Blessed Giles of Portugal, Satanist

[1185–1265] FEAST DAY: May 14

During the Middle Ages it was the custom among well-to-do families with many children to designate one of their younger sons for the Church. As traditions go, this one was both pious and pragmatic. On the one hand, the parents were devoting one of their children to the service of God. On the other hand, they wouldn’t have to worry how he would get along in the world with little or no inheritance. The custom did have one serious drawback: families rarely asked the designated son if he had a religious vocation. Such was the case with Giles of Portugal.

Giles’s father, Rodrigues de Vagliatos, was governor of Coimbra, Portugal’s renowned university city. Upon the young man’s ordination the king demonstrated his regard for Governor de Vagliatos by awarding him the benefices, or incomes, from a variety of parishes and religious installations. According to the corrupt system of the day, Giles received the money without ever setting foot in any of these parishes, let alone actually tending to the parishioners. (That job would be farmed out to some impoverished, lowborn priest.)

As a priest with an independent income and no religious obligations, Giles had plenty of time to engage in the field that did interest him: the study of the sciences. He began with medicine and physics, but soon he was conducting experiments in alchemy, the pseudoscience of the Middle Ages that consisted of equal parts magic and chemistry. Soon a rumor circulated through the university that Giles dabbled in black magic.

That last bit of academic gossip is probably the source for the most fantastic part of Giles’s story. According to the legend, Giles’s desire to know everything was so fierce that Satan himself appeared to make his classic offer: he would reveal to Giles all the secrets of the universe in exchange for Giles’s immortal soul. Giles accepted the devil’s offer, and even signed a contract to seal the deal.

For seven years Giles enjoyed honors, wealth, and the respect and envy of his fellow scientists. Then one night he had an awful dream. He saw Death carrying an hourglass as he walked through a graveyard. The specter stopped at a tomb where he called Giles’s name, but the grave proved to be empty. Then Death lifted the hourglass and murmured, “Ah! Giles’s sand has not yet run out.”

Giles woke up screaming in terror. In the dark of night he threw a few possessions into a bag and ran. But where could a man hide from the devil?

Giles believed he had found a place to hide when on the road he met some Dominican friars. He begged to join their order, made his confession, and began a long period of penance. Nonetheless, he was still afraid that Satan would show up one day to carry his soul to hell. To shield himself from the devil, Giles turned to the Blessed Virgin Mary, begging her day after day to come to his assistance.

Giles had been a Dominican for seven years when one morning as he went to his place in the choir he found a scroll. Opening it he saw it was the pact he had signed with Satan. Mary herself had snatched it out of the devil’s hands.

The insertion of the Dr. Faustus legend certainly livens up Blessed Giles’s story, but it is not to be taken seriously. The historical Giles was a lax, corrupt priest who was converted by a chance encounter with some Dominicans. After joining their order he was assigned to the Dominican house in Santarem, Portugal, where his medical studies were put to good use in the infirmary. As penance Giles did all the dirty housekeeping work around the monastery, but it was to make amends for bringing disgrace on the priesthood, not for making a pact with Satan.