priests, relatives of his, who had been labouring as missionaries in Northumberland. Leaving them at Poitiers, and taking with him some of the relics of S. Hilary, Fridolin went to the east of France, and erected a monastery on the banks of the Moselle, which he dedicated to S. Hilary, and which was called Helera. Having remained there only as long as was necessary to complete that foundation, he built a church amidst the Vosges, likewise in honour of S. Hilary, perhaps that which was named Hilariacum, the modern S. Avold, in the Department of Moselle. Thence he proceeded to Strassburg, where also he erected a church under the same invocation. Next we find him at Coire, in the Grisons, and there likewise founding a Church of S. Hilary. While there, he inquired of the inhabitants if there were any island in the Rhine as yet uninhabited, and was informed there was one, of which, however, they could not give him a precise account. He went in search of it, and at length found the island of Sickingen, a few miles above Basle. When examining it for the purpose of discovering whether it were fit for the erection of a church, he was beaten and ill-treated by the inhabitants of the neighbouring district. But having obtained a grant of the island from the king, he founded a church, and a religious house for women, towards the endowment of which he got some lands from Urso, a nobleman of Glarus. Thenceforth he spent the remainder of his life at Sickingen, together with some disciples of his, of whom he formed a community, prior, it is said, to his having established the nunnery. He died there on the 6th of March, but in what year is not known. There are great doubts even as to the century in which he flourished; but it is most probable that he belonged to the latter part of the 7th century. Some writings have been attributed to the saint, but upon no sufficient authority. Many writers suppose that he arrived in France in the reign of Clovis I., but it is more probable that it was in the reign of Clovis III. According to Balther, Christianity seems to have been completely established in Ireland at the time of Fridolin's departure for France, and this representation does not suit the religious state of Ireland at the period when Clovis I. reigned. The holy expeditions of missionaries from Ireland to the continent, had not begun as early as the 6th century. Next comes the very remarkable circumstance of the priests, the nephews of Fridolin, coming from Northumberland. There were no Irish priests in Northumberland until the year 635.25
S. Fridolin is regarded as the tutelar patron of the Canton of Glarus, which bears on its coat of arms a figure of the saint.
[Anglican Martyrologies. Authorities: – Bede, lib. iii. c. 21, Ingulf, and William of Malmesbury.]
An obstinate tradition found in the ancient English Chronicles asserts that two daughters of the savage old heathen Penda, king of Mercia, Kyneburga and Kyneswitha, both gave up the thought of marriage to consecrate themselves to God. The eldest, who was married to Alcfrid, the eldest son of king Oswy of Northumbria, is said to have left him with his consent, after having lived with him some years in virginal continence, to end her life in the cloister. The youngest, sought in marriage by Offa, king of the East Saxons, used her connection with him only to persuade the young prince to embrace the monastic life as she herself desired to do. But it has been proved that the two daughters of the bloody Penda contributed with their brothers to the establishment of the great abbey of Medehampstede, or Peterborough, that their names appear in the list of the national assembly which sanctioned this foundation, and that it was not till after, that they retired to lead a religious life at Dermundcaster, now Caister, near Peterborough, on the confines of Huntingdon and Northampton. There Kyneburga became the abbess of a community of nuns, when she was shortly joined by her sister Kyneswitha, and a kinswoman Tibba.
After their death, they were buried at Peterborough. When the Danes wasted England, their bodies were carried to Thorney, but were brought back again in the days of king Henry I.
Camden, in his account of Rutland, informs us that S. Tibba was held in particular veneration at Ryall on the Wash.
[Anglican and Scottish Martyrologies. Authorities: – Aberdeen Breviary, Hector Boece, Hist. Scot. lib. ix. Matthew of Westminster under date 941; Turgot of Durham, &c.]
S. Balther is supposed to be identical with S. Baldred, commemorated the same day in the Scottish Martyrologies.
S. Baldred is said to have lived a solitary life on the Bass-rock. At the entrance of the Firth of Forth was a dangerous rock just above the level of low tide which proved a cause of continual shipwreck. Baldred, says the lection in the Aberdeen Breviary, compassionating the sailors, went to the rock, and standing on it, it swam away under him "like a boat," and he conducted it to a place where it could do no mischief, and there he rooted it again.
He died at Aldham (Alderstone), and his body was claimed by the neighbouring parishes of Tyningham and Preston. A contest arose between the three parishes, and the story is told, which occurs also in that of S. Tyllo, that in the morning there were three precisely similar bodies, so that each parish was able to possess S. Baldred.
In 951, Anlaf the Dane burnt the church and monastery of Tyningham, and immediately after was struck with sudden sickness, and died. The body of S. Balther was rediscovered by revelation, by a priest, Elfrid, two centuries later, whose mission seems to have been the recovery of lost relics, for he found also those of SS. Bilfred, Acca, Alkmund the bishop, king Oswin, and the abbesses Ebba and Ethelgitha, being directed to them all by visions. The bones of S. Balther and S. Bilfred were put together with the body of S. Cuthbert in his shrine at Durham. But they were removed from the shrine again in 1104, the head of S. Oswald being alone left with S. Cuthbert, and were put in the shrine of the Venerable Bede.
S. Bilfred was a goldsmith, who is said to have chased a book of the Gospels with gems in gold, which was long preserved at Durham, and is now in the Cottonian library in the British Museum. On the cover is "✠ Eadfrid, Oetilwald, Billfrith, Aldred hoc Evangelium Deo et Cuthberto uonstruxerunt et ornaverunt;" above this in Saxon characters, and in a Northumbrian dialect, "And Billfrith, the anchorite, he fabricated the curious works that are on the outside, and it adorned with gold and with gems, also with silver overgilded, a priceless treasure." Billfrith is supposed to be a local form of Bilfred.
[Metz Martyrology, Molanus and Herimann Greven in their additions to Usuardus. Belgian Martyrologies, and Saussaye in his Gallia Christiana. Authority: – His life by Paulus Diaconus ([fl]. 790), and a larger one by John, abbot of Gorze, (d. 793), published in Pertz, Mon. Sacr. T. x. p. 552-572.]
This saint was a native of Hasbain, that portion of Brabant which surrounds Louvain, and was educated in the abbey of S. Tron. On account of his learning and general talents he was made chancellor of France by Charles Martel, mayor of the palace, in 737. Soon after the death of Charles, he was elected bishop of Metz, in 742. In 754 he was sent on an embassy by king Pepin to Astulph, king of the Lombards, who had overrun the North of Italy, praying him not to commit degradations in Rome, nor to force the Romans to desert their faith. But the embassy proved fruitless. In 755 the saint organised a regular community to serve as chapter to his cathedral, requiring them to live together in one house, and observe certain rules, which he drew up in thirty-four articles. Amongst other rules, he required his canons to confess at least twice in the year to the bishop, before the beginning of Advent and Lent. He built and endowed the monasteries of S. Peter, of Gorze, and of Lorsch; and died on March 6th, 766. He was buried at Gorze. His relics disappeared at the Revolution.
[Roman Martyrology. Her festival was celebrated with proper office at her convent in Ghent, by permission of Clement VIII.; and Paul V. extended this privilege to all other convents of her order. She was canonized by Pius VII., in 1807. Her life was written by Peter à Vallisus, [or] de Rheims, for many years her confessor, in French, and it was translated by Etienne Julliac, a contemporary, into Latin; and an epitome of her life was written by Jodocus Clichthrove.]
Colette
See Dr. Lanigan's Irish Eccl. Hist. ii. p. 483-6.
