There are few saints who are honored with such epic poetry as St. Crispin. If St. Crispin’s name sounds familiar, it is most likely connected to memories of high school English classes, as Crispin’s name has a central role in King Henry’s climactic speech in Shakespeare’s history play, Henry V.

The speech begins in response to the Earl of Westmoreland who despairingly cries:

O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

No, replies Henry:

If we are mark’d to die, we are enough
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.

Henry and his English army are facing terrible odds. They have been fighting on French soil for several weeks. Their ranks are depleted and the men are exhausted. The battle they face, the Battle of Agincourt, is a decisive battle in the Hundred Year’s War between France and England. As they face overwhelming odds, Henry dismisses anyone who would rather not fight, saying:

He which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.

Henry rallies the flagging spirits of his army, painting for them a vivid picture of how they will remember this feast into their old age:
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian:’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’
For them, the feast of Crispin will be a sacred day that will remind them of this great battle.

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day:

But it will not simply remind them of his own physical prowess or the violence of the fight, it will remind him of the fellowship that each of the men shared with one another, no matter their status or class; peasant and king, on Crispin’s day, they placed their trust in one another and, together, won the victory at Agincourt:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother.

Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 film adaption of the Shakespeare play features a rousing version of the speech, set to a stirring score, composed by Patrick Doyle.

Crispin’s legend is also a contested legend between France and Britain. The French legend has it that Crispin and Crispinian, brothers from a noble family in ancient Rome, went to Gaul—modern-day France— with St. Quintinus to preach the Gospel. The British legend of these two saints holds that the two brothers were on the way to London from Canterbury when they came to a shoemaker’s shop in Faversham and decided to stay in this small village and share the Gospel. Despite disagreeing about their location, both British and French legends agree on the brothers’ occupation. During the daytime, Crispin and Crispinian worked as evangelists, preaching the Gospel to any resident of the town who would listen, and, at night, they worked the graveyard shift as cobblers.

The brothers made and repaired shoes for free for their customers, as it allowed them to continue their day job of preaching, as they were able to speak about Christ to their customers when they came to order their shoes, pick up their order, or wait while the shoes were mended.

Eventually, around the year 285 AD, the brutal emperor Diocletian caught wind of the cobblers who were clandestine preachers. He ordered the governor of their region to capture the brothers, torture them and throw them into a river with millstones around their neck. When the brothers miraculously survived the torture, the emperor had them both beheaded. The brothers are patron saints of shoemakers and leatherworkers, and St. Crispin is depicted in one of the stained glass windows in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on Notre Dame’s campus.

Although Crispin himself is now an obscure legend, Shakespeare’s brilliant writing has immortalized his name. Just as Henry promises his troops that their names will be immortalized in fighting this good fight together, so, too has Shakespeare’s beautiful art immortalized the name of an ordinary man who won for himself eternal glory, not by fighting a physical battle, but by fighting the good fight of faith (2 Tim 4:7).

St. Crispin, the shoemaker who traded new soles for new souls—pray for us!