FEAST OF SS CRISPIN AND CRISPINIAN 25th OCTOBER
FEAST OF SS CRISPIN AND CRISPINIAN + BLACKBERRY COBBLER 25th OCTOBER It is fitting that this day is both the feast of Sts Crispin and Crispian and the day upon which the Forty Martyrs of the English reformation were canonised in a common feast day. Crispin and Crispian were twin Romans who settled in France in the early Church and were martyred for their refusal to submit to pressure by the ruling powers to venerate idols. Because of this, they were tortured to death. They were shoemakers and cobblers and, consequently, are the patron saints of cobblers. Their story was well-known in the Middle Ages and they were popularly venerated – very likely as a result of the guilds. In both France and England, it was the custom for a Mass to be celebrated for cobblers and shoemakers on this day, followed by a huge banquet. Katherine Burton provides: “Afterwards they burned torches on the sand, probably as substitutes for the altar lights provided by the shoemakers’ guilds in pre-reformation time...