Saint Giles
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Giles (Aegidius) (d. c.710), hermit. All that is known of this saint, who became immensely popular in the Middle Ages, is that he was born in the early 7th century and founded a monastery at the place later called Saint-Gilles (Provence) on land given by a King Wamba. His shrine became an important pilgrimage centre on the route for both Compostela and the Holy Land as well as in its own right. The 10th-century Legend, a tissue of borrowing from other Lives, was most influential. This made him an Athenian by birth, who became a hermit near the mouth of the Rhône not far from Nímes, attracted to the area by the renown of Caesarius of Arles. While out hunting King Wamba was in pursuit of a hind; he shot an arrow at it which wounded and crippled Giles, with whom the hind had taken refuge. Another legend made an emperor (wrongly identified as Charlemagne) seek forgiveness from him for a sin he did not dare confess, but while Giles said Mass next day he saw in a chart written by an angel the nature of the sin in question: the letters disappeared as Giles's prayers were so efficacious. Towards the end of his life Giles went to Rome and offered his monastery to the pope (thereby acquiring privileges and protection); the pope gave him two doors of cypress wood which the saint threw into the sea but which were transported to a beach near his monastery.
From Provence (called provincia sancti Aegidii) his cult spread, partly through Crusaders, to other parts of Europe. His patronage of cripples, lepers, and nursing mothers (based on the story of his giving shelter to the hind), aided by the belief that the invocation of Giles was so effective that his clients did not need full auricular confession, contributed powerfully to his popularity. In England 162 ancient churches were dedicated to him and at least twenty-four hospitals. The most famous in Britain are St. Giles at Edinburgh and St. Giles, Cripplegate, London. His feast was celebrated by all English Benedictine monasteries and the Sarum rite, as elsewhere in Europe. His artistic representations are either of a simple abbot with staff (as on Norfolk screens at Hempstead and Smallburgh), or of cycles of his life (as in 13th-century glass at Chartres and Amiens or the frescoes in the crypt of Saint-Aignan-sur-Cher), or of the incidents mentioned above of his protecting the hind (misericord of Ely Cathedral), or of the Mass of St. Giles (National Gallery, London).
The diffusion of his cult did not save its centre from becoming poverty-stricken in the late Middle Ages when offerings at his shrine, on which the monks had depended too exclusively, were greatly reduced, and the community looked to special exhibitions of the relics, aided by papal indulgences, to restore their income. At least two famous fairs in England are connected with St. Giles' Day: one in Winchester, no longer extant; the other at Oxford, which has lost its original purpose of buying and selling local produce, but survives as a funfair. Late in the Middle Ages Giles was reckoned in Germany as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. His churches are often found at road junctions, which travellers could visit while their horses were being shod in smithies near by, of which Giles was also patron. Feast: 1 September.
Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.
- AA.SS. Sept. I (1746), 284–304 with Propylaeum, p. 373; G. Paris (ed.), La Vie de Saint Gile (metrical Life by William of Barnwell) (1881); Liber Miraculorum S. Aegidii (ed. P. Jaffé), M.G.H., Scriptores, xii (1861), 316–23, also in Anal. Boll., ix (1890), 393–422; E. E. Jones, Saint Gilles (1914); F. Brittain, Saint Giles (1928); J. Sumption, Pilgrimage (1975)
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Saint Giles
For other uses, see Saint Giles (disambiguation).
| Saint Giles | |
|---|---|
 Detail of Saint Giles and the Hind, by the Master of Saint Giles c. 1500 |
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| Abbot | |
| Born | c. 650[1] Athens, Greece |
| Died | c. 710[1] Septimania (Languedoc, Southern France) |
| Honored in | Roman Catholic Church, Anglican Communion |
| Canonized | Pre-Congregation |
| Major shrine | St. Giles' Cathedral (Edinburgh, Scotland) |
| Feast | September 1 |
| Attributes | arrow; crosier; hermitage; hind |
| Patronage | beggars; blacksmiths; breast cancer; breast feeding; cancer patients; disabled people; Edinburgh (Scotland); epilepsy; fear of night; noctiphobics; forests; hermits; horses; lepers; mental illness; outcasts; poor peoples; rams; spur makers; sterility; |
Saint Giles (Greek: Αἰγίδιος, Latin: Ægidius, French: Gilles, Hungarian: Egyed, Polish: Idzi, Italian: Egidio, Spanish: Egidio, Catalan: Gil) (c. 650 – c. 710) was a Greek[2] Christian hermit saint from Athens, whose legend is centered in Provence and Septimania. The tomb in the abbey Giles was said to have founded, in St-Gilles-du-Gard, became a place of pilgrimage and a stop on the road that led from Arles to Santiago de Compostela, the pilgrim Way of St. James. He is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers.
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Contents
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Life
Giles first lived in retreats near the mouth of the Rhône and by the River Gard, in Septimania, today's southern France. The story that he was the son of King Theodore and Queen Pelagia of Athens[3] is probably an embellishment of his early hagiographers; it was given wide currency in the Legenda Aurea. The two main incidents in his life were often depicted in art. Giles ate a vegetarian diet.[4]
His early history, as given in Legenda Aurea (Golden Legend), links him with Arles, but finally he withdrew deep into the forest near Nîmes, where in the greatest solitude he spent many years, his sole companion being a deer, or Red Deer, who in some stories sustained him on her milk.[5] This last retreat was finally discovered by the king's hunters, who had pursued the hind to its place of refuge. An arrow shot at the deer wounded the saint instead, who afterwards became a patron of cripples. The king, who by legend was Wamba, an anachronistic Visigoth, but who must have been (at least in the original story) a Frank due to the historical setting,[6] conceived a high esteem for the hermit, whose humility rejected all honors save some disciples, and built him a monastery in his valley, Saint-Gilles-du-Gard, which he placed under the Benedictine rule. Here Giles died in the early part of the eighth century, with the highest repute for sanctity and miracles.
A 10th century Vita sancti Aegidii recounts that, as Giles was celebrating mass to pardon the emperor Charlemagne's sins, an angel deposited upon the altar a letter outlining a sin so terrible Charlemagne had never dared confess it. Several Latin and French texts, including Legenda Aurea refer to this hidden "sin of Charlemagne". This legend, however, would be contradicted by generally accepted later dates for the life of Charlemagne (approximately 742 – 28 January 814).
A later text, the Liber miraculorum sancti Aegidii ("The Book of miracles of Saint Giles") served to reinforce the flow of pilgrims to the abbey.
Veneration
Around the abbey allegedly founded by him in the 7th century, sprang up the town of St-Gilles-du-Gard. The abbey (which was re-dedicated to him in the 10th century) remained the center of his cult, which was particularly strong in Languedoc, even after a rival body of Saint Giles appeared at Toulouse.[7] His cult spread rapidly far and wide throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, as is witnessed by the countless churches and monasteries dedicated to him in France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Great Britain; by the numerous manuscripts in prose and verse commemorating his virtues and miracles; and especially by the vast concourse of pilgrims who from all Europe flocked to his shrine.
In 1562, the relics of the saint were secretly transferred to Toulouse to save them from the Huguenots and the level of pilgrimages declined. With the restoration of a great part of the relics to the abbey of Saint-Gilles-du-Gard in 1862, and the publicized rediscovery of his former tomb there in 1865, the pilgrimages recommenced.
Besides Saint-Gilles-du-Gard, nineteen other cities bear his name. Cities that possess relics of St. Giles include Saint-Gilles, Toulouse and a multitude of other French cities, Antwerp, Brugge and Tournai in Belgium, Cologne and Bamberg in Germany, Rome and Bologna in Italy, Prague in Czech Republic, and Esztergom in Hungary. The lay Community of Sant'Egidio is named after his church in Rome, Sant'Egidio. Giles is also the patron saint of Edinburgh, Scotland, where St. Giles' Cathedral is a prominent landmark.
The centuries-long presence of Crusaders, many of them of French origin, left the name of Saint Giles in some locations in the Middle East. Raymond of St Gilles lent his name to St. Gilles Castle (Arabic: Qala’at Sanjil) in Tripoli, Lebanon.[8]
In medieval art, he is depicted with his symbol, the hind. His emblem is also an arrow, and he is the patron saint of cripples. Giles is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, and the only non-martyr, initially invoked as protection against the Black Death. His feast day is September 1.
The Master of Saint Gilles is an anonymous Late Gothic painter. The artist was given the title as the first work attributed to him were two works with Saint Giles as the subject now in the National Gallery, London.
See also
References
- ^ a b "The West Portal of Saint-Gilles-du-Gard," by R. J. Gangewere, Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, September/October 2003.
- ^ Wyschogrod (1990), p. 27; Chaucer and Schmidt (1976), p. 161, Note #632.
- ^ Compare the incipit of his early (12th century) vita in the Cologne "Legendae Sanctorum," Dombibliothek Codex 167, fol. 97r-101v [1].
- ^ Roberts, Holly Harlayne (2004-09-01). Vegetarian Christian Saints: Mystics, Ascetics & Monks. New York: Anjeli Press. p. 186. ISBN 978-0-9754844-0-1. http://books.google.com/books?id=ZEuamyoZIXwC&printsec=frontcover. Retrieved 2010-12-09. Lay summary. "... consuming only vegetation, such as wild herbs and roots."
- ^ Compare the mytheme of the doe nurturing Heracles' son Telephus.
- ^ He is Charles in Legenda Aurea.
- ^ Pierre-Gilles Girault, 2002. "Observations sur le culte de saint Gilles dans le Midi", in Hagiographie et culte des saints en France méridionale (XIIIe-XVe siècle), Cahiers de Fanjeaux 37, pp. 431-454.
- ^ "History of Lebanon", mountlebanon.org. See photo by Børre Ludvigsen, 1995 at almashriq.hiof.no
Sources
- Vita sancti Aegidii (Acta sanctorum, 9 September, 299-304)
- Legenda Aurea, 130: Sanctus Egidius (On-line text, in Caxton's translation)
- Chaucer, Geoffrey; Schmidt, Aubrey Vincent Carlyle (1976). The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales and the Canon's Yeoman's Prologue and Tale. Holmes & Meier. ISBN 0-8419-0219-4.
- Wyschogrod, Edith (1990). Saints and Postmodernism: Revisioning Moral Philosophy. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-92043-7.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Saint Giles |
- Catholic Encyclopedia: St. Giles
- St. Giles, Abbot from The Lives of the Saints by Alban Butler
- The Carnegie Museum of Art: St. Gilles
- Eric White, "Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Gilles"
- Regordane Info - The independent portal for The Regordane Way or St Gilles Trail, which commences at St-Gilles-du-Gard. (English) and (French)
- St. Gilles Castle, Tripoli, Lebanon
- Church of Saint Giles, Prague (English)
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Oxford Dictionary of Saints
The Oxford Dictionary of Saints. Copyright © David Hugh Farmer 1978, 1987, 1992, 1997, 2003, 2004. All rights reserved.
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