Saint Botwulf of Thorney

Botolph of Thorney was an English abbot and saint. He is regarded as the patron saint of boundaries, and by extension, of trade and travel, as well as various aspects of farming. His feast day is celebrated either on 17 June (England) or 25 June (Scotland). Little is known about the life of Botolph, other than doubtful details in an account written four hundred years after his death by the 11th-century monk Folcard. Botolph was born sometime in the early 7th century to noble Saxon parents who were Christians. He and his brother Adulph were educated by Saint Fursey at Cnobheresburg monastery. They were then sent to study on the Continent, where they became Benedictines. Adulph remained abroad, where he is said to have become a Bishop. Botolph, returning to England, found favour with a certain "King of the southern Angles", whose sisters he had known in Germany, and was by him permitted to choose a tract of desolate land upon which to build a monastery. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records for the year 654: "The Middle Angles, under earldorman Peada, received the true faith. King Anna was killed and Botolph began to build the church at Ikanho". Botolph founded the monastery of Icanho. Icanho, which means 'ox hill', has been identified as Iken, located by the estuary of the River Alde in Suffolk; a church still remains on top of an isolated hill in the parish. At the time, the site was a tidal island all but surrounded by water, but Botolph attracted other monks and hermits and together they turned areas of marsh and scrub into productive grazing and farm land. The monks built several structures, and the monastery grew. Botolph also worked as an itinerant missionary in East Anglia, Kent and Sussex. The Life of St Ceolfrith, written around the time of Bede by an unknown author, mentions an abbot named Botolph in East Anglia, "a man of remarkable life and learning, full of the grace of the Holy Spirit". Ceolfrith visited him about the year 670.