Saint Walpurga

Saint Walpurga
Statue of St. Walpurga
Born	c. 710, Devon
Died	February 25, 777 or 779, Heidenheim
Canonized	870 by Adrian II
Feast	Varies
Patronage	Eichstätt, Antwerp and other towns

Saint Walpurga (Old English: Wealdburg; c. 710 – February 25, 777 or 779), also spelled Walpurgis, Valderburg, or Guibor,^[1] was an English missionary to the Frankish Empire. She was canonized on 1 May, ca. 870 by Pope Adrian II. The holiday Walpurgis Night takes its name from her. She is also known by the seemingly unrelated names Perche and Eucharis.

Life

Sint-Walburgakerk, built 1641, was the Jesuit church of Bruges

Together with her brothers, Saint Willibald and Saint Winibald, she travelled to Württemberg and Franconia to assist Saint Boniface, her mother's brother. She had been well prepared for the call. She was educated in the convent of Wimborne, Dorset, where she spent twenty-six years as a member of the community. Thanks to her rigorous training she was later able to write St. Winibald's vita and an account in Latin of St. Willibald's travels in Palestine, so that she is often credited with being the first female author of both England and Germany.^[2]

She became a nun and lived in the convent of Heidenheim am Hahnenkamm near Eichstätt, which was founded by her brother, Willibald. Walpurga died on 25 February 779 and was buried at Heidenheim; that day still carries her name in the Catholic calendar. In the 870s her remains were transferred to Eichstätt, and in some places, e.g. Finland, Sweden, and Bavaria, her feast day commemorates the translation of her relics on 1 May. Walpurgis Night is celebrated on the night of April 30th, the eve of Saint Walpurga's feast, when the witches and other occult folk can celebrate before being banished by the dawn of this saint's special day.

The two earliest miracle narratives of Walpurga are the Miracula S. Walburgae Manheimensis by Wolfhard von Herrieden, datable 895/96, and the late tenth-century Vita secunda linked with the name of Aselbod, bishop of Utrecht. In the fourteenth-century Vita S. Walburgae of Phillipp von Rathsamhaüsen, bishop of Eichstätt (1306-22) the miracle of the tempest-tossed boat is introduced, which Peter Paul Rubens painted in 1610 for the disassembled altarpiece for the church of S. Walpurgis, Antwerp.^[3]

She is the patron saint of those affected by rabies.

Walpurga is the patroness of Eichstätt, Antwerp, Oudenaarde, Veurne, Groningen, Zutphen and other towns in the Low Countries.^[4]

The Church of St. Walburge, Preston, a Roman Catholic church in Preston, Lancashire, England, is a particularly tall and beautiful church dedicated to her. The origin of the variation on her name is not clear.

See also

• Germanic Christianity

Notes

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