Record | The Cult of Saints

The Calendar of Willibrord, in its earliest version, records the feasts of various saints in January. Written in Latin at Echternach, Frisia (north-east Gaul), 703/710.

Evidence ID

E05840

Type of Evidence

Liturgical texts - Calendars and martyrologies

Late antique original manuscripts - Parchment codex

Major author/Major anonymous work

The Calendar of Willibrord

The Calendar of Willibrord records in January the feasts of the following saints:

*Genovefa (ascetic of Paris, ob. c. 502, S01156)
*Timothy (the disciple of Paul the Apostle, S00466)
*Felicitas (unspecified: presumably either the martyr of Rome, S00525, or the companion of Perpetua, S00009)
*Hilarius (bishop of Poitiers, ob. 367, S00183)
*Felix (priest and confessor of Nola, S00000)
*Antony (the Great, monk of Egypt, ob.356, S00098)
*Peter (the Apostle, S00036)
*Mary (mother of Christ, S00033)
*Sebastianus (martyr of Rome, S00400)
*Agnes (virgin and martyr of Rome, S00097)
*Babylas (bishop and martyr of Antioch, S00061)
*Paul (the Apostle, S00008)
*Sulpicius (either the first such named bishop of Bourges, ob. 591, S02151, or his namesake, ob. 646/7, S02346)
*Valerius (bishop of Trier, 3rd/4th c., S02152)
*Lucia ('virgin': perhaps a saint of Trier, S02153, or the martyr of Syracuse, S00846)
*Wilgis (anchorite and abbot of Northumbria, S02154)

Paris, Bibliothéque nationale de France, Lat. 10837, f. 34v

Kalendas ianuari Circumcisio domini
iiii nonas
iii in parisi natale genifeuae uirginis
ii
nonas
viii idus epifania domini
vii
vi natale timothei
v
iiii
iii natale felicitatis
ii
idus natale hilari episcopi
xviiii kalendas februari felicis confessoris in nola
xviii
xvii
xvi natale antoni monachi
xv cathedra petri in roma et adsumptio sanctae mariae
xiiii
xiii sebastiani martyris
xii agnae uirginis
xi
x
viiii babilae episcopi et martyris
viii conuersio pauli in damasco
vii
vi natale sulpici episcopi
v
iiii treueris natale ualeri episcopi et luciae uirginis
iii uilgisli abbatis
ii

'1 January - Circumcision of the Lord
2
3 - In Paris, the feast of Genovefa, virgin
4
5
6 - Epiphany of the Lord
7
8 - Feast of Timothy
9
10
11 - Saint Felicity
12
13 - Feast of Hilarius, bishop
14 - Felix, confessor in Nola
15
16
17 - Feast of Antony, monk
18 - Chair of Peter in Rome, and the Assumption of Saint Mary
19
20 - Sebastian, martyr
21 - Agnes, virgin
22
23
24 - Babylas, bishop and martyr
25 - Conversion of Paul in Damascus
26
27 - Feast of Sulpicius, bishop
28
29 - Feast of Valerius, bishop of Trier, and Lucia, virgin
30 - Wilgis, abbot
31'

Text: Wilson 1918, 3 (adapted: Wilson's 'first hand' in roman type, 'second hand' in italics, later annotations omitted).
Translation: B. Savill.

Festivals

Saint’s feast

Source

A liturgical calendar directly associated with Willibrord (archbishop of the Frisians, 695-739; abbot of Echternach, 697/8-739) survives as a contemporary manuscript in Paris, BnF, Lat. 10837, ff. 34v-40, where it immediately follows a version of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum of approximately the same date and provenance. Although it exceeds our database’s cut-off point of AD 700 by some three to ten years, the Calendar of Willibrord is included here since it almost certainly provides a key witness to cultic and liturgical practices in Britain and Ireland at the close of the 7th century – something not afforded by the relatively meagre contemporary Insular evidence.

Willibrord was born in Deira, Northumbria (northern Britain) in 657/8, and given as an oblate to the monastery of Ripon in 664. He left Britain for Ireland in 678, possibly under compulsion after the sudden fall from power that same year of his abbot and mentor, Bishop Wilfrid. He lived at the Irish monastery of Rath Melsigi until 690, before travelling to north-east Francia and embarking on his missionary career as 'apostle of the Frisians'. Pope Sergius I ordained Willibrord as archbishop in Rome in 695, and although he appears to have based his see at Utrecht, most sources suggest that his new monastic foundation at Echternach (near the modern-day Germany-Luxembourg border) served as his main ecclesiastical centre.

Echternach’s early scriptorium almost certainly produced the Calendar. A lunar cycle for the years 703-21 appended to the text indicates the widest possible time frame for its original composition, and moreover suggests a date within that cycle’s first few years. Meanwhile, the absence of any entry for Willbrord’s mentor Bishop Wilfrid (ob. 24 April, 710), whom we know was cultivated as a saint almost immediately after his death, strongly suggests against any date later than 710. The Calendar includes no identifiable saints later than Pope Sergius I (ob. 701) and Lambert, bishop of Maastricht and patron saint of Liège (ob. c. 701/5). On palaeographical grounds, we can date the so-called 'first' and 'second' Insular uncial hands of the Calendar, plus two entries in Frankish uncial, to the early 8th century, and we have treated these here as comprising the effectively 'original' form of the Calendar. The manuscript does, however, also include numerous later interpolations and annotations (including an autobiographical entry by Willibrord himself, from 728), which belong to various hands from across the 8th and 9th centuries, and cannot always be dated precisely (Hen 1995). We have, therefore, not included these later entries in our database.

Discussion

Hilarius (Jan. 13): 'of Poitiers' (pictauiensis) is added by a later hand.

Valerius of Trier and Lucia (of Trier?) (Jan. 29): the latter is otherwise unknown, but her appearance alongside Valerius in this entry suggests she may have been thought of as having some sort of connection to the bishop. Note that Trier is only about 15 miles (24 km) east of Echternach, and so this entry may have had a local significance. Lucia was possibly a local saint, otherwise unknown, but she is more likely to be the famous Lucia of Syracuse – it should be noted, however, that there is no evidence elsewhere that Lucia of Syracuse was associated with 29 January.

Wilgis (Jan. 30): Willibrord's own father, described in Alcuin's Life of Willibrord (c. 796) as a hermit and, later, abbot of a monastic community dedicated to St Andrew between the river Humber and North Sea (north-east Britain). A later, 12th century Echternach martyrology (Paris, BnF, Lat. 10158) gives notice on Jan. 30 of 'the feast in Britain of the laying to rest of Saint Wilgis, abbot, father of our patron, Saint Willibrord' (Item in Britannia depositio sancti Wilgisli abbatis patris sancti patroni nostri Willibrordi).

See Wilson, 1918, 17-20, for a full commentary.

Bibliography

Edition:
The Calendar of St. Willibrord from Paris Lat. 10837: A Facsimile, with Transcription, Introduction and Notes, ed. H.A. Wilson (London, 1918).

Further reading:
Costambeys, M., "Willibrord [St Willibrord] (657/8-739)," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004), https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/29576

Hen, Y., Culture and Religion in Merovingian Gaul, AD 481-751 (Leiden, 1995), 102-6.

McKitterick, R., "Frankish Uncial: A New Context for the Work of the Echternach Scriptorium," in: A. Weiler and P. Bange (eds.), Willibrord zijn wereld en zijn werk (Nijmegen, 1990), 374-88; repr. in R. McKitterick, Books, Scribes and Learning in the Frankish Kingdoms, 6th-9th Centuries (Aldershot, 1994), part V.

Netzer, N., "The Early Scriptorium at Echternach: The State of the Question," in: G. Kiesel and J. Schroeder (eds.), Willibrord. Apostel der Niederande, Gründer der Abtei Echternach (Luxembourg, 1990), 127-34.

Images

Paris, BnF, Lat. 10837, f. 34v (source: gallica.bnf.fr)

Record Created By

Benjamin Savill

Date of Entry

21/06/2018

Related Saint Records

ID	Name	Name in Source	Identity
S00000	Felix, priest and confessor of Nola	Felix	Certain
S00008	Paul, the Apostle	Paulus	Certain
S00009	Perpetua, Felicitas and their companions, martyrs of Carthage	Felicitas	Uncertain
S00033	Mary, Mother of Christ	Maria	Certain
S00036	Peter, the Apostle	Petrus	Certain
S00061	Babylas, bishop and martyr of Antioch, and companions	Babila	Certain
S00097	Agnes, virgin and martyr of Rome	Agna	Certain
S00098	Antony, 'the Great', monk of Egypt, ob. 356	Antonus	Certain
S00183	Hilarius/Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, ob. 367	Hilarus	Certain
S00400	Sebastianus, martyr of Rome	Sebastianus	Certain
S00466	Timothy, the disciple of Paul the Apostle	Timotheus	Certain
S00525	Felicitas, martyr of Rome, with her sons, buried on the via Salaria	Felicitas	Uncertain
S00846	Lucia, virgin and martyr of Syracuse	Lucia	Uncertain
S01156	Genovefa/Geneviève, ascetic of Paris, ob. c. 502	Genifeua	Certain
S02151	Sulpicius, bishop of Bourges, ob. 591	Sulpicus	Uncertain
S02152	Valerius, bishop of Trier, 3rd/4th c.	Valerus	Certain
S02153	Lucia, virgin, perhaps of Trier	Lucia	Certain
S02154	Wilgis, abbot of Northumbria, 7th c.	Uilgislus	Certain
S02436	Sulpicius Pius, bishop of Bourges, ob. 646/7	Sulpicus	Uncertain

Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Benjamin Savill, Cult of Saints, E05840 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E05840

The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity

from its origins to circa AD 700, across the entire Christian world