Saint Adulf (also Adolph, Adolf, Athwulf, Æthelwulf or Æðelwulf) (died 680 AD) was an
Anglo-Saxon
The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
saint.
Life
Adulf is said to have been the brother of
Botolph
Botolph of Thorney (also called Botolph, Botulph or Botulf; later known as Saint Botolph; died around 680) was an English abbot and saint. He is regarded as the patron saint of boundaries, and by extension, of trade and travel, as well as vario ...
, but virtually nothing is known about his life. The story, which originated with a monk of Thorney,
Folcard
Folcard or Foulcard ( fl. 1066) was a Flemish hagiographer.
Life
Folcard, a Fleming by birth, was a monk of St. Bertin's in Flanders (now Northern France), and is supposed to have come over to England in the reign of Edward the Confessor. He ent ...
's, account of Botolph's life, that Adulf was at one-time bishop of
Maastricht
Maastricht ( , , ; li, Mestreech ; french: Maestricht ; es, Mastrique ) is a city and a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It is the capital and largest city of the province of Limburg. Maastricht is located on both sides of the ...
, is now generally thought to rest on a confusion of names and to have no substance. However, it does explain the reason today's saint is often honored as a bishop.
The monastery at
Iken
Iken is a small village and civil parish in the sandlands of the English county of Suffolk, an area formerly of heathland and sheep pasture. It is near the estuary of the River Alde on the North Sea coast and is located south east of Snape and ...
, in
East Anglia
East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...
, was destroyed in
Viking
Vikings ; non, vÃkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden),
who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...
raids. It is said that when by the orders of
Æthelwold of Winchester
Æthelwold of Winchester (also Aethelwold and Ethelwold, 904/9 – 984) was Bishop of Winchester from 963 to 984 and one of the leaders of the tenth-century monastic reform movement in Anglo-Saxon England.
Monastic life had declined to ...
, Botolph's body was disinterred for translation to the new abbey of
Thorney, Adulf's body was buried with it, and as it proved impossible to disentangle the bones, the remains of both saints were taken to
Thorney, where the relics of Adulf remained.
"Saint Adulf", Newman Connection
/ref> The feast day of both saints is 17 June.
References and notes
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Adulf
Year of birth unknown
680s deaths
East Anglian saints
7th-century Christian saints