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Ælfheah, more commonly known today as Alphege, was an Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Winchester, later Archbishop of Canterbury. He became an anchorite before being elected abbot of Bath Abbey. His reputation for piety and sanctity led to his promotion to the episcopate and, eventually, to his becoming archbishop. Ælfheah furthered the cult of Dunstan and also encouraged learning. He was captured by Viking raiders in 1011 during the Siege of Canterbury and killed by them the following year after refusing to allow himself to be ransomed. Ælfheah was canonised as a saint in 1078. Thomas Becket, a later Archbishop of Canterbury, prayed to him just before his own murder in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170.
Honorius was a member of the Gregorian mission to Christianize the Anglo-Saxons from their native Anglo-Saxon paganism in 597 AD who later became Archbishop of Canterbury. During his archiepiscopate, he consecrated the first native English bishop of Rochester as well as helping the missionary efforts of Felix among the East Anglians. Honorius was the last to die among the Gregorian missionaries.
Berhtwald was the ninth Archbishop of Canterbury in England. Documentary evidence names Berhtwald as abbot at Reculver before his election as archbishop. Berhtwald begins the first continuous series of native-born Archbishops of Canterbury, although there had been previous Anglo-Saxon archbishops, they had not succeeded each other until Berhtwald's reign.
Saint Walstan was born either in Bawburgh in Norfolk, or Blythburgh in Suffolk, and because of a life dedicated to farming and the care of farm animals, is the patron saint of farms, farmers, farmhands, ranchers and husbandry men.
Bosa was an Anglo-Saxon Bishop of York during the 7th and early 8th centuries. He was educated at Whitby Abbey, where he became a monk. Following Wilfrid's removal from York in 678 the diocese was divided into three, leaving a greatly reduced see of York, to which Bosa was appointed bishop. He was himself removed in 687 and replaced by Wilfrid, but in 691 Wilfrid was once more ejected and Bosa returned to the see. He died in about 705, and subsequently appears as a saint in an 8th-century liturgical calendar.
Wilfrid (II) or Wilfrith (II) also known as Wilfrid the Younger, was the last Bishop of York, as the see was converted to an archbishopric during the time of his successor. In the 10th century, two different groups claim to have taken the relics of an earlier Wilfrid from Ripon; most likely one party took those of Wilfrid the Younger. The younger Wilfrid's feast is attested in the Calendar of Winchcombe and later martyrologies, though he does not seem to have had a widespread or popular veneration.
Saint Ivo was a Cornish bishop and hermit, and became the eponymous saint of St Ives, Huntingdonshire. He appears in the historical sources in 1001/2 when a peasant allegedly found his coffin while ploughing at Slepe. The Abbot of Ramsey, Eadnoth the Younger, founded a monastery there as a daughter-house of Ramsey Abbey, providing Slepe as well as part of Elsworth and Knapworth as endowment. On 24 April 1002, Abbot Eadnoth translated Ivo's body, along with two of his companions, to the mother house at Ramsey.
Ælfgar (Algar), according to 16th-century antiquarian John Leland, was a saint venerated at a chapel in the forest of Selwood, three miles from Mells, Somerset. Leland wrote that at the chapel "be buryed the bones of S. Algar, of late tymes superstitiously soute of by the folische commune people". There is no other surviving information on the saint, and it is presumed he was an Anglo-Saxon hermit.
Æbbe was a saint venerated in medieval Oxfordshire. St Ebbe's church in the southern English city of Oxford had been verifiably dedicated to the saint by 1091. It is believed that she represents a rare southern expression of the cult of the Northumbrian abbess and saint, Æbbe of Coldingham, to whom the church at Shelswell, also in Oxfordshire, was dedicated.
Billfrith is an obscure Northumbrian saint credited with providing the jewel and metalwork encrusting the former treasure binding of the Lindisfarne Gospels. His name is thought to mean "peace of the two-edge sword".
Iwig was a saint venerated in Wiltshire in the Middle Ages. He was reputedly a Northumbrian monk, said to have died and to have been buried in Brittany. Historian David Dumville called him "the other principal saint of Wilton", in reference to Saint Eadgyth. He was supposedly a follower (alumnus) of Saint Cuthbert.
Botwine was a Northumbrian saint venerated at Ripon and Peterborough. He is well documented as a priest, and latter Abbot of Ripon. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recension E, recorded his death in the 780s in one of three Ripon abbatial obits derived from a chronicle of Northumbrian origin. Following the death of St Botwine in 786AD, his replacement, Ealdberht was elected and consecrated Abbot. Ealdberht died in 788AD, and was himself succeeded as Abbot by St. Sigered of Ripon.
Indract or Indracht was an Irish saint who, along with his companions, was venerated at Glastonbury Abbey, a monastery in the county of Somerset in south-western England. In the High Middle Ages Glastonbury tradition held that he had been an Irish pilgrim — a king's son – on his way back from Rome who was molested and killed by a local thegn after he had stopped off to visit the shrine of St Patrick. This tradition synchronised his life with that of King Ine (688–726), though historian Michael Lapidge has argued that he is most likely to represent a 9th-century abbot of Iona named Indrechtach ua Fínnachta.
Cissa of Crowland was a saint in the medieval Fenlands. He was the successor of Guthlac as abbot of Crowland, and is mentioned in Felix' Vita Guthlaci. According to the Crowland Chronicle his tomb was next to Guthlac's, and like the tomb of Guthlac, was destroyed by the Scandinavians. His relics were translated to Thorney Abbey in the 10th-century.
Ælfgifu of Exeter was an Anglo-Saxon saint, of unknown date or origin, whose relics were held by Exeter Cathedral. She is mentioned in the Old English Exeter relic-list as "the holy servant of Christ ... who would daily perform her confession before she went into church". It is possible that she is the 10th-century royal abbess, Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury wife of Edmund I, but it is "more likely" according to historian John Blair that she was not.
Osburh was an Anglo-Saxon saint who rested at Coventry Cathedral. Although there is some tradition holding her to be an early 11th-century abbess of Coventry Abbey, it is suspected that her cult predates the Viking Age.
Dachuna was a medieval virgin saint venerated in Cornwall. Probably British in origin, Dachuna is known from the list of resting-places of Hugh Candidus, authored around 1155. Dachuna, along with Medan and Credan, were allegedly associates of Saint Petroc, whom they rested alongside at the church of Bodmin.
Æthelwine of Sceldeforde was a seventh century saint, venerated in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, who lived in Anglo-Saxon England. He is known to history from records in the hagiography of the Secgan Manuscript. He was venerated as a saint after his death, though some question his historical authenticity.
Eadmund the Confessor is a pre-Congregational saint of Anglo-Saxon England.
References
- Jankulak, Karen (2000), The Medieval Cult of St Petroc, Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, ISBN 0-85115-777-7
- Blair, John (2002), "A Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Saints", in Thacker, Alan; Sharpe, Richard (eds.), Local Saints and Local Churches in the Early Medieval West, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 495–565, ISBN 0-19-820394-2
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