medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
At 6:19 PM -0700 8/31/04, Phyllis Jestice wrote:
>
>Today (1. September) is the feast day of:
>
>Fiacre (d. c. 670) The patron saint of taxi drivers, thanks to the
>fact that the Hotel St-Fiacre in Paris rented out cabs. Fiacre was
>an Irish hermit who moved to France. He built a hospice for
>travelers and became famous for his charity and spiritual counsel.
For reasons at least equally obscure, St. Fiacre is often mentioned
as the patron of gardeners, and of knitters.
The knitting connection seems to stem from Savary des Bruslons'
_Dictionnaire Universel de Commerce_, published in 1723, which
mentions a cap-knitters' Guild of St. Fiacra in Paris founded in
1527. (There are actually citations of him as the patron of the
cotton-cap-knitters' guild in Paris in 1387.)
Bruslons, apparently guessing wildly, says that St. Fiacra was chosen
as patron because he was the son of a Scottish king (which he wasn't)
and it was believed that knitting first came to France from Scotland
(which it didn't). However his speculations still turn up in
discussions of knitting lore.
Richard Rutt's _A History of Hand Knitting_ goes on to say:
"Patron saints for craftsmen were chosen for accidental reasons,
such as the name of the guild church or altar, or a saint's day that
provided a [suitable] holiday. The latter reason may explain why
in Barcelona the silk knitters chose St. Lucy and St. Ursula, while
the wool-stocking knitters chose St. Sebastian -- though St.
Sebastian's arrows may have suggested knitting needles.
There was another Parisian guild of _bonnetiers_, established at
the church of St. Martin in the Faubourg Saint Marcel. St. Michael
the Archangel, their patron, was certainly not chosen because he
had any close connection with either caps or knitting."
--
_________________________________________________________
O Chris Laning
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+ Davis, California
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