early 7th century – c. 680
An English monastic founder who established a monastery at Iken; few details of his life are preserved.
Our Venerable Father Botolph, Abbot of Iken
Botolph (also spelled Botwulf) was a seventh-century English monastic remembered chiefly for founding a monastery in East Anglia. Born to a Saxon Christian family early in the century, he is traditionally said to have been educated alongside his brother Adulph by Saint Fursey before continuing his formation on the Continent, where the two embraced the Benedictine pattern of monastic life.
Concrete details of his life are sparse, and much of what survives is preserved through later medieval accounts. The principal early notice is the entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 654 recording that he began to build a church at Icanho, generally identified by modern historians with Iken in Suffolk.
The earliest references to Botolph are brief. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle supplies the foundation notice under 654, and the near-contemporary Life of Saint Ceolfrith mentions him as an esteemed abbot. A fuller account was written only in the eleventh century by the monk Folcard, roughly four centuries after Botolph's death, so much of the surviving biographical tradition is late and regarded with caution by modern scholarship.
Botolph was originally buried at Icanho. According to tradition his relics were translated in 970, when King Edgar permitted their removal to Burgh near Woodbridge to protect them from Danish raids. They were later associated with Bury St Edmunds and Thorney Abbey, with portions reported at Ely, Westminster, and other houses.
A large number of ancient English churches, by some counts between sixty and seventy, were dedicated to Botolph, concentrated in East Anglia and including foundations at Colchester and several in the City of London. St Botolph's Church in Boston, Lincolnshire, known as the 'Boston Stump,' bears his name; the town's name is thought to derive from 'Botolph's town,' and Boston, Massachusetts is named in turn after the Lincolnshire town. Earlier legend connecting his monastery to Boston is disputed by modern historians, who favour the Suffolk identification at Iken.
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