John of Beverley

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Saint John of Beverley (d. May 7, 721) was an Anglo-Saxon bishop.

He is said to have been born of noble parents at Harpham, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. He received his education at Canterbury under Archbishop Theodore, the statement that he was educated at Oxford being of course untrue. He was for a time a member of the Whitby community, under St Hilda, and in 687 he was consecrated Bishop of Hexham and in 705 was promoted to the bishopric of York. He resigned the latter see in 718, and retired to a monastery which he had founded at Beverley, where he died. He was canonized in 1037, and his feast is celebrated annually in the Roman Catholic Church on May 7. Many miracles of healing are ascribed to John, whose pupils were numerous and devoted to him, and the popularity of his cult was a major factor in the prosperity of Beverley during the Middle Ages. He was celebrated for his scholarship as well as for his virtues.

During the Middle Ages his name was also attached to the legend of a hermit who commits grave sins but nonetheless enjoys God's grace. This text survives in the Dutch chapbook Historie van Jan van Beverley, first printed by Thomas van der Noot in Brussels in 1543.

[edit] Works

The following works, none of which now survives, are ascribed to John by J. Bale:

Pro Luca exponendo (an exposition of Luke)
Homiliae in Evangelia
Epistolae ad'Herebaldum, Audenam, et Bertinum
Epistolae ad Hyldant abbatissam.

[edit] References

Life by Folcard, based on Bede, in Acta Sanctorum. Bolland.
James Raine, Fasti eboracenses (1863).
G. J. Boekenoogen (ed.), Historie van Jan van Beverley (Nederlandsche Volksboeken VI), Leiden: Brill 1903.
Alan R. Deighton, "The Sins of Saint John of Beverley: The Case of the Dutch Volksboek Jan van Beverley", Leuvense Bijdragen 82 (1993) 227-246.
Susan E. Wilson, The Life and After-Life of St John of Beverley: The Evolution of the Cult of an Anglo-Saxon Saint, Aldershot: Ashgate 2006.
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

[edit] External links

Religious Posts
Preceded by '	Bishop of Hexham 687–705	Succeeded by Wilfrid
Preceded by Bosa of York	Bishop of York 705–718	Succeeded by Wilfrid II