Feast day: October 25

Sts. Crispin & Crispinian

Martyrs · d. c. 286

Patron of Shoemakers, leatherworkers

By tradition two brothers, noble Romans, who fled to Gaul, preached the Gospel while supporting themselves as shoemakers, and were martyred for the faith.

Crispin and Crispinian were two brothers, honoured together as the patron saints of shoemakers, who were martyred for the faith in the late third century, probably during the persecution of Diocletian. Their story, as it has come down, mingles a little history with a good deal of pious legend.

According to that tradition, the two were Romans of noble birth who gave up their rank to carry the Gospel into Gaul, settling at Soissons. There, in imitation of St. Paul, who had supported himself by tentmaking, they took up the humble trade of shoemaking, working with their hands by night and preaching by day, and earning enough not only to live but to give to the poor.

Their success in winning converts brought them to the notice of a cruel persecutor, who had them arrested and subjected to horrible tortures — including, fittingly to their later patronage, having awls driven beneath their fingernails. Delivered, the legend says, from drowning and fire, they were at last beheaded, about the year 286.

A great basilica was later raised over their graves at Soissons. Their fame spread widely, especially among the guilds of shoemakers, saddlers, tanners, and leatherworkers, who took the two cobbler-saints as their heavenly patrons. Their feast is famous in English literature as the 'feast of Crispian' of Shakespeare's Henry V.

Their feast is the 'St. Crispin's Day' of Shakespeare's Henry V — the date of the English victory at Agincourt and the king's 'band of brothers' speech.

Image: Kerstgen van Ringenberch (début du XVIe siècle) (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/04491a.htm