Saint Giles

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Saint Giles
Image:14Nothelfer.JPG
Hermit
Born	Athens, Greece
Died	6th century, France
Feast	September 1
Attributes	arrow; crosier; hermitage; hind; saint accompanied by a hind
Patronage	against noctiphobia; beggars; blacksmiths; breast cancer; breast feeding; cancer patients; cripples; disabled people; Edinburgh Scotland; epilepsy; epileptics; fear of night; forests; handicapped people; hermits; horses; insanity; lepers; leprosy; mental illness; mentally ill people; noctiphobics; physically challenged people; paupers; poor people; rams; spur makers; sterility; woods

Saint Giles (640?-720?) (Latin: Ægidius, French: Gilles, Italian: Egidio) was a 7th-8th century Christian hermit saint.

1 Life
2 Memory
3 Other Saint Giles
4 External link

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Life

Giles first lived in retreats near the mouth of the Rhône and by the River Gard, in today's southern France. (The story that he was the son of King Theodore and Queen Pelagiaof Athens is probably an embellishment of his early hagiographers.)

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 hind, who in some stories sustains him on its milk. 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 period, conceived a high esteem for the solitary hermit, whose humility rejected all honors save some disciples, and built him a monastery in his valley, which he placed under the Benedictine rule. Here Giles died in the early part of the 8th century, with the highest repute for sanctity and miracles.

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Memory

Around his tomb in the abbey sprang up the town of St-Gilles-du-Gard. His cult spread rapidly far and wide throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, as is witnessed by the numberless 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.

He is the patron saint of Edinburgh, Scotland.

In 1562 the relics of the saint were secretly transferred to Toulouse to save them from the anger of the Huguenots and the level of pilgrimages declined. With the restoration of a great part of the relics to the church of St. Giles in 1862, and the publicized rediscovery of his former tomb there in 1865, the pilgrimages recommenced.

Besides the city of St-Gilles, which sprang up around the abbey, nineteen other cities bear his name. St-Gilles, Toulouse, and a multitude of French cities, Antwerp, Brugge, and Tournai in Belgium, Cologne and Bamberg, in Germany, Prague and Gran, Rome and Bologna in Italy, possess relics of St Giles. The lay Community of Sant'Egidio is named after his church in Rome.

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.

Churches named after him include:

St Giles-without-Cripplegate in London.
St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh.
St Giles, in the district of that name, Lincoln, Lincolnshire.
In Chalfont St Giles both church and village are named after him.
St Giles church (14th-16th centuries) in Burgos, Spain.
Sant'Egidio in Trastevere, Rome
St Giles Church, in Wrexham. One of the Severn Wonders of Wales.
St. Aegidius Church in Bardejov, Slovakia (13th-15th century).

See also Saint-Gilles, for a list of places named after him in France.

His feast day is September 1.

The fifth book in the Brother Cadfael murder mystery series by Ellis Peters is titled The Leper of Saint Giles.

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Other Saint Giles

He shares his feast day with another St Giles, an Italian hermit of the 10th century and a Blessed Giles, (d. about 1203) a Cistercian abbot of Castaneda in the Diocese of Astorga, Spain. Blessed Aegidius of Assisi is also known as Blessed Giles.