13 December 2017

13th of December

Manuscript Advent Calendar

A light in the dark

(Click on the picture for a larger version)

According to the medieval calendar (see our post on the 1st of December) the feast day of St Lucy is to be celebrated on the day before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, that is today on the 13th of December.

Tradition has it that St Lucy was sentenced to be burned at the stake, but the fire would not touch her. She was finally put to death by sword on the 13th of December 304 AD in her native Syracuse.

While there are no pictures of St Lucy in the Arnamagnæan Collection, AM 429 12mo (Kirkjubæarbók) dated to around 1500 contains many stories of her "colleagues", as it were, the other virgin martyrs. Thus we see St Margaret of Antioch slaying first a dragon, then the Devil and finally being beheaded, St Catharine of Alexandria and her wheel, St Cecilia with a sword and a book stabbing a man, St Agnes, St Agatha (depicted with a lamb, though this is usually associated with St Agnes) and St Barbara.