23 Comments

Saint Barbara after converting, refused a marriage her father arranged. He then had her imprisoned and tortured, before personally executing her. Leaving the scene he was struck by lightning and blasted to smithereens, and for this Saint Barbara became the patron of rocketeers, artillerymen, miners, chemical engineers, all others who work with explosive, and Lebanon.

Expand full comment

I see a theme developing, Saint Wilgefortis was in the same position, so she did some heavy prayer on the night before her wedding. She woke in the morning having sprouted a beard. Unfortunately for her, angry dad had her crucified. She did get a statue at Westminster Abbey though...

Expand full comment

I cannot get away from tit pus. I just can't. I feel like this trauma will be staying with me...

Expand full comment

I worked in a cow diary (it seems important to point that out in this context)as a kid. The technical term for tit pus is mastitis, and knowing about it first hand, so to speak, is part of what drove me into the arms of veganism. Almond milk doesn’t get pus.

Expand full comment

Of COURSE I’m also in the St Catherine of Siena hive, a two person hive that I now realize is you and me. The rules of Substack are I am required to share my Saint Catherine of Siena post here I think: https://vulgarhistory.substack.com/p/starved-for-sainthood

Expand full comment

Three of us...and fyi Sara Benincasa the writer is a distant relative!

Expand full comment

I was going to make a joke about my favorite saint being St.-Germain, but in looking up the spelling, I learned about the Count of Saint Germain. He might have Dirtbag potential and I don’t think you’ve done him? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_of_St._Germain

Expand full comment

Hey, another Catherine of Siena fan here (actually, I made her my patron saint). What I really like about her is that she was badass enough in her time to go to the Pope that she considered to be the *real* Pope (during the Avignon whatever they called it) and told him "Be a man, Father! Go back to Rome!" She was also one of the badass saint women who participated in political negotiations which was...pretty wild for that era.

Expand full comment

In Sahih Muslim 1453D Hadith, Prophet Muhammad advises a woman to let an adult man suckle her breasts so that he becomes her son. It’s how an adopted son is allowed to see his adoptive mom without her face and hair covered.

It seems like a lot of suckling going on in a lot of religions, but what happens if the adult man is a vegan? Shoot him with a squirt gun loaded with soy milk?

Expand full comment

I only spent 30 seconds fact-checking my memory on this, but I seem to recall that St. Bernard of Clairvaux was a big fomenter of the Second Crusade, featuring massive pogroms against Jews, while Peter Abelard opened the walls of his monastery to protect his Jewish neighbors. Ol Abelard was probably into some lousy theology about saving their souls, but still gets points in my book for saving their lives. #TeamAbelard

Expand full comment

As a buyer of copious amounts of band merch, the Saint Veronica pictures and captions are a source of utter delight to me! I’ve so enjoyed your posts this year. Wishing you all the best for the holiday season and looking forward to more dirtbaggery in 2025..

Expand full comment

"...he’s an asshole who doesn’t think before he stabs..." Which was the medieval equivalent of "shoot first, ask questions later."

Killing the dog was a bit much- a cuff around the muzzle would have been enough, and then he would have found the dead snake, and it would have been happily ever after.

Expand full comment

AHHH I hope you love Wolf!! So glad you got your copy 🥳 I have officially put up my tent outside the metaphorical Borders Bookstore for that St Catherine novel from you, no rush :)

Expand full comment

them saints are punk as fuck

Expand full comment

This is fucking incredible, thank you 😆

Expand full comment

Excellent reading! Thank you 😊

Expand full comment

Sadly, I don't read much these days but I always have time for a new dirtbag. Thank you, Allison, you always make my day....or at least traumatize it.

Expand full comment

Beddgelert in Wales has the reputed grave of a dog that defended a prince’s wife and child and got slain ditto ditto. I read somewhere here on Substack that the story was a bit of ye olde marketing and now I know where the story got lifted from. Given how I feel about Bernard, are we sure Mary was impressed or just trying to get him to leave her alone? Also, I did not know any of this about Catherine of Siena. I may have to switch from Teresa of Avila…

Expand full comment

LOL, my nascent Etsy store needs a resident saint! Thanks for the tip!

Expand full comment