*Ø* Blogmanac | Shoemakers' Day



Now shoemakers will have a frisken
All in honour of St Crispin.
Traditional rhyme, St Crispin’s day

The twenty-fifth of October:
Cursed be the cobbler
That goes to bed sober.
Traditional rhyme, St Crispin’s day

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d.
William Shakespeare, Henry V, iv, 3. Spoken by Henry before the Battle of Agincourt, October 25, 1415

Today’s plants
Fleabane starwort, Aster conizoides and Meagre starwort, Aster miser were designated today’s plants by medieval monks. They are dedicated to Saints Crispin and Crispinian respectively, whose feast day this is.

Feast of SS Crispin and Crispinian
St Crispin and St Crispinian were nobly-born brothers at Soissons, France, who worked as shoemakers by night to support their good works. They were tortured and executed under Maximiar Herculeus in about 287, and their remains were thrown into the sea and washed up at Romney Marsh, England, or, so it is said. There is an annual cobblers’ procession held at their home town.

These shoemaker saints were supplied with leather by an angel. It is said that they were pricked to death with cobbler’s awls in about 287. On this day in England it used to be customary for shoemakers to hold processions and feasts. Today is also known as Snobs’ Holiday.

The Greeks called today the Day of the Dioscuri. The twin brothers Castor and Pollux were called the Dioscuri by the Greeks and the Gemini by the Romans. Pollux was a god and Pollux was a mortal, the sons of Zeus and Leda. Castor was renowned as a horseman, and Pollus was a famed boxer. The Dioscuri were worshipped as the protectors of travellers. The Spartans, in particular, worshipped the Dioscuri and carried their images into battle.

St Crispin’s effigy
On St Crispin’s Day in old Tenby, England, shoemakers used to cut down an effigy of this patron saint of shoemakers, from a steeple or other high place where it had hung overnight. The effigy was carried through the town and stopped at every shoemaker’s door, where the saint’s “ last will and testament” was read and an item of his clothing left as a souvenir. Finally, his body was kicked round like a football, commemorating the saint’s martyrdom in about 287.

His long-noseship
Charles V of France loved to walk incognito amongst his subjects and get to know them. One day in Brussels while walking, the emperor needed to have a boot repaired, but it was St Crispin’s Day, the shoemakers’ and cobblers’ holiday. He offered one cobbler a handsome fee if he would mend his boot, but the cobbler said he would not work that day even for Charles V. He invited Charles in for a drink, however, and toasted the health of the emperor. “Then you love Charles V?” asked the emperor? “Ay” said the cobbler, “I love his long-noseship well enough but I should love him better would he but tax us a little less.” The emperor revealed his true identity to the cheeky cobbler and rewarded the cobblers of Flanders with the right to precede shoemakers in processions, a custom that lasted for centuries.