Saint Guthlac

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For the saint of this name from Glastonbury, see Guthlac of Glastonbury

Saint Guthlac of Croyland (683-714) was a Christian saint from Lincolnshire in England. He is particularly venerated in the Fens.

[edit] Life

Guthlac was the son of Penwald, a noble of the English kingdom of Mercia, and his wife Tette. His sister is also venerated as Saint Pega. As a young man, he fought in the army of Æthelred of Mercia and subsequently became a monk at Repton Monastery in Derbyshire at age twenty-four. He sought to live the life of a hermit, and after a long journey landed on the island of Croyland (now Crowland) on St. Bartholomew's Day, 699 AD.

Guthlac, it is reported, hated Croyland. Along with his companions he set up a small oratory and cells to live in, and lived there the rest of his life until his death in 714 AD. Felix, a contemporary, writes that Guthlac dressed in animal skins, and the only nourishment he took was a scrap of barley bread and a small cup of muddy water after sunset. Ague and marsh fever assailed him, and the inhabitants of the island were rough and barbarous, it is written.

His pious and holy life became the talk of the land, and many people visited Guthlac during his life, seeking spiritual guidance from him. One day, he gave sanctuary to Ethelbald, a pretender to the throne of Mercia, fleeing from his cousin Ceolred. Guthlac told Ethelbald that he would be king one day, and so Ethelbald promised to build Guthlac an abbey if his prophesy became true. Ethelbald did become king, and even though Guthlac had died two years previously, kept his word and started construction of Croyland Abbey on St. Bartholomew's Day, 716 AD.

The story of Saint Guthlac is told in the Guthlac Roll, a set of detailed illustrations of the 12th century; it is kept in the British Library. Copies of it can be seen on display at Croyland Abbey.

[edit] External links

• Early British Kingdoms: St. Guthlac
• Alexandra H. Olsen's 'Saint Guthlac and Saint Pega in the South English Legendary'

[edit] Sources

• Colgrave, Bertram. 1956. Felix's Life of Saint Guthlac. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Roberts, Jane. 1979. The Guthlac Poems of the Exeter Book. Oxford: Clarendon Press