An
Abbot,
said to have been born of illustrious Athenian parentage
about the middle of the seventh century. Early in
life he devoted himself exclusively to spiritual things,
but, finding his noble birth and high repute for
sanctity in his native land an obstacle to his
perfection, he passed over to
Gaul,
where he established himself first in a wilderness near the
mouth of the Rhone and later by the River Gard. But here
again the fame of his
sanctity drew multitudes to him, so he withdrew to a
dense forest near
Nīmes,
where in the greatest solitude he spent many years, his sole
companion being a hind. This last
retreat
was finally discovered by the king's hunters, who had
pursued the hind to its place of refuge. The king [who
according to the legend was Wamba (or
Flavius?), King of the
Visigoths, but who must have been a
Frank,
since the
Franks
had expelled the
Visigoths from the neighbourhood of
Nīmes
almost a century and a half earlier] conceived a high esteem
for solitary, and would have heaped every
honour
upon him; but the
humility of the
saint
was
proof against all
temptations. He
consented, however, to receive thenceforth some
disciples, and built a
monastery in his valley, which he placed under the
rule of
St. Benedict. Here he died in the early part of the
eighth century, with the highest repute for
sanctity and
miracles.
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,
Germany,
Poland,
Hungary,
and the British Isles; 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 hideous excesses of the
Huguenots who were then ravaging
France,
and the
pilgrimage in consequence declined. With the restoration
of a great part of the
relics
to the
church of St. Giles in 1862, and the discovery of
his former
tomb
there in 1865, the
pilgrimages have 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, Bridges, and
Tournai
in
Belgium,
Cologne
and
Bamberg,
in
Germany,
Prague
and
Gran in
Austria-Hungary,
Rome
and Bologna in
Italy,
possess celebrated
relics
of St. Giles. In
medieval art he is a frequent subject, being always
depicted with his symbol, the hind. His
feast
is kept on 1 September. On this day there are also
commemorated another St. Giles, an Italian
hermit of the tenth century (Acta SS., XLI, 305), and a
Blessed Giles, d. about 1203, a Cistercian
abbot of Castaneda in the Diocese of Astorga, Spain (op.
cit. XLI, 308).
