Saint Eligius is the patron saint of goldsmiths, other metalworkers, and coin collectors. He is also the patron saint of veterinarians, the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME), a corps of the British Army, but he is best known for being the patron saint of horses and those who work with them. Eligius was chief counsellor to Dagobert I, Merovingian king of France. Appointed the bishop of Noyon-Tournai three years after the king's death in 642, Eligius worked for 20 years to convert the pagan population of Flanders to Christianity.

Eligius went to Neustria, the palace of the Franks, where he worked under Babo, the royal treasurer, on whose recommendation Clotaire II, king of the Franks, is said to have commissioned him to make a throne of gold adorned with precious stones.

Among other goldsmithing work soon entrusted to Eligius were the bas-reliefs for the tomb of Saint Germain, Bishop of Paris. Clotaire took Eligius into the royal household and appointed him master of the mint at Marseilles.

Eligius took advantage of this royal favour to obtain alms for the poor, and to ransom captive Romans, Gauls, Bretons, Moors, and especially Saxons, who were arriving daily at the slave market in Marseilles.

Eligius founded several monasteries, and with the king's consent, sent his servants through towns and villages to take down the bodies of criminals who had been executed and give them decent burial. Eligius was a source of edification at court, where he and his friend Dado lived according to the strict Irish monastic rule that had been introduced into Gaul by Saint Columbanus.

On the death of Acarius, Bishop of Noyon-Tournai, 14 March of Clovis's third year (642), Eligius was made his successor, with the unanimous approbation of clergy and people. "So, the unwilling goldsmith was tonsured and constituted guardian of the towns or municipalities of Vermandois which include the metropolis, Tournai, which was once a royal city, and Noyon and Ghent and Kortrijk of Flanders."

The inhabitants of his new diocese were pagans for the most part. He undertook the conversion of the Flemings, Frisians, Suevi, and the other Germanic tribes along the North Sea coast. He made frequent missionary excursions and also founded a great many monasteries and churches. In his own episcopal city of Noyon he built and endowed a nunnery for virgins.

Eligius died on 1 December 660 and was buried at Noyon.

Other Saints of the Day

1. Saint Alexander Briant
2. Saint Agericius
3. Saint Anasus
4. Saint Candres
5. Saint Evasius

-catholic.org