Aegidius, St

Aegidius, ST., is considered by many to be identical with ST. GILES (q.v.). In addition to what has already been given in, that article, it is related of him that he refused treatment for an accidental lameness, that he might be able to practice more rigid self-mortification. From this anecdote he has been esteemed the patron of cripples, and St. Giles's Cripplegate, built about 1090, is dedicated to him. In art, St. Giles is generally represented as an aged man, with a long white beard; a hind pierced with an arrow, rests its head or fore-feet in his lap, or crouches at his feet. Representations of him are seldom met with in t Italy, but very frequently in early French and German art. The relics of the saint, buried in the church dedicated by himself to St. Peter, but translated by abbot Autulphus in 925 to the neighboring abbey, were allowed to rest in peace until the Alblgensian war in 1209 exposed them to danger, when they were transported to Toulouse and. laid over one of the altars in the Church of. St. Saturninus, where the body still was when Baillet wrote. Pope Urban IV gave the saint's office a place ill the Roman Breviary as a semi-double, but since the middle of the 16th century it has been reduced to a simple office. St. Giles still retains a place in the Reformed English Calendar. His festival is kept on Sept. 1.