{{Short description|Anglo-Saxon Benedictine monk and missionary honored as a saint (675-747)}} {{Other uses|Wigbert (disambiguation)}} [[File:Bonifatius und Wigbert Plum.JPG|thumb|Saint Wigbert and Saint Boniface. Stained glass window by Alois Plum.]] '''Wihtberht''' or '''Wigbert''' (May 7, 675 – August 13, 747) born in Wessex around 675, was an Anglo-Saxon Benedictine monk and a missionary and disciple of Boniface who travelled with the latter in Frisia and northern and central Germany to convert the local tribes to Christianity. His feast day is August 13th in the Roman Catholic Church and on April 12th in the Eastern Orthodox Church.<ref>A Western Rite Orthodox Martyrology, (St. Gregory the Great Orthodox Church, Washington, D.C.), p. 146.</ref>
==Life== Wihtberht was an Englishman of noble birth,<ref name=loffler/> who embraced the monastic life.<ref name=butler>[http://www.bartleby.com/210/8/134.html Butler, Alban. ''The Lives of the Saints'', Vol. VIII, 1866]</ref> It has been supposed that Wihtberht was a monk of Glastonbury, but Löffler finds this improbable.<ref name=loffler>[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15619b.htm Löffler, Klemens. "St. Wigbert." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 16 May 2013]</ref>
== Character== At times an anchorite,<ref name="Bede.HE v.9">Bede.HE v.9</ref> and hermit<ref>{{PASE|1817|Wihtberht 2|cw=1}}</ref> he was known for his missionary work, miracles and prophecies.<ref name=eubor>Alcuin.VersEubor 1023-4</ref> He is known to history mainly through Alcuin and Bede and is mentioned in the Secgan Hagiography. Alcuin described him as venerable,<ref name=vit>Alcuin.VitWillibrPr 4.</ref> and outstanding in his religious practice<ref name=eubor/> while Bede admired his ''contempt of this world'' and his learning.<ref name="Bede.HE v.9"/> He worked mainly in Ireland.<ref name=vit/>
==First mission== Around 664 Wihtberht was studying at Rath Melsigi in Ireland. Also there was Ecgberht of Ripon, who had gone to Ireland to avoid an outbreak of the plague in Northumbria. However, Ecgberht and many of the students contracted the disease. Ecgberht vowed that if he recovered, he would become a "peregrinus" on perpetual pilgrimage from his homeland of Britain and would lead a life of penitential prayer and fasting.<ref name=mayr>[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/8579, Mayr-Harting, Henry. "Ecgberht (639–729)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', 2004]</ref> He began to organize monks in Ireland to proselytize in Frisia, but was dissuaded from going himself by a vision related to him by a monk who had been a disciple of Boisil (the Prior of Melrose under Abbot Eata), who advised him that this task was not for him. Ecgberht instead sent Wihtberht.<ref name=costambeys>[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/29576, Costambeys, Marios. "Willibrord [St Willibrord] (657/8–739)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2011, accessed 24 Jan 2014]</ref> Around 680, Wihtberht, went to Frisia, where he spent two years; but owing to the opposition of the ruler Redbad, King of the Frisians, Wihtberht was unsuccessful and returned.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=3jPRV2hUGE8C&dq=Rath+Melsigi&pg=PA194 ''St. Cuthbert, His Cult and His Community to AD 1200'', (Gerald Bonner et al, eds.) Boydell & Brewer, 1989, p. 194] {{ISBN|9780851156101}}</ref> Wihtberht’s reputation among the Irish was such that he was celebrated in the ninth-century Irish martyrology, Félire Óengusso.
==Second mission== When Boniface felled Thor's Oak near Fritzlar in northern Hesse in 723, he built a wooden chapel from the oak's wood and in 724 established a Benedictine monastery in Fritzlar. Boniface called Wihtberht from England to become the abbot.<ref name=butler/> Wihtberht was certainly older than Boniface. He went to Germany about 734, and Boniface made him abbot of the monastery of Hersfeld in Hesse. Under the new abbot the school soon became famous. Among his pupils there was Sturmi, the first Abbot of Fulda.<ref name=loffler/>
About 737 Boniface transferred him to Thuringia as Abbot of Ohrdruf,<ref name=loffler/> where he established a school for missionaries operating in Thuringia. Wihtberht died in 747, and was initially buried in Fritzlar in the stone basilica he had built to replace the original wooden chapel. His former student, Lullus later had most of his body (except for a few sacred relics which remained in Fritzlar) interred in a gold and silver shrine in Hersfeld Abbey.<ref name=butler/> Wihtberht is patron saint of the town of Bad Hersfeld. His feast day is August 13.
==Legacy== The Priory of St Wigbert (Priorat Sankt Wigberti) is an ecumenical Benedictine monastery for men, belonging to the Lutheran Church of Thuringia, located in Werningshausen, Germany.<ref>[http://www.wigberti.de/?page_id=16 The Priory of St. Wigberti]</ref>
==See also== * Willibrord
==References== {{Reflist}}
== External links == * {{PASE|19049|Wihtberht 2}} * [https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=2106 Catholic Online: St. Wigbert]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wihtberht}} Category:675 births Category:747 deaths Category:West Saxon saints Category:Anglo-Saxon Benedictines Category:Christian missionaries in Germany Category:8th-century Christian saints Category:Medieval English saints Category:8th-century English clergy Category:English Christian monks Category:Yorkshire saints