Who is saint ives

Ives is the patron saint of his profession. But it must have been in that, for me, he first came to be a real personage. We had spent a week at Pont-Aven in Brittany, the artists' favored resort on the south shore, and were starting west to St. Malo, thence to take ship for Southampton, when I happened to see, in the faithful Baedeker's "Northern France," two lines in small type, telling that at the picturesque fishing town of Treguier the Cathedral contained the monument to "St.

His biography has been written a dozen times in past centuries. A life of true and consistent unselfishness, full of good deeds, and devoted solely to one's immediate sphere of duty, will receive full measure of reverence from one's neighbors, and may even come to exercise a world-wide influence.

Such is the moral to be drawn from the life of Ervoan Heloury Kermartin, of Treguier in Brittany, afterwards to be hailed as Saint Ivo or Yves , patron saint of the legal profession. All the data of his life are known as authentically as those of any modern personage.

He came from a noble family having a small patrimony near Treguier. Carefully brought up in his youth, and destined by his mother for the sacred calling, he was sent to Paris for his university studies, in , at the age of At that university which had been founded only a century earlier among his fellow-students were the later celebrated scholars Duns Scotus and Roger Bacon.

Here he stayed for 10 years, studying rhetoric, theology, and canon law. Even at the University, his unselfish and ascetic habits of life were already fixed. He slept only on a pallet of straw; he wore the humblest garments; he gave away the moneys that came to him; and often he shared his meals with the poor.

All through his life as verified by copious eye-witnesses in the proceedings for canonization such was the continual record,—living with the barest necessities of shelter and clothing, sharing money and garments and food with the needy, and giving alms freely to the miserable beggars. From Paris he went to Orleans, to complete his studies in the Roman law; for that subject was not then taught at Paris.

It was during his three final student-years at Orleans probably that took place the celebrated incident of the Widow of Tours,—the only one of his hundreds of cases to which tradition has attached any legal details. It runs like this: Tours was near Orleans; the bishop held his court there; and Ivo, while visiting the court, lodged with a certain widow. One day he found his widow-landlady in tears.

Her tale was that next day she must go to court to answer to the suit of a traveling merchant who had tricked her. It seeemed that two of them, Doe and Roe, lodging with her, had left in her charge a casket of valuables, while they went off on their business, but with the strict injunction that she was to deliver it up again only to the two of them jointly demanding it.

That day, Doe had come back, and called for the casket, saying that his partner Roe was detained elsewhere, and she in good faith in his story had delivered the casket to Doe.

But then later came Roe demanding it, charging his partner with wronging him, and holding the widow responsible for delivering up the casket to Doe contrary to the terms of their directions. And if she had to pay for those valuables it would ruin her.

But I will go to court tomorrow for you, and will save you from ruin. The plaintiff has not proved his case. The terms of the bailment were that the casket should be demanded by the two merchants coming together. But here is only one of them making the demand.

Where is the other? Let the plaintiff produce his partner! Whereupon the merchant, required to produce his fellow, turned pale, fell a-trembling, and would have retired. But the judge, suspecting something from his plight, ordered him to be arrested and questioned; the other merchant was also traced and brought in, and the casket was recovered; which, when opened, was found to contain nothing but old junk.

In short, the two rascals had conspired to plant the casket with the widow, and then to coerce her to pay them the value of the alleged contents. Thus the young advocate saved the widow from ruin.

The fame of this clever defense of the widow soon went far and wide. It followed Ivo to Treguier, whither he returned, about , to practice as advocate, while still serving his initiate for the priesthood. He took only the cases of the poor, the widows, and the orphans.

Every applicant for his help he required first to make oath that his cause was in conscience a just one; then Ivo would say "Pro Deo to adjuvabo," "For the sake of God, I will help you". Ivo was now appointed assistant judge on the staff of the archdeacon, who held court at Rennes, the capital of Brittany. About he took orders as a priest, returned to Treguier, became cure of a suburban parish, and was made deputy-judge to the bishop of Treguier.

The bishop himself rarely sat in court, and Ivo became the sole arbiter of clerical justice for that region. It must be remembered that the church courts at that period were the most advanced in Europe, and had an extensive jurisdiction; all kinds of civil and criminal cases, and not merely ecclesiastical ones, might come to them. Ivo's austere and humble personal life; his boundless charity; his constant endeavor to reconcile even the most obstinate litigants; and, above all, his humane sympathy for the poor and the oppressed, now made him famous throughout the country.

Nov Josaphat Today's readings. Report on abuse in Church in US: Recent cases rare, but historical numbers show painful legacy. Vandalism of cross-shaped pro-life display at Catholic university caught on video. Pope Francis: Failure to integrate migrants can create serious problems. He was buried in Treguier and was canonized in by Clement VI, his feast being kept on May nineteenth.

His relics are at Treguier. In the rotunda panel, he is shown with his poor clients, in a legal setting and wearing the robes of a doctor of laws, he extends himself benignly, and charitably receives the petitions eagerly presented to him; even children, as well as their elders being unafraid to approach their kind benefactor.

An accomplished technique as well as tender and lonely conception, characterize this mural. He is just, refined and vital with good spatial distribution, a picturesque vein, and a quiet medieval landscape in the background.