Saint Hybald

Saint Hybald (fl. c. 664 – c.690), also known as Higbald, Hibald or Hygbald, was a 7th-century Saxon saint. His feastdays are 18 September and 14 December (Orthodox).

The Venerable Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History, describes St Hybald as a "most holy and continent man who was an abbot in Lindsey". It is conjectured, in the Dictionary of Christian Biography (1877–87), that this is the Benedictine abbey at Bardney, then in the old Kingdom of Lindsey, now Lincolnshire.

In 679, Osthryth, queen of Mercia, sought to move the remains of her uncle, St Oswald, to Bardney, but the monks refused to accept the body because Oswald, as king of Northumbria, had once conquered Lindsey. The remains were locked outside the abbey but the appearance of a mysterious beam of light, that night, led the monks to reconsider.

Hybald was also a friend of Saint Chadd, and, had a prophetic vision of his death. He later, followed Chadd's example and became an hermit.

Hybald died around 690, and was buried in the village of Hibaldstow, whose name means place where St Hygbald is buried. Following his canonisation, a shrine was built near his grave to hold his relics, and became a place of pilgrimage. This continued until the English Reformation when the shrine was destroyed. Hybald's body remained undisturbed until it was rediscovered in 1864, when the, then, dilapidated church was rebuilt.

In addition to Hibaldstow, three Lincolnshire churches are dedicated to Hybald at Ashby de la Launde, Manton and Scawby.

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