Godric of finchale biography sample

Saint of the Day – 21 May – Saint Godric of Finchale (c 1070-1170) Hermit, Merchant, Pilgrim, Hymnist, Spiritual Advisor to Saints, both great and small, friend of all animals. Born in c 1070 at Walpole, Norfolk, England and died in 1170 at Finchale, County Durham, England of natural causes, Also known as – Godrick

Godric’s life was recorded by a his contemporary, a Monk named Reginald of Durham. Several other Hagiographies are also extant. According to these accounts, Godric, who began from humble beginnings as the son of Ailward and Edwenna, “both of slender rank and wealth but abundant in righteousness and virtue,” was a pedlar, then a sailor and entrepreneur and may have been the captain and owner of the ship which conveyed King Baldwin I of Jerusalem to Jaffa in 1102.

After years at sea, Godric went to the Island of Lindisfarne and there experienced a vision of St Cuthbert. This encounter changed his life and, thereafter, he devoted himself to Christianity and service to God.

After many pilgrimages around the Mediterranean, Godric returned to England and lived with an elderly hermit named Aelric for two years. Upon Aelric’s death, Godric made one last pilgrimage to Jerusalem and then returned home, where he convinced Ranulf Flambard, the Bishop of Durham, to grant him a place to live as a Hermit at Finchale near the Monastery, by the River Wear. He had previously served as doorkeeper, the lowest of the minor orders, at the hospital Church of nearby St Giles Hospital in Durham. He is recorded to have lived at Finchale for the final sixty three years of his life, occasionally meeting with visitors approved by the Prior of Finchale Monaster, under whose care and obedience he lived and died. A Monk of that house was his Confessor, said Mass for him and administered him the Sacraments in a Chapel adjoining to his cell, which the holy man had built in honour of St John the Baptist. 

As the years passed, his reputation gr

• Reviewed by:
• Heather Blurton
• University of California, Santa Barbara
• heatherblurton@english.ucsb.edu

This new edition and translation of Reginald of Durham’s twelfth-century The Life and Miracles of Saint Godric, Hermit of Finchale by Margaret Coombe for the venerable Oxford Medieval Texts series represents a monumental effort. It replaces the only previous edition of the vita, that of Joseph Stevenson for the Surtees Society in 1847, and it offers the first complete translation of this important saint’s life. The sheer size of the book itself is monumental (it would make a handy doorstop), as is the rather eye-watering price. Indeed, Reginald’s Life of Godric was recognized even in its own time as somewhat prodigious, with one contemporary redactor describing it as too long and boring (“operis tediosa et prolixitas”) (xxv). Coombe herself describes Reginald’s Latin prose as “opaque, verbose, and imprecise” (v), which makes the task of the translator here all the more impressive. This edition includes an introduction; the text and translation; a series of appendices, which usefully track the correspondences between this and other manuscript versions of Godric’s vita; indices of Biblical allusions and personal names; as well as a general bibliography and index. [1] The edition uses the same base text as the previous edition by Stevenson, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc 413, a late twelfth-century manuscript that is the only surviving full version of Reginald’s Life. It is carefully tracked to Stevenson’s edition (even where Coombe clearly feels he has made some bad editorial decisions), which will usefully provide ease of reference to that edition as well as to existing scholarship on the Life. Where possible, persons and places mentioned in the text are identified in the footnotes. This all amounts to a monumental intellectual effort, and Coombe should be thanked for in

1980 novel by Frederick Buechner

Godric is the tenth novel by the American author and theologian, Frederick Buechner. Set in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the novel tells the semi-fictionalised life story of the medieval Roman Catholicsaint, Godric of Finchale. It was first published in 1980 by Atheneum, New York, and was a finalist for the 1981 Pulitzer Prize.

Plot summary

Godric of Finchale is joined at his hermitage on the banks of the River Wear by Reginald, a monk sent by the abbot of Rievaulx Abbey with instructions to record the aging saint’s biography. The arrival of the enthusiastic young monk plunges Godric back into his past, and he unflinchingly narrates the ribald tale of his own history, which is carefully edited by Reginald and set down in restrained and laudatory prose more befitting of the life of a saint.

Having survived a near drowning in the sea at a young age, Godric leaves home for a life of petty crime – selling counterfeit relics and the ostensibly holy hair of nuns. Following a dreamlike encounter on the Island of Farne with an apparition who identifies himself as Saint Cuthbert, Godric appears set to spend his life seeking God. His meeting with the roguish Roger Mouse, however, puts paid to any notion of quests for personal holiness. The two embark upon a life of crime and villainy aboard their boat, the Saint Espirit, where they hatch a series of schemes to defraud pilgrims journeying to the Holy Land and commit acts of piracy, all the while hoarding their growing stockpile of treasure.

While attempting to bury his ill-gotten gains, Godric encounters once more the apparition of Saint Cuthbert, a sobering and chastening experience for the prodigal. On returning home following his misadventures Godric discovers that his father has died in his absence. Determined to fulfil his last wish, the bereaved young man begins a pilgrimage to Rome, only to find the Holy City a disappointment: ‘a corpse without

May 21 is the Commemmoration of Saint Godric of Finchale, Hermit and Pilgrim.

“Saint Godric of Finchale (or Saint Goderic) (c. 1065 – 21 May 1170) was an English hermit, merchant and popular medieval saint, although he was never formally canonized. He was born in Walpole in Norfolk and died in Finchale in County Durham, England. Saint Godric’s life was recorded by a contemporary of his: a monk named Reginald of Durham. Several other hagiographies are also extant. According to these accounts, Godric, who began from humble beginnings as the son of Ailward and Edwenna, “both of slender rank and wealth, but abundant in righteousness and virtue”, was a pedlar, then a sailor and entrepreneur, and may have been the captain and owner of the ship that conveyed Baldwin I of Jerusalem to Jaffa in 1102. After years at sea, Godric reportedly went to the island of Lindisfarne and there encountered Saint Cuthbert; this will not have been a physical encounter as Cuthbert had long been dead and was by then interred at Durham Cathedral. This encounter changed his life, and he devoted himself to Christianity and service to God thereafter.

After many pilgrimages around the Mediterranean, Godric returned to England and lived with an elderly hermit named Aelric for two years. Upon Aelric’s death, Godric made one last pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and then returned home where he convinced Ranulf Flambard, the Bishop of Durham, to grant him a place to live as a hermit at Finchale, by the River Wear. He had previously served as doorkeeper, the lowest of the minor orders, at the hospital church of nearby St Giles Hospital in Durham. He is recorded to have lived at Finchale for the final sixty years of his life, occasionally meeting with visitors approved by the local prior. As the years passed, his reputation grew, and Thomas Becket and Pope Alexander III both reportedly sought Godric’s advice as a wise and holy man.
Reginald describes Godric’s physical