Sanctus Wilhelmus Abbas

[This article has been updated/rewritten in 2025 to incorporate current research. Please adjust citation accordingly.]

by Jonas Wellendorf

Wilhelm (c. 1125–1203) grew up in Paris. He came to Denmark around 1165 to reform the Augustinian community on Eskilsø in Roskilde Fjord. “Danger from the sea” (DD I.iii.51) prompted the relocation of the house to Paraclitus/Æbelholt (7 km west of Hillerød) about ten years later, where it became known as Sancti Thome de Paraclito, ‘St. Thomas of the Paraclete’. Over time, Æbelholt grew to become the largest Augustinian house in Scandinavia.

Documentary sources, the earliest dated 1208–14 (DD I.iv.152), confirm that Wilhelm was considered a saint, albeit locally, soon after his death, and that the faithful visited his relics, leaving offerings (oblationes). In 1218, Pope Honorius III charged a committee consisting of Archbishop Anders Sunesen of Lund, Bishop Peder Jakobsen of Roskilde, and the abbot of Herrisvad with conducting an inquiry into the veracity of the reports of Wilhelm’s miracles. As a result, Wilhelm was canonized by the same pope in 1224 (DD I.v.141). In 1238, Wilhelm’s earthly remains were moved (translated) to the new stone church at Æbelholt. Wilhelm’s feast day was June 16.

Wilhelm ‘tilhørte … uden tvivl samtidens europæiske intellektuelle elite’ (‘doubtlessly belonged to the European intellectual elite of his time’) (KRAMER 2013, 19). In addition to being a prolific letter writer, composing not only for himself but also on behalf of others, he wrote a short Tractatus de revelatione capitis et corporis beate Genouefe (BHL 3346) ‘Treatise on the Uncovering of the Head and Body of the Blessed Geneviève’ and a Genealogia regum danorum ‘Genealogy of the Kings of the Danes’. While much scholarly attention has been given to his letters, Wilhelm’s other writings and his Vita have not received much research since GERTZ published what are still the standard editions of these texts in Vita Sanctorum Danorum (Vita and Tractatus, 1908–1912, 300–68 and 378–82) and Scriptores minores Historiæ Danicæ medii ævi (Genealogia, 1917–18, 176–85).

Sancti Willelmi Abbatis vita et miracula (BHL 8908)

Title

GERTZ printed the work under the title Sancti Willelmi Abbatis vita et miracula (The Life and Miracles of St. Wilhelm the Abbot). In manuscripts, the title is given as Vita sancti Guillermi abbatis de Datia.

Incipit

“Beatus Willelmus, ex nobili ortus prosapia,…”

Explicit

“…a mortuis reuocatum meritis sancti Willelmi confessa est.”

Size

69 pp. in GERTZ’s edition.

Editions

• LAURENTIUS SURIUS, De probatis sanctorum historiis, vol. 2, 1571, 576–85 (April 6): Vita S. VVilelmi abbatis Roschildensis in Dania, ab eius quidem discipulo conscripta, sed per F. Laurentium Surium aliquot locis in compendium redactam plerunque etiam phrasi mutata. [abbreviated and reworded]. Reprinted in 1578, 1618, and in 1875 as Historie seu vitae sanctorum, vol. 4, 218–244.
• PAPEBROCH, Acta Sanctorum mensis Aprilis I, 625–643 [following ms V]. Antwerpiæ 1675.
• SUHM/LANGEBEK, Scriptores rerum danicarum V, 458–495 [the text is copied from Acta Sanctorum but is inferior]. Hauniæ 1783.
• GERTZ, Vitae sanctorum danorum pp. 300–369.

Translation

• (Danish) OLRIK, “Abbed Vilhelms levned” in Danske helgeners levned II (1893–4, 179–286). Translated from the edition of LANGEBEK/SUHM, but with some emendations by GERTZ.
• (English) VAN BAAK, “The Life and Miracles of Blessed William of Æbelholt”, in Life at Saint Victor (2021, 353–420).

Commentaries

OLRIK’s translation is accompanied by footnotes focusing on cultural and historical matters and providing the source of biblical quotations and references, but no full commentary exists. VAN BAAK and OLRIK also indicate biblical quotations.

Date and place

The text is anonymous and contains no formal introduction or conclusion indicating who wrote it, when it was written, and why. Therefore, determining the date and place of composition is bound to remain somewhat speculative. Internal evidence suggests that it was written after the dedication to St. Thomas of a new stone church at the abbey in 1210 (mentioned in ch. 39) and before Wilhelm’s canonization in 1224, which is not mentioned in the Vita.

The text appears to have been written at Æbelholt. While the account of Wilhelm’s life is narrated by an omniscient narrator, an authorial “we” appears occasionally in the latter part of the text. The first instance is in a collective expression of sorrow by the brethren of Æbelholt at the death of Wilhelm:

O quantus erat luctus omnium, quanta precipue lamenta discipulorum! qui festi nostri conuersi sunt in luctum et sabbata nostra in lamentationem, licet gaudendum nobis esset, quod, quem doctorem habuimus in terris, intercessorem haberemus in celis, si uis doloris rationem admitteret … (ed. GERTZ 1908–12, 341) O how great was the grief of all, how great especially the laments of the disciples! Our feasts were turned to mourning, and our Sabbath into lamentation. If only the power of sorrow allowed for reason, we would have rejoiced that the one whom we had as a teacher on earth, we now have as an intercessor in Heaven.  

On other occasions, “we” seems to indicate a single individual, where there is a clear distinction between “we”, the writer, and the brethren at Æbelholt in general, as in ch. 38:

Ventrem, sicut uidimus, adeo inflatum habuit tumoris magnitudine, ut uix trium ulnarum cingulo cingeretur. Fratribus ad refectionem euntibus illa accepta licentia ad sepulcrum uiri dei lacrimis et orationibus insistebat (GERTZ 1908–12, 350). [Her] womb, as we saw, was so swollen from a tumor that it could scarcely be encircled by a belt three ells long. While the brethren went to eat, she, having received permission, stood by the grave of the man of God, weeping and praying.

A verb in the first person indicating an authorial voice is also used on at least one occasion (ch. 49, p. 356).

Summary of contents

The text opens with a description of Wilhelm’s childhood and youth. He was raised by his uncle, the Abbot of the Benedictine monastery of St-Germain-des-Prés, and developed a liking for studies early in life. Eventually, Wilhelm’s uncle ensured that he received a prebend among the secular canons at the Church of Ste-Geneviève in Paris. However, the other canons grew envious of Wilhelm’s pious way life, fearing that he might transform the church into a community of regular canons, which would result in their loss of freedom. On one occasion, they even tried to lure him away from Ste-Geneviève by making him swear a to enter a monastery, though the attempt failed and Wilhelm remained at Ste-Geneviève.

Wilhelm’s fellow secular canons also caused controversies in other ways. Once, when Pope Eugenius III visited the Church of Geneviève accompanied by King Louis VII, a disagreement between the local canons and the pope's servants turned physical, and the canons struck the papal servants with sticks. When Louis VII attempted to intervene, he too was struck by heavy blows. In the aftermath of this scandalous fight, the Rule of Augustine was introduced at Ste-Geneviève, and the secular canons were replaced by regular canons from St-Victor. Wilhelm remained at Ste-Geneviève, assumed the habit of a regular canon, and thrived in his new life.

One night, God appeared to him in a dream in the shape of a young man, telling him that he would travel to an island where he would suffer many temptations and tribulations. Eventually, however, he reassured Wilhelm, “You will be with me in Paradise (Luke 23:43).”

A significant event during this period occurred when a false rumor emerged stating that the head of St. Geneviève, the main relic of the church, had been stolen. This prompted the king to summon the archbishop of Sens, along with all bishops, abbots, and priors of the archbishopric, to Paris to inspect the shrine. It turned out that the head was, in fact, in its proper place.

In 1161, Bishop Absalon of Roskilde wrote to the abbot of Ste-Geneviève, requesting that he send Wilhelm, whom Absalon had met while studying in Paris, along with three brothers to Eskilsø to reform the community of regular canons there. When Wilhelm arrived at Eskilsø, there were only six local canons, and two of them left when Absalon appointed Wilhelm as abbot. After some time, the three French canons obtained permission to return home, and Wilhelm also requested leave, but the bishop convinced him to stay. The Vita now reports a series of unsuccessful attacks by the devil on Wilhelm, who faced various plots on his life by the local canons due to the strict discipline he had introduced at Eskilsø. Later, he moved the abbey to Paraclitus (Æbelholt).

A brief section detailing five miraculous healings attributed to Wilhelm while he was still alive follows, along with one incident in which a workhorse, through Wilhelm’s intercession, became able to amble. Wilhelm himself was also healed through the intercession of St. Geneviève.

The Vita now describes his death at the (probably much exaggerated) age of 98 years on Easter morning in 1202, 40 years after he had arrived in Denmark. He was buried in front of the altar of St. Thomas on Easter Monday. Accounts of 29 posthumous miracles follow. The first seven (ch. 32–36) involve water in which a relic of Wilhelm (a tooth) has been dipped and take place in the immediate surroundings of Æbelholt. From ch. 37 onwards, most miracles occur at Wilhelm’s grave in Æbelholt. All postmortem miracles are healings, with the exception of miracle 37 (visions of lit candles descending over the church convince the Bishop of Roskilde of Wilhelm’s sanctity) and miracle 54 (a man’s falcon is recovered).

Composition and Style

The vita can be divided into four parts: 1) childhood and youth in Paris, chap. 1–9, 2) Life as abbot in Denmark, chap. 10–24, 3) Death, chap. 25–30, and 4) Miracles, chap. 31–63. The three latter parts are very much in tune with what one would expect of the life of a confessor, whereas the first has been characterised as a ‘chronique scandaleuse’ about the church of Ste-Geneviève (GAD p. 175). The posthumous miracles are primarily arranged thematically, even though there seems to be a chronological progress as well. The author of the vita must have been a competent and ambitious writer, and the vita et miracula of Wilhelm is the longest of the medieval Danish saints’ lives. The language of the text has been characterized as ‘plain and natural’ in the main (GERTZ P. 292), even though some sections are held in a markedly higher register than others. No thorough stylistic analysis has been carried out, but a great number of unmarked biblical citations show that the author was well versed in the Scripture. The author quotes a distich from Ovid’s Remedia amoris as well.

Sources

The text does not refer to any written sources, and it seems likely that the information provided by the author about Wilhelm’s life is derived from oral accounts circulating at the abbey, ultimately tracing back to Wilhelm himself. The places of origin of most of the beneficiaries of the miracles are mentioned, and many of them are also named. This indicates that the author had access to a written record of the miracles performed by the saint at the shrine. However, at the opening of the miracle section, the author makes no mention of such a record and only refers to what he has heard and seen: Veniamus ad miracula, que uel audiuimus uel uidimus in civitate dei nostri, id est Paraclito, ubi requiescit gloriosus confessor dei Willelmus ‘Let us turn to the miracles which we either heard about or saw in the city of our God, that is Paraclitus, where the glorious confessor of God Wilhelm rests.’ (p. 344).

Section 2 on Wilhelm’s life in Denmark is somewhat light on specifics. In Section 1, where the factual information provided in Wilhelm’s Vita can be checked against other sources, the Vita has, in many cases, been found to be inaccurate. One example is the events surrounding the supposed disappearance of the relics of St. Geneviève. Wilhelm wrote a short Tractatus about this, but a comparison between Wilhelm’s own exposition of the events and the presentation in the Vita reveals a number of factual differences, showing that the hagiographer is unlikely to have used the Tractatus as his main source.

GERTZ attributed this to Wilhelm’s faulty memory in old age (1908–12, 291), while HEEBØLL-HOLM argues that at least some of the inaccuracies can be traced to authorial efforts “not to offend the French” (2016, 216).

The Life of Wilhelm provides several dates, but scholars have rejected most of them, except for the day of his death, April 6. According to his Vita, Wilhelm was born in 1105; however, scholars believe he was born around 1127. The Vita states that Absalon called him to Denmark in 1161, while scholars suggest this occurred around 1165. Finally, the Vita indicates that he died in 1202, but scholars argue that his death actually occurred in 1203. The arguments for these re-datings are presented by OLRIK (pp. 215 & 243–4) and have generally been accepted, reappearing in later scholarly literature (e.g., DAMSHOLT 2001).

Literary Models

In general, the Vita follows the typical model of a confessor’s life. This is most clearly illustrated in the section describing his death, where several parallels can be found. A canon experiences a vision and is led to a locus amœnus, where he sees an impressive marble house. Inside, there is an empty golden throne decorated with precious stones. This place has been reserved for Wilhelm after his death (cf. e.g. Guðmundar saga). Seven years before his death, he was informed in a vision that he had only seven days left to live (cf. e.g., Vita Fursei). His death during Easter is partly and explicitly staged as a reenactment of the last days of Christ: On Maundy Thursday, Wilhelm holds a last supper with his disciples, and afterward, he intends to wash their feet. On Good Friday, he suffers great pain, and finally, on Resurrection Day, while the responsory about the ointment of the Lord is sung, Wilhelm receives his last anointing and dies. At that moment, one of Wilhelm's disciples sees a person clad in white ascend to heaven at a great distance, "just like the ascension of the Lord is represented in paintings" sicut in picturis solet fieri, in quibus domini ascensio memoratur (p. 342).

Purpose and Audience

The general assumption is that the Vita was composed in the context of the efforts to have Wilhelm canonized. OLRIK (1893-94, 170) suggests that the aim of the Vita was to serve the pope as a testimony of Wilhelm’s sanctity. GERTZ (1908–12, 289–90) proposes that the Vita was written after the papal commission to examine Wilhelm’s sanctity was given in 1218, but finds it unlikely that the Vita was sent to Rome in connection with the preparations for Wilhelm’s canonization. Instead, he suggests that it was written for the edification of the local community. HEEBØLL-HOLM (2016, 217–18), who also believes that the Vita was written before Wilhelm’s canonization, finds it too parochial to have been part of the official canonization efforts. He instead suggests that it contains an abbreviated version for local use at Æbelholt of the materials sent to the pope by the committee.

While the argument for a date before the official papal confirmation of Wilhelm’s sanctity is strong, there is no need to assume that the entire account of Wilhelm’s life and miracles was composed in one sitting. As the cult of Wilhelm became established at his shrine, records of his miracles were likely maintained at Æbelholt and updated as new miracles occurred or were reported (see MORTENSEN 2000, 98–106 for a discussion of how this might have happened in the case of St. Olav). It is plausible that accounts of new miracles were added to the official record of Wilhelm’s life in chunks. With this dynamic model in mind, the creation of Wilhelm’s Life and Miracles can be envisioned as an ongoing institutional project. At a certain point (likely before Wilhelm’s official canonization), a copy of this work-in-progress was probably sent to the Abbey of Saint Geneviève, Wilhelm’s alma mater, in Paris. Manuscripts G and later V may then be descendants of this copy. Back at Æbelholt, new miracles may have continued to occur occasionally, and the miracle about the healed cow in Uppsala C 447 could be one of those.

Even with such a dynamic model in mind, it seems likely that the preserved collection of miracles has been shaped by some editorial intervention, as similar miracles in many cases are clustered together (ch. 14–16 thus contain accounts of healings of three mute or deaf people, ch. 50–52 of four people healed from sacred fire), and the two final miracles (ch. 62–63) are resuscitations of dead boys. Two chapters, ch. 40 and 60, relate the healing of a woman from Copenhagen named Olava, and they may be different versions of the “same” miracle, although Olava is blind in the first and crippled in the latter

Medieval Reception and Transmission

Two manuscripts are known, labeled G and V by GERTZ. While GERTZ’s edition uses G as its base text, earlier editions relied on V. In the introduction to the edition of Wilhelm’s Vita in AASS a third manuscript kept at the Abbey of Groenendael, near Brussels, is mentioned, but this manuscript has not been identified. Manuscript G, Paris, Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève MS 558, is dated to the middle of the thirteenth century. Wilhelm’s Vita is found on fol. 151va–186ra. The manuscript, which mainly contains saints’ lives and passions, also includes Wilhelm’s treatise on the uncovering of the head and body of St. Geneviève, found on fol. 110vb–113ra. GERTZ considers manuscript V, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Lat. 14652 (fifteenth century), to be a copy of G, and thus assigns it little independent text-critical value. It belonged to the Abbey of Saint Victor in Paris. Wilhelm’s Vita is found on fol. 242r–261r.

No medieval Danish manuscripts of the Vita are preserved, and the main evidence for its circulation in Denmark is found in liturgical books that contain text related to the Vita. The six lessons in Breviarium Ottoniense (1482) reproduce text from the introduction of the Vita (ch. 1–2) of the life of St. Wilhelm, while the manuscript Copenhagen AM 670b 4° (beginning of the eighteenth century) contains excerpts from the section of the Vita which tells of the death of the saint (ch. 25–28). GERTZ printed readings from these two texts in the critical apparatus of his edition of the Vita.

Additionally, six lessons from Breviarium Slesvicense (1514) and six lessons from Breviarium Lundense (1517) appear to be loosely based on the text of the Vita, covering his entire life. Diurnale Roschildense (1511) and Breviarium Roschildense (1517) contain a complete office with a text that is only loosely (if at all) based on the Vita. In Missale Hafniense from 1510, a short sequence of four stanzas on Wilhelm is preserved. Sections of these books are all printed by GERTZ (1908–12, 370–7). In addition to these textual witnesses, Breviarium Lundense, MS Uppsala, Universitetsbiblioteket, C 447 (1474; 1477?), contains on fol. 230r, a short miracle tale, not elsewhere attested, in which prayers to Wilhelm result in the healing of the broken leg of a cow (BHL 8908d) (ed. GERTZ 1908–12, 449).

Bibliography

• DAMSHOLT, N.: ‘Abbot William of Æbelholt: A Foreigner in Denmark’ pp. 4–19 in Medieval Spirituality in Scandinavia and Europe: A Collection of Essays in Honour of Tore Nyberg (ed. L. Bisgaard et al.), Odense 2001.
• GAD, T.: Legenden i dansk middelalder, København 1961.
• GERTZ, M. Cl.: Vitae sanctorum danorum, København 1908–1912.
• GERTZ, M. Cl.: Scriptores minores Historiæ Danicæ medii Ævi, København 1917–18.
• HEEBØLL-HOLM, T. K.: ‘Why was William of Æbelholt Canonized? The Two Lives of Saint William’, pp. 211–34 in Historical and Intellectual Culture in the Long Twelfth Century: The Scandinavian Connection (eds. M. Münster-Swendsen, T. K. Heebøll-Holm, and S. Sønnesyn), Toronto 2016.
• KRAMER, F. E.: ‘Klostrets historie’‚ pp. 13–29 in Æbelholt Klosters Brevbog. København, 2013.
• MORTENSEN, L. B.: ‘Olav den Helliges mirakler i det 12. årh.: Streng tekstkontrol eller fri fabulern?’ pp. 89–107 in Olavslegenden og den latinske historieskrivning i 1100-tallets Norge (ed. I. Ekrem, L. B. Mortensen, and K. Skovgaard-Petersen), København 2000.
• OLRIK, H.: Danske helgeners levned, København 1893–1894.
• VAN BAAK, N. ‘“The Life and Miracles of Blessed William of Æbelholt”, pp. 353–420 in Life at Saint Victor: The Liber Ordinis, the Life of William of Æbelholt and a Selection of Works by Hugh, Richard, and Odo of Saint Victor, and Other Authors (eds. F. van Liere and J. Mousseau), Turnhout 2021.