! St. Mungo (aka St. Kentigern) was a bishop in Scotland in the mid-6th century. He is the patron saint of the city of Glasgow, and two events in his life inspired my outfit.

1) King Rhydderch of Strathclyde gave his wife Queen Languoreth a ring. The queen had an affair with a soldier and gave the ring to her lover. The king saw the soldier wearing the ring and began to suspect the adultery. He invited the soldier to go hunting with him, and during the outing the soldier fell asleep. The king took the opportunity to remove the ring from the soldier's finger and then threw it in the river. He then went back to the castle and asked the queen where the ring was. When she couldn't produce it, he had her thrown in jail. As she awaited execution, she sent for St. Mungo to help her. He sent one of his underling monks to go fishing, and the monk caught a salmon that miraculously had the ring in its mouth. The queen was then released from prison, the king forgave her, and she never cheated on him again. This is supposedly the story on which the Guinevere/Lancelot story is based.

2) At some point in Mungo's service as a bishop, the local king was overthrown by a pagan king named Morken. Morken began a persecution of Christians, and Mungo was exiled to Wales. For this reason, Mungo is the saint to whom one prays against bullies.

So, salmon and bullies. Pirates are bullies. What better than my salmon cardigan and my pirate T-shirt? Plus my leather ankle boots and a gray pencil skirt. So much fun to me!

Edward the Confessor

Edward III "the Confessor" was king of England from 1042 until his death in 1066. He was the son of Aethelred "the Unready" and Emma of Normandy. His reign is considered to be a pretty peaceful one - he held back the Danish invasions of the British coast and also managed to keep both the Welsh and the Scots subdued, for the most part. The trouble began when he was too nice to the Norman side of his family (his mother was from Normandy). The English nobles didn't like the Norman nobles, so there was some tension there. Anyway, when Edward died, a dispute over the throne occurred in which Harold of England said Edward promised him the throne and William of Normandy claimed that Edward had promised him the throne. The whole mess culminated in the immensely famous Battle of Hastings in October 1066, and William - now known as "the Conqueror" - won hands down.

So, I think of Edward the Confessor as the guy whose death opened the door for the Normans to take over England which might be doing him too little credit for the other things he accomplished. He appears on the Bayeux Tapestry which is one of my favorite pieces of art in the entire world. That's him with the very fashionable forked beard:

Although Edward lived before official coats of arms came into use, his posthumous coat of arms is a yellow cross on a field of blue, so I went with yellow and blue for the outfit today. I finally got to wear my brown and gray T-straps also which I haven't worn all semester!

St. Wilfrid of Ripon

This is going to be short. I am running very behind on my updates, and I'm having a busy week!

St. Wilfrid of Ripon was a bishop in the 7th century in England. He was very well educated in both France and Rome and very well respected. He came into conflict pretty often, however, with the political powers of the time and was constantly being thrown out of his bishopric, then regaining it, then being thrown out again. He also suffered a series of shipwrecks in which he would wash up on some heathen coast, and then of course convert the heathens to Christianity. In any case, although he had trouble with political rulers, his fellow clergymen had immense respect for him, and he was much admired for his devotion to piety. He died in around 709.

I took the shipwreck stories as inspiration for my outfit today: a nautical theme! Which really means a striped shirt and my anchor necklace. I've had this shirt for years, and I refer to it as my "sailor shirt." I don't really like it very much, mostly because it is a sailor shirt and dressing for a theme makes me a little bit uncomfortable. But that's kind of the whole point of this little experiment, isn't it? And I didn't feel uncomfortable today. I think it's because the little cardigan makes it all better for me. I normally tie it around my waist, but I just let it hang and tied the ends of the belt into little knots. I think it turned out pretty well, considering.