Biography
Wilgils
About Wilgils
Wilgils was the father of Willibrord and is remembered as a Northumbrian hermit. Alcuin’s Life of Willibrord introduces him as a Christian householder of Saxon descent. After family life, he adopted monastic discipline and then lived as a solitary near the Humber’s mouth.
Alcuin describes years of prayer, fasting and vigils in a chapel dedicated to Andrew. Visitors came for instruction. Gifts of neighboring land from the king and nobles enabled Wilgils to establish a church with a small religious community. He was buried there. Alcuin later held the chapel by lawful succession.
The Dictionary of National Biography connects Wilgils’s retirement with the period after his son’s birth. Willibrord was entrusted to the monks at Ripon for religious education. The dictionary also records that Wilgils’s anniversary became a feast at Echternach, the monastery associated with his son.
Alcuin’s final chapter recalls a monastic celebration of Wilgils’s anniversary with Mass and Vespers. A later source gives 31 January, although its author elsewhere gives 30 January.
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