S

t. Bernardine of Siena, Feast Day May 20th

 

Public Relations.  The art of making it seem like you’re not selling something when you are, the act of turning yourself into a celebrity when you’re really no one, just a person who wrote a book.  Not the answer to the bestseller’s list but a step on the way.  Boy, do I need help in the PR department.  Monica’s book is out and we’ve got her doing PR.  That’s great for her personally—she’s always wanted to be a star—but we’re not seeing any spillover onto book sales.  Then again, I did know that PR doesn’t necessarily sell books.  But I hoped…sigh.

With that in mind, I went searching for the patron saint of Public Relations.  Of course there’s one!  Saint Bernardine of Siena. Born in 1380 in Massima Marittima, Italy, he was orphaned early in life.

Despite his orphan status he eventually found his way to school in Siena where he excelled in the Classics.  I’m assuming he was great in Rhetoric, one of the required subjects of the time, which includes mastering the persuasive speech.  (Any of you remember having to do one of those in high school?)  Already, we see our PR master emerging.

In 1400 the Plague hit Siena.  Bernardine remained in the city, ministering to the afflicted at the hospital Santa Maria della Scala where he eventually caught and nearly died from the Plague.  Upon recovery he chose to enter an Observant branch of the Orders of the Friars Minor, (the Franciscans) in 1403.  He was ordained as a priest in

1404 and then in 1405 became a commissioned speaker.  One of the articles I read about him used the word “propagandist” to describe him.

  Hmm.   Well, like St. Bernard guided the Cistercians to their success, so Bernardine did with the Franciscans.  Maybe it’s the name? When Bernardine joined his order they had one hundred and thirty members; at his death they numbered more than four thousand.

Better to call him an evangelist, because he was the Billy Graham of his day, moving from town to town, drawing crowds in the thousands.  He wasn’t just a charismatic speaker.  Like the Protestant evangelists of our day, he included compelling rituals in his stage show.  These rituals ran the gamut from public exorcisms to bonfires of the vanities (a public bonfire into which any item that might encourage personal vanity, anything from cosmetics to mirrors to paintings to books, was bthrown) to collective weeping.

Collective weeping?  That was a term I’d never encountered before. After looking it up I could but nod sagely.  Like St. Vitus and his ritual dances, collective weeping is another outgrowth of the Plague’s devastation in Europe.  According to Religion and Emotion: Approaches and Interpretations by John Corrigan, this weeping was something people learned to do, the tears being “significant visible evidence” of real emotion, in this cause guilty regret .  It was thought that God or the angels were provoking the tears, causing the expression, as in: to expel from, of guilt from the person doing the crying.  No crocodile tears here!

Bernardine also seemed to have a way with the feuding families of these Italian cities (think Romeo and Juliet), and was responsible for much peacemaking across Italy.  He understood how difficult it was to negotiate between the Christian ideal of turning the other cheek and a cultural code of honor that required “saving face”.  Many of his speeches talked about the damage done by malicious gossip, which led to insults (I love the “I bite my thumb at thee” insult) which led to attack.  His supporters in this effort were—no surprise here—women; women made up the majority of his audience.

None of this won him friends in Rome, at least not right away.  As you can imagine the powers-that-be of the Papacy weren’t thrilled with some rural priest from a minor order going around gathering these kinds of crowds. In 1427 he was called to the Holy See and charged with heresy.

Although the Cardinals insisted he was guilty, Pope Martin V knew a good thing when he saw it.  He not only acquitted Bernardine, he asked Bernardine to speak in Rome, which he did for eighty straight days.

Although most of his sermons lasted only an hour, some went into the four hour range.  He was, apparently, a particular writer and would draft up to four versions of a speech before he was satisfied.

His powers of persuasion grew over the years, resulting in him being again accused of heresy and again being acquitted.  So, what do Cardinals do when they want to shut up a friar and heresy charges won’t stick?  They offer bishoprics!  Bernardine was offered three bishoprics over the years, and refused them all to continue his preaching.  For a time he did serve as vicar-general of his order, but eventually resigned to go back to preaching.  He was determined to have his voice heard in every corner of Italy.  It was while he was preaching in L’Aquila that he died and was buried.  Locals claim that his grave leaked blood until the feuding parties of L’Aquila agreed to a truce.  This miracle caused his canonization in 1450 by Pope Nicholas V.

But it wasn’t until 1956 that Bernardine became the patron saint of PR.  Out of the blue and with no explanation for the request Cardinal Lecaro of Bologna sought his nomination on behalf of public relations practitioners in Italy. In 1960, Cardinal Feltin, Archbishop of Paris, achieved the same status for Bernardine as Patron Saint of PR professionals in France. Just as in life, in death Bernardine could persuade and before long he became the universal Patron Saint of PR,

along with advertisers and communications personnel.   He’s also the Patron Saint of Italy.

 

 

So Bernardine, I direct my plea to you.  Give us a leg up if you can, thanks ever so much.   Now if only there was a patron saint of marketing as well.

 

 

Since there isn’t and I’m writing this article on Halloween, what else is there for me to do but talk about the customs of All Soul’s Day (November 2nd)?

What?  Not All Saints Day?  Of course not.  That day is for all the souls that don’t need Purgatory to cleanse them of their foibles and send them on to Heaven.  We’re going to Purgatory to save the rest of us sinners for this one.

The official name of this celebration in the Roman Catholic Church liturgy is "The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed”.  The idea is that there are faithful souls stuck in Purgatory because they either died without being cleansed of their venial sins or are being held back due to unrepented mortal sins.  It is the obligation of those still on Earth to help these poor souls on their way through prayer.  The setting aside a special day for the departed souls was established in 998 AD by Odilo of Cluny, then spread across Europe although it wasn’t adopted by Rome until the Fourteenth Century.  The practice included not only prayers but placing lists of names to be remembered on or near the altar during Mass.

Like many Church traditions this one got tangled up with older cultural practice, such as Lemuralia or Lemuria, a Roman feast in May to exorcise the malevolent and fearful ghosts of the dead with offering of beans.

During Lemuria the Vestals would prepare sacred mola salsa, a salted flour cake, from the first ears of wheat of the season.  This feast was eventually Christianized into All Saints Day, but as you’ll see below it spilled over—or at least the cake did—onto All Souls Day.

Enter “Souling”.  This tradition is much like Wassailing, and no doubt the fount from which Trick or Treating sprang, although the pulling pranks part of Halloween has its own tradition in Scotland.   During the Middle Ages children and beggars went door-to-door “Souling” on All Souls Day not All Hallow’s Eve (Halloween) singing a Souling song:

 

“Soul, Soul, a soul cake!

  I pray thee, good missus, a soul cake!

  One for Peter, two for Paul,

  three for Him what made us all!

 

Soul, soul for a souling cake

I pray you, missis, for a souling cake

Apple or pear, plum or cherry

Anything to make us merry.”

 

And what’s a Soul Cake?  We over here in the US will know it as a sugar cookie, although being British it’s not a really sweet sugar cookie.

It’s flat, round and marked with a cross much like the back of a Medieval coin.  For those interested in baking one here’s the recipe: (makes 14 large cookies)

 

1 ½ cup plain flour (sifted)

¾ cup sugar

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground mixed spice

½ tsp ground nutmeg

¾ cup butter (softened & diced)

1 egg (beaten)

2 tsp vinegar

Currants or raisins, if desired

 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Butter a cookie sheet.  Sift together the dry indredients then using a pastry blender cut in butter until it looks like fine breadcrumbs.  Mix in the beaten egg and the vinegar with a wooden spoon until the dough is firm.  Form into a ball, wrap in plastic and place in the fridge for 20 minutes.  When chilled, place on a floured board or other flat surface and roll out to about ¼ inch thick.

  Using a large round pastry cutter (a sharp-edged small bowl will work as a template) cut into rounds.  Place on the greased cookie sheet and with the dull edge of a table knife press the cross shape into the top of the cookie. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown.  Serve warm or cold.

Although the tradition of eating this cake is supposedly related to praying, in the sense that the consumption of one was akin to a prayer in church, it makes me think of sin eating.  Sin eating was a traditional ritual practiced throughout England, Scotland and Wales, persisting until the late 19th or early 20th century in areas of Wales and the Welsh Marches (Shropshire and Herefordshire).  It also has a tradition here in Appalachia in the same areas where where expressions retain the flavor of Elizabethan/Jacobean English.  This ritual, usually attached to the graveside or deathbed, also includes the eating of some sort of food after said food has been placed upon the breast of the dying person to absorb their departing soul/sin.  By consuming the food the person eating it takes the sin into himself.  The only difference with Souling is that the person for whom the cake is being consumed is already dead and in Purgatory.

Oh, and by the way there was a precursor to a carved pumpkin in the Middle Ages.  (We all know that hard squash like pumpkins, along with corn, potatoes and tomatoes, are a New World—American—food, right?) You’ll never guess.  Okay, I’ll give: turnips!  Turnips can actually get quite big, although never the size of a proper Halloween pumpkin. At this larger size turnips lose their sweetness and are probably only good for carving.   Or making great veggie stock for soups, which is what I do with them.

Happy Turnip Day!

Denise Domning's first medieval romance, Winter's Heat, received the Romantic Times award for Best First Historical Novel in 1994. Spring's Fury, Autumn's Flame, A Love for All Seasons were respectively nominated by Romantic Times for Best Medieval Novel in 1995, 1996 and 1997. Her first Elizabethan novel, Lady in Waiting, was recommended by Publisher's Weekly as well written and researched, with an accurate portrayal of Elizabeth I. Denise has co-authored an autobiography with Monica Sarli about her life entitled Men-ipulation. Denise's website is www.DeniseDomning.com.

 

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