Gervase Markham Hungers Prevention: or, the Whole Art of Fowling by Water and Land. (Printed, London: for Francis Grove, 1655).
This was the period of the year for ‘Night-fowling’. Gervase Markham wrote a whole book about it in the 17th Century. It was called Hungers Prevention: or, the Whole Art of Fowling by Water and Land. (Printed London: for Francis Grove, 1655).
In it, he tells the reader to go to ‘a stubble field in November when the air is mild and the moon not shining. There take a dolorous low bell, and net. Spread the net over the stubble where there may be fowl, ring the bell, light fires of dry straw, and the fowl will fly and become entangled in the net.‘
Title illustration from Gervase Markham Hungers Prevention: or, the Whole Art of Fowling by Water and Land. (Printed London: for Francis Grove, 1655).
In Britain today, the Wild fowling season is from 1 September – to 20th February and largely takes place on the marshes and foreshore.
Duck, Geese, waders and other birds are the quarry. Species involved include: Gadwall goose, Canada goose, Common snipe, Coot, Goldeneye duck, Greylag goose, Golden plover, Moorhen, Mallard, Pink-footed goose, Jack snipe, Pintail, European Woodcock, white-fronted goose, Pochard, Scaup1, Shoveler, Teal, Tufted duck, Wigeon
‘3.5 billion people (who) still live without safely managed sanitation, including 419 million who practise open defecation.’
That is a third of the world’s population if my figures are correct. It also impacts particularly badly on women in those areas where decent hygiene cannot be guaranteed.
These are the ‘Key messages you should know on World Toilet Day’
Toilets are a place for peace. This essential space, at the centre of our lives, should be safe and secure. But for billions of people, sanitation is under threat from conflict, climate change, disasters and neglect.
Toilets are a place for protection.By creating a barrier between us and our waste, sanitation services are essential for public and environmental health. But when toilet systems are inadequate, damaged or broken, pollution spreads and deadly diseases get unleashed.
Toilets are a place for progress. Sanitation is a human right. It protects everyone’s dignity, and especially transforms the lives of women and girls. More investment and better governance of sanitation are critical for a fairer, more peaceful world.
First published Nov 19th 2022. Republished Nov 19th 2023, 2024, 2025
Following Martinmas, farmers used to slaughter a good many of their animals because of the difficulty of feeding them during the winter. So this was the time to make sausages from all that meat and guts. Follow this link for a Tudor Sausage recipe.
Pigs were a very productive part of the Medieval and Early modern farmers’ economy. Almost as much pork was eaten as lamb. The upper classes, of course, preferred beef. But even the lowliest family would keep a pig. They would be pastured in forests, commons and fallow fields around the village, foraging for themselves on whatever they could get. In Autumn, they would be taken to specially grown copses of pollarded oak groves. The farmers pollarded the trees to keep them short and bushy. They could use the wood they pruned for wood working projects, or for firewood. When the acorn season came, they would hit the low branches with cudgels to release a lovely torrent of acorns on the floor for the pigs to feast themselves upon. So they grew fat for Martinmas when they were slaughtered.
Another benefit for a community of peasants living on the margin was that the sow might have 6 – 14 piglets. When the time came to slaughter the pig, the small holder could swap piglets with others, and share the bounty of the slaughtered animal. This would be reciprocated, and help made good food available more of the time.
A silhouette of a Zeppelin caught in searchlights over the City of London. Zeppelins
Sausages were severely rationed in Germany in World War 1 because they used nearly 200,000 cattle guts to make gasbags for each of the Zeppelins that bombed London. This made them very difficult to shoot down as the gas was held in so many separate bags.
‘The Dictes or Sayingis of the Philosophres’, dated 18th November 1477. was from the French by Anthony Woodville, the 2nd Earl River brother-in-law of King Edward IV,
However, some people say the first book he published in Englandwas an edition of Chaucer‘s The Canterbury Tales. See https://www.merton.ox.ac.uk/library-and-archives/exhibitions/caxtons-first-edition-of-canterbury-tales for more/
St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, Musician’s Chapel, St Cecilia window. 17 August 2022, Andy Scott
November 17th is St Cecilia’s Day She is the patron saint of musicians and was martyred in Rome in the Second or Third Century AD. The story goes that she was married to a non-believer. During her marriage ceremony she sang to God in her heart (hence her affiliation with musicians). She then told her husband that she was a professed Virgin. So, if he violated her, he would be punished by God. Cecilia told him she was being protected by an Angel of the Lord who was watching over her. Valerian, her husband, asked to see the Angel. ‘Go to the Third Milestone along the Appian Way’ he was told where he would be baptised by Pope Urban 1. Only then would he see the Angel. He followed her advice, was converted and he and his wife were, later on, martyred.
The Church in Rome, Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, is said to be built on the site of her house, and has 5th Century origins. My friend, Derek Gadd, recently visited and let me use these photographs:
St Cecilia in London
There is a window dedicated to her in the Holy Sepulchre Church-without-Newgate, In London, opposite the site of the infamous Newgate Prison. Henry Wood, one of our most famous conductors and the founder of the Promenade Concerts, played organ here when he was 14. In 1944, his ashes were placed beneath the window dedicated to St Cecilia and, later, the Church became the National Musician’s Church.
This window is dedicated to the memory of Sir Henry Wood, C.H., Founder and for fifty years Conductor of THE PROMENADE CONCERTS 1895-1944. He opened the door to a new world Of sense and feeling to millions of his fellows. He gave life to Music and he brought Music to the People. His ashes rest beneath.
The Concerts are now called the BBC Proms and continue an 18th and 19th Century tradition of, originally, outdoor concerts, and then indoor promenade concerts. At the end of the 19th Century, the inexpensive Promenade Concerts were put on to help broaden the interest in classical music. Henry Wood was the sole conductor.
Czech conductor Jiří Bělohlávek described the Proms as “the world’s largest and most democratic musical festival”.
The Eight-week Festival is held at the Royal Albert Hall. It moved here during World War 2 after the original venue, the Queen’s Hall, was destroyed in the Blitz in May 1941.
On This Day
1278 Edward 1 had over 600 Jews imprisoned in the Tower of London for coining, clipping and other counterfeiting. Of these, 269 Jews, along with 29 Christians, were executed. They were hanged at the Guildhall in the City of London. By 1290, the King had squeezed all the money he could from the Jews, and they were expelled, not to be let back into the Kingdom until the reign of Oliver Cromwell in the 17th Century. This ended a long period of savage state run antisemitism. Click here for further information.
First Published on November 17th 2023 and revised in November 2024, 2025.
The anniversary was celebrated in London with bonfires and bell-ringing. Lighted fire-barrels were rolled along Cheapside. It was, in a way, the precursor to Guy Fawkes Day (1605 onwards). Protestants celebrated it with such joy as it was the end of the reign of Elizabeth’s sister, Queen Mary I. ‘Bloody’ Mary, as she was named by Protestants, was the daughter of Katherine of Aragon. Her Government had 287 Protestants burnt at the stake, mostly relatively ordinary people: clergy, apprentices, artisans, and agricultural workers. 60 were women; 67 were Londoners: the majority were of the younger generation, and most from the South East of England.
The executions were overwhelmingly unpopular, ghastly exhibitions of brutality. In 1555 the weather was unusually wet, so the burnings were an even slower form of torture. The savagery was blamed by the Protestants on the Old Religion and particular the Spaniards who came over with Mary’s Spanish husband. Ironically, Philip, in fact, urged caution. When Mary refused to be as lenient to religious dissidents as she was to political ones, he suggested the executions should, at least, be in private. She refused, as the immortal souls of the population were put at risk by Protestant dogma. So the public nature of the deaths was a justifiable deterrent.
When, three years later, in 1558, in the early hours of the 17th November (6am) Queen Mary died, London rejoiced. An old regime, a foreign regime, a Catholic regime was swept away by a young Queen (Elizabeth was 25), with a young Court sworn to protect the new Protestant religion. (For my post on the nicknames for her courtiers look here.)
Soon, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs outsold all other books printed except the Bible, and enthusiasm for religious reform morphed into anti-Catholic intolerance.
The Author’s copy of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
One of the martyrs in the book is Thomas Tomkins, a weaver and a Londoner from Shoreditch, a few hundred yards from where I live.
Tomkins was a humble but godly man who was kept imprisoned by Bishop Bonner, the Bishop of London, at his Palace at Fulham. Here he was beaten. The Bishop personally beat him around the face and ripped off part of his beard. The beatings continued for six months. Finally, exasperated at his failure to persuade the weaver of his error, Bonner burnt Tomkins hand with a lighted taper until ‘the veins shrunk and the sinews burst’. I assume Bonner would defend his action by saying he wanted to give the weaver Tomkins a foretaste not only of the burning he faced but of the very fires of Hell.
But nothing would avail; Tomkins, the simple man that he was, would not accept that bread was made into flesh. (Transubstantiation). He would not say that which he did not believe. So he met his end at Smithfield by fire with his bandaged hand in the reign of Queen Mary on 16th March 1555.
Thomas Bilney martyred in Smithfield.
First Published 17th November 2023, revised 2024,2025
St Margaret should be better known in England because of her important rule in the bloodline of the English Monarchy. Her story is also of interest as it intertwines with the events of 1066 and of Macbeth.
She was the granddaughter of King Edmund Ironside. He was the last English King before the Danish Kings took over. He died after a peace treaty dividing England into an English and a Danish half.
This is what a draft of the text for my book on the Kings of Britain says about him:
Margaret’s Grandfather – King Edmund II 1016
Edmund was born in around 988AD and nicknamed Ironside. He was a formidable warrior who spent his short life fighting the Danes. In 1016, he was crowned in St Pauls Cathedral. Although he was defeated in battle by King Canute, the son of King Swein of Denmark, Edmund’s prowess won him a peace treaty in which England was divided between the two Kings. Unfortunately, Edmund died unexpectedly and Canute inherited the Kingdom. Edmund was buried in Glastonbury Abbey.
To buy ‘Divorced, Beheaded, Died – the history of the Kings of Britain in Bite-size Chunks’. click here.
Edmund’s wife Edith and her 2 children were exiled to Sweden and then, somehow, got to Hungary. Edmund’s eldest son was called Edward the Exile and was married to Agatha. Margaret was their third child. In 1056 Edward the Confessor invited the family back to England and soon made Margaret’s father the heir to the throne. Unfortunately, he died in 1057. He was buried in St Paul’s Cathedral.
Margaret’s Brother – Edgar the Atheling
The rest, as they say, is history. Edward the Exile’s son, Edgar the Atheling was only 6 or 7 and the throne was disputed between William of Normandy, Harald Hadarada of Norway, and Harold Godwinson.
In short, Margaret’s brother Edgar the Atheling was briefly chosen as King after the death of Harold. He was then forced to cede the throne to William the Conqueror. William was crowned King in December 1066.
Margaret’s brother Edgar the Atheling had an extraordinary life, living into his 70s. He continued to fight against the Norman rule of England, mostly from Scotland. Eventually, he reconciled with the Norman dynasty but was involved in any number of disputes, rebellions and dynastic fights.
Margaret’s Husband
Margaret was forced to flee and went to Scotland. In 1070, Margaret married the Scottish King Malcolm III ( Mael Column Mac Donnchada). Malcolm was the son of King Duncan (murdered by Macbeth – see my book Divorced, Beheaded, Died for a short biography!). In 1040, Malcolm fled to England, but returned with English help to defeat Macbeth at Dunsinane. (see my post on Macbeth and Equivocation of Phrophecy). After his first wife’s death he married the deeply pious Margaret. Their court was very influenced by Saxon and Norman ways. She helped aligned the Church more closely with the rest of Christendom, and brought up her children piously.
St Margaret’s Chapel at Edinburgh Castle. Built by her son King David. (Photos by the author)
Margaret’s Son – David
The Royal couple had 6 sons and two daughters. Her son David became one of the most influential Kings of Scotland. He introduced Norman ideas of feudalism, and created Boroughs to strengthen the Scottish economy. He also encouraged ‘modern’ forms of monasticism, encouraging the Cistercians to come to Scotland. By these means, he hoped to turn Scotland a Feudal society with a thriving market economy based on towns and monasteries.
Margaret – the Moderniser?
So, in many ways, Margaret had an influential role in ‘modernising’ the Scottish Monarchy from its Gaelic clan-based structure to a more European style that was ruled from the Lowlands and spoke the Scots version of English, rather than the Gaelic version of the Celtic branch of languages.
She died on 16th November 1093 AD and is ‘particularly noted’ for concern for orphans and poor people. There is an annual procession to her altar, followed by Evensong at Durham Cathedral on the following day. She was buried at Dunfermline following the violent death of her husband. The Abbey has recently celebrated the 950th anniversary of Queen Margaret consecrating the site.
Margaret’s Daughter
Margaret’s daughter, Matilda, married the son of William the Conqueror, King Henry I. This marriage was important for the Normans because it added a strong dose of English Royal blood to the French Norman Royal line. Their daughter was the formidable Empress Matilda, designated heir to the throne of England and founder of the Plantagenet line of English Kings. She was an uncrowned monarch of England and mother of Henry II. She was never crowned because of the disruption caused by the usurpation of the throne by King Stephen.
To read my posts on the events of 1066:
You can read what happened, in my detail, in my posts on the three battles that decided England’s fate in 1066.
Foul privies are now to be cleansed and fide, let night be appointed such baggage to hide: Which buried in garden,in trenches alowe, shall make very many things better to growe.
The chimney all sootie should now be made cleene, for feare of mischances, too oftentimes seene: Old chimney and sootie, if fier once take, by burning and breaking, soone mischeefe will make.
Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. 1573 by Thomas Tusser
Medieval drawing of an archer. Good resistance exercise to get the muscle/fat ratio on the healthy side?
‘Leaping is an exercise very commendable and healthful for the body.’
The Compleat Gentleman 1634
Thomas Fuller in his book published in 1642 says:
Running, Leaping, and Dancing, the descants on the plain song of walking, are all excellent exercises. And yet those are the best recreations which besides refreshing enable, at least dispose, men to some other good ends. Bowling teaches mens hands and eyes Mathematicks, and the rules of Proportion: Swimming hath sav’d many a mans life, when himself hath been both the wares, and the ship: Tilting and Fencing is warre without anger; and manly sports are the Grammer of Military performance. But above all Shooting is a noble recreation…..
‘The Holy State’ by Thomas Fuller B.D. and Prebendarie of Sarum
Published St Pauls Churchyard 1642
The Holy State is a fascinating book – it provides instruction on how to be the Good Wife; the Good Advocate; the Good King; Bishop etc. etc.; has general rules of behaviour; some case studies of good lives to emulate and discussion of profane states not to emulate.
15th of November 1712 A Famous Duel between Lord Mohun and the Duke of Hamilton
‘In short, they fought at seven this morning. The dog Mohun was killed on the spot; and while the Duke was over him, Mohun shortening his sword, stabbed him in at the shoulder to the heart. The Duke was helped towards the Cake House by the Ring in Hyde Park (where they fought) and died on the grass, before he could reach the house; and was brought home in his coach by eight, while the poor Duchess was asleep.‘
Jonathan Swift ‘The Journal to Stella’ 1712
Lord Mohun seemed to be the villian, not only making the initial affront, but also issuing the challenge and stabbing his rival in such an underhand way! After the Duel there was fighting between the servants of the men, and the seconds had to flee to avoid arrest. Duels were illegal but remained a part of upperclass society into the 19th Century. Pehaps, Thomas Fuller’s advocacy of fencing as a good keep fit exercise is not such a great idea!
Text taken from ‘A London Year’ Compiled by Travis Elborough and Nick Rennison
To read my post on Jonathan Swift and Chelsea Buns see my post here.
As the winter comes nearer and the St Martin’s Summer comes to an end – make sure you have good stocks of firewood. Here, is some ancient advice on the burning of wood:
Beechwood fires burn bright and clear If the logs be kept a year Oaken Logs if dry and old Keep away the winter’s cold Chestnut’s only good they say If for years ’tis laid away But ash-wood green or ash-wood brown Are fit for a King with a golden Crown Elm she burns like the churchyard mould Even the flames are cold Birch and pine-wood burn too fast Blaze too bright and do not last But ash wet or ash dry A Queen may warm her slippers by.
My own very limited experience of firewood is from the very occasional fires I lit during Christmas past. I found a particular joy in burning IKEA furniture which had failed during the year. My kindling of choice was dried Christmas tree, which pops and crackles like a good indoor firework. I suspect burning IKEA furniture, however good for the soul, is appalling for the environment, so please don’t do it! Take a pickaxe to it instead, or even better, upcycle it.
The nightmare that is a flatpack!
A postscript on IKEA. To appreciate the joy this gave me, you have to understand my dislike of shopping in IKEA. And my even greater frustration at putting together the flatpack items. I have a form of flatpraxia which begins with an inability to spot key construction information cryptically hidden in those little drawings. Magically, as you survey the slightly wonky creation in front of you at ‘completion’, my mind finally resolves the importance of tiny details on those little diagrams. Understanding comes with the realisation that I have put it all together in the wrong sequence. This added with a ham-fisted DIY disability means, my IKEA is full of quirks such as drawers that are not the smooth sliders you dream of. So, when an alternative piece of furniture comes to my attention, with more character and, crucially, already put together, the IKEA is ready for its joyous ritual disappearance from my house.
First Published 14th November 2022, revised 14th November 2023, 2024 and 2025
I first came across the story of Old Parr, when I lived in Camden Town. It was the name of a local pub, in Plender Street, near to my flat. I found out it was named after a very long-lived man called Thomas Parr. He was said to be 152 years old when he died in 1635. He was on his way to visit King Charles 1st in London.
If we are to believe his story, he was born in 1483 and was married when he was 80. He fathered two children. Then married for a second time at 120 years old. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.
There are, or I should say were,, 3 London Pubs named Old Parr’s Head or Parr’s Head. They were in Camden, Islington, and West Kensington. But have all closed either converted to flats or into a branch of Jigsaw (Islington).
His tomb in Westminster Abbey has this inscription:
The famous William Harvey (discoverer of the circulation of blood) undertook an autopsy. He found Parr’s internal organs to be in a good state. He suggested this might be due to Parr’s diet of:
‘subrancid cheese and milk in every form, coarse and hard bread and small drink, generally sour whey’ and lived free of care.‘
However, medically his age is nigh on impossible to believe. Wikipedia has the following 10 oldest verified humans. All I think, female:
Wikipedia lists the top 100. The oldest man is a mere 116 years old. A Guardian article reports on a study on Maria Branyas, number 8 above. It concludes she had a number of genetic factor that made her less vulnerable to killer diseases like heart attack and diabetes, But she was also not overweight, ate a lot of yoghurt, did not drink or smoke, and had a lively social life in her local area.
BP Doughty thinks Parr might have been over 100 when he died, although others suggest perhaps only as old as 70 – 80. Doughty BP. Old Parr: or how old is old? South Med J. 1988 Jul;81(7):906-8. doi: 10.1097/00007611-198807000-00023. PMID: 3293237.
Old Parr’s death is reputed on different days in the sources I found. But it seems he was buried on 15th November 1635, but died on 13th, not 14th, of November.
Yarrow (achillea millefolium) – image by CongerDesign
This is the time to gather yarrow which is often still flowering. It grows everywhere creeping through its roots and spreading with its seeds, until it becomes a garden weed.
Traditionally, it is one of the most useful of medicinal plants. It had a myriad of uses and a plethora of names (see thefreedictionary for a comprehensive list). It was used for wounds (aka ‘Soldier’s Woundwort’); staunches nose bleeds (aka ‘Nosebleed’); inflammations (aka ‘Stauchweed’). It also slows hair lose, reduces pain of tooth-ache and good for those who cannot hold their water. Generally, it was considered excellent for stomach problems, diabetes, periods pains, anything to do with blood flow (aka ‘Bloodwort’)..
It also has a devilish tradition so used for divination by spells, and thus aka Devil’s Nettle, Devil’s Plaything, Bad Man’s Plaything.
On a gentler note, hopeful lovers will put it under their pillow and dream, thereby, of their future spouse. (Mrs Grieve). In Sussex and Devonshire, so Wikipedia tells me, one should pick Yarrow from a young man’s grave and recite this poem:
Yarrow, sweet yarrow, the first that I have found, in the name of Jesus Christ, I pluck it from the ground; As Joseph loved sweet Mary, and took her for his dear, so in a dream this night, I hope, my true love will appear.
The yarrow is then put under the pillow. preparatory to falling asleep and dreaming of someone dark and handsome.
See my post below on the medical and other effects of Dandelions.
Old Parr was first published on 14th November 2022. Revised 14th November 2023, and 13th November 2024. Yarrow was first published on 14 November 2022, revised 13 November 2023, and combined with Old Parr in 2024.
It was a holiday in Germany, France, Holland, England and in Central Europe. People first went to Mass and observed the rest of the day with games, dances, parades, and a festive dinner, the main feature of the meal being the traditional roast goose (Martin’s goose). With the goose dinner, they drank “Saint Martin’s wine,” which was the first lot of wine made from the grapes of the recent harvest. Martinmas was the festival commemorating filled barns and stocked larders.
It was celebrated with Bonfires in Germany, and with St Martin’s Beef and Mumming plays in England. Following the Reformation, its place in the Calendar has been taken by Halloween and Bonfire Night.
St. Martin of Tours
St Martin of Tours, 20th Century Stained Glass, St James Church. Chipping Camden.Window 1925 Commemorating World War 1. St Martin’s Feast Day is Armistice Day.Photo K Flude
Martin was a soldier in the Roman Army who would not fight because of his Christian beliefs. When he met a beggar, he cut his cloak in half and shared his cloak. He rose in the hierarchy of the Gallic Church and became Bishop of Tours. According to legend, his funeral barge on the River Loire was accompanied by flowers and birds. He died in AD397. He is one of the few early saints not to be martyred. Martin is the saint of soldiers, beggars and the oppressed. Furthermore, he stands for holding beliefs steadfastly and helping those in need.
St Martin’s in the fields
Early 20th Century Image of Trafalgar Sq. St Martin’s is in the top right-hand corner.
There are two famous Churches dedicated to St Martin in Central London with possible early origins. St Martin’s in the Fields, near Trafalgar Square, has been the site of excavations where finds show a very early settlement, with early sarcophagi. It is the one place where a convincing case can be made for continuity between the Roman and the Anglo-Saxon period. It is possible, that the Church was founded soon after St Martin’s death (397AD). A kiln making Roman-style bricks was found. A settlement grew up near the Church and this expanded to become Lundenwic, the successor settlement to Londinium.
St Martin’s Within
Old Print of London c1540 showing St Pauls, with St Martin’s by the wall to the left of the photo
The other St Martins is St Martins Within, just inside the Roman Gate at Ludgate. Many early churches are found at or indeed above Gates. This one also has legendary links to burial places for King Lud, and for King Cadwallo. He. Cadwallon ap Cadfan, was the last British Kings to have any chance of recovering Britain from the Anglo-Saxons. Geoffrey of Monmouth says that Cadwallo was buried here in a statue of a Bronze Horseman. This was thereby a ‘Palladium’ – something which protects a place from invasion. (See my post about Palladiums of London). It has been suggested by John Clark, Emeritus Curator at the Museum of London, that Geoffrey of Monmouth might have used the discovery of a Roman Equestrian Statue as an inspiration for the story.
St Martin was also the saint of Travellers, and this might explain the location of the Church near the gate. Although there is nothing but legendary ‘evidence’, it would make sense for an early church to be built near Ludgate,. This is the Gate that leads to St Pauls which was founded in 604AD from Lundenwic which was booming in AD650.
Although the City seems to have mostly devoid of inhabitants from the end of the Roman period to the 9th Century, the presence of St Pauls Cathedral means that Ludgate was most likely still in use or at least restored around this period. It leads via Fleet Street and Whitehall, almost directly to the other St Martin.
St Martin and lime plaster
Michaelmas was also the time of year when lime plaster was renewed because lime needs to be kept moist when renewed. It takes three to four days to form the calcite crystals that make it waterproof. Lime plaster was used on most timber framed buildings.
On This Day
1100 – Matilda married King Henry I, thus united the English and Norman Royal Blood lines. The marriage nearly didn’t happen because she, originally called Edith, sheltered in Wilton Nunnery, as a teenager, fearful of kidnap and rape by Normans. Was she a Bride of Christ? or a visitor free to resume a normal life?
(Originally, posted 11 Nov 2021, revised 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025)
Sculptors Claudius, Castorius, Symphorian, and Nicostratus refused to carve a ‘graven image’ of Aesculapius (the Greco-Roman god of Medicine). So, they were condemned to die in the reign of Diocletian (AD 284-305), placed in lead barrels, and drowned in the Danube.
Their story is more confused than most, there are a total of 9 Crowned martyrs in a group of five and a group of four. Four soldiers were killed for refusing to worship Aesculapius, and five sculptors refused to carve a statue. Or vice versa, or it’s all a mix-up. To cap it all, their Saint’s Day has been changed from November 8th to the 9th. I’ll let you sort it out by looking it up here!
Patrons of sculptors, stonemasons, stonecutters; against fever; and for a reason, I have not been able to find out: cattle.
The crowned martyrs were venerated in Saxon England as the Venerable Bede mentions a Church to them in Canterbury. It is thought relics were sent to Kent in 601. Perhaps because St Augustine came from a monastery near their Church in Rome: Basilica of Santi Quattro Coronati in Rome.
