Adalbert of Egmond

Saint Adalbert of Egmond
Painting of Saints Bonifatius, Gregorius, Adelbert, and priest Jeroen van Noordwijk, by Jan Joesten van Hillegom, 1530
Born	Northumbria
Died	8th century Egmond
Venerated in	Anglican Communion Roman Catholic Church Eastern Orthodox Church
Canonized	Pre-Congregation
Feast	June 25

Saint Adalbert of Egmond (also called Adelbert of Egmond) (died c. 710 in Egmond) was a Northumbrian Anglo-Saxon missionary. He was one of Saint Willibrord's companions in preaching the gospel in Holland and Frisia.

Biography

The Life of Adalbert is not rich in fact. He is said to have been born in Northumbria, a member of the Northumbrian royal family. According to some sources, to have been first a monk at the Abbey of Rathmelsigi (possibly on the site of the later Mellifont Abbey, Co. Louth) and to have assisted in Ireland with the missionary work of Saint Egbert. He then went in c 690 to assist Saint Willibrord^[1] (who had also been at Rathmelsigi) in the mission field of Frisia, where he became associated particularly with Egmond. He was made Archdeacon of the recently founded See of Utrecht and died at Egmund about A.D. 740.^[2] He was buried there, and miracles were reported at his tomb, over which a church was built.

Veneration

His continued remembrance rests largely on the foundation of the Benedictine monastery, Egmond Abbey, the first in the country, some two hundred years later by Count Dirk I of West Frisia (or Holland), of which Adalbert was made the patron. The Vita was not commissioned until the 990s, which presumably accounts for its lack of facts. Adalbert's relics were translated to the newly built abbey (initially a nunnery) for veneration. After the Reformation and the destruction of the abbey, they were preserved in Haarlem. The cult was reinstated when the abbey was re-founded in 1923, and the relics were returned there in 1984. The saint's skull, painstakingly restored, is also preserved beneath the high altar. His feast day is 25 June.^[3]

References

1. "Adalbert", Oxford Index
2. "Blog Archive » Book of Saints – Adelbert". Saints.SQPN.com. 2012-05-01. Retrieved 2014-04-24.
3. Farmer, David. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 5th Edition Revised, p. 3, Oxford University Press, 2011 ISBN 9781156973080

• Rose, Hugh James (1857). A New General Biographical Dictionary, London: B. Fellowes et al.

External links

• Utopia article
• Life of Adalbert, website of Egmond Abbey, in Dutch
• Detailed consideration of the legend and relics of Adelbert, in Dutch

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1885). "Adalbert (fl.700)". Dictionary of National Biography 1. London: Smith, Elder & Co.