Saint Swithun

Swithun (or Swithin; Old English: Swīþhūn; Latin: Swithunus; died 2 July 863) was an Anglo-Saxon bishop of Winchester and subsequently patron saint of Winchester Cathedral. His historical importance as bishop is overshadowed by his reputation for posthumous miracle-working. Swithun was Bishop of Winchester from his consecration on 30 October 852 until his death on 2 July 863. However, he is scarcely mentioned in any document of his own time. His death is entered in the Canterbury manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (MS F) under the year 861. He is recorded as a witness to nine charters, the earliest of which (S 308) is dated 854. More than a hundred years later, when Dunstan and Æthelwold of Winchester were inaugurating their church reform, Swithun was adopted as patron of the restored church at Winchester, formerly dedicated to St Peter and St Paul. His body was transferred from its almost forgotten grave to Æthelwold's new basilica on 15 July 971; according to contemporary writers, numerous miracles preceded and followed the move. The revival of Swithun's fame gave rise to a mass of legendary literature. The so-called Vita S. Swithuni of Lantfred and Wulfstan, written about 1000, hardly contains any biographical fact; all that has in later years passed for authentic detail of Swithun's life is extracted from a late eleventh-century hagiography ascribed to Goscelin of St Bertin's, a monk who came over to England with Hermann, bishop of Salisbury from 1058 to 1078. According to this writer Saint Swithun was born in the reign of Egbert of Wessex, and was ordained priest by Helmstan, bishop of Winchester (838-c. 852). His fame reached the king's ears, and he appointed him tutor of his son, Æthelwulf (alias Adulphus), and considered him one of his chief friends. However, Michael Lapidge describes the work as "pure fiction" and shows that the attribution to Goscelin is false.