Saint Richard the Pilgrim (also St Richard of Wessex,[1] St. Richard the King, St. Richard the Saxon, St. Richard of Swabia) is a saint of the Christian Church. He was born in Wessex, England. He was the brother-in-law of Saint Boniface[2] (Archbishop of Mainz) and father of Saints Willibald (Bishop of Eichstätt), Winnebald or Winibald (Abbot of Heidenheim), and Walburga (Abbess of Heidenheim).[1] Richard, his supposed wife Wuna and their three children are depicted together at St Walburga's shrine in Eichstätt.
Richard is said to have obtained the recovery of his grievously sick three-year-old younger son Willibald through his prayers.[1]
Richard renounced his royal estate and set sail with his two sons from Hamblehaven near Southampton about 721. They landed in France and stayed for a while in Rouen before setting off on the pilgrimage route to Italy, making devotions at most of the shrines on the way.[1]
He fell ill with a fever and died in Lucca, in Tuscany, where he was buried in the church of San Frediano (founded by the Irish monk Frigidian). Miracles were reported at his tomb and a cult of veneration grew up. The people of Lucca embellished accounts of his life, describing him as a prince of the English; another unreliable story described him as the Duke of Swabia in Germany.
Richard's niece, a nun called Hugeburc or Huneburc (Huneburc of Heidenheim), wrote an account of the pilgrimage, which Willibald had continued to the Holy Land, under the title Hodoeporicon, some time thought to be between 761 and 786.[3]
Some of Richard's relics were translated to Eichstätt where his son Willibald eventually became bishop.[1]
In religious iconic art Richard is portrayed as a royal pilgrim, in an ermine-lined cloak and with two sons — one a bishop and one an abbot. His crown may be on a book (Roeder). He is venerated at Heidenheim and Lucca (Roeder).[1] A modern icon at the Monastery of the Holy Transfiguration in the U.S. depicts him as King of Wessex.
The king of the West Saxons or Wessex who was contemporaneous was King Ine, who ascended the throne in 688, and died in or after 726. Bede has him abdicating after 37 years — i.e., 725-26; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has him abdicating about 726-28 and going to Rome and dying there. (Handbook of British Chronology, ed. Fryde et al., 3rd ed., RHS, 1986, p. 22).
Richard's feast day is February 7.[1]
St. Richard the Pilgrim should not be confused with Richard le Pèlerin, (also "Richard the Pilgrim"), a North French or Flemish jongleur, an eyewitness of the siege of Antioch in 1097 and author of a poem on the subject.[4]