From Soldier to Hermit
Born into the Mercian nobility, Guthlac first followed the expected path of a young aristocrat, serving in the army of King Æthelred of Mercia. In his mid-twenties he abandoned arms for the cloister, entering the double monastery of Repton in Derbyshire under its abbess.
After some two years as a monk he sought a still more austere life and withdrew to the remote fen-island of Croyland in 699. There he established a hermitage within a disturbed burial mound, subsisting on barley bread and water taken only once a day after sunset, and clothing himself in animal skins.
Ascetic Struggles
Guthlac's reputation rests largely on the account of his spiritual combats given by his biographer Felix. Felix relates that the hermit was assailed by demons whose 'sibilant speech' Guthlac could understand from time he had earlier spent among the Celtic Britons.
The demons are described as ferocious and terrible in shape, with great heads, long necks, and thin faces, filling the space between earth and heaven with their discordant bellowing. For enduring such trials in solitude, Guthlac was later called 'the English Saint Anthony,' after the great Egyptian father of monasticism.
Royal Connection
During his years at Croyland, Guthlac sheltered Æthelbald, a future King of Mercia, who was then a fugitive from his cousin Ceolred. Felix records that Guthlac foretold Æthelbald's eventual accession to the throne.
Æthelbald reigned as king of Mercia from 716 to 757. In keeping with the promise he had made, he founded Crowland Abbey in 716, honouring the hermit whose prophecy had encouraged him in adversity.
Crowland Abbey and Legacy
A monastic community developed at Guthlac's hermitage during the 8th century, and the abbey came to be dedicated jointly to the Virgin Mary, Saint Bartholomew, and Saint Guthlac. By the 10th century the house had gained considerable prominence; a nobleman and cleric named Thurcytel, kin to the Archbishop of York, became abbot and greatly enriched it, and the community adopted the Benedictine rule around 971.
Crowland Abbey produced the celebrated Croyland Chronicle before being dissolved in 1539 during the English Reformation, though part of the church continued in use as a parish church. Guthlac's cult spread through Felix's 8th-century Latin Vita, Old English prose translations, and the illustrated 13th-century Guthlac Roll. His life is also noted in connection with Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, and an Akathist hymn is dedicated to him.
Relics & Shrines
Guthlac's remains were relocated in 1136 and finally placed above the main altar of Crowland Abbey in 1196. A secondary commemoration on August 30 marks the translation of his relics, indicating their formal enshrinement.
