Today’s Patron Saint
April 15th is both the income tax deadline and the feast day for the patron saint of laundresses. Either way, you get taken to the cleaners. Since you probably know the IRS more than you wish, let me introduce you to St. Hunna. She was a German noble of the seventh century who turned her fetish into a sainthood. Hunna liked to wash the poor.
Everyone in 7th century Western Europe was filthy. (You would not want to be a flea in the Dark Ages.) Hunna’s fellow nobles were just as encrusted as the peasants, but at least they could not be bullied by a shrew with a wash rag. The poor, however, were in no position to refuse Lady Hunna. Let’s hope that she coaxed them rather than terrorized them. “I’ll give you a slice of bread if you let me bathe you.” (Footnote for our younger or unattached readers: this is a lousy pickup line. At least offer a whole pizza.)
Soap had yet to be introduced into Europe; those decadent Moslems were inventing it at this time. So Hunna’s method of washing would have been limited to soaking and scraping. She would have washed a body the way that we would clean a pan. The miserable but clean poor: I don’t know if any of them became saints, but they all were martyrs.
Considering how many psychopaths and pyromaniacs have been canonized, Hunna’s fetish does seem comparatively holy. Happy Saint Hunna’s Day to you all