24th of August - St. Bartholomews Day
24th of August is the 236th day of the year
St. Bartholomews Day:
Saint Bartholomew was one of Christ’s twelve apostles, who the story goes journeyed in India and perhaps Ethiopia, Parthia (Northern Iran), and Mesopotamia. For reasons that are unclear he was a particularly popular saint in medieval England (martyred by being flayed alive he was often depicted carrying his own skin – and was patron saint of tanners). One of the churches dedicated to him, the Priory of St Bartholomew in Smithfield, was granted the right to hold a fair by Henry I, which for obvious reasons would commence on St Bartholomew’s Day. At one time it lasted for a full two weeks. Even after the dissolution the fair continued with the City of London controlling it – the fair was synonymous with the pleasures (legal and otherwise) of summer in the capital, attracting not only traders but entertainers from dancers and musicians to what we would call side-shows. The last fair took place in 1855.
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