St Crispin's Day

It's the feast day of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, two 5th-century martyrs. In medieval Catholic Europe every saint's day was a holiday (the word comes from "holy day"), which is why the earl of Westmorland says "O that we now had here / But one ten thousand of those men in England / That do no work today". There are lots of Catholic saints, so medieval peasants got a lot more holidays than working people do today! But Crispin and Crispinian weren't major-league saints, so their feast day probably wasn't that big a deal except for shoemakers, cobblers, and leatherworkers whose patron saint they were (according to legend they had made shoes for a living). Any guild of those trades would probably have had a big bash to celebrate, with a special church service, a procession and a feast.

http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=113

It's today by the way.


I'm anespeptic, frasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericumbobulations...

The Roman Catholic Church has what is known as the Calendar of Saints. The mass is said every single day and is dedicated to one or more saint every single day. Christmas or Christ's Mass is said on Dec. 25th. Saint Crispians day was not a holiday or a day off for people it was simply the day of the year that the mass was said in honor of the Saints Crispian and Crispianus. This was how people remembered dates in those days. Were it being written today it would be the October 25th speech.

This day is called October 25th,
He that outlives this day...

I've lived upon the edge of chance for 20 years or more...
Del Rio's Song