Feast Day ~ October 25
It is not unusual for a saint to be made famous by something other than his holy life or his courageous martyrdom. St. Valentine, for instance, is noted in our secular world by the pagan Roman festival celebrating romantic love which falls around February 14, the date of the saint’s martyrdom for refusing to renounce his faith in Christ.
The story of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, brothers (probably twins) who were martyred for their faith around the year 287, is also famous in the public mind for something other than their martyrdom. The battle of Agincourt, which the vastly outnumbered English troops won over the French in the year 1415, was fought on the feast day of these two saints. William Shakespeare, in his play Henry V, memorializes the king’s speech to inspire his soldiers in which Henry tells them that forever after, when these saints were celebrated, so would the soldiers’ courage be remembered. This speech was noted when other battles took place on the same day: the Battle of Balaclava in 1854 and several battles in the Second World War. Saints Crispin and Crispinian were also engaged in battle and this is the battle which we all must fight: the battle between good and evil.
The brothers were Roman by birth, brought up as Christians, and they desired to be missionaries to help spread the faith. Although they were from the aristocracy, they decided to learn an occupation that would sustain them in their missionary endeavors and would also provide “cover” for what, at the time, had to be a covert endeavor. So they learned the art of making leather shoes, and with tools and materials in hand, they departed for Gaul.
The saints settled in the town of Soissons and set up shop, working mostly at night to make shoes and spending the days teaching the local people about our Savior. Because of their kindness and generosity to the poor, their gentle and loving attitude toward all, and the compelling way in which they taught, many people were converted to Christianity.
Although this was a time of relative quiet from severe persecutions of Christians, local discrimination and even persecution existed. When Diocletian became Emperor in 284, these began to increase and spread throughout the empire. Someone – perhaps a rival shoemaker – lodged a complaint against Crispin and Crispinian, accusing them of belonging to the sect of the Christians. Perhaps to make an example of them and to dissuade others from joining this sect, the local official had the brothers tortured. When they refused to renounce Christ, they were put to death by the sword, achieving crowns of martyrdom on October 25.
The relics of these saints were buried by local Christians and the story of their martyrdom spread to other lands. Their feast day is recorded in the martyrologies of St. Jerome, St. Bede, and others. In the sixth century, a basilica was erected in Soissons over the gravesite and a shrine for their relics was made by another saint – St. Eligius – who at the time was also a skilled craftsman, a goldsmith.
Going about it quietly and in the midst of the common work of tradesmen, the saints were fighting on a spiritual battlefield. They fought against the ignorance and blindness of the local people by telling them of God’s revealed truth; they fought against the intolerance of government officials by steadfastly defending their beliefs; and they fought against the temptation to do anything to maintain their earthly lives and thus entered into eternal life.
We are called to fight these same battles and the circumstances are very similar: we should be fighting against ignorance and blindness by telling others about Christ and showing the love of God in our lives; we must fight against official intolerance for Christian beliefs; and we must, especially, fight the internal battle against the temptation to give in to the ways of the world. We ask that Saints Crispin and Crispinian intercede for us in these spiritual battles.