Portal:Catholicism/Patron Archive/December 1
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Saint Eligius (or in French, Eloi) (ca. 588-590 - December 1, 659 or 660) is the patron saint of goldsmiths and other metalworkers. He is also the patron saint of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME), a corps of the British Army. But he is best known for being the patron saint of horses and those who work with them. Eligius was chief counsellor to Dagobert I, Merovingian king of France. Appointed the bishop of Noyon-Tournai three years after the king's death in 642, Eligius worked for twenty years to convert the Druidic population of Flanders to Christianity.
Eligius was born at the "villa" of Chaptelat (modern Cadillac?), six miles west of Limoges, in Aquitaine (now France), into an educated and influential Gallo-Roman family. His father, recognizing unusual talent in his son, sent him to the goldsmith Abbo, master of the mint at Limoges. Later Eligius went to Neustria, the kingdom of the Franks, where he worked under Babo, the royal treasurer, on whose recommendation Clotaire II, king of the Franks, is said to have commissioned him to make a throne of gold adorned with precious stones.
After the death of Clotaire in 629, Dagobert appointed his father's friend his chief councillor. Eligius' reputation spread rapidly, to the extent that ambassadors first sought out Eligius for counsel and to pay their respects to him before going to the king.
Eligius took advantage of this royal favor to obtain alms for the poor, and to ransom captive Romans, Gauls, Bretons, Moors, and especially Saxons, who were arriving daily at the slave market in Marseille.
Eligius founded several monasteries, and with the king's consent, sent his servants through towns and villages to take down the bodies of criminals who had been executed and give them decent burial. Eligius was a source of edification at court, where he and his friend Ouen lived according to the strict Irish monastic rule that had been introduced into Gaul by Saint Columbanus.
On the death of Dagobert (639), Queen Nanthild took the reins of government, the king Clovis II being a child. During this regency, Elegius launched a campaign against simony in the church. On the death of Acarius, Bishop of Noyon-Tournai, March 14 of Clovis's third year (642), Eligius was made his successor, with the unanimous approbation of clergy and people. The inhabitants of his new diocese were pagans for the most part. He undertook the conversion of the Flemings, Frisians, Suevi, and the barbarian tribes along the North Sea coast. He made frequent missionary excursions and also founded a great many monasteries and churches.
Eligius died December 1, 659 or 660 and was buried at Noyon.
Attributes: anvil; bishop with a crosier in his right hand, on the open palm of his left a miniature church of chased gold; bishop with a hammer, anvil, and horseshoe; bishop with a horse; courtier; goldsmith; hammer; holding a horse's leg, which he detached from the horse in order to shoe it more easily; horseshoe; man grasping a devil's nose with pincers; man holding a chalice and goldsmith's hammer; man shoeing a horse; man with hammer and crown near a smithy; man with hammer, anvil, and Saint Anthony; pincers; with Saint Godeberta; giving a ring to Saint Godeberta; working as a goldsmith
Patronage: cartwrights; clock/watch makers; coin collectors; craftsmen of all kinds; cutlers; gilders; goldsmiths; harness makers; horses; jewelers; jockeys; knife makers; laborers; locksmiths; metalworkers in general; miners; minters; Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers; saddlers; tool makers;
Prayer:
