Saint Willibald
| Saint Willibald | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Bishop | |
| Born | ~700 AD Wessex |
| Died | ~787 AD Eichstätt |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church |
| Canonized | 938 AD by Pope Leo VII |
| Major shrine | Cathedral of Eichstätt |
| Feast | 7 June |
Saint Willibald (born in Wessex c.700 and died c.787 in Eichstätt) was an 8th-century bishop of Eichstätt in Bavaria.
Information about his life is largely drawn from the Hodoeporicon (itinerary) of Saint Willibald, a text written in the 8th century by Huneberc, an Anglo-Saxon nun from Heidenheim am Hahnenkamm who knew Willibald and his brother personally. The text of the Hodoeporicon was dictated to Huneberc by Willibald shortly before he died.
His brother was Saint Winibald and his sister was Saint Walburga. He was also related through his mother to Saint Boniface, and he was ordained to the priesthood and episcopacy by Boniface.
Today Willibald is regarded as one of the most traveled Anglo-Saxons of his time, and some argue that he was the first known Englishman to visit the Holy Land. His shrine is at the Eichstätt Cathedral in Germany, where his body and relics from his journeys are preserved.
His feast day is the 7th of June.
Willibald was born in Wessex on 21 October around the year 700. At the age of three, Willibald suffered from a debilitating weakness that made it difficult for him to breathe. The illness nearly took his life, until his parents prayed to God, vowing to commit Willibald to a monastic life if he was to be spared from death. Miraculously, Willibald survived and at the age of five was received into a Benedictine monastery called Waldheim (now Bishop's Waltham) in Hampshire, England. Willibald spent his early childhood in prayer and contemplation, practising the monasticism created by his relative, Saint Boniface. In the year 722 Willibald decided to partake on a pilgrimage with his father and brother, Saint Winibald. The journey would take several years and Huneberc provides detailed descriptions of the locations and people visited. Despite visiting a diverse group of peoples, Willibald's priority was not evangelisation but exploration, and there is little evidence of successful or attempted conversions in the Hodoeporicon while traveling through Palestine.
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