Saint Guinefort

Saint Guinefort
Modern illustration of St. Guinefort
Dog Saint
Died	13th-century near Lyon, France
Venerated in	Folk Catholicism
Feast	Venerated locally on August 22
Patronage	Infants
Catholic cult suppressed	by Stephen of Bourbon

Saint Guinefort (modern French pronunciation: [ɡinfɔʁ]) was a legendary 13th-century French greyhound that received local veneration as a folk saint.

Legend

Guinefort's story is a variation on the well-travelled "dog defends master's child against animal assailant" motif, as indexed in the international classification system as B524ff, similar to the Welsh story of the dog Gelert.

In one of the earliest versions of the story, described by Dominican friar Stephen of Bourbon in 1250, Guinefort the greyhound belonged to a knight who lived in a castle near Lyon. One day, the knight went hunting, leaving his infant son in the care of Guinefort. When he returned, he found the nursery in chaos – the cradle overturned, the child nowhere to be seen and Guinefort greeted his master with bloody jaws. Believing Guinefort to have devoured his son, the knight slew the dog. He then heard a child crying; he turned over the cradle and found his son lying there, safe and sound, along with the body of a viper bloody from dog bites. Guinefort had killed the snake and saved the child. On realizing the mistake the family dropped the dog down a well, covered it with stones and planted trees around it, setting up a shrine for Guinefort. Upon learning of the dog's martyrdom, the locals venerated the dog as a saint and visited his shrine of trees when they were in need, especially mothers with sick children.

The full engilsh translation of Stephen of Bourbon's account reads:

"In the diocese of Lyons, near the enclosed nun’s village called Neuville, on the estate of the Lord of Villars, was a castle, the lord of which and his wife had a baby boy. One day, when the lord and lady had gone out of the house, and the nurse had done likewise, leaving the baby alone in the cradle, a huge serpent entered the house and approached the baby’s cradle.

Seeing this, the greyhound, which had remained behind, chased the serpent and, attacking it beneath the cradle, upset the cradle and bit the serpent all over, which defended itself, biting the dog equally severely.

Finally, the dog killed it and threw it well away from the cradle. The cradle, the floor, the dog’s mouth and head were all drenched in the serpent’s blood. Although badly hurt by the serpent, the dog remained on guard beside the cradle.

When the nurse came back and saw all this she thought that the dog had devoured the child, and let out a scream of misery. Hearing it the child’s mother also ran up, looked, thought the same thing and screamed too. Likewise the knight, when he arrived, thought the same thing and drew his sword and killed the dog.

Then, when they went closer to the baby they found it safe and sound, sleeping peacefully. Casting around for some explanation, they discovered the serpent, torn to pieces by the dog’s bites, and now dead. Realising then the true facts of the matter, and deeply regretting having unjustly killed so useful a dog they threw it into a well in front of the manor door, threw a great pile of stones on top of it, and planted trees beside it, in memory of the event.

Now, by divine will, the manor was abandoned by its inhabitants. But the peasants, hearing of the dog’s conduct and of how it had been killed, although innocent, and for a deed for which it might have expected praise, visited the place, honored the dog as a martyr, prayed to it when they were sick or in need of something, and many there fell victim to the enticements and illusions of the devil, who in this way used to lead men to error."

The local peasants hearing of the dog's noble deed and innocent death, began to visit the place and honor the dog as a martyr in quest of help for their sicknesses and other needs.

Stephen of Bourbon (d. 1262): De Supersticione: On St. Guinefort.

As Protestant churches emerged in the 16th century, they "criticized the cult of Guinefort seeing in it an example of the abuses and enacted errors of the Catholic Church." The Catholic hierarchy for adopted the continued critique, practice and sought to suppress Guinefort belief and practices, and ostracize practitioners. A fine for the practice was implemented.

The custom was regarded as harmful and superstitious by the church, which made efforts to eradicate it and enacted a fine for the continued practice. Community memory of the practices was still present in the 1970s, with the last known visit by someone to Saint Guinefort Wood to effect a cure for a sick child occurring around the 1940s.

Historian John Bossy used this canine folk saint to explore medieval attitudes to sanctity.

See also

• Cynocephaly
• Gelert
• List of individual dogs
• Saint Christopher – a saint often portrayed with the head of a dog
• Seven Sleepers – An early Christian (and later Islamic) legend associates them with a watchdog

Further reading

• Saint Guignefort Légende, Archéologie, Histoire in French.
• Schmidtt, Jean-Claude (June 29, 2009) [1983]. The Holy Greyhound: Guinefort, Healer of Children since the Thirteenth Century (Paperback) (Reissue ed.). Cambridge, New York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture. ISBN 978-0521108805.

External links

• Halsall, Paul (September 8, 2000). "Stephen de Bourbon (d. 1262): De Supersticione: On St. GuinefortEtienne de Bourbon". Medieval Sourcebook. Fordham University. Retrieved December 26, 2023. (the source text for the story)
• Holy Dogs and Dog-Headed Saints
• The Greyhound Saint
• The Cult of Guinefort - website outlining more of the tale of the folk saint