22nd of November - St Cecilias Day
22nd of November is the 326th day of the year
St Cecilias Day:
St Cecilia’s feast day has endured ups and downs over the centuries, in the 20th enjoying something of a revival because of her association with music and the coincidence of perhaps our greatest composer of the period, Britten, being born on November 22nd. The legend is that she was a young Christian girl in 5th century Rome, determined to remain pure yet betrothed by her family to one Valerian. He and his brother were martyred after she converted them to the new faith, and she followed soon after, first boiled or roasted to no ill effect, then her head part-severed by an axeman too overcome to finish his work. Quite why she became the patron saint of musicians is unclear: she is said to have sung religious paens well, and oddly to have invented the organ. Cecilia is mentioned in Chaucer, and it seems her light shone brightly in his time; and again in the late 17th and 18th centuries the likes of Pope, Dryden, Purcell and Addison wove her into their works.
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