Vita Sancti Wilfrithi | |
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"The Life of St. Wilfrid" | |
Author(s) | Stephen of Ripon |
Language | Medieval Latin |
Date | Composed between 709 and c. 720 |
Manuscript(s) | 1. London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian D. vi. Provenance: probably transferred from Yorkshire before it was held in Canterbury and then acquired by the British Library.
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Genre | Prose hagiography |
The Vita Sancti Wilfrithi or Life of St Wilfrid (spelled "Wilfrid" in the modern era[2]) is an early 8th-century hagiographic text recounting the life of the Northumbrian bishop, Wilfrid. Although a hagiography, it has few miracles, while its main concerns are with the politics of the Northumbrian church and the history of the monasteries of Ripon and Hexham. It is one of a collection of historical sources from the late 7th- and early 8th-centuries, along with the anonymous Vita Sancti Cuthberti, the works of Bede and Adomnán's Vita Sancti Columbae, that detail the Christianisation of Great Britain and make the period the best documented period in English history before the age of Alfred the Great.