When Canute was King (1016-1035) he transferred the relics of St. Wystan to Evesham Abbey, where they rested till the year 1207, when, owing to the fall of the central tower which smashed the shrine and relics, a portion of them was granted to the Canons of Repton. (see Life of St. Wystan, p. 16.) In Domesday Book Repton is entered as having a Church with two priests, which proves the size and importance of the church and parish in those early times. Algar, Earl of Mercia, son of Leofric, and Godiva, was the owner then, but soon after, it passed into the hands of the King, eventually it was restored to the descendants of Algar, the Earls of Chester. Matilda, widow of Randulph, Earl of Chester, with the consent of her son Hugh, enlarged the church, and founded the Priory, both of which she granted to the Canons of Calke, whom she transferred to Repton in the year 1172.
CHAPTER III.
REPTON’S SAINTS (GUTHLAC & WYSTAN).
“The sober recital of historical fact is decked with legends of singular beauty, like artificial flowers adorning the solid fabric of the Church. Truth and fiction are so happily blended that we cannot wish such holy visions to be removed out of our sight,” thus wrote Bishop Selwyn of the time when our Repton Saints lived, and in order that their memories may be kept green, the following account has been written.
ST. GUTHLAC.
At the command of Æthelbald, King of the Mercians, Felix, monk of Crowland, first bishop of the East Angles, wrote a life of St. Guthlac.
He derived his information from Wilfrid, abbot of Crowland, Cissa, a priest, and Beccelm, the companion of Guthlac, all of whom knew him.
Felix relates that Guthlac was born in the days of Æthelred, (675-704), his parents’ names were Icles and Tette, of royal descent. He was baptised and named Guthlac, which is said to mean “Gud-lac,” “belli munus,” “the gift of battle,” in reference to the gift of one, destined to a military career, to the service of God. The sweet disposition of his youth is described, at length, by his biographer, also the choice of a military career, in which he spent nine years of his life. During those years he devastated cities and houses, castles and villages, with fire and sword, and gathered together an immense quantity of spoil, but he returned a third part of it to those who owned it. One sleepless night, his conscience awoke, the enormity of his crimes, and the doom awaiting such a life, suddenly aroused him, at daybreak he announced, to his companions, his intention of giving up the predatory life of a soldier of fortune, and desired them to choose another leader, in vain they tried to turn him from his resolve, and so at the age of twenty-four, about the year 694, he left them, and came to the Abbey of Repton, and sought admission there. Ælfritha, the abbess, admitted him, and, under her rule, he received the “mystical tonsure of St. Peter, the prince of the Apostles.”
For two years he applied himself to the study of sacred and monastic literature.