[I've removed a rather bilious late-night post from yesterday.]

Today is the saint's day of Guillem de Gellone, who began appearing somewhat to my own surprise toward the end of the longy-long poem Forth of July. He pops up in some of the shorter poems too lately.

He was a military officer under Charlemagne, who later took holy orders and founded a monastic community in southern France, on the coast near Narbonne (Gellone). His real &/or legendary exploits in Charlemagne's Spanish campaigns turn up in several of the early chansons de geste. I like to think that he's an (extremely distant) ancestor (which was traced through my maternal grandmother's family by a genealogist on the web).

This is also the anniversary of William Blackstone's burial at his Study Hill, in Cumberland.

Tomorrow's the 551st anniversary of the fall of Constantinople (1453). I'm going down to NYC to see the Byzantium show at the Met tomorrow, for my 52nd birthday (5/29).