By Dr Avril Lumley Prior
Fragments of two late tenth-/early eleventh century, wheel-head grave-markers, found during the re-construction of Helpston’s church tower in 1865, indicate that there has been a centre of Christian worship on the site for at least a thousand years. While we only may conjecture that the earliest church was a timber-framed structure, archaeological and architectural evidence suggest that a stone building was erected during the early eleventh-century. This in turn was replaced, respecting the late Anglo-Saxon floor-plan, approximately a hundred years later. A will of 1530 informs us that at some time before this date Helpston church was dedicated in the honour of St. Botolph, a seventh-century priest, who became a patron saint of travellers, especially for those crossing rivers and embarking upon pilgrimages. A small memento or relic of the saint, possibly a finger bone or part of a rib, would have been housed beneath the altar, the most sacred part of the church, signifying the saint’s ‘presence’ at Helpston. This probably was procured from the monks of Thorney Abbey, who had acquired part of Botolph’s skeleton in about 975 and subsequently promoted his cult in order to collect income from visiting pilgrims.
At Helpston, it seems unlikely that the veneration of Botolph extended beyond the local community. Nevertheless, during the medieval period, expeditions to saints’ shrines were big business. Indeed, ‘King Wulfhere’s charter to Peterborough Abbey’, an early twelfth-century forgery purporting to have been compiled in 664, urges those who could not travel to St. Peter’s resting-place in Rome ‘to seek him [in the form of his relic] in Peterborough instead’. There, for a price, penitents could be absolved of their sins, the sick could seek cures and the curious and the sceptical could gape at the reliquaries containing saintly body-parts and buy souvenirs of their visit, thus contributing to the monastery’s coffers.
So great was the revenue generated by the ‘holy bones’ that by the eleventh century the theft of relics became common-place. Bede’s remains were purloined from Jarrow by the monks of Durham and were initially obliged to share a tomb with St. Cuthbert, although whether they were presented as a ‘two-for-the-price-of-one’ package is unknown. Abbot Byrthnoth, described in his abbey’s house-history as ‘a pirate in the cause of faith’, uprooted St. Wihtburh’s body from Dereham in Norfolk under cover of darkness so that she could join her sisters, Etheldreda and Seaxburh, daughters of King Anna of East Anglia (c. 633-54), at Ely. A similar fate befell the daughters of Penda of Mercia (c. 633-55), Kyneburgha and Kyneswitha, who were ‘liberated’ from the ruins of Castor church for safe-keeping in Peterborough Abbey to prevent their corpses from being abducted by the brethren of Ramsey. Moreover, Peterborough’s most prestigious relic, the undecayed arm of St. Oswald, guaranteed to heal all manner of ailments, had been stolen to order from Bamburgh in Northumberland by Wingote, a light-fingered Peterborough monk.
After its foundation in 973, Thorney Abbey was compelled to rely upon more obscure residents as pilgrim attractions. These were the hermits Thancredus, Torhtredus and Toua, who despite being murdered by the Danes in 870, were deemed ‘too barbaric’ to be named in William of Malmesbury’s early twelfth-century Ecclesiastical History. However, Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester (963-84) remedied the situation by securing for his favourite abbey, legitimately but at great expense, the body of the Benedict Biscop, Bede’s tutor and founder and first abbot of Wearmouth and Jarrow. Shortly afterwards, Æthelwold obtained King Eadgar’s (959-75) consent to exhume St. Botolph (died 680) from the site of the monastery that he had established at Ikenhoe [Iken, Suffolk], which also is understood to have succumbed to the Danes.
The elevation of St. Botolph was beset with problems. Ulfketyl, Æthelwold’s agent who was detailed to perform the task, found Botolph difficult to extract since his arm was entwined with that of his brother, Adolph [Athulf], who shared his grave. So, Ulfketyl settled for a job lot. Botolph then was dissected, probably at Grundisburgh [Suffolk], near the junction of the London-Ely-Thorney thoroughfares. His head was despatched to Ely, whilst the body was sub-divided into three parts. King Eadgar retained one share, which he enshrined in his private chapel at Westminster. A second portion stayed at Grundisburgh, later to be translated to Bury St. Edmunds by King Cnut (1016-35), and the remainder was allotted to Thorney. Perhaps as a consolation, Thorney also was presented with Adolph’s entire skeleton. It is feasible that, as the saintly brothers’ cortege progressed towards Thorney, it rested over-night near Peterborough for Botolph’s name is immortalised near the erstwhile River Nene crossing of Botolph Bridge, now part of Orton Longueville parish, and at the Botolph Arms public house on Oundle Road.
Although the whereabouts of Botolph’s relics are well-documented, no contemporary accounts of his life survive. Our knowledge is gleaned from two slightly-conflicting biographies, the earliest of which is based on eighth-century material and is preserved in an early-eleventh century, German manuscript known as the Sleswig Breviary. The second version, sourced mainly from oral tradition, was written by Folchard de St. Bertin, the first Norman abbot of Thorney (1068-84), who understandably was biased in favour of his own monastery. From these, we may deduce that Botolph and Adolph, the sons of either an Irish or an East Anglian nobleman, were educated in Boulogne now in modern France, where they both took their religious vows. Although Adolph eventually became a bishop of Frisia, Botolph settled for a less illustrious career. He was appointed priest to the convent of Farmoutier-en-Brie, where he found favour with two royal inmates, Ethelburh and Sæthryth, daughter and step-daughter of King Anna, through whom he gained influence in the East Anglian court. Upon his return to England in 647, Anna granted Botolph land upon which to found his monastery in an isolated location called Ikenhoe. There, in the manner of St. Guthlac of Crowland (St. Pega’s brother), he lived as a semi-recluse, was plagued by demons and earned himself a reputation as a miracle worker. Apart from founding a second monastery near the River Thames, the rest of Botolph’s life seems to have been fairly uneventful. Nevertheless, through King Cnut (1016-35) his popularity spread to Denmark, while in England over seventy Anglo-Saxon and medieval churches were consecrated in his honour. These include the so-called Boston Stump [Lincolnshire] and the parish churches of Longthorpe, directly across the River Nene from Botolph Bridge, the former abbey church at Thorney, where he shares a joint dedication with St. Mary, and of course at Helpston. Although all of St. Botolph’s relics are thought to have been lost during the Reformation, his feast day still is celebrated on 17 June.
