The Calendar of Willibrord, in its earliest version, records the feasts of various saints in October. Written in Latin at Echternach, Frisia (north-east Gaul), 703/710.
E05860
Liturgical texts - Calendars and martyrologies
Late antique original manuscripts - Parchment codex
The Calendar of Willibrord
The Calendar of Willibrord records in October the feasts of the following saints:
*Remigius (bishop of Reims, ob. 533, S00456)
*Germanus (bishop of Auxerre, ob. c. 448, S00455)
*Hewald and Hewald (priests and martyrs in Saxony, 7th c., S02095)
*Gereon and 318 martyrs (martyrs of Cologne, S02122)
*Edwin (king of the Northumbrians, ob. 633, S02159)
*Paulinus (bishop of York and Rochester, ob. 644, S02136)
*Luke (the Evangelist, S00442)
*Simon Kananaios, the Zealot (Apostle, S00835)
*Jude Thaddaeus (Apostle, S00792)
*Quintinus (martyr of Saint-Quentin, S00379)
Paris, Bibliothéque nationale de France, Lat. 10837, f. 39
Kalendas octobris natale remedi et germani
vi nonas
v
iiii natale sanctorum heuualdi
iii
ii
nonas
viii idus
vii
vi natale gereonis cum cccxviii martyrum
v
iiii
iii ędwini regis
ii paulini episcopi in cantia
idus
xvii
xvi
xv lucae euangelistae
xiiii
xiii
xii
xi
x
viiii
viii
vii
vi
v natale apostolorum simonis et iudae
iiii
iii
ii sancti quintini martyris
'1 October - Feast of Remigius and Germanus
2
3
4 - Feast of the Saints Hewald
5
6
7
8
9
10 - Feast of Gereon with 318 martyrs
11
12
13 - Edwin, king
14 - Paulinus, bishop in Kent
15
16
17
18 - Luke the Evangelist
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28 - Feast of the Apostles Simon and Jude
29
30
31 - Saint Quintinus, martyr'
Text: Wilson 1918, 12 (adapted: Wilson's 'first hand' in roman type, 'second hand' in italics, later annotations omitted).
Translation: B. Savill.
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
Hewald and Hewald (Oct. 4): Willibrord's fellow missionaries, with whom at least some members of the Echternach community must have been personally familiar. See Bede's entry in his Martyrology (Oct. 3), where he describes them as following Willibrord in Germaniam (E05631).Edwin (Oct. 13): Bede records his death as falling on Oct. 12, 633 (Ecclesiastical History, ii. 20).
Paulinus (Oct. 14): according to Bede he died on Oct. 19, 644 (Ecclesiastical History, iii. 14).
See Wilson, 1918, 40-42, 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. 39 (source: gallica.bnf.fr)
Benjamin Savill
13/07/2018
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00379 | Quintinus, martyr of Saint-Quentin | Quintinus | Certain | S00442 | Luke, the Evangelist | Lucas | Certain | S00455 | Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, ob. c. 448 | Germanus | Certain | S00456 | Remigius, bishop of Reims, ob. c. 533 | Remedus | Certain | S00792 | Jude Thaddaeus, Apostle, one of the Twelve | Iudas | Certain | S00835 | Simon Kananaios, the Zealot, apostle of Christ | Simon | Certain | S02095 | Hewald and Hewald, priests and martyrs in Saxony, 7th c. | Heuualdus | Certain | S02122 | Gereon, martyr of Cologne, 4th cent. | Gereon | Certain | S02136 | Paulinus, bishop of York and Rochester, ob. 644 | Paulinus | Certain | S02159 | Edwin, king of the Northumbrians, ob. 633 | Ędwinus | Certain |
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