Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.
SUITBERTO (SUIDBERCHT, SWIDBERT), santo. - Benedictine, apostle of the Frisians, a native of Northumbria, d. at Kaiserwerth (Düsseldorf) on March 1, 713.
Having become a monk and gone to Ireland, he lived under the discipline of s. Egberto, and when the latter organized a second expedition of monks, under the direction of Willibrord, for the conversion of the Frisians, he included S., who labored fruitfully in Outer Frisia (comprising present-day southern Holland, northern Brabant, and the territories of Guelders and Cleves). He was consecrated by Wilfrid, bishop of York (in 693), as regional bishop of Frisia; having returned to the continent, he visited the Christian communities founded there and set out to evangelize the region of the Boructuari (present-day Duchy of Berg). When the Saxons invaded the territory, S. returned to Frankish territory and obtained from Pippin of Heristal, through the intervention of Queen Plectrude, a small island on the Rhine, where he founded a monastery (shortly after 696). S. was always held in great veneration in the territories evangelized by him and is, along with s. Pietro, the patron saint of Kaiserwerth, where his relics are preserved in an artistic reliquary. He is often represented in episcopal vestments with a star on his forehead, on his chest, on his hand, or on his crosier. Feast day on March 1.
BIBL.: BHL, nn. 7939-42; the main source is the Historia eccl. gentis Anglorum by Bede, lib. V, capp. 9-11; ed. C. Plummer, I, Oxford 1896, p. 300 ff.; II, ivi 1896, pp. 152-58, 201-94 (notes); the panegyric by Radbodo, in Acta SS. Martii, I, Paris 1865, pp. 84-86, and in MGH, Poëtae latini, IV, pp. 166-69; the life of S., written by a certain Marcellinus, reported by Surius under March 1, is a historical forgery (cf. Anal. Boll., 6 [1887], p. 73); Martyr. Romanum, p. 81; K. Künste, Ikon. der Heilig., Freiburg i. Br. 1926, pp. 547-48. Celestino Testore
SUITGERO dei signori di MORSLEBEN e HORNBURG, vescovo di BAMBERGA: V. CLEMENTE II, PAPA.
Cite this article
“SUITBERTO (SUIDBERCHT, SWIDBERT), SANTO.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. XI (1953), p. 910. Azione Romana digital edition, https://azioneromana.com/article/suitberto-suidbercht-swidbert-santo.
