Saint Crispin's Day

Saint Crispin's Day is the feast day of the Christian saints Crispin and Crispinian (Also known as Crispinus and Crispianus, though this spelling has fallen out of favour), twins who were martyred circa A.D. 286. It falls on 25 October each year. It is a day most famous for battles that occurred on it: the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Pacific theater in 1944, the Battle of Balaklava (Charge of the Light Brigade) during the Crimean War, and the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, dramatised by William Shakespeare in "Henry V".

The feast day of Saints Crispin and Crispinian is October 25. However, these saints were removed from the liturgical calendar (but not declared to no longer be saints) during the Catholic Church's Vatican II reforms. The feast remains as a 'Black Letter Saints' Day' in the Calendar of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer (1662) and a 'commemoration' in Common Worship (2000).

The reasoning used by Vatican II for this decision was that there was insufficient evidence that Saints Crispin and Crispinian actually existed. Indeed, their role as shoemakers, their relationship as twins, and the timing of their holiday are suggestive of the possibility that they could have represented a local Celtic deity (Lug-Mercury) which had been made into a saint as a result of syncretism.

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*For more on Roman Catholic saints' days, "see Calendar of saints".