William of Norwich - Canonization

Canonization

The motive of the clergy – in particular, William de Turbeville (Bishop of Norwich 1146–74) – to establish a cultus may have been partly pecuniary. De Turbeville encouraged Thomas of Monmouth, a Benedictine monk who lived in Norwich, to write The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich. Monmouth arrived in Norwich just after the events he describes. There was never any papal canonization of William, his cult always being "popular" rather than official.

Before any attempt at an autopsy as to how the boy met his death, the Prior tried to get the body for Lewes Priory in Sussex, for he realized that it might become an object ‘of conspicuous veneration and worship.’

There is little evidence of a flourishing cult of William in Norwich, although offerings were made at his tomb until the sixteenth century. There was a scholars' guild dedicated to St William in the Norfolk town of Lynn.