Death and Veneration
Felix died in 647 or 648, after he had been bishop for seventeen years. After his death, which probably occurred during the reign of Anna of East Anglia, Thomas, a Fenman, became the second Bishop of the East Angles. Felix was buried at Dommoc, but his relics were at a later date removed to Soham, according to the twelfth century English historian William of Malmesbury. His shrine was desecrated by the Vikings when the church was destroyed. Some time later, "the body of the saint was looked for and found, and buried at Ramsey Abbey". Ramsey was noted for its enthusiasm for collecting saints' relics, and in an apparent attempt to out-compete their rivals from the abbey at Ely, the Ramsey monks escaped by rowing their boats through thick Fenland fog, carrying with them the bishop's precious remains.
Felix's feast day is celebrated on 8 March. There are six churches dedicated to the saint, located in North Yorkshire and East Anglia. According to the mediaeval customary of Bury St Edmunds, known as the Liber Albus, Felix is said to have visited Babingley, in the north west of Norfolk, and 'maden… … the halige kirke' – 'built the holy church'.
The village of Felixkirk (in Yorkshire) and the town of Felixstowe may both have been named after the saint, though an alternative meaning for Felixtowe, "the stow of Filica", has been suggested.
Read more about this topic: Felix Of Burgundy
Famous quotes containing the words death and/or veneration:
“half-way up the hill, I see the Past
Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,—
A city in the twilight dim and vast,
With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights,—
And hear above me on the autumnal blast
The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)
“It is evident, from their method of propagation, that a couple of cats, in fifty years, would stock a whole kingdom; and if that religious veneration were still paid them, it would, in twenty more, not only be easier in Egypt to find a god than a man, which Petronius says was the case in some parts of Italy; but the gods must at last entirely starve the men, and leave themselves neither priests nor votaries remaining.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)