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.