St. Giles was an abbot of the seventh century. He lived in the neighborhood of Beziers on the coast of the Mediterranean. He founded a monastery, which in succeeding ages became a flourishing abbey of the Benedictine Order. The little monastery of St. Peter, where his body rested, became one of the most popular shrines in Christendom and gave rise to a town. The cult of St. Giles in France, where there are upwards of one hundred and fifty churches dedicated to him, soon spread throughout the west.