Saint Giles

Giles first lived in retreats near the mouth of the Rhône and by the River Gard in Septimania, in 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 legend were often depicted in art.

The Legenda Aurea 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 his dear deer, or red deer, who in some stories sustained him on her milk.[4] Giles ate a Christian vegetarian diet.[5] This 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 the physically disabled. The king, by legend, was Wamba, an anachronistic Visigoth, but must have been a Frank in the original story due to the historical setting.[6] He held the hermit in high esteem for his humility in rejecting all honors save having some disciples. Wamba built him a monastery in his valley, Saint-Gilles-du-Gard, which Giles placed under the Benedictine rule. He died there in the early part of the 8th 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 the Legenda Aurea refer to this hidden "sin of Charlemagne". This legend, however, contradicts the well established 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.

St Giles, painting by Hans Memling in St Anne's Museum, Lübeck.

The town of St-Gilles-du-Gard sprang up around the abbey allegedly founded by him in the 7th century. That 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 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 protect them from the Huguenots and the level of pilgrimages declined. The restoration of most of the relics to the abbey of Saint-Gilles-du-Gard in 1862, and the publicized rediscovery of his former tomb there in 1865, helped the pilgrimages recommence. [8]

Saint Giles is the patron saint of cripples and is also invoked as a saint for childhood fears, convulsions, depression, particularly in Normandy, for example in Eure Iville, Saint-Germain-Village or Bernay or in Calvados, Gilles Touques. In medieval art, he is depicted with his symbol, the hind.[8] His emblem is also an arrow. 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 1 September.

Besides Saint-Gilles-du-Gard, nineteen other cities bear his name. Cities that possess relics of St. Giles include Saint-Gilles, Toulouse and many other French cities, including Antwerp, Brugge and Tournai in Belgium, Cologne and Bamberg in Germany (known as Egidien), Rome and Bologna in Italy, [8] Prague in the Czech Republic, and Esztergom in Hungary. Giles is also the patron saint of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, where St. Giles' High Kirk is a prominent landmark. He is also the patron saint of Graz, Nuremberg, Osnabrück, Sankt Gilgen, Brunswick, Wollaberg, Saint-Gilles (Brussels Capital Region) and Saint-Gillis-Waas. In 1630, the church of Sant'Egidio in Trastevere in Rome was dedicated to him, and which since 1968 has housed the lay Community of Sant'Egidio.

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.[9]

• Basilica of St. Giles
• Chalfont St Giles
• Early Middle Ages
• Saint Giles, patron saint archive
• St Giles' Cathedral
• Visigothic Kingdom

• 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.

Wikisource has the text of a 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article about Saint Giles.

• Media related to Saint Giles at Wikimedia Commons
• St. Giles, Abbot from The Lives of the Saints by Alban Butler
• The Carnegie Museum of Art: St. Gilles
• Saint Giles, Abbot and Confessor at the Christian Iconography web site
• Here Followeth the Life of St. Giles from Caxton's translation of the Golden Legend