"On This Day ..." -- The QI Almanac

Frederick The Monk · 6903. Fri Apr 23, 2004 3:58 am

23rd April.

Would Sir like to see today’s collection of Saints? Oh course Sir would. Here they are:

ADALBERT of Prague
Not his real name strangely enough. In fact he borrowed the name from St. Adalbert of Magdeburg by whom he was healed, educated and converted - a sort of Christian triple whammy.

Today Adalbert is best known (known??) as the Apostle of the Slavs and is a patron saint of Bohemia ,the Czech Republic ,Poland ,and Prussia which is perhaps odd as he was peculiarly unsuccessful in evangelizing them, having bounced back and forth between Prague (where the pagan nobility didn’t want him) and Rome (where the Pope kept telling him to go and evangelise the Slavs) like the proverbial ping-pong ball. In the end he decided to evangelise Pomerania, Poland, Prussia, Hungary and Russia which was perhaps a little ambitious considering his past success rate. He was martyred along with all his followers by the Prussians on 23rd April, 997 near Koenigsberg.

St. GERARD OF ORCHIMONT is a tricky customer. Strictly peaking he’s not a saint yet but he’s well on the way. The strange thing is I can’t find out anything about what he’s supposed to have done to get the title. As far as I can see he was Abbot of Florennes abbey from 1126 to 1136 and then died in 1138 from natural causes. Perhaps he’s going to be the patron saint of keeping your head down?

HELEN del CAVALCANTI , also beatified but not yet the full saint, spent the last three years of her life bedridden. She also preferred to sleep on a pallet of stones and straw. One wonders if these two fact are not perhaps unconnected?

TERESA MARIA of the Cross (again still awaiting the final step up to full sainthood) is the patron of people ridiculed for their piety.

Alright, alright I know what you’re thinking - ‘What about St. George? It IS St. George’s day afterall (unless you’re Russian orthodox in which case it’s November 3rd. Or from Malta in which case it’s the fourth Sunday in June. Unless you’re on Gozo of course when it’s the third Sunday in July).

OK

St. GEORGE
The most interesting think about the patron saint of England is perhaps that he is almost certainly entirely fictional. The best known story about St. George is the Golden legend. In it, a dragon lived in a lake near Silena in Libya. Generally this was an unpopular dragon which perhaps explains his bad attitude. Whole armies had gone up against this fierce creature, but the dragon always came out on top. Obviously a dragon has to keep body and soul together and this monster liked to eat two sheep each day. However, when mutton was short lots were drawn in local villages, and maidens were substituted for sheep, which must have made a nice change in such a monotonous diet. Into this unhappy country came Saint George, riding on his horse etc... Hearing the story on a day when a princess was to be eaten – a special day for any dragon - he crossed himself, rode to battle against the serpent, and killed it with a single blow with his lance. George then held forth with a magnificent sermon, and converted the locals. Given a large reward by the king , George distributed it to the poor , then rode away. At this point I expect the locals could be heard muttering “Well that was all rather odd wasn’t it”. The legend does not record what the princess had to say to the villagers who were so eager to feed her to a dragon. I’d imagine they were all REALLY embarrassed and shuffled away burbling that they’d left the gas on, or something.

Due to his chivalrous behavior (protecting women, fighting evil, dependence on faith and might of arms, largesse to the poor), devotion to Saint George became popular in the Europe after the 10th century . In the 15th century his feast day was as popular and important as Christmas. Many of his areas of patronage have to do with life as a knight on horseback. The celebrated Knights of the Garter are actually Knights of the Order of Saint George . The shrine built for his relics at Lydda, Palestine (where he was supposedly martyred c.304) was a popular point of pilgrimage for centuries.

St. George is of course also one of the ‘Fourteen Holy Helpers’ which sounds like something out of Monty Python but is in fact a group cult of 14 saints who were considered particularly useful to pray to in time of adversity. The cult originated during the Black Death (1348 – 50) when there was, frankly, a lot of adversity about, but was only suppressed by the Catholic church in 1969. Amongst the Holy Helpers St. George is particularly responsible for protecting domestic animals.

Finally patronage is where good old George really comes into his own. He is patron saint of Aragon ,agricultural workers ,archers ,armourers ,Beirut, Lebanon ,Boy Scouts ,butchers ,Canada ,Cappadocia ,Catalonia ,cavalry ,chivalry ,Constantinople ,Crusaders ,England ,equestrians ,farmers ,Ferrara Italy ,field hands ,field workers ,Genoa Italy ,Georgia ,Germany ,Gozo ,Greece ,herpes ,horsemen ,horses ,husbandmen ,Istanbul ,knights ,lepers ,leprosy ,Lithuania ,Malta ,Moscow ,Order of the Garter ,Palestine ,Palestinian Christians ,plague ,Portugal ,riders ,saddle makers ,saddlers ,skin diseases ,skin rashes ,soldiers ,syphilis ,Teutonic Knights ,Venice. And relax…………

Flash · 6904. Fri Apr 23, 2004 7:37 am

And the church's reaction to concluding that he never existed was to demote him. Which makes sense; if they actually sacked him altogether just for being fictional, there's no telling where it'd all end up.

Jenny · 6905. Fri Apr 23, 2004 8:32 am

A day late, but nonetheless merry. April 22nd 1661 brought the coronation of King Charles II after his restoration to the throne in May 1660. You can read Samuel Pepys' account of the brave show here:

http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1661/04/22/index.php

Jenny · 6906. Fri Apr 23, 2004 8:39 am

And back to today's date - on April 23rd 1979, New Zealand teacher Blair Peach died during a riot against the National Front in Southall. I was living in Hayes at the time - less than a couple of miles away - and remember it well, though I wasn't there.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,12269,1201725,00.html

garrick92 · 6907. Fri Apr 23, 2004 7:04 pm

24 April

World Lab Animal Week begins
Marsden Cuckoo Day, Marsden, W. Yorks (annual festivity to mark the return of the cuckoo)

1731 Daniel Defoe dies (not of the plague).
1815 Inventor of the pillar box (novelist Anthony Trollope) born. Also responsible for ensuring that London has no S or NE postcodes.
1833 Soda Fountain patented.
1895 Joshua Slocum sets off from Boston Mass, to sail round the world (it takes him just over three years).
1900 The Daily Express published for the first time.
1906 William Joyce ("Lord Haw Haw") born.
1915 Bob Thomson of Chelsea becomes the first one-eyed player in a Cup Final.
1943 100 per cent tax on "luxuries" introduced in this year's budget.
1949 WWII sweet rationing in Britain comes to an end.
1966 Roy Orbison takes part in the London to Brighton vintage car rally.
1984 Jerry Lee Lewis marries his sixth wife (Kerrie McCarver). On the same day in 2002, it is announced that Lewis [66] and McCarver [39] are to divorce.
1986 Wallis Warfield Simpson (HRH -- gasp! -- the Duchess of Windsor) dies.
1997 Australia launches a family planning scheme for koalas.
2000 Former paratrooper Simon Osborne puts his feet up after running seven marathons in seven days.
2001 Barry Norman announces he is giving up film criticism because films are "too terrible" to be worth the effort.

Frances · 6908. Sat Apr 24, 2004 8:44 am

Interesting, all that about St George. Odd that he's the patron saint of England, given that the English are popularly supposed to be kind to animals.

Frederick The Monk · 6909. Sat Apr 24, 2004 9:53 am

Frederick The Monk · 6910. Sat Apr 24, 2004 9:53 am

I am assuming that dragons don't count as domestic animals.

Frederick The Monk · 6911. Sat Apr 24, 2004 9:59 am

Anyway......24th April

Traditionally this is the anniversary of the fall of Troy, which occurred, so legend has it, in 1184 B.C.

And it’s with a hip-hip-hooray that we celebrate the birth of Dutch painter Willem de Kooning in 1904 and with a silent tear that we remember the death of Pope Benedict XII in 1342. Jacques Fournier (who became Benedict XII) is said to have cried ‘You have elected a Jackass!” on hearing of his election when in fact for first time in ages they hadn’t...........

"Where my daily obscure saint!" I hear you shout. Well, good things do of course come to those who wait, so.......

Voila!

St. IVO was a bishop in Huntingdonshire and also supposedly a hermit – which must have been a tricky juggling act. Legend has it that his gravesite was lost for years, but in 1001 four bodies were uncovered in an unmarked grave in Slepe; one bearing a bishop's insignia. A local layman then conveniently had a vision that this was the body of Ivo, and all four were translated to the Ramsey Abbey where the monks started making a lot of money from pilgrimages – not that these two events were related you understand. A later vision convinced the brothers at Ramsey to return the bodies of the three companions to Slepe. Of course Slepe wanted a bit of the action too and soon a spring soon appeared near the site of their interment, its waters known for healing miracles. Slepe changed its name to St. Ives in honour of Ivo and the all lived profitably ever after.

Bradford · 6912. Sun Apr 25, 2004 10:24 am

Depending on your source, it was on April 24, 1792, unless it was April 25, that a young and ardent engineer in the French army, Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle, stationed at Strausbourg shortly after the start of the war with Germany, wrote the words and music to the “Hymne à la Liberté,” which became the French national anthem. En route back to Paris, the National Guard of Marseilles sang it in every town they passed through---thus its designation as “La Marseillaise”; and by January 1793 Parisian theatres were required by law to perform it “whenever the public demanded it,” apparently even in the middle of Racine. {Cribbed, but rewritten, from the booklet for a fine 1989 performance on Nimbus Records.}
Berlioz made a smashing arrangement of all the verses, alternating soloists and chorus and including no doubt somewhere amongst the musical artillery a tuned kitchen sink. Whereas the first verse of the American national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” focuses on ordnance and fireworks, the French dwells on blood:

Allons, enfants de la Patrie,
La jour de gloire est arrivé.
Contre nouse de lay tyrannie
L’étendard sanglant est levé.
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes
Mugir ces féroces soldats?
Ils viennent jusque dans nos bras
Égorger vos fils, vos companions.
refrain:
Aux armes, citoyens!
Formez vos bataillons!
Marchons! Marchons!
Qu’un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons!

Which can be roughly translated as:

Arise, children of our country, the day of glory has arrived!
Against us, tyranny has raised its bloody banner.
Can’t you hear, off in the countryside, the soldiers’ savage roaring?
They are coming straight toward us to cut the throats of your sons and your
comrades.
To arms, citizens!
Marshal your battalions!
March on, march on!
May only impure blood stain our doorsills!

(Am not about to touch that dubious last line.)

Bradford · 6913. Sun Apr 25, 2004 10:26 am

Excusez-moi for manglant la langue francaise in my transcription: the third line of the verse should read:

Contre nous de la tyrannie

Frederick The Monk · 6914. Sun Apr 25, 2004 10:45 am

Your saint for 25th April

Madonna del Buon Consiglio
Now here's an odd one even by my standards. The patron saint of Albania - whose day is today - is Madonna del Buon Consiglio (Our Lady of Good Counsel) who is not even a person, but a picture!

Blimey! I hear you say, and with some reason.

So I'd better explain.During the reign of Paul II (1464-1471) the picture of Our Lady, at first called La Madonna del Paradiso and now better known as Madonna del Buon Consiglio, appeared at Genazzano, a town about twenty-five miles southeast of Rome, on Saint Mark's Day, 25 April 1467, in the old church of Santa Maria, which had been under the care of Augustinians since 1356. 'So what?' I hear you cry. The venerated icon itself, which is drawn on a thin scale of wall-plaster thinner than a credi card, was observed to hang suspended in the air without the slightest apparent support. Now I bet that Athena print in your bedroom can't do that.

Today on seeing such a sight one might look around to see if Paul Daniels was lurking in the shadows (indeed I recommend this course of action anyway - to avoid unpleasant surprises) but in the fifteenth century everyone immediately realised this was a miracle. Ever since that time the icon and its associated church had been host to innumerable pilgrims who have left the place not only lighter of spirit but also of pocket - and, to be fair, without a number of the ailments they arrived with (or so they say).

Of course the Pope had to get this checked out so Paul II sent some inspectors to have a look but sadly their report seems to have vanished - another neat trick. Eventually,Urban VIII decided he'd go and have a look for himself in 1630. And blow me down if it wasn't just as they'd said. Small church, lots of people, one floating picture - fantastic! Eventually the Vatican was SO impressed that they granted the church at Genazzano their own 'Office' and Mass of Our Lady to celebrate on the aniversary of the appearance of the apparition - 25th April. Of course everywhere else this was St. Mark's Day - he'd got there first after all - so they celebrated the Office on the 26th.

Today the cult is still doing so well that if you'd care to go on pilgrimage to Genazzano you can claim a plenary indulgence which is a sort of 'get out of hell free' card. This has considerably more kudos than a platinum card and, unlike the platinum version, is useable in the aferlife. It does not however come with a fantanstic low, low interest rate.

garrick92 · 6915. Sun Apr 25, 2004 12:11 pm

25 April

National Slug Awareness Week
Anzac Day

1599 Birth of Oliver Cromwell, first Lord Protector of the Republic of Britain (my source indicates that his parents kept a monkey that kidnapped him as a baby -- more on this as it develops).
1684 Patenting of the thimble.
1744 Death of Anders Celsius, astronomer and inventor of the celsius scale (qv).
1792 The Guillotine is used for the first time, in Paris.
1874 Birth of Guiglielmo Marconi, radio pioneer.
1912 Birth of Gladys Presley, mother of Elvis.
1940 Birth of Al Pacino, who grows to a height of just 5ft 6ins.
1942 Princess Elizabeth (16) registers for war service.
1956 Rocky Marciano retires from boxing, unbeaten.
1981 Paul McCartney's post-Beatles band Wings is, er, disbanded.
1989 To celebrate the USSR withdrawal from Hungary, an Italian MP releases a white dove ... which is crushed by a withdrawing tank.
1995 "What's pink and wrinkly and smells of Ginger?" -- "Fred Astaire". Death of Ginger Rogers.
2001 Jonathan Coe breaks the record for "longest English sentence" with a 13,734-word sentence in his The Rotters' Club.

garrick92 · 6916. Sun Apr 25, 2004 6:45 pm

26 April

1514 Copperknickers makes his first observations on the planet Saturn (from Earth, I mean).
1865 Death of Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth, distant relative of Cherie, the wife of the current prime minister.
1894 Birth of Rudolf Hess, Nazi bigwig who may or may not have been assassinated in 1941 and replaced with a double who was subsequently (and erroneously) sentenced to life imprisonment in Spandau.
1900 Birth of Charles Richter, after whom the earthquake scale was named.
1921 London's first motorcycle cops go on duty.
1926 Trafalgar Square one-way system inaugurated.
1927 Birth of Carry On star Jack Eeeee-argh! Gerroff! Eckba! Douglas.
1930 Arsenal win the FA Cup for the first time.
1956 Birth of Kathleen Stark, who is nicknamed "Koo" for her childhood habit of imitating pigeons (no, really).
1964 The Rolling Stones release their first album.
1976 Death of Sid James, Carry On star and body-double for Lyndon Johnson's scrotum.
1989 The first annual pig race takes place in Co Kildare.
1993 Bobby Brown and Queline Young fined $850 for "lewdness" after simulating sex during a concert. And to prove it was no fluke ...
1994 ... Bobby Brown charged with assault after beating a patron at an Orlando nightclub.
1999 Murder of Jan Dildo, TV newcaster, in Fulham.
1999 Two calves are cloned from a pint of their mother's milk, in (where else?) Japan.

Jenny · 6917. Mon Apr 26, 2004 8:05 am

LOL at National Slug Awareness Week. My way of being aware of the little bastards is to bury small cups of beer for them at various places in the garden.