October 12th was the feast of St Wilfrid the great seventh century northern bishop and missionary. Born c.633, probably in Deira ( more or less the historic county of Yorkshire ), he died in 709/10 in his mid-seventies after a remarkable and productive career as monastic founder, bishop, evangeliser and the exercise of ecclesiastical influence.
Almost certainly aristocratic by birth as witnessed to by his confidence as a young man and throughout his life, he was indefatigable in his actions and resolve. Energetic and tireless he made three journeys to Rome in pursuit of his rights and claims. He was not just Northumbrian in his actions. Whilst in exile he evangelised Sussex, establishing at Seles what became the diocese of Chichester, and from thence was a missionary to the Isle of Wight. In his later years he worked in the East Midlands, possibly based in Leicester and it was there that he died at Oundle. On a visit to the continent he attempted to convert the Frisians, a task later resumed by St Willibrord, a Wilfridian trained monk, and later still by St Boniface.
He was a cosmopolitan figure, influenced by what he witnessed in Gaul and Italy, the antithesis of provincialism and insular localism. By his life and actions Wilfrid, like other Northumbrian contemporaries bound his home region into the wider world of Latin Christendom.
Wikipedia has, as it usually does for lives and topics from the Anglo Saxon period, a detailed and well researched account of his life and times which can be seen at Wilfrid
This discusses inter alia how Wilfrid was recorded by Bede as a possibly critical, if not hostile, historian.
Eddius Stephanus’ Life of Bishop Wilfrid, which is clearly positive in its assessment of the man, as edited by Bertram Colgrave for Cambridge UP, can be read online at The Life of Bishop Wilfrid
There is a cut-away reconstruction of the church built by St Wilfrid at Hexham on the website of the York Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture at Hexham Abbey
Hexham Abbet ( recte Priory ) is a treasure house of late medieval ecclesiastical furnishings, notably panel paintings, in addition to the crypt and sculpture from the Wilfridian era. The church’s website has material on St Wilfrid and a reconstruction drawing of his church which can be seen at Wilfrid
No contemporary descriptions let alone portraits of St Wilfrid survive. Amongst later depictions there is a fifteenth century panel now in the choir of Hexham. It has been suggested that this was originally in the refectory for the medieval Augustinian canons. Together with the other figures on the panel it is similar to rood screen images elsewhere and the stained glass in the early fifteenth century choir windows of York Minster. A drawing of it is Illustrated in the Hexham Abbey link above.
St Wilfrid Pray for us
2 comments:
A most interesting account of Hexham Abbey (recte Priory), John.
Any more on, say, Rievaulx, or, Fountains, or, Bolton, etc ?
Many thanks.
Hexham is very well worth a visit for its architecture- including the rebuilt nave of just over a century ago. Alas nineteenth century enthusiasm for a “pure” Early English choir led to the rebuilding of the eastern wall and the loss of the fourteenth century eastern chapels. The interior has the wonderful flight of night stairs in the south transept and, as I mentioned, the wealth of panel paintings. Maybe not great art but surely typical of what was once widespread and was so often a casualty of the centuries after 1534. Hexham also is an attractive town, lies in beautiful countryside, crossed by Hadrian’s Wall and with a battlefield from the Wars of the Roses just outside the town. What more could you want.
I will see what I can say, as opportunity presents itself about other northern abbeys, priories and collegiate churches.
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