Feast Day of Saint Denis, cephalophore
October 9th, 2011 Headsman
October 9 marks the feast date of the early Christian martyr Saint Denis.
Guess how he died:
When this missionary bishop to Paris got the Roman chop* for his conversions sometime after 250, he scooped up his own severed noggin and carried it to his preferred burial spot.
Upon that eventual pilgrimage site would spring up a medieval basilica whose 12th century renovation turned it into a pioneer of Gothic architecture.
(Denis is also sort of the namesake for the Parisian hill Montmarte where he’s supposed to have been put to death: “mountain of Mars” in heathen times, it Christianized to mons martyrium, “Martyrs’ Mountain”.)
While many Christian martyrs carry the instruments of their martyrdom in iconography, and a few others roll with the bits of severed flesh exacted by those martyrdoms, Denis is only the most notable of an entire designated sub-class who carry their own heads: cephalophores.
This subject, seemingly tailor-made for a They Might Be Giants song, finally got one in 2011: “You Probably Get That A Lot”.
A most profane footnote was appended to our holy man’s legend during the French Revolution.
Journalist Camille Desmoulins once recklessly sneered of Robespierre‘s vain lieutenant Saint-Just, “He carries his head like a sacred host.”
Saint-Just is supposed to have retorted upon hearing the slight, “I’ll make him carry his like Saint Denis.” He did it, too.
* Two companions, Rusticus and Eleutherius, were doing the same conversions and suffered the same execution. Nobody named cathedrals after them.
On this day..
- 1685: Rebecca Fowler, Chesapeake witch - 2018
- 1601: Nikolaus Krell, Saxon chancellor and Crypto-Calvinist - 2017
- 1646: The effigy of Jean de Mourgues - 2016
- 1938: Ivan Stepanovich Razukhin - 2015
- 1796: Thirty Jacobins for the Affaire du camp de Grenelle - 2014
- 1968: Pierre Mulele, hoodwinked - 2013
- 1569: Vladimir of Staritsa, royal cousin - 2012
- 1401: Llywelyn ap Gruffydd Fychan, an army marching on his stomach - 2010
- 2002: Aileen Wuornos, Monster - 2009
- 1967: Ernesto "Che" Guevara - 2008
Entry Filed under: Ancient,Arts and Literature,Beheaded,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Disfavored Minorities,Execution,France,God,History,Martyrs,Power,Religious Figures,Roman Empire,Torture,Uncertain Dates
Tags: architecture, camille desmoulins, catholicism, cephalophore, christianity, gothic architecture, iconography, living heads, living trunks, montmarte, paris, saint, saint-just, saints, st. denis, they might be giants, tmbg
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