Rumwold was a medieval infant
saint in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, said to have lived for three days in 662. He is said to have been full of
Christian piety despite his young age, and able to speak from the moment of his birth, professing his faith, requesting
baptism
Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost ...
, and delivering a
sermon
A sermon is a religious discourse or oration by a preacher, usually a member of clergy. Sermons address a scriptural, theological, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law, or behavior within both past and present contexts. ...
prior to his early death. Several churches were dedicated to him, of which at least four survive.
Name
His name has a number of alternative spellings: Rumwald, Runwald, Rumbald, Rumbold, Romwold, Rombout, Rumble and Rumbel. Rumbold is the more common name used today, with streets in Buckingham and Lincoln being spelt this way.
Hagiography
According to the 11th century
hagiography, ''Vita Sancti Rumwoldi'', he was the grandson of
Penda of Mercia
Penda (died 15 November 655)Manuscript A of the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' gives the year as 655. Bede also gives the year as 655 and specifies a date, 15 November. R. L. Poole (''Studies in Chronology and History'', 1934) put forward the theor ...
(a
pagan), and the son of a king of
Northumbria
la, Regnum Northanhymbrorum
, conventional_long_name = Kingdom of Northumbria
, common_name = Northumbria
, status = State
, status_text = Unified Anglian kingdom (before 876)North: Anglian kingdom (af ...
. His parents are not actually named; the most likely candidates are
Alhfrith
Alhfrith or Ealhfrith (c. 630 – c. 664) was King of Deira under his father Oswiu, King of Bernicia, from 655 until sometime after 664. Appointed by Oswiu as a subordinate ruler, Alhfrith apparently clashed with his father over religious policy, ...
, son of
Oswiu of Northumbria
Oswiu, also known as Oswy or Oswig ( ang, Ōswīg; c. 612 – 15 February 670), was King of Bernicia from 642 and of Northumbria from 654 until his death. He is notable for his role at the Synod of Whitby in 664, which ultimately brought the ch ...
, and his wife Cyneburh, daughter of Penda. But there are difficulties with this identification: Alhfrith never ruled Northumbria himself, unlike his father, only the subkingdom of
Deira
Deira ( ; Old Welsh/Cumbric: ''Deywr'' or ''Deifr''; ang, Derenrice or ) was an area of Post-Roman Britain, and a later Anglian kingdom.
Etymology
The name of the kingdom is of Brythonic origin, and is derived from the Proto-Celtic *''daru' ...
. Also the Northumbrian king is described as a pagan, but according to
Bede, Alhfrith was a Christian and convinced Penda's son
Peada
Peada (died 656), a son of Penda, was briefly King of southern Mercia after his father's death in November 655The year could be pushed back to 654 if a revised interpretation of Bede's dates is used. and until his own death in the spring of the n ...
to convert to Christianity too. Although it has been stated that Cyneburh is not known to have had any children, Northumbrian genealogy states she and Alhfrith had a further son, Osric, who subsequently became King of Northumbria himself (source: Stenton).
In the ''Vita'', Rumwold's mother is described as a pious Christian who, when married to a pagan king, tells him that she will not consummate the marriage until he converts to Christianity; he does so, and she becomes pregnant. The two are called by Penda to come to him when the time of her birth is near, but she gives birth during the journey, and immediately after being born the infant is said to have cried out: "Christianus sum, christianus sum, christianus sum" ("I am a Christian, I am a Christian, I am a Christian"). He went on to further profess his faith, to request baptism, and to ask to be named "Rumwold", afterwards giving a sermon. He predicted his own death, and said where he wanted his body to be laid to rest, in
Buckingham.
Rumwold is reported to have been born in Walton Grounds, near
King's Sutton in
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by
two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...
, which was at that time part of the Mercian royal estates, possessing a court house and other instruments of government. The field in which he was born, where a chapel once stood on the supposed spot, may still be seen. King's Sutton parish church claims that its Saxon or Norman font may well have been the one where Rumwold was baptised. Rumwold was baptized by Bishop Widerin.
There are two wells associated with his name: in
Astrop, just outside King's Sutton, and at
Brackley
Brackley is a market town and civil parish in West Northamptonshire, England, bordering Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, from Oxford and from Northampton. Historically a market town based on the wool and lace trade, it was built on the inter ...
and Buckingham, where his relics once lay. Church dedications largely follow the missionary activity of Saint
Wilfrid
Wilfrid ( – 709 or 710) was an English bishop and saint. Born a Northumbrian noble, he entered religious life as a teenager and studied at Lindisfarne, at Canterbury, in Francia, and at Rome; he returned to Northumbria in about 660, and ...
, who was the personal chaplain of King Alhfrith (source: Bede), but once spread as far as
North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by National parks of the United Kingdom, national parks, including most of ...
,
Lincoln
Lincoln most commonly refers to:
* Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States
* Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England
* Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S.
* Lincol ...
,
Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...
and
Dorset
Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...
.
Boxley Abbey
Boxley Abbey in Boxley, Kent, England was a Cistercian monastery founded c.1146 by William of Ypres, leader of King Stephen's Flemish mercenaries, and colonised by monks from Clairvaux Abbey in France. Some of its ruins survive, some four miles ...
in
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
had a famous statue of the saint. It was small and of a weight so small a child could lift it, but at times it supposedly became so heavy even strong people could not lift it. According to tradition, only those could lift it who had never sinned. Upon the
Dissolution of the Monasteries in England, it was discovered that the statue was held by a wooden pin by an unseen person behind the statue.
In 2005, the former church of Saint Rumwold in Lincoln, which is now a college, erected a plaque to celebrate the connection.
St. Rumbold of Mechelen
There has been some historical confounding between Rumwold of Buckingham and
Rumbold of Mechelen
Saint Rumbold (or ''Rumold'', ''Romuold'', la, Rumoldus, nl, Rombout, french: Rombaut) was an Irish or Scottish Christian missionary, although his true nationality is not known for certain.
He was martyred near Mechelen by two men, whom he h ...
. The latter is locally known by the Latin name ''Rumoldus'' and in particular his name in Dutch, ''Rombout'' (in French spelled as ''Rombaut''), and assumedly never called Rumwold. His usual names in English are Rumold, Rumbold, Rombout, and Rombaut. A compilation about three saints' lives as translated by Rosalind Love shows that an unknown author "corrected" a 15th-century attribution as "martyr" (assumedly Rumbold, who was murdered in
Mechelen) by annotating "confessor" .
References
Sources
''General:''
* From which are relevant:
:*
:*
:*
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External links
*
{{Authority control
662 births
662 deaths
Mercian saints
Christian child saints
7th-century Christian saints
English children
Buckingham