Gallus (Gall) was born in Ireland to wealthy parents, who
sent him to be educated at the Monastery of Bangor.
embraced the ascetical life and became a monk. He was one of
the twelve monks who traveled with his spiritual father St
Columbanus (November 23) as missionaries to Gaul.
some of the group traveled into pagan lands, up the Rhine
river to Lake Zurich. The monks settled on Lake Constance
around a chapel dedicated to St Aurelia, which had been
taken by the pagans as a shrine; they cleansed and
re-consecrated the chapel, which became the center of their
lived as a hermit, serving the brethren by making nets and
Saint Columbanus went on to Italy with most of his
disciples, leaving Saint Gall and a few others to continue
Gall delivered Frideburga, the daughter of a local duke,
from a demon, he offered the saint a tract of land on the
shores of Lake Constance; here was founded the monastery
that in later times bore Saint Gall's name.
times, the holy Gall refused calls to become a bishop, or to
take over the abbacy of the great monastery at Luxeuil. To
all such requests he answered that he would rather serve
continued living in his isolated monastic community until he
reposed in peace in 640, at the age of ninety-nine.
years, and continuing well into the middle ages, the
Monastery of Saint Gall became famed for the holiness of its
monks and for its library.