Willibald lay sick the whole of Lent,* while some of his companions were sent to the khalif for letters of protection; but not finding him they returned to Ptolemais, where they all remained till the week before Easter, and then they went to Emessa, to ask for letters of safe conduct from the governor of that place. These they obtained, but they were obliged to travel in separate parties of two each, on account of the difficulty of procuring food.† They went from Emessa to Damascus, and thence a fourth time to Jerusalem, where they remained some time, and afterwards continued their pilgrimage towards the sea coast. On the way they visited the well where our Saviour spoke with the woman of Samaria, over which a church had been built, slept one night at Sebaste, and passed over an extensive plain covered with olive trees, in company with a negro who had two camels and a mule, and who was conducting a lady through the forest; they here met with a lion, which however did them no injury. From a place named Thalemarcha on the sea-coast they travelled on foot round the extreme promontory of Mount Libanus (Mount Carmel), and proceeded to Tyre, where they experienced considerable inconvenience from the unfriendly disposition of the inhabitants, who plundered them of the greater part of their goods, and where they were obliged to remain a long time before they found a ship bound for Constantinople. It is in the highest degree probable that

* Ibi fuit ille totum tempus Quadragesimæ: infirmus fuit, et non poterat pergere. Vit. Willibaldi, p. 377.

† Et dedit epistolam duobus et duobus; quia illi non poterant simul pergere, sed duo et duo, quia facilius sic potuerunt alimenta obtinere. Vit. Willib. p. 378.

Et inde perrexerunt super campum magnum olivarum plenum, et pergebat cum illis unus Æthiops cum duobus camelis et uno mulo, qui ducebat unam mulierem per silvam. Cumque perrexissent, obviavit illis unus leo, qui aperto ore rugiens raucusque eos rapere ac devorare cupiens, valde minabatur illis. Vit. Willib. p. 378.

the difficulties Willibald and his companions experienced in obtaining a passport, and the troubles they met with in their departure from Syria, were coincident with the persecution of the Christian churches in that country in 724, when the Khalif Yezid II. at the end of his reign had been instigated by the Jews to publish an edict against the paintings in the churches of his Christian subjects, in consequence of which many of the latter fled from their homes. After the death of Yezid, hostilities recommenced between the Greeks and Arabs, and continued during many years, so that Willibald's departure from the Holy Land cannot be placed later than this date.*

Willibald sailed from Tyre on St. Andrew's day (Nov. 30, 724), and did not reach Constantinople till the week before Easter (the beginning of April, 725). After a residence of two years in that city, in the spring of the year 727 he returned to Sicily in company with the envoys of the Pope and the Cæsar, and visited Syracuse and Catania, from whence he crossed over to Reggio in Calabria, and proceeded by the isle of Vulcano (of which the writer of the narrative gives a curious account,) † Naples, and Capua, to Monte Casino, where he arrived in the autumn, after

*The above coincidence is of the more importance, as the accuracy of the dates of most of the occurrences of Willibald's life depends more or less upon it. The whole tenor of the narrative shows that the pilgrims quitted Syria on account of some sudden change in the internal state of the country, and that they were anxious to get away, for they came to Tyre at the wrong season of the year for making the voyage to Constantinople, and sailed in rough and dangerous weather.

Ibi est infernus Theodorici. Vit. Willib. p. 379. In the legends of this period, the craters of volcanos were believed to be entries to hell. A hermit who resided on the isle of Lipari, told a friend of Pope Gregory the Great that he had seen the soul of the Gothic king Theuderic thrown into the crater of the isle of Vulcano: hesterno die hora nona inter Joannem papam et Symmachum patricium discinctus atque discalceatus et vinctis manibus deductus, in hanc vicinam Vulcani ollam jactatus est. Gregor. Magn. Dialog. lib. iv. c. 30. This is the origin of the name mentioned in the life of Willibald.

having been absent from Italy seven years, and ten years after his departure from England.*

Willibald was immediately received into the Benedictine monastery of Monte Casino. During the first year after his arrival he was constituted Cubicularius, chamberlain or treasurer; in the second year he exercised the office of Dean (decanus) of the monastery; and during the eight following years he acted as porter (portarius) of the two monasteries. After having been ten years an inmate of this celebrated monastic establishment, he accompanied a Spanish presbyter to Rome, where he arrived on the 30th of November (about 733). Willibald was received with marks of distinction by pope Gregory III., who listened with interest to the relation of his adventurous travels, and then informed him that his countryman Boniface, who probably thought that no man could be better fitted to contend with the difficulties of his situation than one who had continued during five years to brave the systematical hostility shown towards the Christians by the victorious Arabs, had sent for him to be his assistant in the conversion of the Germans. Willibald quitted Rome at Easter (739), passed through Lucca (where he visited the tomb of his father), Ticino, and Brescia, to a place named Charinta or Charta, and after spending a week with Duke Odilo and another with Suitgarius, he was conducted by the latter to Boniface, who entrusted to his charge a district in the wilderness at Eistet (Eichstadt), which had been given by Suitgarius to the Church. At this place Willibald was admitted to priest's orders by Boniface, on the twenty-second day of July. In the autumn of the year following (740) Boniface sent him into Thuringia, where he met his brother Wunebald,

* Et tunc erant septem anni, quod de Roma transire cœpit: et omnino erant decem anni, quod de patria sua transivit. Vit. Willib. p. 379.

whom he had not seen since he quitted him at Rome on his way to the East.* Shortly after his visit to Thuringia, at Saltzburg on the twenty-first of October, Willibald was consecrated bishop of Eichstadt, by Boniface, Burchard, and Wizo. It is not quite certain whether this was in A. D. 740, or in 741, but it appears that Willibald was then forty-one years of age.§

As bishop of Eichstadt, Willibald distinguished himself by his activity in the work of conversion, and in a short period he had spread the Catholic doctrines through the whole country of the Bajoarii. He built a monastery at Eichstadt, which was soon peopled by his numerous disciples. The date of his death is very uncertain. He was present at the German council in 742, and at that of Leptines in 743. In 777, he translated the body of his brother Wunebald, and he was subsequently present at the interment of his sister Walpurgis. His name appears so late as Oct. 8, 785, and it is supposed that he died in the year following at the great age of eighty-six.¶ According to the Roman Calendar, his death occurred on the 7th of July.

Willibald was long considered to be the same person as the author of the Life of St. Boniface, until Heinschenius,

* The nun who wrote his life, says this was ten years and a half. This would have been true if he had met him when, according to another account, they were both first invited together to join Boniface in Germany.

Vit. Willibald. p. 381.

The Hist. Lit. de France, iv. 167, places it in 741; but the life by the nun of Heidenheim says it took place immediately after the visit to Thuringia. The chronicles printed by Pertz must be wrong, when they place this event so low as 746 (Pertz, i. 346), and 747 (ib. p. 115).

§ Vit. Willib. p. 382.

Vit. Willib. p. 382.

¶ See Basnage, in Canisius, tom. ii. p. 103, and the Hist. Lit. de France, iv. 168. The writer of the anonymous Life of Willibald printed in Canisius (Ant. Lect. tom. iv. p. 122), says he died after he had held his bishopric seven years.

who edited that life in the Acta Sanctorum, showed from internal evidence of the most satisfactory kind that its author must be a different person. In fact the writer of the Life of Boniface describes himself as a simple presbyter, and mentions his namesake the bishop in terms which no one would use in speaking of himself. No other work extant bears Willibald's name, but it is more than probable that he composed a narrative of his wanderings in the East. The nun who wrote his life says that she heard him relate his adventures with his own mouth; yet the accuracy with which she speaks of dates and places, and one or two other circumstances of slight importance, seem to show that she was abridging from a written document. Fabricius speaks of the Epistles of Willibald as existing, but inedited.

WILLEHAD.

WILLEHAD (or Wilhead*) was a native of Northumbria, but we have no means of ascertaining with any degree of accuracy the date of his birth. He was perhaps educated at York, for we find that he was at a subsequent period the friend of Alcuin.† After he had attained to the degree of presbyter, which was not conferred till after the age of thirty years, he was induced, by the reports of the progress of the English Missionaries in Germany, to visit

* The name is thus spelt in a letter of Alcuin, quoted by Pertz, ii. 379. The life of Willehad was written by Anskarius, bishop of Bremen towards the middle of the ninth century. This life was printed separately at Cologne in 1642, in 8vo. It was inserted by Mabillon, in the Acta SS. Ord. Bened. Sæc. iii. tom. 2; and in other publications. A much more correct and complete edition is given by Pertz, in the second volume of the Monument. German. Hist. This is the edition we quote. Adam of Bremen, in the account of Willehad given in his Eccl. Hist. follows the narrative of Anskarius.

† Alcuin's Letter, quoted in Pertz, ii. 379.