Hilarius of Javols

Saint Hilarius of Javols (also called Ilère, Éli, Yles or Hilary of Mende) was bishop in the Gévaudan in the 6th century, with his see at Javols. He is venerated as a saint in the Western Church and remembered on 25 October in the Western calendar.

The sources show that two saints of different centuries appear under the same name, but it seems that only the one who took part in the council of Clermont in November 535 really existed. The Saint Yles who helps Saint Enimia against the dragon in her Life by Bertran of Marseille did not live at that time and may be a symbolic presence.

Hilarius founded a small hermitage above Mende, where he lived with three brothers, and went at night to the crypt of Saint Privatus. From his Life, written in the 7th century, it is known that a church stood over the tomb of Saint Privatus as early as 530. He was drawn above all to the gorges of the Tarn, where he is believed to have founded a large monastery, now vanished. He withstood a siege by the Franks at Castel Merlet, above La Malène. On 8 November 535 he signed at the council of Clermont the decrees on morals and discipline, together with fifteen other bishops, among them Caesarius of Arles. He received King Theudebert I at Arzenc-⁠de-⁠Randon and fought the pagan customs of the region. Gregory of Tours records that a priest raised to the episcopate came from the city to the lake of Saint-⁠Andéol and ended a pagan cult there by building a church; tradition identifies him with Hilarius. Evodius succeeded him.