The Calendar of Willibrord, in its earliest version, records the feasts of various saints in July. Written in Latin at Echternach, Frisia (north-east Gaul), 703/710.
Evidence ID
E05857
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 July the feasts of the following saints:
*Gaius (bishop and martyr of Rome, S00661)
*Jacob (bishop of Nisibis, ob. 337/8 S00296)
*James (the Apostle, son of Zebedee, S00108)
*Symeon (the Elder, stylite of Qal‘at Sim‘ān, ob. 459, S00343)
*Lupus (bishop of Troyes, ob. 479, S00418)
Paris, Bibliothéque nationale de France, Lat. 10837, f. 37v
Kalendas Iuli gaii aepiscopi
vi nonas
v
iiii
iii
ii
nonas
viii
vii
vi
v
iiii
iii
ii
idus natale iacobi nizibis
xvii kalendas agusti
xvi
xv
xiiii
xiii
xii
xi
x
viiii
viii iacobi apostoli fratris iohannis
vii
vi sancti symeonis monachi
v
iiii natale lupi de trecas
iii
ii
'1 July - Gaius, bishop
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15 - Feast of Jacob of Nisibis
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25 - James the Apostle, brother of John
26
27 - Saint Symeon, monk
28
29 - Feast of Lupus of Troyes
30
31'
Text: Wilson 1918, 9 (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
Gaius (July 1): this may refer to his translation, since his feast is usually given as April 22.See Wilson, 1918, 33-5, 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
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Paris, BnF, Lat. 10837, f. 37v (source: gallica.bnf.fr)
Record Created By
Benjamin Savill
Date of Entry
09/07/2018
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00108 | James, the Apostle, son of Zebedee | Iacobus | Certain | S00296 | Jacob, bishop of Nisibis, ob. c. 337/338 | Iacobus | Certain | S00343 | Symeon the Elder, stylite of Qal‘at Sim‘ān, ob. 459 | Symeon | Certain | S00418 | Lupus, bishop of Troyes, ob. 479 | Lupus | Certain | S00661 | Gaius, bishop and martyr of Rome | Gaius | Certain |
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