Deicolus (also Déicole, Dichuil, Deel, Deicola, Deicuil, Delle, Desle, Dichul, Dicuil, Domgall; c. 530 – January 18, 625) is venerated as a saint by both the
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
and the Orthodox Church as an East–West Schism, pre-Schism, Western saint. He was an elder brother of
Saint Gall
Gall ( la, Gallus; 550 646) according to hagiographic tradition was a disciple and one of the traditional twelve companions of Columbanus on his mission from Ireland to the continent. Deicolus was the elder brother of Gall.
Biography
The ...
.
Life
Born in
Leinster
Leinster ( ; ga, Laighin or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, situated in the southeast and east of Ireland. The province comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Meath, Leinster and Osraige. Following the 12th-century Norman invasion of Ir ...
, Deicolus and his brother, Gall, studied at
Bangor Abbey
Bangor Abbey was established by Saint Comgall in 558 in Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland and was famous for its learning and austere rule. It is not to be confused with the slightly older abbey in Wales on the site of Bangor Cathedral.
His ...
in County Down. He was selected to be one of the twelve followers to accompany
Columbanus
Columbanus ( ga, Columbán; 543 – 21 November 615) was an Irish missionary notable for founding a number of monasteries after 590 in the Frankish and Lombard kingdoms, most notably Luxeuil Abbey in present-day France and Bobbio Abbey in pr ...
on his missionary journey. After a short stay in
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
in 576 he journeyed to
Gaul
Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during ...
and laboured with Columbanus in
Austrasia
Austrasia was a territory which formed the north-eastern section of the Merovingian Kingdom of the Franks during the 6th to 8th centuries. It was centred on the Meuse, Middle Rhine and the Moselle rivers, and was the original territory of the F ...
and
Burgundy
Burgundy (; french: link=no, Bourgogne ) is a historical territory and former administrative region and province of east-central France. The province was once home to the Dukes of Burgundy from the early 11th until the late 15th century. The c ...
.
When Columbanus was expelled by
Theuderic II
Theuderic II (also spelled Theuderich, Theoderic or Theodoric; in French, ''Thierry'') (587–613), king of Burgundy (595–613) and Austrasia (612–613), was the second son of Childebert II. At his father's death in 595, he received Guntram's k ...
, in 610, Deicolus, then eighty years of age, determined to follow his master, but was forced, after a short time, to give up the journey, and remained behind alone, establishing a hermitage at a nearby church dedicated to Saint Martin in a place called Lutre, or
Lure, in the
Diocese of Besançon
In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop.
History
In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associat ...
, to which he had been directed by a
swineherd
A swineherd is a person who raises and herds pigs as livestock.
Swineherds in literature
* In the New Testament are mentioned shepherd of pigs, mentioned in the Pig (Gadarene) the story shows Jesus exorcising a demon or demons from a man and a ...
.
[
Until his death, he became the apostle of this district, where he was given a church and a tract of land by Berthelde, widow of Weifar, the lord of Lure. Soon a noble ]abbey
An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns.
The conce ...
was erected for his many disciples, and the Rule of St. Columbanus was adopted. Numerous miracles are recorded of Deicolus, including the suspension of his cloak on a sunbeam and the taming of wild beasts.[
]Clothaire II
Chlothar II, sometime called "the Young" (French: le Jeune), (May/June 584 – 18 October 629), was king of Neustria and king of the Franks, and the son of Chilperic I and his third wife, Fredegund. He started his reign as an infant under the re ...
, King of Burgundy, recognised the virtues of Deicolus and considerably enriched the Abbey of Lure, also granting Deicolus the manor, woods, fisheries, etc., of the town which had grown around the monastery.[Butler, Alban. ''The Lives of the Saints'', Volume I, 1866]
/ref> Feeling his end approaching, Deicolus gave over the government of his abbey to Columbanus, one of his young monks, and retreated to a little oratory where he died on 18 January, about 625.Ó Riain-Raedel, Dagmar. ‘Deicolus (d. c.625)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
/ref>
Veneration
His feast is celebrated on 18 January. So revered was his memory that his name (Dichuil), under the slightly disguised form of Deel and Deela, is still borne by most of the children of the Lure district. His ''Acts'' were written by a monk of his own monastery in the tenth century.
His cultus was strong in the area of Lure well into the nineteenth century, when children's clothes were washed in a spring associated with Deicolus that was reputed to cure childhood illnesses.
References
External links
Saint of the Day, January 18: ''Deicolus''
at ''SaintPatrickDC.org''
Hall, Grace. "St. Deicolus and the Wild Boar", ''Stories of the Saints'', The Baldwin Project
{{authority control
530 births
625 deaths
7th-century Frankish saints
French hermits
Irish hermits
Medieval Irish saints
6th-century Irish priests
Irish expatriates in France
Irish expatriates in Italy
Colombanian saints