The Lives of the Saints through 100 Masterpieces

Yves

The Lives of the Saints 218 Yves May 19 This patron saint of judges and lawyers is well known thanks to a legal process: his own canonization. His was one of the first canonization processes to be preserved on record and, as it took place in 1330, less than 30 years after his death, it was possible to include the testimony of over 50 people who had known him personally. Through him, a little-known function of the church is explicated. The church in the Middle Ages, as an intellectual and temporal power, undertook important activities that went beyond the sphere of religion . In Brittany, France, ecclesiastical judges handled a variety of civil cases. After studying law and theology, Yves Hélory de Kermatin became this officia for the diocese of Rennes, while also providing service as a parish priest. Later, he exercised similar functions in Treguier. That he always showed himself impartial is the least of things; neither is it exceptional that he was particularly attentive to the lot of the poorest. What was especially striking to his contemporaries was this Franciscan tertiary’s faithful observance of the principles established a century earlier by Saint Francis of Assisi: contempt for the things of the world and an ideal of evangelical poverty pushed to the borders of destitution. At the end of his life he abandoned all his juridical functions in order to lead the life of a mendicant friar. Nonetheless, artists have tended to present him in ceremonial dress, bearing the insignia of high juridical office but always arbitrating in favor of widows and orphans. Jacopo Empoli (alias, Jacopo Chimenti) (ca. 1551–1640) Saint Yves and the Orphans Palazzo Pitti, Florence ...