St. Hilaire de Poiters

The semester has just started, and I'm already behind! And unhappy with my pictures so far. But, anyway, this is from last Thursday.

St. Hilaire de Poitiers was bishop of Poitiers in the 4th century. He was known as a very pious man who despised heresy. The story about him in the "Golden Legend" is that the pope, named Leo, had been corrupted by heresy and he summoned all the bishops together to discuss church doctrine. Hilaire was not invited to this meeting, but he found out about it and showed up anyway. The pope began to ridicule him, but Hilaire stood up for himself and accused the pope of heresy right to his face. When the pope excused himself to obey nature's call, he was stricken with dysentery, pooped out all of his intestines, and died. Hilaire then took control of the assembly of bishops and the heresy was stopped.

The Golden Legend claims this story is true despite the absolute lack of any documentation of the incident and the fact that there was no pope named Leo in the fourth century. Hmm.

So, rather than taking inspiration from the pooping incident as entertaining as that might have been, I went with the French theme. I don't really have any real Frenchified accessories like a beret or cute little neck scarf, but I do have a striped sweater. So, here goes:

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.