On this day – 3rd February

St Blaises Day:

Saints like clothes go in and out of fashion. St Blaize, alternatively Blaise or Blaze, combines the two ideas, as his celebrity waned when the industrial revolution reduced the importance of artisan wool-working.

Blaize it seems was a physician, associated with cures both miraculous and practical, especially of the throat. He was also a bishop in what is now Sivas in Turkey, where he was horribly martyred (can you be nicely martyred?) by being raked with steel combs.

Because of those combs he became the patron saint of woolworkers, once a vital trade in these islands; and because of his name it was traditional to light great fires on his saint's day, February 3.

Areas where wool was of greatest importance – Yorkshire and Norwich in particular – held great parades on his feast; and St Blazey in Cornwall is named for him.

The Sivas Congress was held in 1919

What significance does it have?

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