Theodore of Crowland

Saint Theodore was abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Crowland in England, killed by the Danes in the year 870. He is called a venerable martyr, and the Church commemorates him on 9 April by the old calendar. The sources do not agree on the year: one says 870, another tells of the attack on the monastery in the year 866.

Richard Stanton, in the Menology of England and Wales, tells what happened when the Danish armies reached the abbey of Crowland, the known refuge of Saint Guthlac, on 26 or 30 August. The solemn Mass had just ended, but the clergy had not yet left the sanctuary, when the pagans burst into the church. The priest, namely Abbot Theodore, the deacon Elfgete and the subdeacon Savinus were killed in their sacred vestments before the altar, and soon after them the acolytes Egdred and Ulrick. Some of the brethren managed to flee and hide in a nearby wood. Those who tried to shelter within their own walls were, it seems, found and cruelly killed.

With him suffered, among others, Askega, the prior, Swethin, the subprior, Elfgete, the deacon, Savinus, the subdeacon, Egdred and Ulrick, the acolytes, and Grimkeld and Agamund, also called Argamund, two old men of a hundred years.

A skull identified as that of Abbot Theodore, who lived in the ninth century and was killed by the Vikings at the altar, was kept in the abbey church. The relic was displayed until it was stolen from its case in 1982. The skull was returned anonymously in 1999.