caption death_date death_place birth_place feast_day imagesize venerated_in patronage birth_date titles major_shrine image article_title name
saint gerald of aurillac c. 909 cenezac aurillac october 13 200px roman catholic church bachelors , counts , disabled people , upper auvergne c. 855 confessor aurillac géraud d'aurillac . jpg gerald of aurillac
 saint gerald of aurillac
gerald of aurillac

gerald of aurillac -lrb- or saint gerald -rrb- -lrb- 855 -- c. 909 -rrb- is a french saint of the roman catholic church , also recognized by other religious denominations of christianity .
gerald was born into the gallo-roman nobility , counting cesarius of arles among his forebears , though the title `` count of aurillac '' was not held by his father , to whose estates he succeeded , and was assumed by him in later life .
the details of his life known today come primarily from `` the life of st. gerald of aurillac '' -lrb- c. 930 -- 931 -rrb- written by odo of cluny .
writing twenty years after the event , abbot odo of cluny described how william , duke of aquitaine , had entreated gerald to abandon the `` militia regia '' , the feudal service performed directly to the king and pay homage to himself , `` for the sake of love '' .
gerald resisted , having recently assumed the title of `` comes '' and doubtless preferring to own his fealty to the more distant liege , the king at paris .
according to odo , gerald suffered an illness as a child , sufficient in duration to advance his reading , and may have been disfigured by acne .
in later life he was to suffer blindness .
he seriously considered joining a religious order , but was persuaded against it by his friend geusbert , bishop of rodez , on the grounds that with his social position he could do more good by remaining in the world as a layman .
nevertheless , secretly tonsured under his habitual cap , he consecrated his life in service to god , gave away his possessions , took a personal vow of chastity and prayed the breviary each day .
he founded a church and abbey on his estate of aurillac , where he was buried after dying at cenezac , on a friday 13 october , probably in 909 .
his memorial feast day is october 13 .
the validation of his local cult by odo of cluny served to establish his wider veneration .
saint gerald , considered by his church and his followers as a great example of a celibate christian aristocrat , is the patron saint of counts and bachelors .
because of his poor health and blindness , more emphasized in his developing cult than in odo 's `` life '' , he is also the patron saint of the disabled , handicapped , and physically challenged .
he also became the patron saint of upper auvergne .
