The Patron Saint of Knitting

My second entry, so long delayed was going to be about extreme knitting as a movement, its history, its culture and its roots, but at this rushed yet festive time of year I thought I’d discuss something more appropriate for the season.

There is no patron saint of knitting.

Not being Catholic myself, I have always admired the efficiency of patron saints, male and female martyrs designated to hear petitions and prayers from certain professions or persons who find themselves in spiritual need. There is Saint Luke for artists, Saint Christopher for children, Saint Ambrose for beggars, Saint Elmo for sailors, and of course, Saint Jude for lost causes.

There are saints for tanners and leatherworkers (separately), belt makers, gardeners, weavers, basket makers, charcoal burners, taxi-drivers, beekeepers, and translators. There is even a patron saint of Italian prison workers, but there is no saint for knitters.

I have compiled a list of those who come close (though none are official.)  Dare I be so bold as to propose a vote?

Now, it should be noted that many saints have more than one specialty and that a few have been known to share, giving the petitioner the option of whom to pray to for a good brewing (there are at least three for this occupation), or a speedy recovery.

Anastasia of Sirmium – Anastasia died in 304 AD in the Roman city of Sirmium.  A pagan wife and mother, she took to nursing Christian prisoners who were being persecuted by the Roman emperor Diocletian. Having escaped rape, drowning, and starvation, she was ultimately burned to death.  Her relics rest at the Church of Saint Anastasia in Croatia.  She is the patron saint of martyrs and weavers (so not exactly knitting but still a fiber art.)

Saint Anne – Saint Anne is the mother of the Virgin Mary., and it is perhaps her role as an ideal mother that has caused her to be associated with knitting (which is practiced mostly by women which has a strong social and cultural connection to motherhood.)  She is more colloquially held to be the patron saint of knitters, though besides tradition and word-of-mouth I cannot discover a definitive origin of this belief.

Saint Anthony Mary Claret – Saint Anthony is a Spanish saint and the confessor of Isabella II of Spain. The son of a wool merchant he spent his youth as a weaver before entering into the church.  He is the patron saint of weavers (but not knitting.)

Saint Blaise – Saint Blaise’s connection to the fiber arts is a bit more substantial than that of others on this list.  Specifically Blaise is the patron saint of wool combers, having been martyred in the 4th century (in what is now modern day Turkey) by being beaten and attacked with iron combs (aka wool carders), and then beheaded.  But processing wool, and even spinning wool into yarn, is not knitting, just as growing vegetables is not the same as cooking.

Saint Catherine – Saint Catherine was martyred in 4th century Egypt by beheading. What’s the knitting connection?  Her pagan executioners initially intended to kill Catherine by rolling her on a wheel of spikes, and thus she is the patron saint of spinners (as well as the patron saint of unwed women.)  Like most saints, she is depicted with the image of her martyrdom, a broken wheel, as the wheel miraculously broke before her torture (hence the beheading.)  However, spinning is not quite the same as knitting.

Clare of Assisi – A follower of Saint Francis of Assisi, Clare died in 1253 at the age of 59. Though she was not martyred, she lived a life of strict poverty, eventually dying of ill health.  She is the patron saint of embroiderers and needle workers, as well as goldsmiths, laundry (not launderers), and gilders.  While needleworkers is a term that could technically encompass knitters and knitting, it lacks the specificity that other professions and activities enjoy (see tanners and leatherworkers above.)  Also, knitting needles and embroidery needles are very different.

Saint Fiacre – In 1527 a Paris guild of knitters was named for him, though he himself seems to have no direct connection to the fiber arts (though arguably neither does Saint Anastasia.) A frenchman by birth, Fiacre moved to Ireland in the 7th century to devote his life more fully to God.  There he gardened and cared for sick travelers, though no women were not allowed in his hermitage.  The patron saint of gardeners and cab drivers, he is probably not the best candidate for patron saint of knitters being that knitting is a vocation practiced mostly (though by no means entirely) by women.  He is also the patron saint of those afflicted with venereal disease.

St Quilta the Comforter – Contemporary quilter Susan Shie includes an image of St. Quilta the Comforter (a Saint of Shie’s own creation) on one of her art quilts.  Shie’s narrative work often touches on the spiritual, though by no means is overtly religious.  Quilta herself is shown as a full-bodied woman sitting crosslegged on a blanket (or more likely a quilt), the iconography of which is more reminiscent of Buddha or Eastern dieties than that of a Catholic Saint.

Frigg and Holda –  These women are not saints, nor are they even Catholic. I mention these ladies so as not to neglect the long tradition of pagan (non Christian) female deities and legends who are associated with the fiber arts, many of whom predate Catholicism: the Aztec goddess Xochiquetzal for example, or Arachne of Greek myth  There is simply not room for them all, nor do I feel confident in my knowledge of non-Western cultures to do them justice here.  I have chosen Frigg and Holda, therefore, for reasons which will become clear.

Frigg comes to us from Norse myth.  The wife of Odin, she is known primarily as the goddess of wisdom and knowledge. Like Saint Anne, Frigg is an idealized mother figure and it is likely her association with motherhood and the duties of the home which enough to put her in charge of, in a spiritual sense at least, the fiber arts. On a fun and macabre note, the Old Norse text the “Song of the Spear“, from the “Njals Saga“, gives a detailed description of Valkyries weaving on a loom, with severed heads for weights, arrows for shuttles, and human gut for the warp, singing an exultant song of carnage (Wikipedia, Frigg.)  Leave it to the Vikings to relate something as homey and comforting as weaving, to the violent and the visceral.  But again, weaving is not knitting, though ostensibly it could be done with arrows.

Holda fills much the same role in Germanic myth as Frigg does in Norse myth, but Holda is not a goddess.  Holda is more of a legend, a quasi-supernatural protector of women, whose concerns are women’s crafts and agriculture.  It should come as no surprise that female dieties are often associated with nurturing and comforting behaviors and tasks.  Holda, even more than Frigg, personifies the nurturing woman, for Holda is not, like Frigg, also in charge of Wisdom, and Holda’s name originates from many Norse words, all of which mean gracious, or friendly, or kind, or some similar synonym.

Madame DeFrage – Literature’s most famous knitter, Madame DeFrage, is one of the strangest ambassador’s of knitting one could imagine.  DeFrage’s role in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities is to represent memory, and justice, and she has been compared to the fates, for the fates in Greek myth metered out men’s lives in thread.  She is however, totally unforgiving and would be better suited to be the saint of revenge than of knitting, (and a saint of revenge would never exist in Catholic cannon anyway, as it goes directly against doctrine.)  Why then do I mention DeFarge?  Because she is one of the most patron of knitting, and her role stands in high contrast to the Christian saints and loving mother’s aforementioned.  For those not familiar with A Tale of Two Cities, DeFarge is the wife of a wine shop owner, whose premises is the secret gathering location for 18th revolutionaries  preparing to overthrow the king and the aristocracy for there many injustices.  It is DeFarge’s wife, Madame DeFrage who is always watching, always sewing the seeds of discontent (even as she knits seed stitch.)  Never seen without her knitting, her bits needlework, it turns out, are patterned in a secret code which records the names of those who have committed injustices against the people, and serves ultimately as there death warrant.  DeFarge is a far cry from Holda, or Frigg, but stands as an example none-the-less of the power of knitting.  Always overlooked, she bids her time, purling each name with great care, the most subversive stitcher of all time.

Elizabeth Zimmerman –

St. Fiberica –