**WILLIBALD (Willibaldus),** Saint. – Benedictine, Bishop of Eichstätt, born on 22 October 700 from a noble Anglo-Saxon family, died there c. 7 July 787.
Having entered the abbey of Waltham (Hampshire) at the age of five to be educated there, he made a pilgrimage in 720 with his father and brother Winnibald to Rome, and from Rome in 724, with two companions, to the Holy Land, arriving in Jerusalem on 11 November 725. On his return, he passed through Montecassino, where he lived as a monk for ten years (730-40); then in 740 he was again in Rome, from where he was sent by Gregory III to Germany to assist in the conversion of the Germans alongside St Boniface, who ordained him priest on 22 July 740 at Eichstätt, and on 20 October 741 bishop at Sulzenbrucken, entrusting him with the governance of the newly created diocese, with its seat at Eichstätt. There Willibald worked with great zeal, built a monastery and the cathedral, and made the city a centre of radiance, especially for the Bavarian part of his diocese. In 751-52 he founded a double monastery at Heidenheim, appointing his brother Winnibald as abbot of the male monastery and his sister Walburga as abbess of the female monastery. He also took part in the German Council of 742, the Synod of Liptina in 743, and subscribed to the donation of Pepin to Fulda in 753. His feast is kept in the *Roman Martyrology* on 7 July.