Guthlac of Crowland

Saint Guthlac of Crowland
St. Guthlac holding the whip given to him by St. Bartholomew and, a demon at his feet. (The statue from the second tier of the Croyland Abbey's west front of the ruined nave; dates from the 15th century).
Born	673 Mercia
Died	714 Croyland
Honored in	Roman Catholic Church
Feast	April 11

Saint Guthlac of Crowland (Old English: Gūðlāc) (673–714) was a Christian saint from Lincolnshire in England. He is particularly venerated in the Fens of eastern England.

Life

Guthlac depicted in an illustration from a 12th-century manuscript Life of St Guthlac (British Library)

St Guthlac, tormented by demons, is handed a scourge by St Bartholomew, Guthlac Roll, 1210, British Library

Guthlac was the son of Penwalh or Penwald, a noble of the English kingdom of Mercia, and his wife Tette. His sister is also venerated as Saint Pega. As a young man, he fought in the army of Æthelred of Mercia and subsequently became a monk at Repton Monastery in Derbyshire at age twenty-four. Two years later he sought to live the life of a hermit, and moved out to the island of Croyland, now called Crowland on St Bartholomew's Day, AD 699. His early biographer Felix asserts that Guthlac could understand the strimulentes loquelas of the British-speaking demons who haunted him there, only because Guthlac had spent some time in exile among British-speaking people.

Guthlac built a small oratory and cells to live in in the side of a plundered barrow on the island, and he lived there the rest of his life until his death on April 11 in AD 714. Felix, writing within living memory of Guthlac, says that Guthlac dressed in animal skins, and the only nourishment he took was a scrap of barley bread and a small cup of muddy water after sunset. Ague and marsh fever assailed him.

His pious and holy ascetic life became the talk of the land, and many people visited Guthlac during his life to seek spiritual guidance from him. He gave sanctuary to Æthelbald, future king of Mercia, who was fleeing from his cousin Ceolred. Guthlac predicted that Æthelbald would become king, and Æthelbald promised to build him an abbey if his prophecy became true. Æthelbald did become king and, even though Guthlac had died two years previously, kept his word and started construction of Crowland Abbey on St Bartholomew's Day 716 AD. Guthlac's feast day is celebrated on April 11.

The 8th century Latin Vita sancti Guthlaci is written by Felix, who describes the entry of the demons into Guthlac's cell as follows:

“

They were ferocious in appearance, terrible in shape with great heads, long necks, thin faces, yellow complexions, filthy beards, shaggy ears, wild foreheads, fierce eyes, foul mouths, horses' teeth, throats vomiting flames, twisted jaws, thick lips, strident voices, singed hair, fat cheeks, pigeons breasts, scabby thighs, knotty knees, crooked legs, swollen ankles, splay feet, spreading mouths, raucous cries. For they grew so terrible to hear with their mighty shriekings that they filled almost the whole intervening space between earth and heaven with their discordant bellowings.

”

A short Old English sermon (Vercelli XXIII) and a longer prose translation into Old English are both based on Felix's Vita. There are also two poems in Old English known as Guthlac A and Guthlac B T, part of the tenth century Exeter Book, the oldest surviving collection of Anglo-Saxon poetry. The relationship of Guthlac A to Felix's Vita is debated, but Guthlac B is based on Felix's account of the saint's death. The story of Saint Guthlac is told pictorially in the Guthlac Roll, a set of detailed illustrations of the 12th century; it is kept in the British Library. Copies of it can be seen on display at Crowland Abbey.

The St Guthlac Fellowship

Crowland Abbey's 13th century quatrefoil with scenes from the life of St. Guthlac.

Formed in 1987, the St. Guthlac Fellowship is a group of churches which share a dedication to St. Guthlac. The group comprises the following:

• Crowland Abbey, Lincolnshire
• Astwick church, Bedfordshire
• All Saints Parish Church, Branston, Lincolnshire
• Our Lady and St Guthlac Roman Catholic church, Deeping St James, Lincolnshire
• Little Cowarne Church, Herefordshire
• St Guthlac's Church, Market Deeping, Lincolnshire
• Fishtoft Church, Lincolnshire
• St Guthlac, Knighton, Leicestershire
• Little Ponton Church, Lincolnshire
• Passenham Church, Northamptonshire
• St Guthlac's Church, Stathern, Nottinghamshire

Gallery

Crowland Abbey, Crowland   St Guthlac's Church, Stathern   St Guthlac's Church, Market Deeping   St Guthlac's Church, Little Ponton

Further reading

Primary sources

• Felix, Vita Sancti Guthlaci, early 8th century Latin prose Life of St Guthlac:
  • Colgrave, Bertram (ed. and tr.). Felix's Life of Saint Guthlac. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956.
• Old English prose translation/adaptation (late 9tth or early 10th century) of the Life of St Guthlac by Felix:
  • Gonser, P. (ed.). Das angelsächsische Prosa-Leben des heiligen Guthlac. Anglistische Forschungen 27. Heidelberg, 1909.
  • Goodwin, Charles Wycliffe (ed. and tr.). The Anglo-Saxon Version of the Life of St. Guthlac, Hermit of Crowland. London, 1848.
• Two chapters from the Old English prose adaptation as incorporated into Vercelli Homily 23.
  • Scragg, D.G. (ed.). The Vercelli Homilies and Related Texts. EETS 300. Oxford: University Press, 1992.
• Guthlac A and Guthlac B (Old English poems):
  • Roberts, Jane (ed.). The Guthlac Poems of the Exeter Book. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979.
  • Krapp, G. and E.V.K. Dobbie (eds.). The Exeter Book. Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 3. 1936. 49-88
  • Bradley, S.A.J. (tr.). Anglo-Saxon Poetry. London: Everyman, 1982.
• Harley Roll or Guthlac Roll (BL, Harleian Roll Y.6)
  • Warner, G.F. (ed.). The Guthlac Roll. Roxburghe Club, 1928. 25 plates in facsimile.

Secondary sources

• Olsen, Alexandra. Guthlac of Croyland: a Study of Heroic Hagiography. Washington, 1981.
• Powell, Stephen D. "The Journey Forth: Elegiac Consolation in Guthlac B." English Studies 79 (1998): 489-500.
• Roberts, Jane. "The Old English Prose Translation of Felix’s Vita Sancti Guthlaci." Studies in Earlier Old English Prose: Sixteen Original Contributions, ed. Paul E. Szarmach. Albany, 1986. 363-79.
• Roberts, Jane. "An inventory of early Guthlac materials." Mediaeval Studies 32 (1970): 193–233.
• Sharma, Manish. "A Reconsideration of Guthlac A: The Extremes of Saintliness." Journal of English and Germanic Philology 101 (2002): 185-200.
• Shook, Laurence K. "The Burial Mound in 'Guthlac A'." Modern Philology 58, 1 (Aug., 1960): 1-10.
• Soon Ai, Low. "Mental Culturation in Guthlac B." Neophilologus 81 (1997): 625-36.
• Roberts, Jane. "Guthlac of Crowland, a Saint for Middle England." Fursey Occasional Paper 3. Norwich: Fursey Pilgrims, 2009. 1-36. [1]

External links

• Alexandra H. Olsen's 'Saint Guthlac and Saint Pega in the South English Legendary'
• The Guthlac Roll, British Library