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!