Saint / folklore
San Rocco
Background
Roch, also called Rock in English, was a Majorcan Catholic confessor whose death is commemorated on 16 August and 9 September in Italy; he was especially invoked against the plague.
St Roch (c. 1295–1327) was, according to his legend, a nobleman from Montpellier. He gave away his wealth and set out on pilgrimage to Rome, nursing plague victims on the way. When he caught the disease himself, he withdrew into a forest. A dog brought him bread every day until he recovered.
He became the great plague saint of late-medieval Europe, alongside St Sebastian. He is easy to recognise: a pilgrim with staff and cockleshell, lifting his tunic to show a sore on his thigh, with a dog at his side carrying a loaf. Towns all over Italy built churches to him after epidemics, and he is also the patron of dogs and dog-lovers. The “patron of coitus reservatus” in the book is Lewis’s own joke.
In Naples ’44
Advising the exhausted Captain Frazer, Lewis recommends a medal of San Rocco — ‘patron of coitus reservatus’ — to be had in any religious-supplies shop.
Appears in 1 diary entry.
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October 28 1943
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