Today is the feast day of St Giles. Here in Oxford that means the countdown to St Giles Fair, which is held on the Monday and Tuesday following the Sunday after St Giles Day, has begun.
My own link with St Giles is lifelong as I was baptised in the church dedicated to him in my home town of Pontefract and it was there that for several years I served as Parish Clerk. In those years I was able to supports efforts by the then Vicar to encourage awareness of St Giles as our patron and I gave some images of him - framed copies of two panels by the ‘Master of St Giles’ of about 1500 from a regrettably now-dismantled and dispersed reredos and also of a fourteenth century stained glass figure of the saint in the choir clerestory at Wells.
The Mass of St Giles
Image: Wikimedia
The painting by the Master of St Giles of the Mass of St Giles, now in the National Gallery, is described and discussed on the Web Gallery of Art at The Mass of St Gilles by MASTER of Saint Gilles
Looking on the Internet today I came across a piece about him on the V&A blog which reproduces several medieval images and, despite an occasionally clunky style, gives an outline of the story of the saint. It can be seen at St. Giles • V&A Blog
St Giles Pray for us
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