Who were the saints of Anglo-Saxon England?
They fall into two main groups. The first is the universal saints of the Christian church – and in particular the saints most venerated at Rome. The popularity of some universally culted saints in England was such that Old English versions were composed of their Lives, sometimes in verse. Wilfrid was especially devoted to Andrew, Guthlac to Andrew’s fellow Apostle, Bartholomew. The second is the English saints themselves. This group of no fewer than 250 or so men and women has distinctive characteristics. About a third of these saints were royal, another third were bishops, abbots and abbesses of unspecified social background but almost certainly royal or noble, and the remaining third were religious persons of lower ecclesiastical rank but again of royal or noble birth in many cases. Furthermore, the English saints are assigned by history or tradition to particular dates, and the corpus peaks chronologically in particular periods. In Mercia the peaks occur in the seventh and ninth cen
