All Souls' Day

Yesterday was All Souls' Day which is the day in which many Western Christians commemorate the dead and also pray for the souls in purgatory. The practice of praying for the souls of the dead can be traced all the way back to a passage in Maccabees describing the actions of Judas Maccabeus after a battle:

"He then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he had sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection of the dead in view; for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death. But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from this sin." (2 Maccabees 43:46)


Since it is a rather somber feast day, I chose a somber color palette and added my memento mori earrings:

St. Simon the Zealot

St. Simon the Zealot was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. Although he is mentioned in the gospels, he never does anything particularly notable or even gets a line. We don't know for sure what he did after Jesus' death or how he died himself, although his relics are supposedly at the Vatican (but if they don't know where he died, how did they get his relics?).

He's called "the Zealot," and the Zealots were a militant group of Jews who violently resisted the oppression of the Roman Empire in the first century. However, all of the sources I've read find some weak way to explain how St. Simon the Zealot was not involved with that group and that he's called "Zealot" for some other reason. I think this is because people are uncomfortable associating one of the apostles with a violent terrorist group. And understandably so. But at the same time, I don't think being uncomfortable with something is justification for ignoring a viable suggestion. It seems to me that Simon the Zealot may have had ties to the Zealots. There's certainly no concrete evidence that he was not. He was certainly in the right place at the right time to participate in that group. We know so little about him that it seems silly to eliminate that possibility. And who knows, but he may have been a Zealot who renounced his violent ways to follow Christ, and they kept calling him Simon the Zealot to differentiate him from the other Simon, Simon Peter. Anyway, we can never know.


Oddly, St. Simon the Zealot is one of the patron saints of tanners. I have no idea why. Because of the mystery surrounding his post-resurrection ministry, there are a bunch of legends that have sprung up around him. One is that he went to Spain, another is that he went to North Africa, and yet another is that he ended up all the way in Britain. All of these cases would have involved him sailing across some body of water, however, so I've chosen a nautical theme for my outfit. Well, as nautical as I get - striped shirts and my anchor necklace. And my boots thrown in for the tanner thing.

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!