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!

St. Monica

St. Monica was the mother of St. Augustine. She had a very close relationship to her son, and he tells several stories about her in his "Confessions." The most interesting one to me involved a brush with childhood alcoholism. Her parents asked her to fetch some wine from the cellar, and she snuck a sip or two and discovered she liked it. She continued to sneak down to the wine cellar for illicit sips of wine for for some time until one of her neighbors ratted her out. The shame was just too much for her and she quit drinking altogether.

Since she was born in Algeria, I went with more of an African theme for today's outfit. I realize Algeria is not very similar to sub-Saharan Africa, but I don't have any clothes that look North African. So, I went with animal print.

This top is a hand-me-down from my friend Erin and I got the skirt at Target like 6 years ago. The jewelry is all actually from Africa. J bought them for me when he went to West Africa in 2002. I bought the purse from a student last year, and I absolutely love it!

St. Bartholomew

St. Bartholomew was one of the original 12 apostles. Although there are no really reliable sources for his martyrdom, one tradition holds that he died by being skinned alive. As a result, he is often shown in medieval iconography holding his own skin suit. Here's an image from a 12th century manuscript:

Rather than focus on the skin suit, I chose as my inspiration a miracle involving a silver statue of St. Bartholomew. As a group of people were transporting the statue, it became extremely heavy so they could no longer carry it. As they were standing around debating how to move the statue, the walls further down the road collapsed. If they hadn't stopped to deal with the statue, they would have been killed by the collapse.

So, today's outfit is a gray skirt with silver accessories and a metallic handbag.

Saints of the Day

This summer I was planning my outfits for the semester (I do it in advance so I don't have to think about it at all while I'm in school) and also doing some potential dissertation research on medieval saints' lives when inspiration hit - why not combine the two? So, this semester's outfits - with only a handful of exceptions - are inspired by the life/death/miracles of medieval saints.

Today is St. Ebba of Coldingham. If she actually existed, then she was probably a nun at Coldingham Priory in Scotland in the late 9th century. The story goes that the Vikings were raiding the area and St. Ebba was afraid they would show up at the monastery and rape the nuns. In order to preserve their chastity, she and some of her fellow nuns cut off their noses and upper lips so that when the Vikings showed up, they would be disgusted. Their plan worked! But the disgruntled Vikings burned down the monastery anyway, and St. Ebba and her companions died in the flames. "They" say this is where the expression to "cut off your nose to spite your face" comes from.

So, here's today's outfit. Flame-inspired yellow and red.