| Saint Walpurga | |
|---|---|
Statue in Contern church |
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| Born | c. 710 Devon |
| Died | February 25, 777 or 779 Heidenheim (Mittelfranken) |
| Canonized | 870 by Adrian II |
| Feast | Varies |
| Patronage | Eichstätt, Antwerp and other towns |
Saint Walpurga or Walburga (Old English: Wealdburg; c. 710 – February 25, 777 or 779), also spelled Valderburg or Guibor,[1] was an English missionary to the Frankish Empire. She was canonized on 1 May ca. 870 by Pope Adrian II. The "witches' sabbath" Walpurgis Night occurs on the eve of her day, which coincides with May Day.
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Together with her brothers, Saint Willibald and Saint Winibald, she travelled to Francia (now Württemberg and Franconia) to assist Saint Boniface, her mother's brother, in evangelizing among the still-pagan Germans. She had been well prepared for the call. She was educated by the nuns of Wimborne Abbey, Dorset, where she spent twenty-six years as a member of the community. Thanks to her rigorous training, she was later able to write St. Winibald's vita and an account in Latin of St. Willibald's travels in Palestine, so that she is often credited with being the first female author of both England and Germany.[2]
She became a nun and lived in the double monastery of Heidenheim am Hahnenkamm near Eichstätt, which was founded by her brother, Willibald, who appointed her his successor; after his death in 751, she became abbess. Walpurga died on 25 February 777 or 779 and was buried at Heidenheim; that day still carries her name in the Catholic calendar. In the 870s, her remains were transferred to Eichstätt, and in some places, e.g. Finland, Sweden, and Bavaria, her feast day commemorates the translation of her relics on 1 May.
Walpurga's feast day is on 25 February, but the day of her canonization, 1 May (possibly in AD 870), was also celebrated during the high medieval period, especially in the 11th century under Anno II, Archbishop of Cologne, so that Walpurgis Night is the eve of May Day, celebrated in continental folklore with dancing.
At Eichstätt, her bones were placed in a rocky niche, which began to exude, it was said, a miraculously therapeutic oil, which drew pilgrims to her shrine.
The two earliest miracle narratives of Walpurga are the Miracula S. Walburgae Manheimensis by Wolfhard von Herrieden, datable 895/96, and the late tenth-century Vita secunda linked with the name of Aselbod, bishop of Utrecht. In the fourteenth-century, Vita S. Walburgae of Phillipp von Rathsamhaüsen, bishop of Eichstätt (1306–22) the miracle of the tempest-tossed boat is introduced, which Peter Paul Rubens painted in 1610 for the altarpiece for the church of S. Walpurgis, Antwerp.[3]
The earliest representation of Walpurga, in the early 11th-century Hitda Codex, executed in Cologne, depicts her holding stylized stalks of grain. In other images the object has been called a palm branch, which is not possible, as Walpurga was not martyred. The grain attribute has been interpreted as an instance where a Christian saint (Walpurga) came to be a stand-in for the older pagan concept of the Grain Mother; peasants fashioned her image in a corn dolly at harvest time and told folk tales to explain Saint Walpurga's presence in the grain sheaf.[4]
She is the patron saint of those affected by rabies.
Walpurga is the patroness of Eichstätt, Antwerp, Oudenaarde, Veurne, Groningen, Zutphen and other towns in the Low Countries.[5]
The Church of St. Walburge, Preston, a Roman Catholic church in Preston, Lancashire, England, is a particularly tall and beautiful church dedicated to her.
The supposed father of Saint Walpurga and of her brothers Saints Winibald and Willibald, Saint Richard the Pilgrim, the English king of Wessex, is buried in the Basilica of San Frediano, Lucca, where he died on pilgrimage in 722. Richard was also called the Pilgrim, the Saxon, of Droitwich.
| Wikisource has the text of the 1885–1900 Dictionary of National Biography's article about Walburga. |