At 08:04 AM 22/4/99 -0700, you wrote:
>California has a delightful example of a non-existent saint in the town
>name San Ardo. I couldn't figure out who he was, and finally got an
>explanation from the vicar of the Episcopal church there. The town used to
>be named San Bernardo, after B of Clairvaux. The post office kept mixing
>it up with the much more important city of San Bernardino, though, and
>finally they shortened San Bernardo to Ardo to avoid confusion. Maybe
>apocryphal, but an entertaining story.
>
>Phyllis
>
My favorite example is the one cited by Edmond Albe in his book on
Rocamadour. It seems they found once in the Pyrenees a stone with the
inscription S VIAR. The local people were talking about canonization, when
they found out that it had originallly been PRAEFECTUS VIARUM...
Cheers, Esther
Esther Cohen
Professor of Medieval History
Department of History
Hebrew University
Jerusalem, Israel
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|