Giles of Santarém, Blessed

GILES OF SANTARÉM, Blessed. - Portuguese Dominican, b. around 1184 at Vacele (diocese of Vizeu), to a family of the local nobility, d. at Santarém on 14 May 1265.

Destined while still young to the ecclesiastical state, he was soon invested with as many as 3 benefices, the revenues of which he squandered in a licentious life. Then, while he was on his way to Paris to study medicine, the diocesan townsfolk [claimed] that the devil escorted him to give himself over to necromancy and obtained from him a pact of servitude, signed with his own blood. He practiced, and with considerable renown, the necromantic art. But at last the repeated appearance of a knight, in a threatening attitude if he did not change his life, brought about his conversion. Returning then to his homeland, at Palencia, around 1220-21 he became a religious in the local Dominican convent. Sent back later to Paris for theological-exegetical studies at that University, there he came to know various personalities of the Order, among them Jordan of Saxony and Humbert of Romans, to the latter of whom he would address an epistle. Returned to the Iberian peninsula, he devoted himself to teaching and preaching. Twice he held the office of provincial of Spain, probably beginning in 1233. He lived in great austerity in the convent of Santarém. Benedict XIV confirmed his cult on 9 May 1748. Feast on 14 May.