The Forgotten History of St Botolph (Bótwulf) - with Dr Sam Newton FSA

Title-picture above: A morning view of St Botolph's church, Iken, Suffolk, standing on the former island that is the most likely the of the site the minster he founded in 654, overlooking the River Alde at low tide, with the spritsail barge Cygnet at anchor in the foreground (©Dr Sam Newton 11th February 2008).

St Botolph (Old English Bótwulf) has left an impressive legacy with over 80 dedications in England and Scandinavia, as well as several places and roads named after him, yet his history is largely forgotten. So on the day of his festival in medieval church-calendars, we shall explore what we can retrieve of his story.

According to The Life of St Ceolfrith, Bede’s mentor Ceolfrith, visited “Abbot Botwulf” in East Anglia around the year 670, “proclaimed on all sides to be a man of unparalleled life and learning, and full of the grace of the Holy Spirit; and he returned home abundantly instructed…”.

We shall see that this high ecclesiastical reputation related to his fame as a pioneer of monasticism in England at a place to which the oldest surviving manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle refers as Ican Hó in the entry for the year 654. We shall weigh the evidence for its most likely location on the former island hó on which the church of St Botolph at Iken in Suffolk now stands. We shall also consider St Botulf’s reputation as an exorcist of the fears associated with wetlands, which may account for his reputation as a saintly protector of travellers, especially those crossing water.

Provisional Timetable

10.15–11.15: St Botolph, Iken, and the Wuffings

11.15-11.45: coffee break

11-45-12.45: St Botolph the Protector of Travellers

12.45-13.45: lunch break

13.45-14.45: The Cult of St Botolph

The former island site of St Botolph’s church, Iken, overlooking the River Alde at high tide, with the sprit-sail barge Cygnet underway on the right (©Dr Sam Newton,12th September 2014).

About Dr Sam Newton

Sam Newton was awarded his Ph.D at the University of East Anglia in 1991. He published his first book, The Origins of Beowulf and the pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia, in 1993, and his second, The Reckoning of King Rædwald, in 2003. He has also published several papers, some of which are available on his website or on Academia.

He has lectured widely around the country and contributed to many radio and television programmes, especially Time Team, for whom he worked for seven years. He is Director of Wuffing Education Online, an accredited Arts’ Society lecturer, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

Some Suggestions for Optional Background Reading

Mayr-Harting. H., The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England (London 1972).

Farmer, D.H., The Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Oxford 1978).

Newton, S., “The Forgotten History of St Bótwulf (Botolph)”, Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, 43 (2016), pp. 521-50, or online at https://independent.academia.edu/SamNewton .

Rackham, O., A History of the Countryside (London 1986).

Scarfe, Norman., "St Botolph, The Iken Cross, and the Coming of East Anglian Christianity", Suffolk in the Middle Ages (Boydell 1986), pp. 39-51.

Shippey, T.A. (ed.), The Shadow-walkers: Jacob Grimm’s Mythology of the Monstrous, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, Series V, 291).

Stevenson, F.S. "St Botolph (Botwulf) and Iken", Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, 18 (1924), pp. 30-52.

West, S.E., N. Scarfe, & R. Cramp, "Iken, St Botolph, and the Coming of East Anglian Christianity", Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, XXXV (1984), pp. 279-301.

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