Gerold, St.
GEROLD, ST.
Hermit; b. c. 920; d. Friesen, Germany, April 10,978. Descended from the Rhetian family of the counts of Sax, he became a recluse at 38. He bestowed his land on the benedictine Abbey of einsiedeln, in which his sons Bl. Cuno and Bl. Ulric were monks, and built a hermitage on a small plot of forest ground that his friend, otto i, gave to him. After his death, his sons occupied his cell and watched over his tomb. Later the forest was cleared and the abbots of Einsiedeln, several of whom were of Gerold's family, established a church on the site. During the reformation the church was destroyed, but in 1662 Abbot Placid erected a new structure to house the relics of Gerold, Cuno, and Ulric, as well as a six-monk priory at the village of Sankt-Gerold near Mitternach in the Wallgau. The iconography of St. Gerold pictures him in ducal dress with his two haloed sons beside him, or as freeing a trapped bear from attacking hounds while the bear bows to him.
Feast: April 19.
Bibliography: Acta Sanctorum April 2:625–627. a. butler, The Lives of the Saints (New York 1956) 2:129. a. m. zimmermann, Kalendarium Benedictinum: Die Heiligen und Seligen des Benediktinerorderns und seiner Zweige (Metten 1933–38) 2:73–75. o. ringholz, Geschichte des fürstlichen Benediktinerstiftes U. L.F. von Einsiedeln (New York 1904) 661–667.
[b. cavanaugh]