Today represents a confluence of five favorite blog themes: poetry, drama, politics, history and religion. Today is St. Crispin's Day. Wikipedia says this about Saints Crispin and Crispinian.

Crispin and Crispinian were once the Catholic patron saints of cobblers, tanners, and leather workers. Born to a noble Roman family in the 3rd century AD, Saints Crispin and Crispinian, twin brothers, fled persecution for their faith, winding up in Soissons, where they preached Christianity to the Gauls and made shoes by night. Their success attracted the ire of Rictus Varus, the governor of Belgic Gaul, who had them tortured and beheaded c. 286. In the 6th century, a church was built in their honor at Soissons.

The feast day of Saints Crispin and Crispinian is October 25. However, these saints were removed from the liturgical calendar (but not declared to no longer be saints) during the Catholic Church's Vatican II reforms.

The reasoning used by Vatican II for this decision was that there was insufficient evidence that Saints Crispin and Crispinian actually existed. Indeed, their role as shoemakers, their relationship as twins, and the timing of their holiday are suggestive of the possibility that they could have represented a local Celtic deity (Lugus-Mercurius) which had been made into a saint as a result of syncretism. [links omitted]

That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:

And let's not forget too, that 62 years ago was day three of the biggest naval battle in history, the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

Posted by: annika at 10:43 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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