Is it a coincidence that, just outside both Oxford and Walsingham, there is a parish and church of S Giles? Is this because travellers entering each place had S Giles for Patron? Is it because S Giles exercised his patronage in the places just outside conurbations ... in glades, caves, woodlands, habitats of gentle harts? Does it have anything to do with his patronage of of cripples; of beggars? Why was he at the Top Table of Church dedications in medieval England?
There is something going on here, I feel, which I have not quite grasped. Mgr Goulder, in his intriguing little Guild of Ransom guide to Winchester, gives the following information about Winchester: "[On] The summit of St Giles' Hill ... was held the famous St Giles' fair, which Rufus granted to Bishop Walkelin [Bishop 1070-1098], to be held on the eve, feast, and morrow of St Giles. Henry I extended it for another five days, and Stephen gave it six more. Henry II made it sixteen days in all, but it was sometimes increased to twenty or twenty-four days on special occasions ... in 1162, the fair ground was extended right down to Eastgate. The top of the hill and the western slopes were covered with stalls and shops and there were some permanent streets, named after the trades which used them. A flourishing suburb grew up on the hill ... The chapel stood on the summit of the hill and was really the parish church of the fair ...".
I wonder if this throws any light on the function of the medieval cult of S Giles ...
Anyway: today is his liturgical festival, but the annual Fair he enjoys on the main route leading out of/into Oxford to its North is postponed until next Monday and Tuesday.
My own college has, for its modern shield of Arms, a Hart's head affrontee with a cross between the antlers. Recent representions by the college of this symbolism appear to have left out the cross. Could there possibly be an ideological explanation of this?
Hart Hall used to be quite a hotbed of recusancy ... Norton, the rack-master, claimed he had made an alumnus, S Alexander Bryant (martyred together with Saints Edmund Campion and Ralph Sherwin on 1 December 1581), a foot longer than God had made him.
I think the Arms I describe above may date from a Victorian re-foundation. An eighteenth century engraving from an Annual University Calendar has the motto Sicut cervus ad fontes aquarum, and shows a hart seeking refreshment at a pool. Those arms are almost identical with those currently used by Bishop Philip Egan.
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I was wondering this morning why the High Kirk in Edinburgh is dedicated to St Giles. You couldn't get more central so there must be another explanation.
You've forgotten (or neglected) to mention Cambridge's St. Giles, which was situated adjacent to the Norman castle outside the town walls; cf.:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Giles%27_Church,_Cambridge
Saint Giles pray for us
Your post reminded me of St. Giles Without Cripplegate London.
Despite the image over the gate of Hertford Coll., red deer (Cervus Elaphus) do not drink. I recall talking to deer farmers who took their beasts to agricultural shows. The know-all public complained that there was no bucket of water in the deers' enclosure, so the farmers provided one. It always came out as full as it went in.
The psalmist's metaphor does not indicate that the hart wanted a drink (very understandable) but that, in the manner of Exmoor deer when heated in the chase, it takes to a river bed (or in the Near East a wadi) - presumably in part because a river bed is likely to be on level ground.
In Norwich, S. Giles on the Hill is within the walls, but not by much, and the walls are off relatively late date, so it may well have been Without the city limits when founded. Durham St Giles is well outside. I know nothing about either city's fair(s), though.
Expeditus, the Wikipedia article on the High Kirk says: “Saint Giles is the patron saint of lepers. Though chiefly associated with the Abbey of Saint-Gilles in modern-day France, he was a popular saint in medieval Great Britain. The church was first possessed by the monks of the Order of St Lazarus, who ministered among lepers”
It also mentions that the dedication may be related to Matilda, the sister of David I, who founded St Giles in the Fields, in London. The article on that mentions that it started as a “chapel of the Parish of Holborn attached to a monastery and leper hospital founded by Matilda of Scotland” and “ As George Water Thornbury noted in London Old & New "it is remarkable that in almost every ancient town in England, the church of St. Giles stands either outside the walls, or, at all events, near its outlying parts, in allusion, doubtless, to the arrangements of the Israelites of old, who placed their lepers outside the camp.”
Fantastic. Thank you!
You have only to travel to Reading to find another St Giles Church just beyond what would have been the southern edge of the town in the middle ages, on the route into the town from Winchester. St Giles in Reading is noteworthy for its former parish priest, Blessed John Eynon, who was hanged beside the last Abbot of Reading (one of only three who refused to surrender their abbeys to Henry VIII) on 14 November 1539. IMy understanding is that amongst the other groups mentioned Giles is the patron saint of lepers, who were not allowed to enter into towns but had to remain just outside the walls (or in Reading's case, the River Kennet).
Is it not a connection to lepers’ colonies? The case for St Giles in the fields, London, St Giles’, Shrewsbury, and the revenues of St Giles’ Edinburgh were directed by David I who founded it to a lepers’ hospital. Often connected to Lazarites…
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