Saint Lebuin

He was born in England of Anglo-Saxon parents, at a date no source knows. ¹² Butler says that "in his own language" he was called Liafwin. ³ katolsk.no adds that he became a Benedictine monk at Saint Wilfrid's monastery of Ripon in Yorkshire. ²

Like Boniface and Willibrord before him, he resolved to give his life to converting the peoples on the other side of the North Sea. ¹²³ katolsk.no says he crossed in 754, the year Boniface was killed. ² Butler gives no year for his arrival and puts the building of his first chapel "about the year 772." ³

At Utrecht he went to Gregory, Boniface's disciple, who was governing the church there. ¹²³ Gregory welcomed him and gave him as a companion Marchelm, or Marcellinus, who had been a disciple of Willibrord from childhood, and sent the two of them to the country on the IJssel now called Overijssel, on the border with the still pagan Saxons of Westphalia. ¹²³

A woman named Abachilda took him in. The encyclopedia calls her a widow; Butler says he was "received as an angel from heaven" by her. ¹³ He preached, and many were converted, and he built a little chapel at Wilp, on the west bank of the IJssel. ¹²³

The encyclopedia credits "the venerable personality and deep learning of the missionary" with winning many people, even nobles, so that a larger church was soon needed. ¹ He built it at Deventer on the east bank, and a house for himself beside it. ¹² katolsk.no calls Deventer the center of all his work. ²

Not everyone was won. According to the encyclopedia and katolsk.no, the pagans put his success down to witchcraft, made common cause with the Saxons, burned the church at Deventer and scattered his converts, and Lebuin barely escaped. ¹² Butler tells it in a different order and places the burning of the church later, after Marklo, when the Saxons were at war with Charlemagne. ³

The Saxons held a yearly assembly at Marklo to decide the affairs of their nation. Butler says they were divided into three ranks, nobles, freemen and the servile class, and that twelve men were chosen from each rank in every village to attend. ³ The encyclopedia and Butler place Marklo near the Weser in Saxony; katolsk.no identifies it with Markelo in the Netherlands. ¹²³

Lebuin decided to go there himself. A nobleman named Folchert, apparently a Christian, gave him lodging and tried in vain to talk him out of it. ¹² He entered the assembly while the Saxons were offering their sacrifices, dressed in his priestly vestments, the cross in one hand and the Gospels in the other. ¹²³ Butler gives the opening of his words: "Hear me, all of you: listen to me, or rather to God who speaks to you by my mouth. Know that the Lord, the Maker of the heavens, the earth, and all things, is one only true God." ³

He warned them, in the encyclopedia's words, that if they kept to their idols "a bold, skilful, and mighty king would advance upon them like a raging torrent, destroy everything with fire and sword." ¹ The Saxons were enraged. Men ran to the hedges, pulled up stakes and sharpened them to kill him, but he passed through them and escaped. ¹³

Then an old nobleman, whom the encyclopedia names Buto, reminded the assembly that they had always received ambassadors from the Normans, the Slavs and the Frisians with honor and let them go in peace, and here they were threatening the ambassador of the highest God, whose power had just saved his servant. ¹² Butler's version has the speaker say that if they honored ambassadors from men, they owed more to an ambassador from God. ³ The Saxons agreed that he should be free to go and preach where he pleased. ²³

Lebuin went back to Deventer, rebuilt the church, and died there. ¹²³ The encyclopedia puts his death about 770; katolsk.no about 773, perhaps 775; Butler says only that he finished his course "by labours and austerities before the close of the eighth century." ¹²³ He was buried in the church he had built. ¹²³

The encyclopedia and katolsk.no say his death must have been before 776, because in that year the Saxons raided the district again and burned the church, and searched for three days for his body without finding it. ¹² A few years later Saint Ludger rebuilt the church and found his remains. ¹² Butler says his relics became "famous for miracles," and that Bishop Bertulf of Utrecht later founded a collegiate church of canons at Deventer with Lebuin as its titular saint. ³

His life was written by Hucbald, a monk of Saint-Amand. ¹²³ katolsk.no adds that Hucbald worked from an older Life, the Vita Lebuini antiqua, from about the middle of the ninth century. ²

katolsk.no is careful to say what he was not: not a bishop, and not the Bishop Leofwine who wrote with Boniface to King Ethelbald of Mercia. ² It also notes that the Martyrology keeps another saint on the same day, Livinus of Ghent, and that many historians think the two may be one. ²

The Catholic Encyclopedia and Butler both call Saint Lebuin the patron of Deventer. ¹³ katolsk.no names him patron of Deventer and of Zoeterwoude in the Netherlands, and of the dying. ² None of these is one of the patronages this library tracks, so the profile records them here rather than as tags.

Saint Lebuin's feast day is November 12. The current Roman Martyrology, as the Italian bishops print it, enters him that day at Deventer as a priest and monk from England who worked to bring the people of the region "the peace and salvation of Christ." ⁴ The encyclopedia, Butler and katolsk.no give the same day. ¹²³

katolsk.no notes that the day is kept especially in the Netherlands, and that Utrecht also keeps the translation of his relics on June 25. ²

Most of his work was ordinary: a widow's house, a chapel, a larger church when the first was too small, a house beside it. ¹² It was burned, and he built it again. ¹³

Marklo was the one dramatic hour, and the sources tell it as a man with nothing but vestments, a cross and a book walking into a gathering that was in the middle of its sacrifices. ¹³ Butler says he seemed to gather more courage from persecution, and his host had begged him not to go. ¹³

What saved him, in the story, was not his speech but an old pagan who remembered how his people treated ambassadors. ¹² The sources give that man a name.

He died without seeing the Saxons converted, and the church he built was burned again within a few years. ¹² Someone else rebuilt it, and found him. ¹²