Sola

Saint Sola (Sol, Solus, Suolo) was an English monk and priest, a missionary beside Saint Boniface in Germany. He reposed around 790 to 794.

Coming from southern England, he went in 744 to the monastery of Fulda, where Saint Boniface ordained him priest. He then settled as a hermit in a cell at Solnhofen in Swabia, built a small oratory there near a former Roman quarry and worked as a missionary. It is told that in 793 Charlemagne visited him and, for his holiness, granted him the land on which he lived; Sola gave it to Fulda Abbey. He was buried by the north wall of his church. His Life was written in the ninth century by Ermanrich of Ellwangen, between 836 and 842, and in 833 abbot Gundram raised his bones and placed them in the church, which was regarded as his canonization. He is the patron of heavy labourers in the diocese of Eichstätt.

He is a saint of the undivided Church and is commemorated on 3 December (New Calendar).