Giles, St

Giles, St (Lat. Ægidius), was an Athenian of royal descent, devoted from his cradle to good works. After giving away his entire patrimony, he lived two years with St Cæsius at Arles in Provence, and then retired alone to a neighbouring desert, where he sustained nature upon herbs and the milk of a hind that came of herself to his cave. Once, on a hunting expedition, the king of France, following up the track of the hind, discovered Ægidius, and compelled him to become the first abbot of a monastery he built upon the spot. Here he died. His festival falls upon 1st September. In the 6th century there was an abbot in Provence named Ægidius, but the date of the saint is usually given as about the close of the 7th century. He early became regarded as especially the patron of lepers, beggars, and cripples, and his cult spread quickly over England, France, and Germany. In London, the church of St Giles, Cripplegate, and the leper hospital at St Giles-in-the-Fields, and in Edinburgh the High Kirk of St Giles still commemorate his name. See Rembry, St Gilles, sa Vie, ses Reliques, son Culte (Bruges, 1884).