A shepherd who stayed with his people through hard times.
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April 5
April 1
Bishop
Gilbert governed the see of Caithness in Scotland with great holiness for twenty years. Butler, following the Aberdeen Breviary (the book of the Church's daily prayer), says he died on 1 April 1240.
Baring-Gould, the text on this page, dates his death about 1211. The sources differ.
Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 148 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.
Then Gilbert, at that time a young man, fired with indignation, started up and exclaimed, “ From the first dawn of Christianity in Scotland, we were a free Church, and now shall we Scots be subjected to an alien, an English archbishop.
Learn from the kind of life it was. A shepherd who stayed with his people through hard times.
Keep their day. Remember them on April 5 with a short prayer, and ask for their help.
Moray. Hugh, Cardinal legate [an official representative sent by the pope] of the Pope, having come to England and summoned all the Scottish bishops to meet him at Northampton, in council, there informed them that they were thenceforth to become suffragans of York. Then Gilbert, at that time a young man, fired with indignation, started up and exclaimed, “ From the first dawn of Christianity in Scotland, we were a free Church, and now shall we Scots be subjected to an alien, an English archbishop. It shall not be 1" The Papal legate, unable to carry the point, dissolved the council, and the bishops returned to Scotland. The unruly diocesans of Aidan, bishop of Caithness, having killed their bishop, King Alexander III. took a horrible revenge, mutilating all males in the diocese to the fourth and fifth generation. S. Gilbert, the doughty champion of Scottish liberties against Anglican encroachments, was then appointed to this see.
Feast: April 1
Traditional: April 5
One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from St. Gilbert of Caithness's story, and a nudge to keep going.
From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain.
From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain in the United States. Reproduced unedited, except for short bracketed notes in grey that we added to explain names and terms (“S.” is the old abbreviation for Saint). Some history and judgments reflect 19th-century scholarship.
