Waltheof of Melrose

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Waltheof
Maud, 2nd Countess of Huntingdon
Sainthood
Feast day3 August
PatronageMelrose Abbey, Northamptonshire

Waltheof

Waltheof, Earl of Northampton.[1]

Whether as a result of being a younger son in the world of Norman succession laws, or being personally unsuited to court life, Waltheof chose a career in the church.

Cistercian monk, first at Wardon Abbey and then at Rievaulx Abbey.[8] In 1148 he was elected to the abbacy of Melrose, a daughter house of Rievaulx. Waltheof remained in this position for the remainder of his life, even though he was offered the bishopric of St Andrews in early 1159, which he declined.[9] He died at Melrose Abbey on 3 August 1159.[1][10]

Following the death of Waltheof, his successor as Abbot of Melrose, Abbot William, refused to encourage the rumours that were spreading regarding Waltheof's

Jocelin, the prior of Melrose, became abbot. Jocelin had no such scruples and embraced the cult without hesitation. In the entry for the year of Jocelin's accession, the Chronicle of Melrose
reads:

The tomb of our pious father, sir Waltheof, the second abbot of Melrose, was opened by Enguerrand, of good memory, the bishop of Glasgow, and by four abbots called in for this purpose; and his body was found entire, and his vestments intact, in the twelfth year from his death, on the eleventh day before the Kalends of June [22 May]. And after the holy celebration of mass, the same bishop, and the abbots whose number we have mentioned above, placed over the remains of his most holy body a new stone of polished marble. And there was great gladness; those who were present exclaiming together, and saying that truly this was a man of God.[12]

Later, as bishop of Glasgow, Joceljn continued the promotion of sainthood and commissioned a

Jocelin of Furness
, who wrote the Life of St. Waltheof, was the same man later commissioned to write the Life of St. Kentigern. Jocelin's actions ensured Waltheof's posthumous de facto sainthood; and the need of Melrose Abbey to have its own saint's cult ensured the cult's longevity.

Notes

  1. ^ Also Waldef or Waldeve

Citations

  1. ^ a b Barlow The English Church 1066–1154 p. 208-210
  2. ^ Baker, Derek (1975). "Legend and reality: the case of Waldef of Melrose". Church Society and Politics: Studies in Church History. 12: 74-5.
  3. ^ Barlow The English Church 1066–1154 p. 96
  4. ^ a b Dalton "William Earl of York" Haskins Society Journal pp. 162–163
  5. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. Retrieved 18 November 2021. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  6. ^ British History Online Archbishops of York accessed on 14 September 2007
  7. ^ Appleby The Troubled Reign of King Stephen p. 120
  8. ^ Baker, 'Legend and reality', 76.
  9. ^ Dowden, John (1912). Thomson, J. Maitland (ed.). The Bishops of Scotland. Glasgow: James Maclehose and Son. p. 6.
  10. ^ For this paragraph, see Derek Baker, "Waldef (c. 1095–1159)", in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 28 Nov 2006
  11. ^ For the account of Abbot William and the cult of Waltheof, see Richard Fawcetts and Richard Oram, Melrose Abbey, (Stroud, 2004), pp. 23–4.
  12. Bishop of Glasgow
    .

References

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