ST. NICHOLAS AS PATRON SAINT
Anyone brought up in a Protestant country, in the Protestant faith,
will not find it easy to form an adequate conception of the nature of
saint worship. Such a person, however, if he should visit certain of
the less progressive provinces of Catholic Christendom, would find
surviving in much of its pristine vigor, with much of its original
_naïveté_, the saint worship once universal in the Christian world. In
Sicily, for instance, he would find each city with its patron saint
revered and honored very much as in the earlier days. If he should
happen to be in Catania on one of the two days in the year devoted to
the honor of Catania’s patron saint Agatha, he would see the image
of St. Agatha surrounded by native offerings of extravagant value,
in a resplendent car drawn by white-robed men, and he would hear
enthusiastic shouts of “Viva Sant’ Agatha!” whenever a new candle for
the car was offered by one of the votaries of the saint. In Palermo
he would find like honor paid on her festival day to St. Rosalia,
the patron saint of Palermo; in Syracuse he would find St. Lucy; in
Taormina, St. Pancras, similarly honored. These Sicilian celebrations
of saints’ days, featured as they are by the presence of such modern,
ultra-secular inventions as fireworks, nevertheless retain not only
much of the form but to some extent the spirit of earlier celebrations.
[Illustration: Triumphal Car of St. Lucy used in the Annual Procession
in Honor of the Saint at Syracuse in Sicily.]
Nor is the Sicilian worship of saints entirely one-sided. On the one
hand honors are paid, but on the other hand benefits are supposed to
be received. An idea of the nature of the protection afforded by the
saints and of the intimate relation existing between saint and votary
may be gained by a visit to the church of San Nicola at Girgenti. There
one will find the picture of the saint surrounded by representations,
in silver, or more often in wax or carved and painted wood, of swollen
limb, cancerous breast, goitered throat, injured eye, carbuncle, and
the like, healed through the intervention of the saint. Even more
specific, more living, record of protection received is afforded by the
votive offerings on one wall of the church in the form of naïve little
paintings illustrating the aid afforded by St. Nicholas, one “showing
a spirited donkey running away with a painted cart, the terrified
occupant frantically making signals of distress to S. Nicola in heaven
who is preparing promptly to check the raging ass, others showing S.
Nicola drawing a petitioner from the sea, or turning a mafia dagger
aside, or finding a lost child in the mountains.”[76]
In Catholic Brittany, too, one will find similar forms of saint
worship. One will find the so-called “Pardons,” or pilgrimages on
different days of the year to different ones of the famous shrines of
Brittany, occasions celebrated with festal processions accompanying
the image or the relics of the saint honored. In the Breton churches
also one will find the same form of testimony, as in Sicily, to the
protection offered by the various saints. In the church of St. Sauveur
at Dinan, in the chapel of St. Roch, one will find a representation of
the saint over the altar and on the wall a framed _vœu_, to the effect
that St. Roch confers many benefits, especially in case of pestilence,
that he saved the city from pestilence in 16--, and that the _vœu_ is
for the sake of preserving the memory of his goodness to the city. On
the wall also are framed litanies to St. Roch and individual votive
offerings with dates, many in the form of hearts, others framed
inscriptions with “_Merci Bon St. Roch_,” accompanied by the date of
the benefit received. Over the door of a house in Brittany also one
often finds the image of the patron saint of the occupant.
In Brittany down to our own time honor continues to be paid to a
great number of saints not known elsewhere, never canonized by the
Roman church and probably in their origin having little of Christian
character, more than likely Christian representatives of earlier,
local, pagan divinities. The functions of these local Breton saints
are specialized to an extent hardly found elsewhere at the present
time. Ailments are subject to the cure of particular saints. The
specialization is hardly equalled even by that in the modern practice
of medicine. Saint Mamert is invoked in case of pains of the stomach,
Saint Méen for insanity, Saint Hubert for dog bites, Saint Livertin for
headache, Saint Houarniaule for fear, Saint Radegonde for toothache.
There is a certain beauty in the intimate relations existing between
simple people and their divine representative, but the naïve character
of the practice, in a striking manner, brings to one’s realization
the superstitious mode of thought prevalent in medieval times. The
Reformation, in the sixteenth century, did much to dispel these older,
superstitious forms of religious thought. As already remarked, among
Protestants the old reverence of the saints is hardly understood. In
the modern Catholic church, too, the extravagant features of saintly
legend and of saint worship have been largely eliminated, only vestiges
surviving in those provinces little affected by modern progress.
[Illustration: Images of Breton Saints, Preserved at
Moncontour-de-Bretagne.]
Evidence of similar specialization in earlier forms of saint worship,
and of Protestant ridicule of it, is to be found in Barnabe Googe’s
sixteenth-century translations from Naogeorgus[77]:
To every saint they also doe his office here assine,
And fourtene doe they count of whom thou mayst have ayde divine;
* * * * *
Saint Barbara lookes that none without the body of Christ doe dye,
Saint Cathern favours learned men, and gives them wisdome hye;
* * * * *
Saint Appolin the rotten teeth doth helpe, when sore they ake;
Otilla from the bleared eyes the cause and griefe doth take;
* * * * *
Saint Gertrude riddes the house of mise, and killeth all the rattes;
The like doth bishop Huldrich with his earth, two passing cattes;
Saint Gregerie lookes to little boys, to teach their a, b, c,
And makes them for to love their bookes and schollers good to be;
Saint Nicolas keepes the mariners from daunger and diseas
That beaten are with boystrous waves and tost in dreadfull seas.
Not only were the saints invoked for protection against particular
ills, but the guilds, or craft fraternities, had each its patron saint.
Cities and nations also had each its particular saintly guardian, and
individuals, by assuming the names of particular saints, aimed to
establish a protective relationship. Variations in these relationships
existed, but some ones widely recognized were that between St. Agatha
and nurses, St. Catherine and St. Gregory and studious persons, St.
Cecilia and musicians, Saints Cosmas and Damian and physicians, St.
Luke and painters, St. Sebastian and archers, St. Valentine and lovers,
St. Ives and lawyers, Saints Andrew and Joseph and carpenters, St.
George and clothiers, and so on. Of countries Scotland comes under
the care of St. Andrew, England under that of St. George, Ireland
under that of St. Patrick, Wales under that of St. David. St. Anthony
belongs especially to Italy, St. Denis to France, St. Thomas to Spain,
St. Mary to Holland, St. Sebastian to Portugal. Of cities Venice is
under the protection of St. Mark, Florence of St. John, Paris of St.
Genevieve, Vienna of St. Stephen, Cologne of the Holy Magi.[78]
As compared with some of the other saints in affording protection St.
Nicholas is less the specialist and more the general practitioner.
He certainly has his share of duties assigned him. With St. Mary and
St. Andrew he shares the guardianship of Russia, with Olaf that of
Norway,[79] with St. Julian of Rimini, that of the whole eastern coast
of Italy. Of cities he is the patron saint: in the North, of Moscow and
Aberdeen, in the South, of Bari and Corfu, in intermediate countries,
of Amiens, Civray (Poitou), Ancona, Fribourg (Switzerland), and several
places in Lorraine.[80]
The guardianship of St. Nicholas over schoolboys and unwedded maids
has already been discussed. Mention has also been made of St. Nicholas
as patron saint of various crafts in the towns of the Netherlands. To
the list of occupations protected, may be added those of butchers,
fishermen, pilgrims, brewers, chandlers, and coopers,[81] with all
of which St. Nicholas is more or less closely associated as patron
saint. It remains to consider in more detail the part played by St.
Nicholas as the protector of mariners and the less prominent, but not
the less interesting, relationship between St. Nicholas and thieves.
[Illustration: Beato Angelico. St. Nicholas Saves the City in Time of
Famine.
Anderson]
Throughout the Christian world, everywhere, the devotion of sailors to
St. Nicholas is much in evidence. In Greece, where St. Nicholas is one
of the most popularly honored saints, at the present day, according
to a recent authority,[82] “everyone connected with seafaring appeals
to him for protection and relief. All ships and boats carry his ikon
with an ever-burning lamp, and in his chapels, models of boats, coils
of cables, anchors, and such things, are given as votive offerings.
Pirates even used to give him half their booty in gratitude for favors
received. On account of this worship, St. Nicholas has been said to
have supplanted Poseidon, for the cults lie along the same lines.
During a recent strike at the Piræus the seamen swore by St. Nicholas
not to yield, and they would not break their vow although they wished
to compromise. The Archbishop had to come specially to release them
from their oath.”
In Russia, as in Greece, an ikon of St. Nicholas is carried in every
merchantman.[83] In other countries there is plentiful record of
similar association of St. Nicholas with the protection of the sea. In
the Island of Minorca, in the eighteenth century, near the entrance
to the harbor, stood a chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas, to which,
according to an old account, “the sailors resort that have suffered
shipwreck, to return thanks for their preservation, and to hang up
votive pictures (representing the dangers they have escaped), in
gratitude to the saint for the protection he vouchsafed them, and in
accomplishment of the vows they made in the height of the storm.”[84]
In Teutonic countries St. Nicholas played a similar part. In Germany it
was formerly customary for sailors escaped from shipwreck to dedicate
a piece of old sail to St. Nicholas.[85] In every Hanseatic city there
was a church to St. Nicholas, and in Hanseatic cities favorite personal
names were Nicolaus, Claas, Nickelo, and other popular derivatives from
St. Nicholas. There were also churches dedicated to St. Nicholas in
places threatened by injury from water, for instance at Quedlingburg.
In Switzerland, too, St. Nicholas is the patron of travelers by water.
Sailors on the Lake of Lucerne are said to make vows and votive
offerings to him, and by Swiss waters formerly there were everywhere to
be found St. Nicholas chapels.[86]
The association of St. Nicholas with the sea is found in one of the
best known of the incidents in his legend, although, in this case,
even more than the case of the other incidents of his life story, there
is room for question whether he is to be regarded as the protector of
seamen because of the incident in his story, or the incident in the
story originated as an explanation of the veneration paid St. Nicholas
by seamen.
The incident in question is thus recorded in the Golden Legend:
It is read in a chronicle that the blessed Nicholas was at the
Council of Nice; and on a day as a ship with mariners were in
perishing on the sea, they prayed and required devoutly Nicholas,
servant of God, saying: If those things that we have heard of thee
be true, prove them now. And anon a man appeared in his likeness
and said: Lo! see ye me not? ye called me, and then he began to
help them in their exploit of the sea, and anon the tempest ceased.
And when they were come to his church, they knew him without any
man to show him to them, and yet they had never seen him. And then
they thanked God and him of their deliverance. And he bade them to
attribute it to the mercy of God, and to their belief, and nothing
to his merits.
It is worthy of note that the mariners of this story, when in distress,
already know of the reputation of St. Nicholas for efficacy in such
situations, which seems to indicate that in this case story grew from
belief rather than belief from story.
The story of the rescue at sea accomplished by the intervention of the
saint forms a favorite subject for Italian painters, particularly those
of the earlier period. The picture by L. Monaco represents the scene in
a manner delightfully primitive.
The aid afforded by St. Nicholas to mariners in distress also forms the
subject of a story sung in a popular Servian carol,[87] in which there
is much in evidence the peculiar charm of the folk-tale. The story goes
that all the saints, festively assembled, were drinking wine. When the
cup, out of which each drank in turn, was passed to St. Nicholas, he
was too sleepy to hold it, and let it drop. St. Elias shook him by the
arm and aroused him. “Oh! I beg the pardon of the company,” said the
sleepy saint, “but I have been very busy and I was absent from your
festival. The sea was rough, and I had to give my help to three hundred
ships that were in danger.”
[Illustration: L. Monaco. St. Nicholas Rescues the Seamen.
Brogi]
It is not easy to associate St. Nicholas with the thought of severity.
One can hardly conceive of him as a stern judge. Was he open to the
charge of being what is popularly called “easy”? Certain it is that
his beneficence had a wide scope. The universality of his guardianship
can hardly be better illustrated than by the fact that he not only
afforded protection from robbers and shielded the unjustly condemned,
but at the same time shared with St. Dismas the questionable honor of
being the protector of pirates and thieves.
This protective relationship, in Elizabethan times, formed the subject
of a stock jest. Robbers and thieves were facetiously called “St.
Nicholas’ clerks.”
“Sirrah,” says Gadshill, “if they meet not with St. Nicholas’ clerks,
I’ll give thee this neck.”
“No,” rejoins the Chamberlain, “I’ll none of it; I pr’ythee keep that
for the hangman; for I know thou worshipp’st Saint Nicholas as truly as
a man of falsehood may.”[88]
How did St. Nicholas get into such evil associations? It will be
remembered that the seamen protected by him included pirates, and
that Greek pirates are said to have shared their booty with him.
Have these evil associations corrupted his good manners, and has he
thus been brought into association with thieves and robbers? Perhaps
so. But other explanations have been offered. His name has become
associated with that of the “Old Nick” in a way that remains to be
explained. Perhaps in this way he has come to acquire the function of
the “Old Nick,” as the protector of evil. A more plausible explanation
accounts for his association with thieves by the popularly known story,
which formed the subject of one of the St. Nicholas plays, that of
the thieves who had stolen goods left under the guardianship of St.
Nicholas’ image and who were compelled by the saint to restore the
goods and thus brought “to the way of trouth.”
Whatever the cause, the association was one well established. St.
Nicholas’ clerks were well known in Elizabethan times,[89] and are
frequently referred to in literature. There were also lively popular
stories on the subject, one of which forms the subject of a stanza in a
merry St. Nicholas carol.[90]
“Another he dede sekyrly,
He saved a thief that was ful sly,
That stal a swyn out of his sty,
His lyf than savyd he.”