Bertram of Stafford

Saint Bertram of Stafford (Beorhthelm, Bertelin, Bettelin) is an Anglo-⁠Saxon saint of Mercia about whom the only evidence is legendary. He is the patron of Stafford in England, and the base of his shrine still exists at Ilam. He is said to have lived in the eighth century.

The earliest account, the Vita Bertellini, printed in 1516 in the Nova Legenda Angliae, is based on a lost manuscript, and the text as we have it dates from around the twelfth century. According to it, Bertram was the son of a Mercian king and a friend and pupil of Saint Guthlac. After Guthlac's death, around 715, he made a hermitage on the peninsula of Betheney, an island that became the town of Stafford. He is said to have converted many to Christianity and to have worked cures through his prayers. The ill-⁠will of jealous detractors led him to move to the hillier country of Ilam, in Dovedale, where he died. His story is mingled with that of Beccel, a minor character in the Life of Guthlac. He is commemorated on 10 August as a saint of the undivided Church, by the New Calendar.