St. Adelbert, Confessor


HE was a prince of the royal blood of the kings of Northumberland; but having forsaken the world to devote himself to the service of God, he joined St. Willibrord in his apostolic labours in Lower Germany about the year 700. He converted great part of Holland and Friesland, was chosen archdeacon of Utrecht, and having happily finished his course about the year 740, died at Egmond, which town is thought to have been so called from Eggo, lord of the place, and the great patron of our saint. The tomb of St. Adelbert at Egmond became illustrious by many miracles. Thierry, count of that country, which was shortly after called Holland, founded in honour of St. Adelbert, in that place, in the beginning of the tenth century, a Benedictin abbey, which was first built of wood, as were most churches before the tenth century, according to the remark of the author of Batavia Sacra. The name of St. Adelbert stands in the Roman Martyrology. See Mabillon, sæc. 3, Ben. part 1, p. 631; the Bollandists on this day; Miræus in Fastis Belgicis; and, above all, Batavia Sacra, printed an. 1754, p. 44.	1