Saint shot by king's hunting arrow
St. Giles was one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers
By Tony Staley
Compass Editor
St. Giles is one of those saints whose biography is in perfect keeping for when he lived - the Middle Ages - when a great deal of fancy was mixed with a little bit of fact. Pass it on through the ages and it's a recipe that guarantees a grand story, even if the facts are a little suspect.
Giles, also called Aegidius, was a native of Athens who fled the city of his birth because he was tired of all the fame and fawning that came his way after he performed a miracle.
So he went to Marseilles and lived for two years at Arles with St. Caesarius. At some time, Giles was ordained to the priesthood.
Next, he became a hermit living at the mouth of the Rhone River. He was kept alive by the milk of a deer he sheltered when the Gothic King Flavius was hunting it. The king was sure the deer had been shot, but when he tracked him down he found Giles with an arrow in him.
The king began visiting Giles regularly and offered to give him land to build a monastery only if Giles would be the abbot.
Other men began coming to the abbey to live as monks and even Charlemagne sought him for spiritual advice. While making his confession to Giles, Charlemagne neglected to mention a sin he had committed. An angel revealed the sin to Giles while he was offering Mass. The abbot asked the king about it. He admitted committing the sin and atoned for it.
His monastery, Saint-Giles, near Arles in Provence, was a popular medieval pilgrimage center since it was on the route to both the Holy Land and Compostela in Spain.
He was widely honored in England and much of Europe. At least 24 hospitals and 162 ancient churches in England were dedicated to St. Giles. There are at least 15 places in France named for him and one of the quarters of Brussels, Belgium, is named in his honor.
In Germany, Giles was the only non-martyr listed among the Fourteen Holy Helpers. This was a group of saints who were said to respond favorably to prayers of petition, especially for physical healing and spiritual healing at death. The saints included Barbara, Blase, Christopher, George and Vitus. Devotion to the Fourteen Holy Helpers was especially common in Germany, Hungary and Sweden, starting in the 14th century, but was discouraged in the 16th century by the Council of Trent.
Is Giles just a tall tale? He probably existed, although the stories we have about him were no doubt greatly exaggerated over the ages.
(Sources: Dictionary of Saints and Lives of the Saints)
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