Tag: Botolph

A manuscript from the “Abbey of the Red Valley” – Rookloster, Rooklooster, Rouge-Cloître, Rougeval, or Rubea Vallis?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In the electronic version of the Bollandist preface to the “Life” of St Botulf or Botolph, we find the following words about manuscripts used:

Eamdem Vitam olim Ioannes Capgravius, omisso Prologo redactam in compendium, Legendæ suæ inseruerat: & ejus partem potiorem jam pridem habebamus ex duplici Ms. altero Canonicorum Regularium Rubeæ-vallis prope Bruxellas, cujus ecgraphum curaverat Rosweidus: altero Coloniensi, unde aliud Bollando transmiserat Grothusius etiam noster.

The same Life was inserted into his Legenda by John Capgrave, omitting the prologue, and reduced to a compendium: and we had long had the more important part of it from two manuscripts, one of the Canons Regular of Rubeæ-vallis near Brussels, of which made a copy: the other from Cologne, from which another was transmitted by our own Grothusius to Bolland.

Here is the printed version:

In fact I was quite unable to find out where this might be, until a kind commenter came to my assistance.  I thought that a quick post with the varying names of this place might help others, googling hopelessly.

The Latin name of the place is “Rubea Vallis”.  So this refers to the canons regular of “Rubra Vallis”, the “Red Valley.”   But I have also seen “Rubra Vallis.”  There is another place of this name in Picardy in France, so it is correctly qualified as “proper Bruxellas”, “the one near Brussels”.

In literature in French the place seems to be  known usually as “Rouge-Cloître.”  But “Rougeval” is also used sometimes – i.e. “red valley” -, again qualified with “Brussels” to distinguish from Rougeval in France.

In Dutch the place seems to be known usually as “Rooklooster,” although the Wikipedia article also  gives “Roodklooster” or even “Rood klooster”.

In German the place seems to be referred to as “Rookloster” –  no doubt under the influence of German “Klöster”.   Thus we see “Rookloster bei Brüssel” here. This spelling also makes its way into articles in other languages.

This was an Augustinian Priory near Brussels, which was closed in 1782 by the reforming Austrian Emperor Joseph II.  The manuscripts ended up in the Austrian National Library, but with a few bumps along the way.

In fact there is a fascinating website about Rooklooster and its manuscripts: The Rooklooster Register unveiled.  From this I learn the following:

Rooklooster boasted an important library and an active scriptorium as a result of the many authors, copiists, miniaturists and binders that worked in the priory.

And:

When emperor Joseph II, ruler of the Austrian Netherlands, decreed the suppression of the monasteries of most contemplative monastic orders in 1783-1874, the Rooklooster Register and many other manuscripts ended up in the Chambre Héraldique (“Heraldic Chamber”) of Brussels.

When French revolutionaries occupied the Netherlands in 1792/94, the chairman of the Chambre Héraldique, Ch. J. Beydaels de Zittaert (†1811), took the codices of his society with him as he roamed around the Northern Netherlands and Germany. After his peregrination, he eventually offered them to emperor Franz I of Austria in 1803. Parts of the manuscripts ended up in the so-called Familien-Fideikommiss-Bibliothek, the personal library of the emperor.

Being a bibliophile himself, the emperor believed he had a right to the book collection. After Franz’ death in 1835, the manuscripts remained in the possession of the imperial family.

The Rooklooster Register was kept in the library as reference number 9373. A year after the Imperial and Royal Court Library of Vienna was transformed into the National Library in 1920, the manuscripts formed a Series nova, in which the Rooklooster Register was given the book number 12694.

So the first place to look for a Rooklooster manuscript is in Austria.  But …. this last bit of the article holds a trap for the unwary.  The shelfmark for these manuscripts is NOT “12345”, or “Ser. n. 12345” but “SN12345”.  If you don’t know this, you will search manuscripta.at in vain.

So where is our manuscript, after all that?  It is SN12814, online here, where it has the shelfmark Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (ÖNB), Cod. Ser. n. 12814, and the page states:Vorbesitzer: Rooklooster (Rougecloître) bei Brüssel!

Sanctilogium
Johannes, Gielemans, 1427-1487 [VerfasserIn]
Rooklooster bei Brüssel: 1470. – 273 x 208 mm. – Handschrift; I+231+I Bll.

Apparently there is a digitised microfilm available.  As ever, you have to know the trick in order to download it.

Once downloaded, it is worrying to find that it has only 239 pages.  For the Legendiers Latins entry says that Botulf is on “ff.960r-961r”.  Luckily there  is a table of contents at the front, with the saints in alphabetical order:

So what do these numbers refer to?  Well, it looks as if there are two sets of folio numbers.  At the top of PDF page 25, folio 21r, is the numbering “928”.  Clearly this manuscript has been rebound.  And in due course, on folio 63r (page 67 in the PDF) we find the Vita Sancti Botulfi.

Sadly the microfilm is not going to do my eyes any good.  But… we got there!

Phew, that was hard work!

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Editing the Latin text of the “Life” of St Botolph? Do I want to?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A couple of days ago, I completed a draft translation into English of the “Life” of St Botolph by Folcard of St Bertin.  So far, so good.  I made the translation from the 1701 text in the Acta Sanctorum (=AASS) for June 17th (in “June”, vol. 3), which is “annotated by Daniel Papebroch” – some careful phrasing there, which implies that he did not edit the text.

Since then I have started to look at the Latin text, and compare it with the 1672 text in the Acta Sanctorum Ordinis S. Benedicti,(=AASSOSB) by D’Achery and  Mabillon.  This is supposed to be a copy of the MS. Paris BNF lat. 13092, originally from S. Evroul in Normandy (S. Ebrulfi Uticensis).  I have a PDF of a rotten b/w microfilm of this.

Also at my disposal is another manuscript, acquired when I was looking at St Nicholas: MS British Library Harley 3097.  This is a modern colour reproduction, also in PDF, and a pleasure to use.

In fact, as I was writing this, I went to look at the list of manuscripts and saw that MS Cambridge Corpus Christi College, Parker Library, MS. 161, was listed – and I happen to know that the Parker Library are all online.  It took little time to locate that either, so I have just acquired another witness to the text.

Ms. Cambridge CCC Parker 161, ff. 61v-62r (excerpt)

Four more manuscripts are listed in my notes, all in England:

  • another MS in Cambridge, this time MS St John’s College 209;
  • MS Lincoln Cathedral Library 7, which won’t be online, but might be possible to visit and photograph, and where I might conceivably have a connection through a relative;
  • MS London, Gray’s Inn Library 3, owned by the legal profession.
  • MS British Library Cotton Tiberius E. 1, which was a copy of John of Tynemouth’s collection of saints’ lives, but partly destroyed by fire.

Finally there is a manuscript in Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, fonds principale, ser. no. 12814, a very late 15th century.

The Bollandists used two more manuscripts, one from the “red valley” near Brussels, wherever that might be; and the other from Cologne.  These started at chapter 4, omitting the opening material which was mainly about St Adulph, Botolph’s cousin.  Where they might be now I do not know.  The Bollandist “Legendiers Latins” site, which replaces the BHLms, does not list them.

The English bias of the manuscripts is obvious, and unsurprising since the author, Folcard, was the abbot of Thorney Abbey in Cambridgeshire.

I have begun to collate the witnesses available to me.  This went reasonably well for the first three chapters, where the Bollandist editors only had Mabillon’s edition.

So in chapter 1, we had a single word attested differently, but only in the Harley MS.  In chapter 2 we had half a sentence missing from the Bollandist text, but found in all the others.  That looks bad: it can only be a copying mistake by the unknown Bollandist editor, who lost most of a line from the edition of d’Achery that he was copying.  Chapter 3 has one word different in the Bollandist text from all the other witnesses: presumably an emendation.

But chapter four, where the Bollandists have these MSS from the “red valley” and from Cologne… oh my!  There are slight word-order differences in various places, all of which make the text harder to understand.  Extra words are found, or not found.  The text is clearly somewhat different, although not enough to affect the meaning.  Exactly the same happens in chapter five.

The impression that I am getting is that these are not copyist variants on a common text.  This is a somewhat different recension of the text.

There are different recensions around.  There are two separate epitomes listed in the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina.  The two Bollandist manuscripts certainly differ, in that they omit chapters 1-3.  It is, I think, defensible that they represent an edition, made on the continent, and somewhat altered by the editor.  If so, the English text will be more authentic.  Unfortunately, without access to either of the Bollandist manuscripts, it is hard to tell whether some of this is just the carelessness of the Bollandist editor, or whether this hypothesis is correct.

It is hard work, making a collation.  Do I want to do this?  Do I want to simply leave these textual issues alone, and issue a translation of the AASS text?  After all, I set out to make a translation, not grapple with the textual history.

Decisions, decisions.

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Mabillon, the “Acta Sanctorum OSB”, and St Botolph

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Dom Jean Mabillon OSB (d. 1707) is remembered today mainly as the inventor of paleography.  But he had a wider career, which is described very nicely at this link here.  An excerpt relating to the Acta Sanctorum Ordinis S. Benedicti:

In Saint-Germain, he was at last among congenial company, and results followed quickly. D’Achéry was the custodian of the Abbey’s well-stocked library. Every week, on Sundays after Vespers, there met in his room a group of men who were already scholars of reputation – Charles du Fresne, Sieur du Cange, Etienne Baluze, d’Herbelot, Cotelier, Renaudot, Fleury, Lamy, Pagi, and Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont. Mabillon soon took a prominent place among them.

D’Achéry had asked for him to help him in his projected “Lives of the Benedictine Saints,” but the first task he undertook was editing the works of St. Bernard. This was published within three years, in 1667, and was recognized as a masterly accomplishment.

Meanwhile Mabillon had been arranging the materials already brought together by D’Achéry. The first volume of the “Acta Sanctorum OSB” was published in 1668, a second volume in 1669, and the third in 1672.

The Acta being thus completed, Mabillon made a “literary journey” to Flanders, in search of documents and materials for his work, and in 1675 he published the first of four volumes of “Vetera Analecta” in which he collected the fruit of his travels and some shorter works of historical importance. Mabillon had now joined the ranks of Renaissance philology, and was soldiering in its front lines; its lines of discovery.

He had however not left the Acta behind him. Faith and reason do not comfortably mix at any time, and the unquestionably devout Mabillon had been using Reason as a broom to tidy in the House of Faith. The very scholarly conscientiousness of his work on the Benedictine Saints had scandalized some of the other monks, and in 1677 a petition violently attacking it was presented to the general chapter of the congregation, demanding its suppression and an apology from its author. Mabillon defended himself with such humility, and such learning, that the opposition was silenced, and he was encouraged to continue.

There is room for confusion here.  The Bollandist Acta Sanctorum (abbreviated AASS) must be distinguished from this earlier work, the Acta Sanctorum OSB (abbreviated ASS OSB), the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St Benedict.

The volumes of the AS OSB can be found on Archive.org here.  The work is divided into “saecula” (“centuries”) but in fact each “saeculum” may cover a number of centuries.

“Saeculum III” covers 700-800 AD.[1]  This is the volume of interest to us, for St Botolph, and is online here.

The section on Botolph is on p.3, after the interminable preface, p117 of the PDF.  The Life is followed on p.7 (PDF p.121) by the very short “Translatio”, or account of the transfer of the saint’s bones elsewhere after his death.

The prefatory remarks begin with:

Scripta ab auctore subpari, ut videtur ex num 10. Ex MS Cod. Monasterii Uticensis.

Written by an inferior author, as appears from number 10. From the MS Cod. of the Monastery of Utica.

We are quickly told that this manuscript:

ex membranis Coenobii Uticensis seu S. Ebrulfi in Neustria hodierna: quibus in membranis haec Vita in novem lectiones, Responsoriis totidem adhibitus, pro more officii Ecclestiastici distributa legitur.

from a parchment manuscript of the Utica Monastery or Monastery of St. Ebrulsus in modern Neustria: in which ms this Life is read in nine lessons, with the same number of responses, distributed according to the custom of the ecclesiastical office.

I found incredible difficulty in working out which monastery this was, as I read “Ebrulsi” with the long-S, rather than Ebrulfi.  But it seems to be St. Evroul in Normandy, since a certain “Ebrulsi abbas Robertus le Tellier,” i.e. Robert le Tellier, is attested as abbot in this link, who was abbot of St Evroul.  The Wikipedia link gives the Latin name as “Ebrulphus Uticensis,” rather than the “Ebrulsus Uticensis” that I had presumed – drat the long-s!  Likewise it took some effort to find that references to “St. Ebrulf at Utica in Normandy”, such as this link.

Likewise I could find no reference to an “Utica” in Normandy, until I find this link,[2], which on p.72 has this entry:

Uticum, Utica: Ouche, abbaye en Normandie, dans le pays d’Hyesmois, voyez le titre S. Evroul, 1 partie.

The “pays d’Ouche” is a region of Normandy, with S. Evroult in one corner.

It is a reasonable first guess that a manuscript in a French abbey would likely end up in the French National Library, especially if it was being used in 1700 by the Maurist monk Jean Mabillon, based at their headquarters at St Germain-des-Prés in Paris. Indeed, according to Wikipedia, the abbey of S. Evroul attached itself to the congregation of St Maur.

I find that the French national library does indeed contain a manuscript, Paris BNF lat. 13092, 2, ff.110r-113v, 12th century.  This manuscript is online here, in a not-very-good microfilm scan.  Interestingly two letters in French, one dated 1712, are bound into the manuscript, just before the text of St Botolph.  Sadly I cannot quite read these.

And the first page of the text has written over the top, “ex mon(aste)rio S. Ebrulsi in Normannia” (not quite sure of every letter).

So this indeed our manuscript, the MS. Ebrulphus Uticensis, from which Mabillon printed the text.  Rather a pity that the online image is so low-resolution, tho.

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  1. [1]d’Achery, Luc, and Jean Mabillon, Acta sanctorum Ordinis S. Benedicti, vol. 3: Saeculum III: quod est ab anno Christi DCC ad DCCC, Paris: Lutetiae Parisiorum, apud Carolum Savreux, 1672.↩
  2. [2]Adrien Baillet, Les vies des saints … avec l’histoire de leur culte, vol. 10 (1739)↩

Back to St Botolph – problems and sources for his Life (BHL 1428)

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Back in April 2021, I got interested in the “Life” of the anglosaxon saint, St. Botolph, which is BHL 1428 in the standard list/repertory of Latin hagiographical texts, the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina.  I even gathered the materials to translate his “Life” here.  But I didn’t do anything more about it, because I learned that someone was preparing a critical edition of the text, and had already made a draft translation.

However this week I got bored, and decided that I don’t feel like waiting.  So I have started to prepare a translation of that Life, from the Bollandist text.  It’s only 11 chapters, so not very long, and the Latin is fairly simple.  I’ll post it here when it’s done.

The Bollandist editor, Daniel Papebroch, adds a few notes, some of which are text critical.  He states that his text is that of Mabillon, who published the Acta Sanctorum OSB in 1672,[1] plus two manuscripts.  He also refers to a “Codex Uticensis,” whatever that may be – I hardly think Cato of Utica was involved here!  So there is room for research.

Something that interests me is the story of the transfer (“translatio”) of Botolph’s remains from his ruined monastery at “Ikanho” – probably Iken in Suffolk – to Burgh (or possibly Grundisburgh) in Suffolk, where they remained for fifty years, until they were transferred to various places, including the great abbey at Bury St Edmunds.  I looked at the “Translatio” text (BHL 1431) but it doesn’t include this information.  So where does it come from?  Another point to research.  [Update: Oops – I did that last time.]

Something that is always worthwhile, in these circumstances, is an intensive Google search using the BHL number.  This I did yesterday, and it brought up something that I had always wondered about.

For patristics, we have the CPL and CPG volumes, listing authors and works.  For hagiography we have the BHL and BHG volumes.  But I never knew that a similar set of volumes existed for medieval texts.  And it does, in 11 volumes: the Repertorium Fontium Historiae Medii Aevi, published in Italy from 1952 down to our own time.  I was able to find online a copy of volume 4, which covers Folcard, the author of the Life.

I don’t know if there is a standard abbreviation for this – RFHMA? – but it gives some bibliography on p.479.  Some more stuff in there to look into.

The Google search gave me 5 manuscripts.  I imagine the BHLms site would give some as well, but this seems to have gone, according to the Bollandist website, replaced by something at the IRHT called Légendiers Latins.  I’ll have to look into this as well.

So… a few nice things to chase up there!  Expect some more posts soon!

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  1. [1]“Saeculum” (i.e.  volume) III, the saints from 700-800 AD, p.4-7. Online here.↩

How do hagiographical texts get composed? Folcard tells us

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I seem to be doing a lot of work on hagiographical texts at the moment, most recently with Ethiopian saints.  This is because these texts are neglected.  They are insanely neglected, for the most part.  So even someone like me, can contribute something.

Hagiographical texts are not history, and tend to accumulate anecdotes over time.  They are more like folk story, although they may often contain genuine information; or be complete invention.  They are story, inspiring story, not documentation.

The medieval “Life” of St Botolph (BHL 1428), about an Anglo-Saxon saint from East Anglia, whom I have mentioned before, is prefixed in two of the manuscripts by a dedicatory letter composed by its author, a certain Folcard of St Bertin.  He came over with the Norman conquest, and was abbot of Thorney Abbey in Cambridgeshire, which possessed some of the relics of St Botolph.  This letter is interesting.  I’ll give the Latin first, then a translation.

Desiderantissimo Patri et Domino suo, et aeque reverentissimo Praesuli, Uualcelino, monachorum minimus, frater Fulcardus, obsequia totius devotionis.

Nullo praecedente vitae merito, sed e contra, proh dolor! peccatis meis agentibus, sub specie pastoralis curae in coenobium Thornense incidi, ibique venustate illustrissimae habitationis captus, ipsa eadem loci delectatione inhaesi. Res diversae occurrebant quae nolentem iniquitatis animum ad affectum sui inclinabant; in primis, quia titulus ejusdem loci Beatae Dei Genitrici Mariae potissimum ascribitur, cui quia Mater misericordiae dinoscitur lapsis resurgere volentibus, sub optentu veniae prior et principalis respectus habetur. Deinde solitudo illa, sanctae religionis amica, nulli incuriae pervia, silvisque amoenissimis et continuis paludibus atque interfluentibus aquis irrigua; praeterea desiderio et affectu devotissimi Deo Praesulis Adeluuoldi illustrata, et tot Sanctorum pignoribus pio ipsius studio ditata; in qua, ut aiunt, et satis credi potest, cursum praesentis vitae finire delegerit in conversatione theorica. His enim infirmarum rerum causis alligatus sum, ut asinus vel bos ad praesepe Domini; apud quem, ut jumentum factus, semper adhaerere, donec transeat iniquitas ex ejus gratia, proposui.

Videns autem Sanctos in eadem basilica pausantes, nulla scriptorum memoria commendatos, indignatus antiquitati, quae de eis addiscere potui, tuis auribus primum offerre volui, ne rusticior sermo, nullo suffultus defensore, derisioni expositus, aemulorum cachinnum potius optineret quam auditum. Reperta sunt tamen quaedam in veteribus libris vitiose descripta, quaedam ab ipso praecipuo praesule in privilegiis ejusdem coenobii sunt breviter annotata, caetera ex relatione veterum, ut ab antiquioribus sunt, eis exhibita. Omnia tamen ex devotione cordis tibi, eximie pater, tuoque examini discutienda, exhibeo, ut si quis aemulus caninas erexerit cristas labori nostro, humilitatis nostrae opusculum tuae auctoritatis paterna contegat defensio.

To his most beloved Father and Lord, and likewise most reverend Bishop, Walkelin,[1] the least of monks, Brother Folcard,[2] offers the service of all devotion.

Without any previous merit in life, but on the contrary, alas! while living in my sins, I found myself, under the appearance of pastoral care, placed in the monastery of Thorney. There, captivated by the loveliness of its most distinguished building, I held fast to the very delight of that place.  Various things happened which inclined my unwilling and sinful mind to love it; first of all, because the title of the same place is most especially ascribed to the Blessed Mary, the Mother of God, to whom, because she is known as the Mother of Mercy, the first and foremost application is made by those who have fallen and wish to be restored during a request for pardon.  Next, that solitude, the beloved of holy religion, impervious to careless, and watered by the most pleasant woodlands, continuous marshes, and flowing streams.  Moreover, it was ennobled by the desire and devotion of the most devout Bishop of God, Aethelwold,[3] and enriched by his pious effort with so many relics of the Saints; among whom, as they say, and it is quite believable, he chose to end the course of his present life in godly society.  For I was tied there by these rather earthly reasons, like an ass or an ox to the Lord’s manger, to whom, having been made his donkey, I have resolved to stick, always, until my sins pass away through His grace.

But seeing the Saints resting in the same basilica, commended by no written record, and jealous for antiquity, I wanted to offer those things that I was able to learn about them to your ears first, lest an unlearned discourse, unsupported by any defender, exposed to mockery, should be subject of laughter of rivals rather than get a hearing.  Yet certain things have been found in old books, albeit badly written, and some were briefly recorded by the principal bishop himself among the privileges of the same monastery. The rest were gathered from the narration of the older monks, as set forth by those older still.  All these things, however, I present to you, distinguished Father, out of the devotion of my heart and for your judgment, so that, if any rival should raise his dog-like hackles against our effort, then the paternal shield of your authority may cover the little work of my humility.

Folcard was inspired to write the Lives of the saints venerated at Thorney Abbey because he saw that they were there, and could find no account of them.  The materials that he used were:

  1. Whatever he could find in “old books”.
  2. Notes among the “privileges” of the abbey – i.e. its charters and other documents.
  3. Stories told to him by the older monks, as being handed down from their predecessors.

Out of this, he composed his Life of St Botolph.

The entrance to the remains of Thorney Abbey. Part of the nave of the abbey church was converted into a parish church, the rest was demolished.
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  1. [1]Lit. Walcelinus.  Norman bishop of Winchester after the conquest.  See R. Browett, “The Fate of Anglo-Saxon Saints after the Norman Conquest of England: St Æthelwold of Winchester as a Case Study”, in: History 101, no. 2 (345) (2016), pp.183-200. JSTOR: “Importantly, Folcard’s text was dedicated to Walkelin. In manuscripts, the Translatio is prefaced by his dedicatory letter, and Folcard’s Life of St Botulph. The letter survives in two manuscripts: the century London, BL, Harley 3097, fos 61b-64b, and the thirteenth century London, BL, Cotton Tiberius D III, fos 223b-225b.”↩
  2. [2]Abbot of Thorney Abbey.↩
  3. [3]Founder of Thorney Abbey.↩

Materials for an English translation of the “Life” of St Botolph (or Botwulf), BHL 1428

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In 653 AD a Saxon monk named Botolph (Botwulf in Anglo-Saxon) built a hermitage at Iken Hoo, in Suffolk, overlooking the demon-haunted marshes on the river Alde.  Botolph was on good terms with the East Anglian kings, and he gained a reputation as an exorcist.  He died around 680 AD.  His monastery was later destroyed during the raids by the Vikings.  The tomb of Botolph in the ruined church was still visible, however, and in 970 King Edgar I gave permission for the remains to be removed.  They were taken to Grundisburgh, near Woodbridge, where they remained for almost 50 years.  There was a Saxon church at nearby Burgh, where a medieval church now stands dedicated to St Botolph.  In 1095 the monks of Bury St Edmunds transferred the relics to their own newly rebuilt abbey.

The feast day of St Botolph is on June 17th.  The medieval Life (BHL 1428) was composed by Folcard of St Bertin (d. after 1085).  It is printed by the Bollandists in the Acta Sanctorum, together with an account of the translation of the relics.  Folcard composed a set of lives of saints whose relics were held at Thorney Abbey, with a prologue about his efforts.  The prologue is not in the Acta Sanctorum but was printed elsewhere.  Modern study of Botolph, and the work of Folcard has been undertaken by Rosalind C. Love, whom I believe may have prepared an unpublished translation of the Life.

Ms. Bodleian 297 contains material relating to the abbey at  Bury St Edmunds.  One snippet tells us that the bones of St Edmund were brought to the abbey when it was rebuilt in 1095.  It then goes on with the statement about the remains of St Botolph.

Translati sunt nihilominus cum rege beatissimo et reliquiis multis sanctorum corpora duorum sanctorum, videlicet Botulphi [two words missing] episcopi et Jurmini clitonis Christi, amboque, ut percipimus, illo delati sunt tempore Lefstani abbatis.  Corpus namque beati Botulphi episcopi primitus apud quandam villam Grundesburc nominatam humatum est; cujus translatio cum obscura nocte fieret, columna lucis super fere­trum ejus ad depellendas tenebras protendi visa est. Corpus vero beati Jurmini similiter apud villam quandam Blihteburc primum jacuit; in cujus plumbea theca in qua delatus est tale ephithaphium inscriptum continebatur: Ego Jurminus commendo, in nomine Trinitatis sanctae, ut nulla persona audeat depraedare locum sepulturae usque in diem resurrectionis; sin autem, remotum se sciat a sorte sanctorum.

Also translated with the most blessed king and the relics of many saints were the bodies of two saints, namely Botulph … the bishop and Jurmin the prince of Christ, and both, as we learn, were transferred in the time of Abbot Lefstan.  For in fact the body of the blessed bishop Botulph had at first been interred at a certain village named Grundisburgh; his translation took place in the dark of night, and a column of light stretched out above his bier to banish the shadows.  And the body of blessed Jermin likewise first was set down at a certain village of Blythburgh; on whose leaden casket in which he was transferred was fastened this epitaph inscribed: “I Jurmin trust, in the name of the Holy Trinity, that nobody shall dare to plunder the place of burial until the day of resurrection; but if on the other hand [it is] to move him, he would know by the oracle of the saints but otherwise, let him know that he is removed from the lot/fate of the saints.

It would be good to make an English translation of the Life of Botolph, but I have no time at the moment.  However I have collected together the source materials to do so, and I will place them here in case I can come back to this.  (I’ve not really looked at the materials for the translation of the remains, except for the one fragment.)

Let me also add whatever bibliography came to hand:

  • BL Harley 3097 – online here.
  • N. Hall, “A handlist of Anglo-Latin Hagiography through the twelfth century”, Old English Newsletter 45 (2014), p.12 (online here).  This reads:

Folcard, Vita S. Botolphi [BHL 1428], ed. Acta Sanctorum, Iun. III, 402–03; IV, 327–28. Discussion by Thomas Duffus Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue of Materials Relating to the History of Great Britain and Ireland to the End of the Reign of Henry VII, 3 vols. in 4 (London, 1862–67), I/1, 373–74. A Life of St Botolph of Thorney (d. ca. 680) dedicated to Walkelin, bishop of Winchester (1070–98). New edition forthcoming by Rosalind Love.

  • Rosalind Love, “Folcard of St Bertin and the Anglo-Saxon Saints at Thorney”, in Martin Brett, David A. Woodman( eds), The Long Twelfth-Century View of the Anglo-Saxon Past, 2016, p.27 ff.  Preview here.
  • Stevenson, F.S. “St Botolph (Botwulf) and Iken”, Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, 18 (1924), pp.30-52. – Online here.
  • Sam Newton, “The forgotten history of St Botwulf”, Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, 43 (2016), pp. 521-550. Online here.

I hope this will be useful.

UPDATE: (31 March 2023): I learn that Rosalind C. Love has an unpublished edition and translation of Folcard’s Life of St Botolph, which she intends to publish.

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