VILLIBALDO (Willibaldus), saint. — Benedictine, bishop of Eichstätt, born on 22 October 700 into a noble Anglo-Saxon family, died there on about 7 July 787.
At the age of five he entered the abbey of Waltham (Hampshire) to be educated there. In 720 he made a pilgrimage to Rome with his father and his brother Vinnibaldo, and from Rome, in 724, he went with two companions to the Holy Land, reaching Jerusalem on 11 November 725. On his return he stopped at Montecassino, where he lived as a monk for ten years (730–40); then, in 740, he was again in Rome, whence Gregory III sent him to Germany to assist in the conversion of the Germans with St. Boniface. The latter ordained him priest on 22 July 740 at Eichstätt, and bishop on 20 October 741 at Sulzenbrucken, entrusting him with the government of the newly established diocese, whose see was at Eichstätt. There V. worked with complete zeal, built a monastery and the Cathedral, and made the city a center of missionary activity, especially for the Bavarian part of his diocese. In 751–52 he founded a double monastery at Heidenheim, appointing his brother Vinnibaldo abbot of the men’s monastery and his sister Valburga abbess of the women’s monastery. He also took part in the German Council of 742 and the Synod of Laptina in 743, and subscribed to Pepin’s donation to Fulda in 753. His feast in the Roman Martyrology is celebrated on 7 July.