Patron of: bachelors, diseased cattle, dogs, falsely accused people, invalids, Istanbul, surgeons, tile-makers, [1] grave-diggers, second-hand dealers, pilgrims, apothecaries. Roch lived c. He has the designation of Rollox in Glasgow , Scotland , said to be a corruption of Roch's Loch, which referred to a small loch once near a chapel dedicated to Roch in He is a patron saint of dogs, invalids, falsely accused people, bachelors , and several other things.
The chronology of the Saint's life is uncertain and full of legendary elements. According to his Acta and his vita in the Golden Legend , he was born at Montpellier , [5] at that time "upon the border of France," as the Golden Legend has it, [b] the son of the noble governor of that city.
His birth was accounted a miracle, for his noble mother had been barren until she prayed to the Virgin Mary. Miraculously marked from birth with a red cross on his breast that grew as he did, he early began to manifest strict asceticism and great devoutness; on days when his "devout mother fasted twice in the week, and the blessed child Rocke abstained him twice also when his mother fasted in the week and would suck his mother but once that day.
On the death of his parents in his twentieth year he distributed all his worldly goods among the poor, entered the Franciscan Third Order , and set out as a mendicant pilgrim for Rome, [c] although his father on his deathbed had designated him governor of Montpellier. Coming into Italy during an epidemic of plague , he was very diligent in tending the sick in the public hospitals at Acquapendente , Cesena , Rimini , Novara , [7] and Rome, and is said to have effected many miraculous cures by prayer and the sign of the cross and the touch of his hand.
At Rome, according to the Golden Legend, he preserved the "cardinal of Angleria in Lombardy" [d] by making the mark of the cross on his forehead, which miraculously remained. Ministering at Piacenza at the hospital of Nostra Signora di Betlemme , he himself finally fell ill. He withdrew into the forest, where he made himself a hut of boughs and leaves, which was miraculously supplied with water by a spring that arose in the place; he would have perished had not a dog belonging to a nobleman named Gothard Palastrelli supplied him with bread and licked his wounds, healing them.
