October 18 is the feast date of early Christian (and possibly legendary) martyr-saint Justus of Beauvais.
He’s supposed to have been decapitated for the faith while en route to Amiens, France, around 287, and thereafter scooped up his head in his arms to join the cephalophore club.
The Miracle of Saint Justus, by Peter Paul Rubens (1630s).
Widely venerated in France, he bequeathed the place-name of Saint-Just on a number of villages, which of course makes him by indirect means* the namesake of the French Revolution figure Louis Antoine de Saint-Just — Robespierre’s ferociously irreligious “angel of death” and a great enthusiast of (and eventual prey to) the guillotine.
* As his ancestors come from Oise, the specific “de Saint-Just” in their names might refer to Saint-Just-en-Chaussee.
On this day..
- 1769: Six at Tyburn, "most of them, sir, have never thought at all"
- 2016: Prince Turki bin Saud al-Kadir
- 1942: The Jews of Trunovskoye
- 1769: Six felons at Tyburn, keeping away thoughts of death
- 1862: Ten Confederate hostages in the Palmyra Massacre
- 1943: Antoni Areny, the last executed in Andorra
- 1940: Hans Vollenweider, the last guillotined in Switzerland
- 1749: Bosavern Penlez, whorehouse expropriator
- 1985: Benjamin Moloise, revolutionary poet
- Themed Set: Illegitimate Power
- 1470: John Tiptoft, Butcher of England
- 1672: Thomas Rood, the only incest execution in America
- 31: Sejanus, captain of the Praetorian Guard