Born c. 1008 at Long Itchington, Warwickshire, to Aethelstan and Wulfgifu (who later entered monasteries in Worcester, the young Wulstan (or Wulfstan) was sent to study at Evesham and Peterborough. On his return, as his 12th century biographer William of Malmsebury (drawing on an earlier biography by a monk called Coleman who was a [...]
Archive for May, 2009
St Wulstan of Worcester
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Anglo-Saxon on May 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
St Andrew Corsini
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Mediaeval on May 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
When Gemma Corsini (some biographers inaccurately call her Pellegrina), who belonged to a devout, prosperous and well-connected Florentine family, was expecting the child who would be baptized Andrew, she consecrated him under the protection of the Virgin Mary to the service of God. However, when she was about to give birth, she had a disturbing [...]
St Paschasius Radbertus
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Mediaeval on May 11, 2009 | 5 Comments »
Born in 785, Radbertus was orphaned and abandoned on the steps of St Mary’s convent in Soissons (France), where he was raised by the nuns, developing a close bond with the Abbess Theodrara (a cousin of Charlemagne). Radbertus took the Benedictine habit, but subsequently decided that, having spent his entire life inside convents and [...]
St Sigismund of Burgundy
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Late Antiquity on May 6, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Sigismund succeeded his father Gundobad as king of the Burgundians in 516. At the time, Burgundy was perhaps the most powerful of all the kingdoms of Gaul – not least because of its strong links with the Byzantine court – and both the Franks and the Ostrogoths were keen to limit Burgundian power. Sigismund [...]
St Dunstan of Canterbury
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Anglo-Saxon on May 2, 2009 | 6 Comments »
Born shortly before 910AD, Dunstan was the son of a Wessex noble, Heorstan, and nephew of the bishops of Winchester and Wells. Taught by Irish monks amidst the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, from an early age he developed a love of learning and of artistic craftsmanship. Having entered the service of his uncle Athelm (now [...]
