Botwulf of Thorney - Life and Works

Life and Works

Little is known about Botwulf's life, other than doubtful details in a surviving account written four hundred years after his death by the 11th-century monk Folcard. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records for the year 6531: The Middle Angles, under earldorman Peada, received the true faith. King Anna was killed and Botulf began to build the church at Ikanho. Icanho, which means 'ox hill', has now been identified as Iken, which is located by the estuary of the Alde in the East Anglian county of Suffolk: a church remains on top of an isolated hill in the parish.2 The Life of St Ceolfrith, written around the time of Bede by an unknown author, mentions an abbot named Botolphus in East Anglia, "a man of remarkable life and learning, full of the grace of the Holy Spirit".3

Botwulf is supposed to have been buried at his foundation of Icanho. In 970, Edgar I of England gave permission for Botwulf's remains to be transferred to Burgh, near Woodbridge, where they remained for some fifty years before being transferred to their own tomb at the abbey of Bury St Edmunds, on the instructions of Cnut. The saint's relics were later transferred, along with those of his brother Adulf, to Thorney Abbey, although his head was transferred to Ely Cathedral and other portions to Westminster Abbey and other houses.