Gens Bournarel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Statue of Saint Gens in Monteux

Gens Bournarel or Saint Gens or Gentius the Hermit (* 1104 in Monteux ; † May 16, 1127 at Le Beaucet ) was a French hermit and saint .

Legends and wonders

The legend according to Gens drew Bournarel, who was considered a simpleton in his birthplace Monteux, as a young cowherd in a secluded valley above Le Beaucet edit back to there alone with two cows the country and pray. He managed to catch a wolf that had just killed one of his cows and use it to plow instead of the dead cow .

When there was a great drought , the inhabitants of Monteux asked for the return of the young man, believing that they would be punished heavenly for the hardness of their hearts. After he was accepted, Gens was walking his mother when she got thirsty. He stuck two fingers in the rock and made two springs gush out of it, one made of wine and the other of water. When they got to Monteux it finally started to rain again.

Gens returned to his valley near Le Beaucet, where he died on May 16, 1127.

hermitage

Shortly after his death, the Saint Gens church was built near his grave south of Le Beaucet. Only the choir room remains of it , which is covered with a trumpet dome decorated with a tetramorph , which was incorporated into a larger church in 1884. Inside the nave hang the banners donated by various villages in Provence . A path lined with oratorios leads to the miraculous spring.

In a chapel of the church there is a reliquary that contains the remains of Saint Gens and has been registered as a monument historique since 2018 .

Pilgrimage to Saint-Gens

Transport of the statue on an old postcard from the beginning of the 20th century

In order to bring rain in dry May, the members of the Brotherhood of Saint-Gens-de-Monteux carry a statue of the saint a 17 km long walk to the hermitage at Le Beaucet. The next day is there Bußkreuz in a run carried. On the return journey, the saint is led back to his church in a procession .

Web links

Commons : Saint Gens  - collection of images, videos and audio files
  • Entry in the dictionary of saints

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Michel Albarède et al .: Vaucluse (=  Encyclopédies du Voyage ). Gallimard Loisirs, Paris 2007, ISBN 2-7424-1900-4 , p. 322 .
  2. ↑ Entry No. PM84001263 in the Base Palissy of the French Ministry of Culture (French), accessed on May 16, 2020.
  3. ↑ L'Ermitage de Saint Gens , lebeaucet.com, accessed May 16, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Gens Bournarel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gens, Saint; Gentius the Hermit
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French hermit and saint
DATE OF BIRTH 1104
PLACE OF BIRTH Monteux
DATE OF DEATH May 16, 1127
Place of death Le Beaucet