Botolph of Iken

Venerable Botolph of Iken was an Anglo-⁠Saxon abbot of the seventh century, the founder of the monastery at Iken (Icanho) in East Anglia. Medieval English sources remember him as a monk of holy life who founded a monastery in the year 654 and reposed around 680.

His relics were moved in the tenth century to several English monasteries, and his name was borne by dozens of churches in England and Scotland, often at city gates or on travellers' roads. He is regarded as a protector of travellers. The Western Church commemorates him on 17 June, and in the calendar consulted here the date is 1 December.