Eadwold of Cerne ( c.  835 AD ? 29 August c.  900 ), also known as Eadwold of East Anglia , was a 9th-century hermit , East Anglian prince and patron saint of Cerne , Dorset , who lived as a hermit on a hill about four miles from Cerne. His feast day is 29 August.

Life [ edit ]

Eadwold was born c.  835 AD , the son of Æthelweard of East Anglia ^[1] and reputed brother of Edmund, king of East Anglia . He left his homeland possibly due to a Viking Invasion , to live as a hermit on a hill about four miles from Cerne , Dorset. William of Malmesbury said he lived on bread and water , ^[2] and worked many miracles. ^[3] He is known from the writing of William of Malmesbury and the Hagiographies of St Eadwold of Cerne , by Goscelin of Saint-Bertin ^[4] and also the Secgan .

Veneration [ edit ]

Eadwold died on 29 August c.  900 , at Cerne and is said to have been buried in his cell, and was later moved to a nearby monastery , dedicated to St Peter . His veneration is credited with making Cerne Abbey the third richest in England during the 11th century. ^[4]

A 2024 study proposed that the Cerne Abbas Giant was created c.  900 CE, depicting Hercules , as a muster station for West Saxon armies to gather but that by the 11th-century, the figure was being reinterpreted as portraying Eadwold, by the monks at the Abbey. ^[5] Archaeologist Martin Papworth says the image, likely originally clothed, was probably of Eadwold pointing the way to Cerne Abbey. ^[6]

References [ edit ]

External links [ edit ]

• Eadwald 39 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England