Witta, St.
WITTA, ST.
Latin, Albinus, or Albuin, possibly Old English for "wise man"; d. c. 760. Most of the information about Witta, an Anglo-Saxon monk and missionary companion to (St.) boniface, is gleaned from lives of the latter, from that of St. willibald of eichstÄtt and from mention in other historical documents. In 741 when Boniface assigned four bishops to the new mission field in what is now central Germany, he appointed Witta first bishop of Hesse, designating the castle at Buraburg as his see since it was well fortified and near the previously established monastery at Fritzlar. On October 22 of the same year, with his fellow bishop, Burchard, Witta was coconsecrator of Willibald. His name is recorded as a participant in two synods: the Concilium Germanicum, called by Charlemagne April 21, 742, and the Synodus Liftinensis in 743.
Feast: Oct. 26, Feb. 15.
Bibliography: Acta Sanctorum (Paris 1863—) 11:947–960. a. hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands (Berlin-Leipzig 1958) 1:477, 485 n.1, 498. Lexikon der deutschen Heiligen, Seligen, Ehrwürdigen und Gottseligen, ed. j. torsy (Cologne 1959) 571. a. zimmermann, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. m. buchberger (Freiburg 1930–38) 10:946. c. h. talbot, ed. and tr., The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany (New York 1954). a. m. zimmermann, Kalendarium Benedictinum: Die Heiligen und Seligen des Benediktinerorderns und seiner Zweige (Metten 1933–38) 3:222.
[m. e. collins]