CRISPINA, CRISPIN, AND CRISPINIAN, SS.

Martyrs whose deaths are connected with the Diocletian persecutions.

Crispina, born in Thagora, Numidia, was married and had several children. She was tried before the proconsul of Africa, Anulinus, for refusing to obey an edict commanding sacrifice to the Roman gods and was beheaded at Theveste (Tebessa) on December 5, 304. The acts that record the final hearing of her trial are accepted as authentic. A cult in her honor was quickly established in North Africa. St. augustine celebrated her sanctity in two sermons (286 and 354) and in his Enarrationes in Psalmos (120 and 137) giving details of her family, social condition, and martyrdom. There is doubt about the location of her grave in the remains of the Basilica of Theveste.

Feast: Dec. 5.

Crispin and Crispinian were allegedly beheaded in Gaul in 287 by the Emperor Maximian. According to an unreliable, ninth-century Passio recounting their martyrdom, this followed a trial by the legendary persecutor Rectorianus. They seem to have been authentic Roman martyrs, however, whose bones were early transferred to Soissons in Gaul, and later (ninth century) brought back to Osnabrück in Germany. The Roman martyrology claims that their bodies were transferred from Soissons and located in the church of San Lorenzo in Panisperna. They were considered examples of industrious virtue who supported themselves as shoemakers, and they were held up as models in sermons during the Middle Ages. Their fame in England stems in part from a passage in Shakespeare's Henry V (Act 4, scene 3). They are the patrons of shoemakers, saddlers, and tanners.

Feast: Oct. 25.

Bibliography: Acta Sanctae Sedis Oct. 11:495–540. l. jullian, "Le Cycle de Rectorianus," Revue des Études anciennes 25 (1923) 367–378. h. delehaye, Étude sur le légendier romain (Brussels 1936). l. duchesne, Fastes Épiscopaux de l'ancienne Gaule (Paris 1907–15) 3: 141–152.

[e. g. ryan]