St. Clarus(es)

As I was doing my research for today, I realized I made a mistake when I was planning out the outfit! There are, apparently, 2 different St. Claruses (actually, more than that, but two in particular that I happened to confuse). One of them has his feast day today - Nov. 4, but the one I took my inspiration from has his feast day on Jan. 1. The particular details of their lives have not survived, though, for either of them, so I'm just going to write about them both today.

1) The St. Clarus whose life is celebrated on Nov. 4 was an Englishman who served as a missionary to Normandy in the late 9th century. He was assassinated by order of a noblewoman whose advances he had refused. That's a very interesting turn of events, I think, considering the number of female saints who died as a result of their potential suitors becoming angry and their chastity and killing them (St. Thecla, St. Winifred, etc.). St. Clarus is the first male I've come across who has suffered this kind of victimization.

2) The St. Clarus whose life is celebrated on Jan. 1 was a French monk. He lived an entirely monastic life and died as the abbot of St. Marcellus monastery in Vienne, France. He is, apparently, the patron saint of tailors, although I'm not sure why.

So, I chose for my outfit a skirt that I wore exactly one time to a conference and then never wore again because it made me feel like an old lady. It was just too long and not very flattering. So, this summer, I had it shortened by my tailor (see the connection?), and it's like having a new skirt. I never in my life thought I would ever say, "No, that skirt's too long. I need it to be shorter," because in general I don't like my legs and try to cover them as much as possible. But shortening this skirt was exactly what it needed:

Before and After

St. Winifred

St. Winifred is a very awesome Welsh saint from the 7th century. The story goes that Winifred was a Welsh nobleman's daughter. Her father gave a clergyman named Beuno a parcel of land on which to build a church in exchange for educating Winifred. Beuno agreed. Meanwhile, Caradog - the son of a neighboring chieftain - attempted to "force the chastity" of Winifred. She ran away down the hill toward the church which made Caradog so mad that he pulled out his sword and chopped off her head. Her head rolled all the way down the hill into the church where the whole town was attending mass. Her parents were there as well, and they of course panicked seeing their daughter's head. Beuno picked up the head, and walked outside to find Caradog still standing with Winifred's body. Beuno laid a curse upon Caradog who died on the spot (one source says he "melted" - !!!), and then the holy man placed Winifred's head next to her body. Beuno then urged the congregation to pray with him for the restoration of the young girl. The prayers worked! Winifred opened her eyes and got up. But she had a visible white scar around her neck for the rest of her life from where she had been decapitated.

Healing springs are said to have sprung up both in the place where her head originally fell and in the place where it stopped rolling. The floorboards of the church were cracked and water began to seep through. The second spring is said to have rocks around it which look as though they are covered in blood, but the water smells perfumed.

OK, so, for Winifred, I am wearing a choker. I don't have a white one, but I do have this red one which I have never worn before and which recalls the bloodiness of the stones at her well:

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!

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.

St. Bruno

St. Bruno was the founder of the Carthusian Order of monks. He lived in the 11th century, and he was the mentor of Pope Urban II. A bishop had a vision of him and six other monks under a chaplet of seven stars, and as a result of the vision provided them with land on which they could build a monastery. As a result, Bruno is often depicted with seven stars above his head. He is also inexplicably (as far as I have been able to research, anyway) shown with a skull in his hand. I have no idea what this means. But that's how you can tell it's Bruno - he's holding a skull. Here's the statue of him in St. Peter's Basilica:

So, skulls and stars. My top today is glittery on the pattern, so that's serving as my "stars" part. And I'm wearing my memento mori earrings with the skeletons on them which are the "skulls" part. So, here's my St. Bruno outfit:

St. Maurus

St. Maurus lived in Italy in the early 6th century. He was of noble birth, and his parents sent him to be raised as a monk when he was still very young. He is considered by many to be the very first follower of St. Benedict.

The most notable story about him is that he saved the life of his fellow monk Placidus. Placidus has gone to draw water and fell into the swiftly flowing river. St. Benedict saw the boy's distress in a vision and sent Maurus to rescue him. When Maurus reached the river, he miraculously walked on top of the water and pulled the drowning Placidus to safety.

Maurus also had a powerful gift of healing as he is known to have cured a man of a gangrenous arm and restored another man's crushed leg by making the sign of the cross over them. Because of this gift, there is a blessing named after him which is still said over sick people today.

Today's outfit is inspired by Benedictine robes since Maurus was the first official Benedictine monk. Benedictine robes were black which led to the order's followers being called the "black monks." So, I'm wearing my black dress. This is a repeat from last semester, but I'm really not sure how to be creative with the "little black dress." Add a cardigan? Colored shoes? I don't know. So, here it is:

St. Jerome

St. Jerome is one of the Fathers of the Church, a prolific writer and respected theologian. I know him best for his translation of the Bible into Latin which is commonly known as the Vulgate. It's a notoriously sketchy translation, but it made the Bible accessible to pretty much the entire continent of European scholars rather than just to those few people who could read both Greek and Hebrew.

Ironically, St. Jerome would probably disapprove highly of this blog since he had rather strong views on vainglory and fashion: "Let the words be ever on your lips: 'Naked I came out of my mother's womb and naked I shall return thither,' and 'We brought nothing into this world, and certainly we can carry nothing out.' Yet today you see many women packing their wardrobes with dresses, changing their tunics every day, and even so unable to keep ahead of the moth. The more scrupulous wear one dress until it is threadbare, but yet have their boxes full of clothes" (Letter XXII, To Eustochium)

Despite his criticism, however, I have designed an outfit in remembrance of him. He is the patron saint of librarians, so I came up with this:

This is one of my favorite shirts. You can't really see the pattern on it very well in the photo, but it's really very interesting up close. I've had this skirt for years - it used to reach all the way to my mid-calf and I never, ever wore it. But I got it shortened, and it's like a having a new skirt! The earrings are a hand-me-down from my friend Erin, and they are owls. For wisdom and knowledge. And librarians, I guess. Plus I have a librarian bun in my hair. This is one of my favorite outfits - I feel great in it!

St. Gabriel the Archangel

Today is Michaelmas which is the feast of the archangels Gabriel and Michael. Since I did Michael last week, I'm just focusing on Gabriel this week.

Gabriel is commonly known as the Messenger of God. He explains visions to Daniel in Chs 8-9 of the Book of Daniel, and he's the one who announces to both Elizabeth and Mary that they will miraculously give birth to their respective children in the book of Luke. But my questions about the sainthood of angels remain the same. Although, I will admit Gabriel makes more sense to me as a saint than Michael does. Gabriel at least interacts with human beings on earth. And, if fact, if you believe that angels have the ability to communicate with God, then Gabriel is the most likely one to serve in a real intercessory way. He gives godly messages to humans, so maybe that communication works both ways. I don't know. It's an interesting thought.

OK, so just like last week, angels = white and drapey, flowy clothes. My outfit is mostly brown today, but I put on this shirt that I have had for years, but have difficulty wearing. It has a drapey kind of neck that folds around itself and looks like old paintings to me. It is perhaps a little too early to break out the tights and boots, but I did it anyway:

Good King Wenceslas

St. Wenceslaus was a Duke of Bohemia in the 10th century. He was a Christian ruler, and his relatives who wanted to be in line for the throne murdered him while he was on the way to church. On the way to church!!!! So, now he's a saint. And the patron saint of the Czech Republic. There's a huge statue of him in Wenceslaus Square in Prague that "they" say will come back to life with the Czech Republic needs the saint's aid. Here's a photo:

So, today's outfit is gray for the statue with a little splash of red just for fun:

St. Eustace

I normally do not post on Friday since I really only put outfits together for work, but I am attending a conference this weekend, so I have two more professional-type outfits to put together than during a regular week.

Today's outfit is inspired by St. Eustace whose story appears in the immensely popular but highly unreliable medieval book of saints' lives, "The Golden Legend." Eustace was a Roman soldier who really liked hunting. One day as he was chasing after a stag, he saw a vision of Jesus between the stag's antlers. He immediately converted to Christianity along with his wife and sons.

Poor Eustace was then subjected to a horrible series of bad luck:

1) a plague killed all of his servants, knights and livestock

2) robbers stole all of his money and valuable possessions

3) When the family decided to sail to Egypt, their sea captain demanded that Eustace give him his wife as payment for the voyage. Eustace didn't want to, but when the captain threatened to throw him overboard, Eustace totally abandoned his wife.

4) After they arrived, Eustace's sons were carried off by wild animals (although not killed, but Eustace didn't know that part)

After this Series of Unfortunate Events, Eustace went back and rejoined the Roman army. In the meantime, his wife escaped the clutches of the sea captain and randomly stumbled upon her two sons who had been rescued from the wild animals by kindly villagers. They then heard that Eustace was in the army and went to find him. There was a joyous reunion which lasted about 24 hours. The next day, the emperor commanded them all to make sacrifices to the Roman gods. Eustace and his family, of course, refused, and they were subsequently roasted alive inside a copper statue of a bull.

Whew! That's quite a whopper.

Eustace is the patron saint of hunters, so I chose green and brown as my color palette:

St. Thecla

Happy birthday to me! And happy feast day to St. Thecla. I had never heard of this saint before I did the research for this little project, but hers is one of the juicier stories, I must say. St. Thecla lived in the 1st century and according to the apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla knew and was a disciple of the apostle Paul. You can click on the link if you want the full story, but here's the "good parts" version:

1) She broke off her engagement so she could remain chaste. Her fiance got very angry and sued her (well, the 1st century version of suing someone), and she was condemned to burn at the stake. However, when they lit the fire, she didn't burn.

2) She then followed Paul to Antioch where another guy fell in love with her. When she rejected his advances, he also sued her and she was condemned to be fed to wild beasts. When they threw her in the pit with them, however, a vicious lioness turned around and protected her from the other wild beasts, and Thecla survived.

3) She lived the rest of her life in a cave as a hermit. And who can blame her?

So, I immediately pounced on the wild beasts part of the story. My outfit today incorporates as many of them as I could. Plus, for the first time ever, I'm wearing my little lion brooch. I'm not really a brooch-wearing type of girl, but it was just too perfect! I have no idea where it came from, but I've had it for years. Something makes me want to say my Aunt Eileen brought it back from a trip to Mexico, but it wasn't a gift - that I know. I have no idea how I ended up with it. Anyway, here's my picture. I'm playing the part of the lioness:

St. Maurice

Today is the feast day of St. Maurice. St. Maurice was an Egyptian man who lived during the 5th century, and served as a soldier in the Roman army in Thebes. When he deserted the army after refusing to make sacrifices to the Roman gods, the emperor had him and his fellow deserters killed. Since he was a soldier, Maurice is usually depicted as wearing armor, but the most striking thing about him is that he is also very often depicted as black due to his Egyptian origins. Here is a 13th century statue of him from Magdeburg Cathedral in Germany:



For today's outfit, I went with the Egyptian theme:




I'm realizing looking at this picture that the really Egyptian things about this outfit are the accessories which you can't really see. I have a hieroglyph necklace that spells out my name, scarab earrings, and a peacock feather headband. I chose the blue shirt, though, from a little Egyptian hippo statue in the Louvre:



So cute, right? They make replicas of it that they sell in the gift shop, but we were so poor when we lived in France I never bought one for myself. My birthday's tomorrow, though (hint, hint).

St. Michael the Archangel

Michaelmas is not until Sept 29, but I'm highlighting St. Michael the Archangel today. He's the one who commands the angelic army and casts Satan out of the heavens in Revelation 12: "And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer a place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world - he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him" (verses 7-10).

I'm not sure how I feel about an angel being venerated as a saint. I guess I think it's kind of weird since I think part of the logic behind the veneration of saints is that they were humans who experienced human lives. The power of their intercession on our behalf, then, comes from both their immense piety and their undeniably human understanding and experience. St. Michael, as an angel, cannot really relate in the same way. So, I guess I find it confusing that he's a member of that particular club.

In any case, one of my favorite places in the world is named after him: Mont St. Michel.

If you are ever in the Bretagne region of France, it's worth a visit!

When I think of angels, I think of white and flowy clothes even though in most depictions of St. Michael he is wearing armor. He is the commander of the Lord's army after all. But, I went with my instinct and wore my whitest and flowiest top:

I actually wore this outfit last semester, so it's a repeat (gasp!). But I like it, and it's REALLY comfortable which is great because Tuesday is a very long day for me. My first day of boots! It was really too hot for them, but I got a lot of compliments, so it was totally worth it.

St. Ninian

St. Ninian was the first missionary to the Picts who lived in southern Scotland. He died in about 432, and his life and miracles are recounted both in Bede's Ecclesiastical History and a more detailed but less reliable work by Aelred of Rielvaux.

The Picts have come down to us in popular culture as the warriors who painted themselves blue as seen in movies like Braveheart and the most recent King Arthur movie.

Their stone carvings are scattered throughout Scotland. This one is in Abermenlo, Scotland, and serves as a fairly typical example:

Lots of geometric patterns and swirly designs. Circles, circles, circles.

So, I've loosely based today's outfits on the geometric pattern of the stone with a splash of blue. This dress is a hand-me-down from Erin again. I've never been a huge fan of dresses like these, but I liked the pattern on this one, so I decided to give it a try. The belt makes a huge improvement. Remember when I said I was giving up belts? Well, I guess I lied. Because sometimes belts are the most flattering thing in the world. I just had to figure out how I want to wear them.

St. John Chrysostom

St. John Chrysostom lived in the mid-4th century and died in 407. He was born in Antioch in what is now Turkey and after his conversion to Christianity became one of the major church fathers as well as a renowned theologian and preacher. He developed a liturgy which many Orthodox, and even some Catholic churches, follow today. He also wrote a variety of hymns and homilies which also survive. Here is an icon of him from the Hagia Sophia church in Constantinople:

Since he was such a scholarly-type, I went with a scholarly outfit for the day - bun and all:

St. Notburga

St. Notburga lived in Rattenburg, Austria in the 13th century. She was a cook in the house of a nobleman, and she used to sneak food to the poor. At another job she had, she refused to skip mass in order to work, and when her boss tried to insist on it, she threw her sickle up into the air and exclaimed, "Let my sickle be the judge between me and you!" The sickle miraculously remained suspended in the air. I presume her boss let her go to church after that, although the Catholic Encyclopedia does not mention it. In her iconography, she is often depicted with a sickle and/or flowers, and she is the patron saint of peasants. That's a nice medieval notion!

Well, medieval peasants make me think of earth tones: grays and browns. So, my outfit is gray and brown:

St. Gorgonius

St. Gorgonius died in the early 4th century. Not very much of his biography is known, but we do know that he was a Christian persecuted during the reign of Diocletian. He and a group of other martyrs were tortured and died by strangulation. This slight bit of information comes from Eusebius, a church historian who also lived in the early 4th century.

Since the mode of death was strangulation, I decided a choker was appropriate. This particular choker was way too long when I bought it, so I didn't wear it for years. As I have mentioned before, I don't like to alter my stuff. Generally, if it's not the way I want it when I buy it, I end up not wearing it (so why do I buy it? That's a good question...). So, with my new change of heart about these things, I took a pair of pliers to this choker and made it fit my neck. Yay!

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!

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.