58. SAINT GRIMBALD, ABBOT OFWINCHESTER
Our holy Father Grimbald was born at Therouanne in the Pas-de-Calais, and joined the monastery of St. Bertin in about 840, being ordained to the priesthood in about 870. In 886 he went to Rheims. He was a notable scholar.
In 887 King Alfred wrote to Archbishop Fulk of Rheims, asking him to allow Grimbald to come to England, and sending him as a present some dogs. The archbishop agreed reluctantly, saying that he was sending Grimbald as a spiritual dog to fight spiritual enemies in exchange for the corporeal dogs the king was sending him. To the great grief of the monks of St. Bertin, Grimbald travelled to England, where he was received with honour by all the highest men in the Church and State. And in 889, on the death of Archbishop Aethelred of Canterbury, he was offered the primatial see. But he refused, and remained to the end of his days a priest-monk.
Soon after his arrival in England, the saint settled in a little monastery he had built in Winchester. There he played a central role in the capital's life, directing the monastery and counselling many of the citizens, including the king, whom he helped in his translations from Latin into English, especially of St. Gregory's Pastoral Care, and in many other matters. It was on Grimbald's advice that the Mercian Plegmund was elected to succeed Aethelred as archbishop of Canterbury.
On October 26, 899, King Alfred reposed in peace, and was buried in Winchester. His tenth-century descendant, the chronicler Ethelweard, justly wrote of him as having been an «unshakeable pillar of the western people, a man replete with justice, vigorous in war, learned in speech, above all instructed in divine learning... Now, reader, say "O Christ our Redeemer, save his soul».»
St. Grimbald especially grieved for the king, and immediately set about building a new monastery in Winchester, which came to be known as the New Minster. Alfred's son and successor, King Edward the Elder, the nobles and the people contributed enthusiastically to this work, and it was completed with amazing speed in two years. Then, on July 8, 90l, the saint reposed in peace.
Many miracles were wrought through the saint's intercession both during and after his earthly life. A widow who was paralysed was brought to the New Minster and healed by him. Two women came to him from the village of Meon, one blind and the other mute. The blind spoke for the mute, and the mute saw for the blind, and both received healing at the tomb of St. Grimbald. A little girl from Chiltcombe whose breast was bent down to her knees crawled to his tomb and received healing. A boy from Winchester who had lost his sight was told in a dream to ask the honourable citizen Leofwin to lead him to St. Grimbald's tomb. There he received his sight again. On the eve of his feast a blind woman was coming to the gates of Winchester when she felt scales falling from her eyes. When she arrived at the
monastery she was completely cured. Another woman, a paralytic, on hearing this story, also had recourse to the holy doctor, and was restored to full health.
The saint's relics were translated in 938, in about 1050 and again in 1110, when the whole establishment was moved to Hyde Abbey.
St. Grimbald's feastday is July 8.
Holy Father Grimbald, pray to God for us!
(Sources: J.B.L. Tolhurst, The Monastic Breviary of Hyde Abbey, Henry Bradshaw Society, 1939, July 8; David Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1978, pp. 182–183; Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge, Alfred the Great, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1983, p. 191)