Parallel Lives: Alcuin of York and Thiofrid of Echternach on Willibrord, Sanctity and Relics

The main point of Parallel Lives is that by looking at medieval saints' lives as expressions of ideas about God, man, society and the Church, we may gain an insight into medieval mentalities. This is illustrated through a study of two vitae (saints' lives) concerning the same saint, Willibrord. One was written by Alcuin of York in the late eighth century at the behest of the abbot and abbey of Echternach, where Willibrord lay buried. The other was composed by Thiofrid, abbot of Echternach, around 1104/5, basing himself on Alcuin’s vita. This research is innovative inasmuch as a comparison of saints’ lives on the basis of their values, theology and discussion of relics had not yet been undertaken in this way. It has shown that there was far more variation in the ideas about sanctity and relics in the Middle Ages than has so far been thought, and deeply indebted to equally variant ideas from Late Antiquity. To Alcuin Willibrord was both a bishop and a monk, both roles being closely intertwined. To Alcuin, Willibrord’s primary tasks were praying and preaching. Thiofrid, however, emphasized the monastic element of Willibrord’s career, and focussed on Willibrord’s life as contemplative. Thus not only the values associated with the saint differed between both authors, but also the picture of the saint’s career itself. This also has repercussions for the way in which the Church is described: Thiofrid is far more focussed on the monastic community as the essence of Christian life, almost to the exclusion of lay religious people. Furthermore, the way in which sanctity is linked to the divine is different theologically. Both authors held that the capacity of a human being to live a saintly life was the product of divine predestination. However, the way in which this is explained is different. Alcuin focussed on the saint as a person who was filled by the Holy Spirit, and whose sanctity was primarily shown by his perseverance, his prayer and his preaching. To Thiofrid, on the other hand, the saints were vessels of the Holy Spirit, similar in some ways to the Eucharist. Sanctity is also far more strongly expressed in the form of miracles, which the saint is said to work – another contrast with Alcuin, to whom miracles were performed by God without direct interference of the saint. The same pattern of different ways of sanctification and different forms of access to the divine emerges from a comparison of the discussion of the saint’s posthumous holy matter, or relics. To Alcuin relics are focal points for prayer, which work because the examples of the saints and the souls of the saints in Heaven can help the faithful to get their prayers through to the divine. The relics themselves, however, are only conduits. Thiofrid argued that relics had become one in nature with the saint’s soul and therefore with God, making relics divine matter on earth, capable of working miracles regardless of the intentions of men