WILLIBALD OF EICHSTÄTT, ST.

Anglo-Saxon monk, missionary to Germany, bishop; b. Wessex, 700; d. Eichstätt, July 7, 781. Of noble birth, Willibald was the son of (St.) "Richard" (feast, February7), and the brother of (St.) winnebald and (St.) walburga of heidenheim. He was a kinsman of (St.) boniface. At the age of five he was sent by his parents to the monastery of Bishop's Waltham. When grown up he determined to make a pilgrimage to Rome and persuaded his father and his brother, Winnebald, to accompany him. They all set out from Southampton in the summer of 721 and landed at Rouen. Thence they journeyed as far as Lucca, where their father died; around him there grew up a cult supported by a mass of legend. The two brothers arrived in Rome in the autumn and both fell victims to an intermittent fever; but since the bouts never coincided, each could nurse the other. Soon after recovery Willibald set out for Palestine with an Englishman named Tidberht. Leaving Rome in 722, they went by way of Naples to Sicily, Greece, Asia Minor, and Cyprus. Thence they sailed to Syria, where the Saracens imprisoned them; however, they were helped by a friendly merchant who provided them with dinner and supper every day and had them taken out for a bath each Wednesday and Saturday. They were soon liberated and passed on through Damascus to the Holy Land, wandering from site to site and paying four separate visits to Jerusalem. Altogether their journeyings lasted seven years, including two years in Constantinople. The full record of their wanderings, often called the Hodoeporicon, is the earliest English travel book. It is based directly on the pilgrim's own words, having survived in Willibald's biography written while he was still alive, by an English nun at Heidenheim, named Hugeburc or Hygeburh [Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores 15.1:86–106; Eng. tr. W.R.B. Brownlow (Berlin 1891)]. In 730 the two travelers went to Mone Cassino, where Willibald remained for ten years, until the abbot sent him to Rome. From there Pope gregory iii sent him on to assist Boniface, who ordained him priest (741) and 12 months later consecrated him first bishop of the new Diocese of Eichstätt, in Bavaria. Willibald and Winnebald founded a double monastery at Heidenheim (Württemberg), where their sister, Walburga, succeeded as abbess. Willibald's relics are still in Eichstätt cathedral.

Feast: July 7.

Bibliography: c. h. talbot, ed. and tr. The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany (New York 1954) 153–177. a. m. cooke, The Dictionary of National Biography From the Earliest Times to 1900 (London 1938) 21:483–484. m. coens, "Légende et miracles du Roi S. Richard," Analecta Bollandiana 49 (Brussels 1931) 353–397. w. levison, England and the Continent in the Eighth Century (Oxford 1946). b. appel, e. braun, and s. hofmann, eds., Hl. Willibald (Eichstätt 1987). h. dickerhof, e. reiter and s. weinfurter, eds., Der Hl. Willibald—Klosterbischof oder Bistumsgründer? (Regensburg 1990).

[b. colgrave]