EGIDIO di SANTARÉM, blessed. - Portuguese Dominican, born about 1184 at Vacele (diocese of Vizeu), of a family of the local nobility; died at Santarém on 14 May 1265.
Destined while still young for the ecclesiastical state, he soon received no fewer than three benefices, whose revenues he squandered in a licentious life. While he was then travelling to Paris to study medicine, the devil induced him to devote himself to necromancy and obtained from him a pact of servitude, signed with his own blood. He practised the art of necromancy, and with some renown. But finally the repeated appearance of a knight, threatening him unless he changed his life, brought about his conversion. Returning then to his homeland, at Palencia, about 1220-21 he became a religious in the local Dominican convent. Subsequently sent to Paris for theological and exegetical studies at that University, he became acquainted there with several figures of the Order, including Giordano di Sassonia and Umberto de Romans, to the latter of whom he was to address an epistle. Having 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. Benedetto XIV confirmed his cult on 9 May 1748. Feast day: 14 May.
BIBL. Acta SS. Mait. III, Parigi 1866, pp. 400-36; d'ansie Dominicaine, Mai, I, Leone 1891, pp. 409-23; Quett-Echard, I, pp. 241a-244 b; P. Alvarez, Santos, Bienaventurados, Praeables de la Orden de los Predicadores, I, Vergara 1900, pp. 233-47, Abele Redigonda