Feria Days

This week’s liturgical calendar is a light one as far as feast days for saints and martyrs.  On September 5, we might honor St. Boris and Gleb, princes of Kiev.  Or we might celebrate the nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Saturday, September 8 (in case we don’t get enough of her throughout the year).  Alexander Crummell, whose feast day is September 10, is another possibility for discussion.  (He’s actually rather interesting--read briefly about him below.)  But if you look at the liturgical calendar, you will notice three days this week labeled “feria”.  This, I think, will be the greater topic of this week’s essay.  But first, let’s give a tip of the hat to the week’s saints.

Boris and Gleb, also known as Saints Romanus and David, were two of the many sons of Vladimir I of Kiev.  They lived in the late 10^th century and were both assassinated in between 1015 and 1019a.d.  Christianity was officially established in Russia in 988a.d. when Vladimir I of Kiev instituted Eastern Orthodoxy largely for political benefits.  His sons Boris and Gleb, who were city-state rulers in their own right, were baptized and became strong proponents of Christianity.   When their father, Vladimir the Great, was assassinated, his numerous sons violently vied for power.  Boris and Gleb both not only renounced whatever claims they had to the Kievan throne, but abdicated from their current holdings in order that they might better serve God as evangelists and baptizers.  But their brother Sviatopolk did not trust his brothers’ faith and had them assassinated.  They were canonized together in 1071.

Alexander Crummell was a free-born African-American who became an ordained Episcopal priest in 1842. His mother, also free-born, and his father, a manumitted slave, instilled in him a strong sense of racial solidarity that developed into a more general consideration of all human rights or “natural rights”.  He spoke tirelessly as an abolitionist not only in America, but in England and Liberia as well.  While attending Oneida Institute, he made the decision to become an Episcopal priest.  He was denied admission to General Theological Seminary due to his race, but eventually earned his Holy Orders.  He traveled to England and enrolled in Queen’s College at Cambridge University where, because of racial discrimination, he had to take his final exams twice in order to receive his degree. He was the first black student to study and graduate from Cambridge.  Crummell spent time as a missionary in Liberia (a nation developed by freed American slaves).  He was reputed to be a stern man whose very high standards of morality made him unpopular with many of his congregations.  He founded St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Washington, DC, which is listed as a National Historic Landmark.  Alexander Crummell is remembered on September 10.

Most of this week consists of “feria” days.  In ecclesiastical language, feria is a week day where there is no feast day.  Now, this is curious since the Latin word feria had come to mean “festival day” directly because of the Church’s influence.  In actuality, feria is the Latin term for “free day.”  In ancient Rome, a feria day was a day in which people—especially slaves—were not obligated to work; it was a holiday.  As Christianity spread, the Church capitalized on these legal free days and obligated the faithful to attend Mass.  These special feria days became ideal times to celebrate specific saints.  Hence, “feast days” really were celebrated with feasts. 

During medieval times when the Church’s authority was universal, these Saint’s days would draw significant numbers of people.  Out of both necessity and convenience, enterprising merchants would set up booths on the commons.  With additional entertainment provided by troubadours and traveling players, these extemporaneous markets became known as “feyres” or “fayres” or “fairs”.  One of the most famous, St. Bartholomew’s Fair in London, ran every year from 1133 to 1855.   Today, we still enjoy a festive fair.  It is not necessarily by coincidence that in America, most state fairs occur on or around Labor Day. Labor Day is America’s own authentic feria wherein laborers are not obligated to labor and as such, are free to enjoy “the fair”.  Still, with the abundance of Saints meriting their own feast day, the Church calendar became fraught with feast days.  There became too many feast days to line up with the official feria days.  Thus, the term feria had come full circle and once again means “free day.”