Saint Eligius

Eligius was born into a Gallo-Roman family at the villa of Chaptelat, Aquitaine (modern-day France), six miles north of Limoges. His father, recognising unusual talent in his son, sent him to the goldsmith Abbo, master of the mint at Limoges. Later Eligius went to Neustria, the palace 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 Eligius to make a throne of gold adorned with precious stones.[2]

And from that which he had taken for a single piece of work, he was able to make two. Incredibly, he could do it all from the same weight for he had accomplished the work commissioned from him without any fraud or mixture of siliquae, or any other fraudulence. Not claiming fragments bitten off by the file or using the devouring flame of the furnace for an excuse, but filling all faithfully with gems, he happily earned his happy reward.[3]

Among other goldsmithing work soon entrusted to Eligius were the bas-reliefs for the tomb of Germain, Bishop of Paris.[4] Clotaire took Eligius into the royal household and appointed him master of the mint at Marseilles.[2]

Saint Eligius at the feet of the Virgin and Child by Gerard Seghers

After the death of Clotaire in 629, his son Dagobert I appointed Eligius his chief counsellor. Eligius' reputation spread rapidly, to the extent that ambassadors first sought him out for his counsel and to pay their respects to him before going to the king. He made some enemies. Eligius was able to induce Judicael to make a pact with Dagobert at a meeting at the king's villa of Creil (636–37); this success increased his influence:[2]

Indeed King Dagobert, swift, handsome and famous with no rival among any of the earlier kings of the Franks, loved him so much that he would often take himself out of the crowds of princes, optimates, dukes or bishops around him and seek private counsel from Eligius.[3]

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 Marseilles. He 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.[3]

Eligius was a source of edification at the royal court, where he and his friend Ouen of Rouen lived according to the strict Irish monastic rule that had been introduced into Gaul by Columbanus. Eligius introduced this rule, either entirely or in part, into the monastery of Solignac near Limoges, which he founded in 632 at a villa he had purchased, and also at the convent he founded at Paris, where three hundred virgins were under the guidance of the Abbess Aurea.[3] He also built the basilica of St. Paul and restored the basilica at Paris that was devoted to Martial, the patron bishop-saint of Limoges. Eligius also erected several fine tombs in honor of the relics of Martin of Tours, the national saint of the Franks, and Denis, who was chosen patron saint by the king.[5]

On the death of Dagobert in 639, the queen consort Nanthild took the reins of government, the king Clovis II being a child. During this regency, Eligius was ordained into the priesthood in 640.[6] He then launched a successful campaign against simony in the Church which resulted in a royal order banning the sale of pontifical offices and mandating that such offices be earned through having good character and an ethical life.[3]

On the death of Acarius, Bishop of Noyon–Tournai, on 14 March 642, Eligius was made his successor, with the unanimous approbation of clergy and people. "So the unwilling goldsmith was tonsured and constituted guardian of the towns or municipalities of Vermandois which include the metropolis, Tournai, which was once a royal city, and Noyon and Ghent and Kortrijk of Flanders."[3]

The inhabitants of his new diocese were pagans for the most part. He undertook the conversion of the Flemings, Frisians, Suevi, and the other Germanic tribes along the North Sea coast. He made frequent missionary excursions and also founded a great many monasteries and churches. In his own episcopal city of Noyon he built and endowed a nunnery for virgins. After the finding of the body of Quentin of Amiens, Eligius erected in the saint's honor a church to which was joined a monastery under the Irish rule. He also discovered the bodies of Piatus of Tournai and his martyred companions, and in 654 removed the remains of Fursey, the celebrated Irish missionary (died 650).[2]

There is a legend that Eligius resolved the problem of a horse reluctant to be shod. He thought it was possessed by demons, so he cut off the horse's foreleg and, while the horse stood on the remaining three legs and watched, he re-shod the hoof on the amputated leg, before miraculously re-attaching the leg to the horse.[7]

Eligius died on 1 December 660 and was buried at Noyon.[2]

Audoin of Rouen recorded the life and deeds of Eligius in his hagiography, Vita Sancti Eligii. At one point, Ouen lovingly recalls Eligius' increasingly ascetical appearance during their time serving at the royal court:

He was tall with a rosy face. He had a pretty head of hair with curly locks. His hands were honest and his fingers long. He had the face of an angel and a prudent look. At first, he was used to wear gold and gems on his clothes, having belts composed of gold and gems and elegantly jeweled purses, linens covered with red metal and golden sacs hemmed with gold and all of the most precious fabrics including all of silk. But all of this was but fleeting ostentation from the beginning and beneath he wore a hairshirt next to his flesh and, as he proceeded to perfection, he gave the ornaments for the needs of the poor. Then you would see him, whom you had once seen gleaming with the weight of the gold and gems that covered him, go covered in the vilest clothing with a rope for a belt.[3]

Besides Eligius' self-mortification, Audoin recalls his propensity for weeping, "For he had the great grace of tears."[3]

Several writings of Eligius have survived: a sermon in which he combats the pagan practices of his time, a homily on the Last Judgment and a letter written in 645 in which he begs for the prayers of Bishop Desiderius of Cahors. There are fourteen other pseudepigraphical homilies that are no longer attributed to him.[2] An important study about his work as a goldsmith was contributed by the German scholar Hayo Vierck to the Joachim Werner Festschrift in 1974.[8]