WILLIBRORD (Willibrordus), Saint. - Benedictine, apostle of the Frisians and first bishop of Utrecht, b. in Northumbria in 658 of an Anglo-Saxon family, d. at Echternach on 7 Nov. 739.

Offered while still a boy by his father to St. Wilgils at the monastery of Ripon (York) as an oblate, he later received there the monastic habit. Around 678 he went to Ireland to the monastery of Rath Melsigi, where he remained 12 years and was ordained a priest. In 690 he was sent with 11 companions to evangelize the Frisians, welcomed willingly by Pepin of Herstal, who assigned them, as their field of work, western Frisia, conquered the previous year (689) from Duke Radbod, a fierce pagan. V., wishing to have a particular approval from the Pope for his mission, made a first journey to Rome in 693, where Sergius I encouraged him and gave him relics for the future Catholic churches to be erected among the converted Frisians. He then made a second journey in 695, receiving there, at Pepin's wish, consecration as bishop of the Frisians from Sergius I himself in the church of St. Cecilia, on 22 Nov., the feast of the Saint, of 695. The Pope gave him the name Clement, which however did not prevail over his family name. V. chose as the episcopal see of the future ecclesiastical province Utrecht, where he erected a Cathedral dedicated to the Most Holy Savior.

His apostolate had excellent success and spurred him to extend his conquests also beyond the boundaries of Frisia dominated by the Franks, namely into the Frisia dominated by Radbod, into Denmark, Heligoland, Thuringia. On Pepin's death, in 714, Radbod reconquered the part of the territory lost, and V. had to withdraw to the monastery of Echternach (diocese of Trier), founded by him in 698 through the generosity of Pepin and of the abbess St. Irmina, daughter of Dagobert II. After Radbod's death in 719, V. returned to his see and was assisted there for three years by St. Boniface, on his way to evangelize the Germans. V. was buried in the church of the abbey of Echternach. Even today, in his honor, on the Tuesday of Pentecost a kind of "dancing procession" is celebrated. Feast on 7 Nov.

Bibliography9 works

BIBL.: a first biography of V., according to Theofrid, abbot of Echternach (MGH, Scriptores, XXIII [1874], p. 11) would have been written in Irish by an unknown monk; but no trace of it survives (cf. C. Prümmer, Bedae opera historica, II, Oxford 1896, p. 287; to the contrary W. Levison and A. Poncelet). The first known one is due to Alcuin, and is narrated in prose, at the request of Beorred, abbot of Echternach, for public use in the church, and in verse for school use in the monastery's schools (ed. by J. Jaffé, in Bibl. rerum Germanicarum, VI, 1873, p. 39 ff.; a better one by W. Levison, in MGH, Scriptores rerum mensinigic., VII [1920], pp. 80-141 [only the prose life]). Another biography, in prose and poetry, was composed, with new particulars, by Theofred, abbot of Echternach (published with the prose life written by Alcuin, ed. by L. Weiland, in MGH, Scriptores, XXIII [1874], p. 13 ff.; the two by Alcuin and by Theofred, ed. by A. Poncelet, in Acta SS. Novembris, III, Brussels 1910, pp. 426-500). A partial and brief biography is also given by Bede, Hist. ecclesiastica, I, V, ch. 10-11 (cf. Prümmer, op. cit., I, Oxford 1896, pp. 508-50) and the explanatory notes, ibid., II, (rpt. 1896, pp. 287-94). For the "Calendarium" of St. V., in which there is read a note in V.'s own hand on the date of his consecration (695), cf. H. A. Wilson, Calendar of s. Willibrord, London 1918, and A. Reiners, S. Willibrord, in Studien u. Mitteil. Ord. S. Baud., 6 (1885), pp. 163-73. For the "testament" of V., cf. Van der Essen, Etude crit. et litt. sur les Vitae des saints mérovingiens de l'ancienne Belgique, Louvain 1907, pp. 427-34; F. Flaskam, Die Anfänge des friatischen u. rächsischen Christentums, Hildesheim 1929; G. H. Verbiest, St. Willibrord apôtre des Pays-Bas et fondateur d'Echternach, Bruges 1939; M. A. Erens, Sint W., Apostel der Nederlandern, Tongerloo 1939; N. Goetzinger, Willibrordus. Echternacher. Festschr. zur XII. Jahrhundertfeier des Todes des hl. W., Luxembourg 1940.

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Willibrord (Willibrordus), Saint

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