medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Terrill Heaps wrote:
>
> So far as St. Botolph being the patron saint of Boston(s):
>
> Legenda for St. Botolph (Botulph), Abbot:
>
> Botolph (Botulph), and his brother Adolf (Adulph), both of whom are
> venerated as Saints, went as youths to Begic Gaul; and there became
> monks. Adulph is said to have become a regionary bishop at Utrecht.
> Botolph in the course of time returned to England, and founded, about
> the year 654, a monastery at a place usually identified with Boston
> in Lincolnshire, for Boston is a corruption of Botolph's Town. He was
> proclaimed far and wide as a man of remarkable learning, full of the
> grace of the Holy Spirit, and went to God about the year 680. And
> when the monastery was destroyed during the Danish invasion of the
> ninth century, his relicks, and those of Saint Adulph which had been
> enshrined with him, were saved, and later distributed among various
> great Minsters in England.
>
I suppose you realised that you were always going to be pushing your luck
posting this!
For a start, it is 'Botwulf's stone' (not farmstead, village - although this
mistake was made in the Middle Ages, as was the identification with St
Botulph.) Onomasts are undecided as to whether the Botwulf in question was
St Botulph. Cameron (1998) points out that although Boston has been
identified with Icanho where St Botulph founded a monastery, this is Iken in
Suffolk. Mills (1991) says firmly "Identification of Botwulf with the 7th
cent. missionary St Botulf is improbable." Ekwall (1960) allowed that the
'stone' (probably a boundary marker or meeting point - or both, of course)
could have been where St Botulph preached. He adds, somewhat mysteriously,
"St Botulf was not buried in Boston."
John Briggs
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