Saint Crispian

detail of the painting 'Saint Crispin and Saint Crispian', 1669 by Julien Quintin, brotherhood shoemakers; chapel of Notre-Dame de Châteaulin, Finistère, Brittany, France; swiped from Wikimedia CommonsAlso known as

  • Crispianus

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Member of the imperial Roman nobility. Brother of Saint Crispin with whom he evangelized Gaul in the middle 3rd century. Worked from Soissons, France, they preached in the streets by day, made shoes by night. Their charity, piety, and contempt of material things impressed the locals, and many converted in the years of their ministry. Martyred under emperor Maximian Herculeus, being tried by Rictus Varus, governor of Belgic Gaul and an enemy of Christianity. A great church was built at Soissons in the 6th century in their honor; Saint Eligius ornamented their shrine.

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From the example of the saints it appears how foolish the pretenses of many Christians are, who imagine the care of a family, the business of a farm or a shop, the attention which they are obliged to give to their worldly profession, are impediments which excuse them from aiming at perfection. Such, indeed, they make them; but this is altogether owing to their own sloth and malice. How many saints have made these very employments the means of their perfection! Saint Paul made tents; Saints Crispin and Crispinian were shoemakers; the Blessed Virgin was taken up in the care of her poor cottage; Christ himself worked with his reputed father, and those saints who renounced all commerce with the world to devote themselves totally to the contemplation of heavenly things, made mats, tilled the earth, or copied and bound good books. The secret of the art of their sanctification was, that fulfilling the maxims of Christ, they studied to subdue their passions and die to themselves; they, with much earnestness and application, obtained of God, and improved daily in their souls, a spirit of devotion and prayer; their temporal business they regarded as a duty which they owed to God, and sanctified it by a pure and perfect intention, as Christ on earth directed every thing he did to the glory of his Father. In these very employments, they were careful to improve themselves in humility, meekness, resignation, divine charity, and all other virtues, by the occasion which call them forth at every moment, and in every action. Opportunities of every virtue, and every kind of good work never fail in all circumstances; and the chief means of our sanctification may be practiced in every state of life, which are self-denial and assiduous prayer, frequent aspirations, and pious meditation or reflections on spiritual truths, which disengage the affections from earthly things, and deeply imprint in the heart those of piety and religion. – by Father Alban Butler

MLA Citation

  • “Saint Crispian“. CatholicSaints.Info. 2 December 2023. Web. 28 March 2024. <>