Saint of the Day – 5 December – St Gerbold (Died c691) Bishop of Bayeux in Normany, France, Hermit, Founder of the Monastery of Livry in Normandy. Also known as – Gerbaud, Gerebaud, Gereboldus, Gerhold of of Bayeux. Died in c691 of natural causes. Patronages – against dysentery (popularly – St Gerbold’s Disease), hemorrhoids, headaches.
Gerbold became the Bishop of Bayeux in 689. According to some records and traditions, he took part in the Synod in Rouen in 692 or 693 and founded a Monastery in Livry – on the site of the current Chapel dedicated to St Sulpicius of Bayeux. The Bishops’ list puts Gerbold’s death at 691.
According to tradition, Gerbold became a Steward for a wealthy lord in England. There, the lord’s wife made advances to Gerbold which he rejected, whereupon the disappointed woman complained about him to her husband, probably reversing the story.
Gerbold fell into disgrace, his master imprisoned him and then threw him into the sea, weighed down with a millstone! But miraculously it turned into cork, allowing Gerbold to cross the English Channel and land in Ver-sur-Mer near Bayeux. There – or in nearby Crépon – he lived as a Hermit. His miraculous deeds persuaded the people of Bayeux to appoint him as their Bishop.
As Bishop, Gerbold’s moral strictness turned the people against him and they drove him out of the City. He travelled on pilgrimage to Rome until the people of Bayeux were scourged with the diseases of dysentery and hemorrhoids. They recalled their Bishop, in haste, begged forgiveness for their sins, whereupon the illnesses immediately ceased.
AnaStpaul 