Botulph Abbot and St. Adulph Bishop

ON ST. BOTULPH ABBOT AND ST. ADULPH BISHOP

CONFESSORS IN ENGLAND.

>AFTER THE MIDDLE OF THE 7TH CENTURY, AND THE 8TH

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Botulph Abbot in England (St.) Adulph Bishop in England (St.)

AUTH. D. P.

§. I. On their cult and translations, and the Kingdom and Kings of the Eastern English, the same as those of the Southern Saxons in the 6th and 7th century.

Most celebrated is the memory of St. Botulph in the most ancient English monuments, of which the first can be reckoned a Missal, which in the year 1662 we found in the monastery of Jumièges among the Normans, The sacred cult, to which Robert Archbishop of Canterbury had given it around the year 1050, and from the Paschal Table annexed it was established to have been written around the thousandth year. In it on this 17 June was prescribed the veneration of St. Botulph Confessor. There is added a very ancient Ms., which we have written on parchment, and written in the 11th century, in which these things are contained: "On the same day the deposition of St. Botulph Confessor and Abbot." In an English Ms. once kept at Rome in the Library of the Duke of Altemps thus was read: Of St. Botulph, "On the same day, at St. Edmund's, of St. Botulph Bishop (rather Abbot) and Confessor." Similar things are contained in the Ms. of Utrecht of St. Mary, which also was English; then in the Usuard augmented in Alsace; to which is added the Breviary of Schleswig, printed in the year 1512, in which six proper Lections are prescribed, with a Homily of the Gospel, "Watch." Later are the remaining Martyrologies, such as one printed in the year 1490 at Cologne and Lübeck, and others of Usuard augmented by Grevenus and Molanus, and also those edited by Maurolycus, and of St. Adulph. Felicius, and Canisius; likewise the monastic ones, of Wion, Dorganius, Menard, Bucelin, and Edward Maihew; likewise the English one of Wilson with the Catalogue of Ferrari. The abbreviator of the Ely history in the English Monasticon page 88: "Anna, King of the Eastern English, being dead around the year 654, there succeeded him in the Kingdom Adelher his brother, in whose time in the place which is called Wenno (I think Ikenno should be read) a monastery is built by St. Botulph." Malmesbury, treating of the same church of St. Edmund, "There lie," he says, "two Saints Germanus and Botulph, whose deeds I do not remember to be had either there or elsewhere, except that the first is held to be the brother of St. Etheldreda." In her Life at num. 4 and 15 he is called Jurminus, nor do I know that he is inscribed in any Fasti: but Botulph seems to be altogether the same, whose Life as Abbot there we here give. To this one moreover we join St. Adulph the Bishop, of whose age and Episcopate we shall treat below, not because I think him a brother, but because he had a common burial, cult, and translations with him.

[2] The ancient veneration is confirmed by the Translation of the bodies, of which Capgrave, but before him, with only Botulph named, John Brompton in the Chronicle, treating of King Edgar, The translation of the bodies under King Edgar, who reigned from the year 959 to the year 975, in column 864 writes these things: "At that time also, the venerable man Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, a builder of monasteries, obtained from King Edgar that it should be permitted him to transfer the bodies of the Saints, which lay in destroyed places in neglect, into the monasteries which he had built: among which the body of B. Botulph … he caused to be transferred from the monastery of Ikanho (which the same St. Botulph in his life had built, to the monasteries of Ely, Thorney, and St. Edmund, and which afterward had been destroyed by the slayers of St. Edmund the King), and concerning this he intimated to the Royal excellence."

The King, devoutly intent on the merits of B. Botulph, perceived that his body should be divided in three ways. For the head he assigned to the monastery of Ely, the half he left to the church of Thorney, and what remained he received for himself and his court into the shrine of the Royal Relics. Which afterward were conferred on the oratory of St. Peter, by King Edward of good memory. Where if St. Edward the Confessor is understood, he will be had under whom died the holy Virgin Pega; commemorated by us on 8 January, by Wilson on 3 June, after the year 717. She was the sister of St. Guthlac the Hermit, born in the year 673, as was shown at his Life on 11 April: and somewhere perhaps St. Pega joined to them. rightly therefore I have expunged the two words, by which St. Botulph was said by Brompton to be the Brother of St. Pega. Her body perhaps, brought from Rome where she died, and laid in one of the aforesaid three places, or even afterward in the church of St. Edmund placed with the Relics of St. Botulph, may have introduced this opinion. The same things as Brompton, Capgrave narrates, but says that Adulph was likewise translated.

[3] Wolstan, a monk of Winchester, in the Life of St. Ethelwold the Bishop, to be illustrated on the Kalends of August, relates that he built the three monasteries here already related; namely that he restored Ely, in the county of Cambridge, destroyed by the Pagans, in the year 970; that he built Thorney, in the county of Cambridge, from the foundations in the year 972; then that he rebuilt Peterborough, in the county of Northampton, otherwise Medeshamstede, an ancient monastery. But the monastery of St. Edmund the King of the Danes Canute had founded after he was slain in the year 872, in the county of Suffolk: from all which I should believe that Ikanho was not far distant. The Anglo-Saxon Chronology, Ikanho founded in the year 654, edited with Bede's history, says, "In the year 654 Botulph began to build a monastery": which Florence of Worcester, with Matthew of Westminster agreeing, thus explains; "In the year of Christ 654, in the place which is called Ikanho, a monastery is built by St. Botulf." That, destroyed by a Danish incursion, in what place it stood is not sufficiently established. Leland in Bale calls it Ikannum, not far from the chief city of the Lindi; and afterward to the East of Lincoln. Camden has nothing similar near Lincoln; but at the twentieth milestone thence toward the East, where the river Witham, with embankments enclosed on both sides, with full channel goes out into the Ocean, "flourishes," he says, "Boston, more rightly Botolphotowne, for from Botulph the most holy Saxon, who had a monastery at Icanoë, it carried off its name. Certainly to this town, as most apt for merchants, so once most opulent, there lies immediately adjacent toward the North a village, called to this day of St. Botulph."

[4] But although here and perhaps in several other places his cult was celebrated, yet I would not grant that the monastery of Icanoë was there, placed far from the sea in a vast solitude, as is in the Schleswig Breviary, and granted by the King of the Southern English (certainly in his own dominion), and by its very name representing the ancient Iceni, as also many other names round about in Camden among the Iceni, certainly in Southern England, of whom he himself puts the first the Suffolk people, a part by no means doubtful of Eastern England, divided into the Norfolk people, that is the Northern, and the Suffolk, that is the Southern peoples: in like manner I should say the Southern English were those who, in respect of the Eastern more neighboring to the South, placed among the Eastern, Southern, and Western Saxons, held both banks of the Thames, somewhat farther from the sea, about as far as London is distant from the Ocean. Their lands, however, being partitioned between the Mercians and the Southern Saxons, a part of which is Surrey on the Thames: and the kingdom extinguished, no vestige of the people survives today; except in the name of Surrey, that is the Southern Kingdom, over which, because the Southern Saxons, having obtained a peculiar kingdom from the year 490, lorded it; it has come to pass that Bede nowhere mentions the Southern English, but Camden attributed Surrey to Southern Saxony.

[5] But hence arises a difficulty, that it be explained how the Author, writing at most one century before Bede, named Ethelmund a King of the Southern English rather than of the Saxons; which because it was subject to the Southern Saxons, as Bede by the more common usage would have called him, if he had mentioned him; how likewise the name of such a King appears nowhere in the same Bede, who professed to write the ecclesiastical history of the Nation of the English. I will say what I think; namely that the Author, an Englishman by race, led by the same zeal of extolling the English name above the Saxon, by which Bede his contemporary named only the English in the title of his work; and by which afterward around the year 800 Egbert King of the English, two kingdoms of the Saxons being acquired, two devoured in hope, ordered only the English to be named (which precept we still follow when we name England) I will say, I repeat, that the Author, moved by national affection, when now into one kingdom a part of the Southern English had coalesced with the likewise Southern Saxons, wished to impose on the common King the title of his own rather than of the alien nation, though less common, with the greater right, that he wrote about St. Botulph, and that in Surrey perhaps were the three places successively assigned to him by Ethelmund. under their name is reckoned by Bede. But why should we wonder that this one was passed over by Bede? when he mentions none of those Kings before Adelwalch or rather Adelwald, baptized in the year 666. But Huntingdon from Gildas the Briton knows only Ella, the author of the kingdom acquired from the Britons; and Cissa for the year 515, between whom and Edilwald thus Alford partitions the time, up to the year 686, in which Ceadwalla joined the Western and Southern Saxons into one kingdom, as if Cissa reigned 76 years, Edelwald 96.

[6] But who would believe that to the nation of those Southern Saxons, to call it by the more potent name, There then was King Ethelmund, passed over by Bede, there were only three Kings in almost three centuries? Why therefore should we doubt to admit in the middle space several others, and namely Ethelmund named in the Life of St. Botulph, who, under the tutelage of his mother Sywara, beginning to reign around the year 615, held that kingdom to about the year 660, and greatly favored the saint in founding the monastery of Ikanho? But although it seems consequent, that from the very beginning of his reign, many in it were made Christians, and the very mother of the King herself, by whose procuring two of his sisters still very tender had been sent across the sea, namely to learn in a monastic school the discipline of heavenly wisdom, as is said at num. 4; he could nevertheless, with various respect hindering, not have come to the grace of baptism; just as in Frisia King Radbod, greatly favoring St. Willibrord, and not impeding his preaching, yet remained in Gentilism. And let this be the cause why Bede was silent about him, content to relate Edilwald, perhaps the son of that Ethelmund (others call him Adelwold), baptized in his own province at the suggestion of Wulfere King of the Mercians. And this one consenting, and St. Wilfrid preaching, the province of the Southern Saxons, which at that time still served pagan cults, as Bede says book 4 chap. 13, received the word of faith and the laver of salvation; the Eastern English reigning, Ethelher and Ethelwald. the whole namely, and publicly, not only in part and privately, as before under Ethelmund. Further, that we may admit this one, passed over by Bede, the way will be paved by other Kings of the English named in the Life, Adelher and Adelwold, kinsmen of the same King Edelmund, who had come together to him at the same time in which the founding of the monastery of St. Botulph was being treated. For at that time there are ascribed from Bede to the Eastern English the Kings Ethelher, then beginning to reign, and Edelwald, who is said to have succeeded him soon in the year 666, both Christians: and these very are the names written in the Life, since Adel and Edel, Athel and Ethel, Wold and Wald, are the same as to the matter.

§ II. The double Life of St. Botulph, the errors of the first, the Epitome of the second. The age and Episcopate of Maastricht of St. Adulph.

[7] The earlier Life, whence edited: These things being premised, which otherwise would offer the greatest difficulty to the Life to be produced below, I pass to the judgment to be passed on it itself. This John Mabillon first brought whole into the light from a Ms. Codex of the monastery of Saint-Évroult, beginning from it part 1 of century 3 of the Benedictines. The same Life formerly John Capgrave, the Prologue omitted, redacted into a compendium, had inserted in his Legend: and the better part of it we had long ago from a double Ms., one of the Canons Regular of Rouge-Cloître near Brussels, whose transcript Rosweyde had procured; the other of Cologne, whence another our Grothusius had transmitted to Bolland. The Author at num. 10 asserts something, related more often by those who were instituted by his (Botulph's) work, and used his presence while he lived; and that he lived among these, while, the monastery not yet destroyed by the Danes, glorious miracles were there done. Hence it might seem (if the first part were absent, and only those things were had which we read in the two aforecited Mss., before Mabillon had brought it whole into the light) it might seem, I say, its author, that he took a part from a writer near in time, that he was nearly contemporary in age, such as Mabillon conjectured him to be from the words aforealleged: but the things which are there in the first place persuade us rather to distinguish two Authors, of whom the first wrote the Life, of which only the latter part survived the Danish incursion, and came into the hands of the second Author; but this one, wishing to make the mutilated Life whole, added the Prologue and beginning from his own, by conjectures founded on the simultaneous cult of SS. Botulph and Adulph. These things read in Capgrave, Michael Alford ascribes to John the Englishman, many centuries younger (which perhaps may be believed of Capgrave's Legend); but he himself strives to excuse it in the Annals, and before him Edward Maihew, in the flowers of the English Church.

[8] yet by the earlier part proves himself later, But this seems exceedingly difficult: for who would patiently hear of the Anglo-Saxon Kings, that, before the Christian faith was propagated in the Britain acquired by them, they directed their offspring and all the nobles to Saxony, the ancient homeland of their stock, that they might learn for the glory of the holy faith the discipline of monastic conversation? since it is certain that they first received the faith in Britain, St. Augustine and his companions preaching; than the Saxons, subdued in Germany by Charlemagne, were brought to the same. No more tolerably is it said that St. Botulph had a brother St. Adulph, likewise with him made a Monk in Saxony; and that the King raised the same to the Church of Maastricht as Bishop. For who was that King? Was it Pippin King of the Franks, father of Charlemagne? But this one had not yet obtained lower Saxony, which we call Frisia, and in it then reigned the pagan Radbod: who although he received St. Willibrord sent by Pippin, shamefully deluded concerning the region of the ancient Saxons. the future first Bishop of Maastricht, yet died pertinacious in his Gentilism. If therefore St. Adulph was there Bishop after his death, he could there under him also have been made a Monk: but St. Botulph one century earlier, after some stay in England, betook himself to the

monastic life out of a desire for it, having set out across the sea, not to Saxony, then still wholly pagan, but withdrew into France; and there visited and instructed the Sisters of his King Ethelmund, until he returned into England; since Bede in book 3 chap. 8 says of the time of Erchanbert King of the people of Kent, who presided from the year 640 to 64, that "many from Britain, for the sake of monastic conversation, since not yet many monasteries had been built in the region of the English, were wont to go to the monasteries of the Franks or of the Gauls; but also sent their daughters to be educated in the same and to be joined to the heavenly bridegroom."

[9] The Danish incursions, by which the monastery of St. Botulph was overthrown, had their beginning with the 9th century, and lasted for about two hundred years, with varying success; so that the barbarians, sometimes driven from the whole island, I should say that he wrote in the 9th century, also lorded it over the whole for about twenty years. Meanwhile in the 10th century, when under King Edgar the places destroyed by the barbarians were restored, the Translation which we mentioned was made: but afterward I judge that the Life too was wholly restored, in the form in which it is now had; perhaps the history of the Translation was also added, such as Capgrave gave at least in compendium; this, moreover, although the scribe of the Saint-Évroult Codex did not find, or, found, neglected to transcribe with the Life; yet Capgrave found and transcribed, or before him John the Englishman, otherwise of Tynemouth, after the Saint's cult was restored: forced to pass under the name of Capgrave. But that Translation it pleases to subjoin in the last place, for this reason the more, that it may persuade us that some St. Adulph is to be acknowledged, whose body was likewise translated; and who on account of the communion of cult (for no other day is known) and the affinity of name was believed the brother of St. Botulph, when the Life was written or restored. In this manner, namely, and that his body was translated with the body of St. Adulph: in which we taught on the day 8 June that the two holy Bishops, Gildard of Rouen and Medard of Noyon, are commonly believed brothers, and indeed born, ordained, and dead on the same day; although one is later than the other by about fifty years.

[10] If it be permitted to put a similar interval of time between Botulph and Adulph, we shall run into the last age of St. Willibrord, of whom St. Boniface, his successor not in the title, who if he was Bishop of Maastricht, but in the care (for he was Archbishop of Mainz when that one died in the year 744), of whom, I say, Willibrord, Boniface wrote to Pope Stephen, that "laboring fifty years in the conversion of the Frisians, he established an Episcopal See in the place which is called Trajectum (Maastricht/Utrecht), and preaching up to feeble old age substituted for himself a Co-bishop for fulfilling the Ministry. But after that one, the days of his long life finished, migrated to the Lord; the Prince of the Franks Carloman commended to me," says Boniface, "that See, to establish and ordain a Bishop; which I also did." Meanwhile he does not name him, as neither him whom Willibrord had substituted for himself; and who, if he had been at Utrecht, Boniface would not have had need to ordain a Bishop, as he says he did. He was therefore he whom Willibrord chose, he was ordained by St. Boniface after the year 744, one of those who in the Council of the year 742 are named Bishops with Boniface, namely Edanus or Dadanus, as Serarius and others think: whose conjectures if it is believed; why should it not be believed by the same right that Adulph was ordained after the death of Willibrord? or what stands in his way in the silence of the Utrecht writers, who know to name neither, nay nor make mention of either? for this reason perhaps, because neither was buried at Utrecht, but one far off in England, left no part of his body which might serve memory and persuade cult.

[11] For then and thus consecrated, Adulph could after some years, and before St. Boniface was crowned with Martyrdom (which was done in the year 755), out of desire of a quieter life have returned into England, and there rested with a holy end in the monastery of St. Botulph, and so by error called the brother of St. Botulph. buried near him. Thus the authority of Leland, Bale, Molanus, and Le Mire will be saved, from the little book which is circulated about the Life of Botulph (as Leland writes in Bale) calling without scruple Adulph Bishop of Maastricht: by which title also he is inscribed in the Fasti and Natales of the Belgian Saints by Molanus and Le Mire; and there will only remain to be dissembled the parachronism of the Author, making full brothers those who differed by more than half a century. But this in him, after all sacred things were overthrown and disturbed by the Danes, ought to be more easily pardoned, than to the Franks, led into a similar error concerning two of their Bishops of chief name and cult, who suffered much lighter things from the incursions of the Normans, than the Anglo-Saxons from those of the Danes. The Life of St. Botulph was therefore lost in England, at least as to the earlier part; and his Relics, together with the body of St. Adulph, being first translated under King Edgar, then to the monastery of St. Edmund founded in the 11th century, in the same or the following century the same Life was restored, as has been said; so it could easily have crept upon the writer, first that he esteemed both brothers; then, because St. Adulph was said to be born of the Saxon nation, he believed the same of St. Botulph who was of Scotia: and because perhaps the one, before he sought Saxony the nurse of his stock, was about to become a Monk under St. Willibrord; The cult of Botulph carried over from England into Denmark, attributed this commonly to both.

[12] To discern these things thus, occasion was given us by the Epitome of a more prolix Life, more ancient, and more whole, and probably also more sincere, found in the Schleswig Breviary. But lest you wonder at this, it will be worth while to observe, that at almost the same time, in which the English, dominion of Britain being recovered for the greater part, were restoring the cult of the Saints; those Danes who still remained there, with their King Harold became Christians, and carried over the faith into Denmark itself, by a happier commerce indeed, and likewise the cult of St. Botulph: which cult, once thus received in Denmark (on whose Isthmus Schleswig rests, the head of the first and ancient England, today there called Angeln), spread itself further to the more northern kingdoms, and to Rügen itself to the East, and to the kingdom of the Obotrites, today Mecklenburg and the neighboring Holsatians. Hence in Olaus Wormius, book 3 of the Danish Fasti, the Runic calendars prove it, where a whole Runic Calendar is set forth, the Mass of Botulph is noted in the rubric, equally as the Mass of John and the Mass of Peter, as three feasts of the month of June, to be venerated by the people keeping holiday; and on the traveler's staff, which the same Wormius in book 2 chap. 9 exhibits to be viewed, containing the feasts of the whole year carved, in June are consequently placed SS. Vitus, William, Botulph; with a proper sign above the names, the first namely with fuller's shears, the others with two banners. But these three days are joined, says Wormius, because they are wont to be called by a solemn word together "Bodelmes" by our people: for on these days they forbid to cover the fields with dung, lest the crops be scorched: where Bodelmes to me sounds nothing other, in a softer dialect than "the Mass of Botulph," as if it gives the name to the whole three-day period as to the chief one.

[13] and the Schleswig Breviary, The Schleswig Breviary, as I said, we have, printed at Paris in the year 1512, at the expense of the Canons of Schleswig, and by the authority of Bishop Godscalc de Alevelde. There the Office of St. Botulph is prescribed of 9 Lections, under this Collect: "O God, the governor and ruler of all kingdoms, who grantest to thy servants to celebrate the annual festivity of Botulph thy Confessor and Abbot; blot out, we beseech, the scars of our wounds, and refresh us with the eternal gifts of the heavenly homeland." The first six Lections are of the Life of the Saint, whom they say was born not in British Saxony, as the earlier Life says, but sprung from the illustrious lineage of the Kings of the Scots, whence is given of the other Life, who, when after his father's death he was compelled to take up the kingdom, himself for the love of God, leaving not only the kingdom, but also the homeland, set out into England. This if true, and the things which follow in the same Lections done through twenty or even thirty years, before the monastery of Ikanho was founded; Botulph ought, according to the Catalogue of the Kings of the Scots deduced by Hector Boethius, to have been the son of Eugenius IV, in the year 620; and the brother of Ferqward, of him who laid violent hands on himself in the year 622 in prison, an Epitome not to be despised. into which he had been cast by his own Princes for his crimes; nor would it then be a wonder, if the holy young man preferred to withdraw from the kingdom rather than to take it up, offered by the Nobles though with injury to his brother albeit a criminal; taught by his fall to despise what could be taken away. Since therefore it could have happened, that the Danes, carrying over into their homeland the cult of St. Botulph, brought thither the whole Life of the same; and the restorer of the ancient Life, an Englishman, found only the last part, as I noted; it seems advisable by no means to despise the said Epitome; but to leave to the judgment of the reader, whether from it he wishes to supplement and correct the other, here to be given in the first place.

VITA

From the edition of Mabillon and two manuscripts.

Botulph Abbot in England (St.) Adulph Bishop in England (St.)

BHL Number: 1428

FROM MABILLON, FROM A MS.

[1] The Prologue of the Author, The benignity of Almighty God, compassionating the error of the human race, which, despoiled by the ancient serpent of the glory granted from heaven, is condemned to the darkness of ignorance; willed to show the riches of His mercy in its restoration, that it might return to the glory of the light from which, blind, it had strayed, through the light which He administered to it by ineffable grace. For the fall of the first man had blocked the entrance of Paradise with the guard of the Cherubim and the flaming sword; which the propitious piety of the eternal Father unsealed in the passion of His Christ, and illustrated the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem with the most brightly shining splendor of ruddy gems; that, illustrated by their light, and purged of the old darkness, we may enter without offense the hall of the heavenly banquet, to receive which eternally the grace of our King has invited us. Those gems of infinite brightness His grace illuminates, the legends to be read on their feast, the writer writing from report. which namely are the merits of the Saints set before us as examples, that by imitating their doctrine and life, we may come to their holy fellowships. Among whom the Fathers of venerable life, Adulph and Botulph, whose merits we strive to celebrate with today's praises and proclamations, He has extolled by gratuitous piety with illustrious virtues, and with fitting documents of life; that, instructed by their institution, by the way which they went before, we may follow with unoffending footsteps. Let us say first, as God's grace shall grant, and as the at-times probable report of the world teaches, who they were, or how they completed the course of life in the present theater.

[2] Before the Christian Religion was spread in Britain, sprung of noble birth, bound by full brotherhood by birth and by charity, they are soon initiated in the heavenly studies. They were born of the Saxon nation, which had acquired Britain by warlike valor, and had learned the faith of the Christian Religion through various teachers; Adulph and Botulph, having gone out from Britain, but, still rude, had not attained the perfection of the heavenly documents and of the higher life: the offspring

therefore, and all the Nobles, direct to Saxony, the ancient nurse of their stock, that there they might more fully learn both the glory of the holy Faith, and the discipline of holy conversation in the apostolic institutions. In this manner both cross the midst of the sea; and as bees, for the sake of honey, eagerly settle on various flowers, so they seek the monasteries of the Saints, ask for conversations, receive documents. They become Monks. There therefore, imbued with the monastic rules, and informed in the holy disciplines of a stricter life, at last they put off the habit of the world, and put on the armor of God; ready namely to resist the assaults of the devil: shorn of the hair of their head, in the grade of perfection they obtained the power of teaching.

[3] By which grace the elder brother, namely holy Adulph, fame resounded in the King's court: Adulph is created Bishop. whence by his favor and the petition of the people he is raised to the Pontifical Chair, and becomes supreme in work and doctrine in the Church of Christ. Enthroned, moreover, in the honor of the Church of Maastricht, he adorned the honor he had received with worthy labor. For he watched as a wise man in the precepts of the Lord, with assiduous solicitude keeping the watches of his fold, lest the lurking wolf should leap with some harm upon the flock committed to him. He insists on the works of mercy in feeding the poor, clothing the needy, correcting the erring, consoling the mourning; that he might obtain the same return of piety from the Lord, as He promises in the Gospel: "Blessed," He says, "are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." He pursues fastings with vigils, extends vigils into psalmodies, sanctifies psalmodies with pious tears; in deed he goes before doctrine, in all things leading a holy life: lastly, that we may put an end to words, in all things he shows himself as becomes a servant of God.

[4] But the blessed Father Botulph, reserved by divine piety, Botulph, that in doctrine and holy conversation he might profit his native homeland; after he advanced by God's grace and by the long fervor of holy religion; disposed now to go back to England for the zeal of charity. There were, moreover, in the same monastery in which he stayed, two sisters of Edelmund the King, who then presided over the Southern English: who loved Father Botulph, as an eminent teacher of sanctity and chastity, and very much on account of zeal for their nation. For while still very tender, instruction being received from the nuns, returning into England, they had been sent across the sea to learn in a monastery the discipline of heavenly wisdom. But hearing that the blessed and beloved Teacher wished to return to his homeland, they impose mandates to be carried to the King their brother and to their mother the Queen, who, Sywara by name, likewise held the scepter of the kingdom, on account of the immature age of her younger son. Father Botulph at last, coming into his native homeland, brought to those hitherto unskilled the norm of the regular life, and a way a great lawgiver before unknown for monastic observances. He is received honorably by the King and Queen, he is honorably received: the reverence of his religion being approved by hearing and sight, and with devout affection in necessary expenses lavish services are bestowed.

[5] But having heard the petitions and mandates of his sisters, that he would sometime grant him a piece of ground for building a monastery for the love of the divine reward; the Queen whom we mentioned intervening more zealously, he became more pleasing both to the King himself, and to all the Princes of the kingdom. For to the consolation of His servant God inspired his heart with His grace: and rendered the King himself benevolent to his petition and desire. There had convened at the same time other Kings of the English, Adelher and Adelwold, kinsmen of the same Edelmund: and they suggested to him to hear the petition of the man of God. They themselves also desired to offer him of their estates, if he would receive them, and to bestow them with devout mind for the worship of the heavenly ministry. But the religious man Botulph, lest any annoyance be inflicted on anyone on his account, and because his carnal friends managed about the same King the royal secrets under the same King, but uncultivated and abandoned: persisted in his petition. For he asked simply, not that anyone be driven by royal violence from his hereditary right on his account; but rather that of his uncultivated lands, or lacking a possessor, he grant only to him, that he might build a church, and in it gather Brethren serving the divine laws: by whose pleasing conversation and devout intervention his kingdom might be temporally strengthened, and eternally rewarded in heaven with perennial rewards. What more? At last the most benign King assented to the pious petition, and granted to his free disposition, in building a monastery, wherever the grace of God should show him.

[6] Thereupon the indefatigable B. Botulph went round the vast places deserted by men: and to him, considering on every side, at last Ykanno pleased, that, fitting buildings being there constructed, monastic religion might be propagated there. But that same desert, as abandoned by the worshipers of Christ, was so possessed by demons; whose phantastic illusion was to be put to flight thence by the coming of so great a soldier of Christ, and pious conversation to be introduced; that where until then the deceit of the devil abounded, thenceforth the grace of our Creator might superabound.

[7] he receives such a one, but infested by demons, At the entrance therefore of the blessed Teacher Botulph, a most foul smoke exhales: and recognizing that their flight was imminent, they resound with horrendous cries, saying: "This place we have inhabited for a long time, and thought to inhabit forever: since we have no other anywhere. Why, O Botulph, most savage guest, do you drive us from these seats? we have offended you in nothing, we have disturbed nothing of your right. What do you seek in our expulsion, since the whole world is famous by your merits? Why do you search out our darkness? You act inhumanly, all piety neglected, that those put to flight from the whole world, you also expel, wretched, from this solitude."

[8] But blessed Botulph, the exceptional athlete of Christ, these being put to flight by the sign of the Cross, prayer being first offered, steadfastly restrained the empty crowd. For, the sign of the Cross being made, he turned them to foul flight: and by the powerful virtue of his words forbids them the region granted to him. The satellites of scandals therefore being expelled, in the Cross of Christ is prefigured the sign of heavenly power, and the hall of divine dwelling is built. [For in a short time having elapsed, after the manner of the monasteries in which he had conversed in the parts of Gaul, he completed the work begun, the divine piety cooperating with him in all things.]

[9] The good shepherd then gathers in the heavenly fold the sheep of Christ: he builds a monastery: and leading them through saving pastures, teaches them to avoid the perils of hell, and to prepare for the joys of flowering paradise. The laborer insists on faithfully cultivating the vineyard of Christ. Laboring therefore day and night unceasingly, both the things uselessly growing up to be cut away with the sickle of heaven, and the lives committed to him to be more zealously cleansed; that from its richer fruit he might exult with eternal gladness, he did not fear to expose his body. For, observing in himself with assiduous diligence the apostolic doctrine and the institutes of the holy Fathers, he diligently instructs his subjects, he exhorts and teaches his subjects to these examples, lest he be reproved as straying from his own doctrine; which, by recalling from memory the stricter life and regular custom of the lands across the sea, with daily inculcations he was wont to teach his subjects with his accustomed gentleness. But where the matter required, by pastoral authority he invites and compels; pious namely, according to the Apostle, toward the subjects; harsher toward the more lax and negligent of the precepts of salvation. But according to blessed Father Benedict, mingling old things with new, and new with old, he taught his disciples the institutes of the ancients understood by himself; and informed them in every way of truth and sanctity.

[10] He was loved by all, both by those who could know him across the sea, and by the Scots neighbors of his homeland: because what he resounded with his mouth, he showed by examples. In nothing arrogant, in nothing swollen, showing what was good or what evil; but in all things mild and humble, sweet and affable he shone. It was related more often by those who were instituted by his discipline, and while he lived used his presence, he is famous for miracles and the prophetic spirit, with how great signs of miracles by God's grace he shone forth; with how great a spirit of prophecy the truthful seer was famous, so that he sometimes announced future and past things more often. With how great an infirmity of body pressed, yet in the giving of thanks with blessed Job he remained most patient. He always had discourse about the progress of souls; always about the joy of eternal felicity the eulogy was turned in his mouth; lest at any time, free from these, he should seem to have neglected the organ of his tongue. By such proofs and institutions of life therefore the man of God spent his age: and by such the Angelic Father came to a worthy old age.

[11] But as the term of his life drew near, and a graver disease prevailing, yet his pious intention did not fail; but the dear ones whom he had made sons to Christ by the divine teachings, he admonishes them with a propitious word: and to speak and often to repeat about the rules of the monasteries to be observed, which as a pilgrim he had sought, he reckoned sweet and delightful. But the indefatigable soldier of Christ, adorned with long studies of virtues, also dwelling among the Brethren by long infirmity, a glorious old man; at last, God calling him from the prison of the flesh, as an old man he piously dies, he was stripped of the earthly man; his disciples standing around, and following his departure with heavenly obsequies and sweet lamentations: accompanied by their groans and tearful sighs, after the long labors of this life, he is borne to heaven to be crowned; that he might merit to hear that joyful voice of his Lord in the ethereal seats; "Well done, good and faithful servant, because you have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many: buried in his monastery on 17 June. enter into the joy of your Lord." He was therefore buried by his disciples in the same monastery which he had built, on the fifteenth of the Kalends of July: where, by his intervention, many glorious miracles are done, to the praise and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ; who with God the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God three and one, through the infinite ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS OF D. P.

p Namely of the Eastern; over the other English, Ethelher and Edelwald presided.

q Utrecht Ms. "to help," better our Mss. and Capgrave.

r So also the same Capgrave, the Utrecht Ms., "most holy guest."

s Our Mss., "the whole city."

t These things, although they are absent from our Mss., I yet think genuine, and indeed of the first Author, ought to be held so much the more certain, as they more evidently refute the error of the second Author, sending Botulph away to the monasteries of Saxony in his supplement.

u These things, although wholly necessary to the sense, had fallen out for the scribe of the Saint-Évroult Codex: as also soon the word "to teach."

x The same Ms., "than by the native inhabitants of his homeland": which, although it seems to make a clearer sense, yet obscures the knowledge of the true homeland, which we hold to have been Scotia from the Schleswig Breviary.

y These things would altogether persuade that the Author, from whom they are taken, was nearly contemporary with the Saint, a synchronous of Bede.

z In what year is uncertain, says Mabillon, but since Botulph laid the foundations of his monastery in the year 654 and died very old, he could easily have come to the year 700. The same I too should judge, were it not that I learn from the Schleswig Breviary that about 20 years elapsed from when he began to dwell in England before he founded that monastery, and so was born after the beginning of that century; unless we wish that he died nearly a hundred years old.

EPITOME OF THE LIFE

Perhaps more ancient and more whole. From the Schleswig Breviary.

Botulph Abbot in England (St.) Adulph Bishop in England (St.)

BHL Number: 1430

[1] After the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ shone everywhere on earth; Having crossed from Scotia into England, there was a man worthy of God, Bothulph by name, sprung from the illustrious lineage of the Kings of the Scots: who, when after his father's death he was compelled to take up the kingdom; himself for the love of God, leaving not only the kingdom, but also the homeland, set out into England. Where, devoutly received by Edmund King of England, not long after, the same King ordering, he was promoted to sacred Orders.

[2] after 7 years he builds an oratory for himself and his companion: But when he had stayed seven years with the same King, he supplicated him to grant him a place, where he might more freely serve the Lord. Who assigned him a most beautiful place, surrounded on every side by the rivulets of a certain river. Where, a church being built to the honor of God, he began through divine grace to shine with many signs. But while the man of God stayed there with his disciple; on a certain day a poor man, knocking at the door, begged alms for God's sake.

[3] The holy Father ordering that the disciple give him something, having bestowed his only loaf on the poor, he answered that he had nothing for the whole sustenance of the body, except a single loaf: which he ordered to be divided into four parts, and one of them to be given to the poor man. What more? Three other poor men coming, he gave out the remaining three little portions. When therefore the disciple murmured about this; the holy man said; "Be not, my son, disturbed: for God is able to restore all to us." Scarcely had he finished the words, and behold four little boats laden with food and drink were drawn along the aforesaid river, which Almighty God ministered to the holy man through His faithful.

[4] But on a certain day, visited by the aforesaid King, he asked for another place to inhabit: having crossed to another place, because in the former place he was too much infested by the unclean spirits. To his prayers the King assenting, gave him a more fitting place on the river Thames. In which place the man of God built a church in honor of St. Martin. But dwelling in the same place, he kills an eagle troublesome to the hens. he began to feed hens: which an eagle, coming from the neighboring wood, was wont to snatch. But when on a certain day it had snatched a cock, the man of God threatened it: which at once coming placed the cock alive before his feet, and so falling expired.

[5] But thirteen years having rolled by in the same place, after 13 years he migrates to solitude, the ancient enemy came in the form of a serpent, and inflicted a grave bite on the man of God. On account of which he again pressed the King, to give him another place. Who led him far from the sea, into a vast solitude: where, as he proceeded through thorny places, he came to a certain valley, which had a rivulet of water; and the man of God said: "Here is the seat." In that place therefore given him by the King, he built two churches in honor of the Apostles Peter and Paul. These being completed, he crossed to Rome for the sake of prayer, he goes to Rome, that he might visit the thresholds of the same most blessed Apostles.

[6] Returning thence, and bearing with him many Relics of the Saints, before he entered his own cell, he illuminates a blind girl; he illuminated a blind girl by his prayers. King Edmund, hearing the return of the holy man, met him with great joy, and stayed with him three days. After these things the man of God Bothulph crossed to the Lord: dead, he is famous for miracles. whose body his disciples honorably gave over to burial: at whose tomb many miracles are done, our Lord Jesus Christ granting, to whom is honor and glory unto the ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS OF D. P.

TRANSLATIONS

From the Legend of John Capgrave and others.

Botulph Abbot in England (St.) Adulph Bishop in England (St.)

BHL Number: 1431

[1] In the time of King Edgar, St. Ethelwold the restorer of monasteries; St. Ethelwold taking care, asked of the King and obtained, that from the places and monasteries destroyed by the Pagans, he might transfer the bodies of the Saints to the monasteries built in his time. For the monastery of Ykanho had been deprived of the conversation of Monks by the persecutors of B. Edmund the King, and destroyed, the body of St. Botulph is sought, but by no means by all devotion of the faithful. But when a certain Monk Ulfkitell by name, with many others, by the mandate of St. Ethelwold, had come to the tomb of St. Botulph; and had taken up his precious bones laid up in a shroud, and, raised on their shoulders, they tried to carry them away; but without St. Adulph it cannot be carried off. they are fixed with so great a weight, that with no effort can they move a step. Moreover the enclosures of the altar resound with a great crash, and intend a certain movement as of an unfinished work. They stand astonished therefore with stupefied senses for a long while: but at last, God's grace teaching, the aforesaid Monk recalls from things heard in the same place, his body to Thorney, that B. Adulph the Prelate was buried together with his brother, and his body being raised from the earth they carried it rejoicing with them to St. Ethelwold but this one to King Edgar. Who assigned the head of St. Botulph to the monastery of Ely, for himself and his Court he received the half of the rest of the body into the shrine of the Royal Relics: and what remained he granted to the church of Thorney with the body of B. Adulph.

[2] his church at London. In the book of the church of St. Botulph, near Aldersgate at London, it is contained, that a part of the body of St. Botulph was conferred by King Edward of good memory, perhaps the third of this name called the Confessor, who is venerated on 4 January. At the same time, as I have found written in certain places, by the same Monk, Bishop Ethelwold ordering, there were translated to the monastery of Thorney the bones of Benedict Biscop, Abbot of the venerable monastery of Wearmouth, the nourisher of Bede. We treated of him on 12 January, but without mention of such a translation; and therefore it was not here to be omitted. But of St. Ethelwold the author of these translations, it will have to be treated on 1 August, and the things which are here further said of him in Capgrave, will there have to be added. But the aforesaid Translation Odericus Vitalis also mentions in his ecclesiastical History, edited among the Norman writers, where on page 834 it is read, that the body of St. Botulph was translated to the monastery of Thorney. And this indeed under King Edgar, before the year 975.

[3] Another translation to the church of St. Edmund, Another, different from this, and probably later, the manuscript Martyrology of the once Altemps Library, cited at the beginning, suggests in these words for the day on the 15th of the Kalends of July: "at St. Edmund's, of St. Botulph Bishop and Confessor." For although Botulph was only an Abbot; yet the same day, which is expressed in the Life of the Abbot, and is also assigned to his cult, persuades that they are by no means to be held different; but that the titles of the body translated from place to place were the more easily confused, because St. Adulph, likewise translated, was said to have been a Bishop. Nay, that even this one was translated on this occasion, the year of which it is difficult to divine, the verses from the Office of St. Botulph persuade, which were found in the Saint-Évroult codex, thus transcribed by Mabillon in the Appendix.

One part placates the brother, one part enriches the sacred things of the Church. O harmonious power! The Saint, to be carried without his brother, Fixed himself by his weight, could not be lifted without his brother. Soon the earth of holy Adulph gives a celebrated crash, Impatient to be loosed from the joining of dear Botulph. The sepulchres of the Saints themselves live while they live; By their mutual merits each gives wholesome things to us. These thy gifts are in Botulph and Adulph.

Wherefore when William of Malmesbury, in book 2 on the Pontiffs of the English, with an indication that St. Adulph was also then translated, where he treats of the Eastern English and the monasteries subject to their care; when, I say, speaking of the monastery of St. Edmund he says, that "there lie in the church the Saints Germanus and Botulph"; I should not here understand any other different from the earlier one, as Mabillon does; but I should suspect the text corrupted through the carelessness of the copyists, and so to be read: "There lie in the church two holy Germani, (namely from the opinion then received that they were brothers) Adulph and Botulph: whose deeds I do not remember to be had either there or elsewhere: except that the first is asserted to be the brother of St. Etheldritha, the second a Bishop," as was done in the Altemps Martyrology, by error, not to be imputed to the copyist's fault (which is apparent); but to be ascribed to the fallacious conjecture of the monks of that place, not having the acts of the Life.

[5] St. Etheldritha or Etheldreda, daughter of Anna King of the Eastern English, confused with the brother of St. Etheldritha. born around the year 645, died in the year 689, according to the Life to be given on 23 June; and had a brother Adulph, King of the same Eastern English, whom here to be confused with the holy companion of Botulph, is less a wonder; more, how they could be believed brothers, born of so disparate an age: as we have already said of St. Adulph. Nor yet would I deny that he was sprung of royal stock, who in the Episcopate of Maastricht had as successor of equal nobility St. Gregory; the Kings of the Franks willingly promoting such, when the brightness of blood was adorned by the splendor of virtue and learning. Meanwhile, on account of the Office of St. Botulph, thus as it is presented in the Saint-Évroult Codex described, I incline to believe that that Codex was written in the monastery of St. Edmund; where also are read the following verses, in which is contained a miracle, a sweet odor for 15 days in the translation. done in the first (as it seems) Translation, nor yet related by Capgrave:

O Botulph, sweet with thy brother Adulph, What thou wast in life, thy opened tombs teach. For thrice five days the desert gives wondrous aromas, The members consecrated to God are fragrant with so great a grace.

* otherwise: "to whom."