Guthlac: Crowland's Saint

Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2020. Book. Fine. Soft cover. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. A collection of 27 academic essays on the life and cult of St Guthlac, the saint who was honoured at Crowland (or Croyland) Abbey in the Lincolnshire fens. Guthlac had his hermitage there from the late-seventh century until his death in 714. Many of the essays originated in a conference on Guthlac held in 2014 but there are additional studies, including an edition and translation of the twelfth-century Miracles of St Guthlac and the story of the movement of his remains into a splendid new shrine at Crowland. Historians are immensely fortunate that Guthlac's life was recorded in a very early biography by the monk Felix, writing in the mid-eighth century, which records early miracles and the story of Guthlac's extraordinary battles with fen demons, his relationship with Æthelbald, soon to become king of the Mercians, and his early life as a warrior fighting on the Welsh borders, a way of life he repented from, taking his clerical training at Repton monastery before becoming a hermit to fight evil for a different lord. 32 pages of colour plates, which include many manuscript and stained-glass images, black-and-white illustrations in the main text, including reproductions of the entire Guthlac Roll in Jane Roberts' essay. The architecture and history of Crowland Abbey, and the influence of earlier hagiography on the style of Felix's Life, are common themes. 672pp..