A town that bears his name grew up around the monastery he purportedly founded, which became a pilgrimage centre and a stop on the Way of Saint James.

[2] Sometimes taken as authentic, they record that the Visigothic king Wamba founded a monastery for Giles and that Pope Benedict II granted a charter to this foundation in 684–685.

[6] Although born in Athens,[7] Giles lived in retreats near the mouth of the Rhône and by the River Gard in Septimania in the Visigothic Kingdom.

The king, by legend, was Wamba, an anachronistic Visigoth, but must have been a Frank in the original story due to the historical setting.

A later text, the Liber miraculorum sancti Aegidii ("The Book of Miracles of Saint Giles") served to reinforce the flow of pilgrims to the abbey.

That abbey (which was rededicated to him in the 10th century) remained the centre of his cult, which was particularly strong in Languedoc, even after a rival body of Saint Giles appeared at Toulouse.

[11] His cult spread rapidly far and wide throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, as is witnessed by the churches and monasteries dedicated to him in France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Great Britain; by the numerous manuscripts in prose and verse commemorating his virtues and miracles; and especially by the vast concourse of pilgrims who from all Europe flocked to his shrine.

He is also the patron saint of Graz, Nuremberg, Osnabrück, Sankt Gilgen, Brunswick, Wollaberg, Saint-Gilles (Brussels Capital Region) and Sint-Gillis-Waas.

The centuries-long presence of Crusaders, many of them of French origin, left the name of Saint Giles in some locations in the Middle East.