Saint Simon Stock

Life story

Very little is certain about the life of Simon Stock. According to tradition he was born around 1165 in the county of Kent, England, and lived as a hermit in a hollow tree trunk, hence the name Stock, meaning trunk. That detail belongs to legend. What is more secure is that in the middle of the thirteenth century the Carmelites, who originated on Mount Carmel in the Holy Land, were migrating to Europe because of unrest in the East.

Simon is recorded as one of the order's prior generals in this period, which sources usually place around the mid-thirteenth century. During these years the Carmelites, who had come to England from the Holy Land, spread through English and Continental towns. The order also entered the ranks of the mendicant orders, which allowed it to work pastorally in growing towns and cities.

Simon died on 16 May 1265 at Bordeaux in France and was buried in the Carmelite church there. A later legend says he received a vision of Our Lady giving him the scapular in 1251, but historians, and the Carmelite Order itself, note that the earliest sources do not mention the vision; it is first known from the late fourteenth century. In 1951 part of his relics were brought from Bordeaux to Aylesford, where the Carmelites still honour him. His feast is 16 May.

The Carmelites continued to grow in the following decades and later became one of the best-known mendicant orders. Devotion to Simon spread within the order and among the faithful in England, and the priory at Aylesford, restored by the Carmelites in the twentieth century, is a centre of that devotion.

Works and witness

• According to tradition, born in Kent, England, around 1165
• Served as prior general of the Carmelites in the mid-thirteenth century
• The order spread through English towns in this period
• Died at Bordeaux on 16 May 1265
• The scapular vision legend first appears in the late fourteenth century

Saints from the same country

Saint Thomas Becket, Saint Thomas More, Saint Carlo Acutis, Saint Bede the Venerable

References

• Carmelite Order (O.Carm.) – profile of Saint Simon Stock
• Martyrologium Romanum
• Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) – Simon Stock

Written by Anawim from documented history. Some details about ancient saints rest on tradition and are marked as such.