HE was by birth a Saxon, and being made captive, was carried into the
Low Countries, where he was ransomed and baptized by St. Eligius. That
apostolical man sent him to his abbey of Solignac, in Limousin. St.
Thillo was called thence by St. Eligius, ordained priest, and employed
by him some time at Tournay, and in other parts of the Low Countries.
The inhabitants of the country of Isengihen, near Courtray, regard him
as their apostle. Some years after the death of St. Eligius, St. Thillo
returned to Solignac, {107} and lived a recluse near that abbey, in
simplicity, devotion, and austerities, imitating the Antonies and
Macariuses. He died in his solitude, about the year 702, of his age
ninety-four, and was honored with miracles. His name is famous in the
French and Belgic calendars, though it occurs not in the Roman. St.
Owen, in his life of St. Eligius, names Thillo first among the seven
disciples of that saint, who worked with him at his trade of goldsmith,
and imitated him in all his religious exercises, before that holy man
was engaged in the ministry of the church. Many churches in Flanders,
Auvergne, Limousin, and other places, are dedicated to God, under his
invocation. The anonymous life of St. Thillo, in Bollandus, is not
altogether authentic; the history which Mabillon gives of him from the
Breviary of Solignac, is of more authority, (Mab. Saec. 2, Ben. p. 996.)
See also Bulteau, Hist. Ben. T. i. l. 3, c. 16. Molanus in Natal. Sanct.
Belgii, &c.