Saint William of Perth
Image N/A
Martyr
Born	12th century at Perth, Scotland
Died	throat cut in 1201 in Rochester, Kent, England
Canonized	Some form of papal approval obtained in 1256 from Pope Innocent IV Pope Innocent IV Pope Innocent IV , born Sinibaldo Fieschi, was pope from June 25, 1243 until his death in 1254.-Early life:... ; cause had been pursued by Lawrence de San Martino, bishop of Rochester Bishop of Rochester The Bishop of Rochester is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Rochester in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers the west of the county of Kent and is centred in the city of Rochester where the bishop's seat is located at the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin...
Major shrine Shrine A shrine is a holy or sacred place, which is dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon or similar figure of awe and respect, at which they are venerated or worshipped. Shrines often contain idols, relics, or other such objects associated with the figure being venerated....	relics destroyed along with Rochester Cathedral Rochester Cathedral Rochester Cathedral, or the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, is a Norman church in Rochester, Kent. The bishopric is second oldest in England after Canterbury...  in 1538
Feast Calendar of saints The calendar of saints is a traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the feast day of said saint...	May 23; April 22 sometimes listed
Attributes	Devotional medals depict him with a dog and a staff.
Patronage Patron saint A patron saint is a saint who is regarded as the intercessor and advocate in heaven of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or person...	Adopted children

Saint William of Perth (Saint William of Rochester) (died ca. 1201) was a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 saint

Saint

A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...

 who was martyr

Martyr

A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...

ed in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

Born in Perth

Perth, Scotland

Perth is a town and former city and royal burgh in central Scotland. Located on the banks of the River Tay, it is the administrative centre of Perth and Kinross council area and the historic county town of Perthshire...

, at this time one of the most important towns in Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, practically all that is known of this martyr comes from the Nova legenda Anglie, and that is little. In youth he had been somewhat wild, but on reaching manhood he devoted himself wholly to the service of God

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

. A baker

Baker

A baker is someone who bakes and sells bread, Cakes and similar foods may also be produced, as the traditional boundaries between what is produced by a baker as opposed to a pastry chef have blurred in recent decades...

 by trade (some sources say he was a fisherman

Fisherman

A fisherman or fisher is someone who captures fish and other animals from a body of water, or gathers shellfish. Worldwide, there are about 38 million commercial and subsistence fishermen and fish farmers. The term can also be applied to recreational fishermen and may be used to describe both men...

), he was accustomed to set aside every tenth loaf

Loaf

A loaf is a shape, usually rounded or oblong, mass of food. It may refer to a bread, or meatloaf.The term "loaf" sometimes refers to "head" from the rhyming slang "loaf of bread" ....

 for the poor.

He went to Mass

Mass

Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...

 daily, and one morning, before it was light, found on the threshold of the church an abandoned child

Child abandonment

Child abandonment is the practice of relinquishing interests and claims over one's offspring with the intent of never again resuming or reasserting them. Causes include many social and cultural factors as well as mental illness. An abandoned child is called a foundling .-Causes:Poverty is often a...

, whom he adopted and to whom he taught his trade. Later he took a vow to visit the Holy Places, and, having received the consecrated wallet and staff as a palmer

Palmer (pilgrim)

In the Middle Ages, a palmer was a Christian Pilgrim, normally from Western Europe, who had visited the holy places in Palestine, and who, as a token of his visit, brought back a palm leaf, or a palm leaf folded into a cross...

, set out with his adopted son, whose name is given as "Cockermay Doucri", which is said to be Scots

Scots language

Scots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...

 for "David the Foundling

Child abandonment

Child abandonment is the practice of relinquishing interests and claims over one's offspring with the intent of never again resuming or reasserting them. Causes include many social and cultural factors as well as mental illness. An abandoned child is called a foundling .-Causes:Poverty is often a...

". They stayed three days at Rochester, and purposed to proceed next day to Canterbury

Canterbury

Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....

 (and perhaps thence to Jerusalem), but instead David willfully misled his benefactor on a short-cut and, with robbery

Robbery

Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear....

 in view, felled him with a blow on the head and cut his throat.

The body was discovered by a mad

Lunatic

"Lunatic" is a commonly used term for a person who is mentally ill, dangerous, foolish, unpredictable; a condition once called lunacy. The word derives from lunaticus meaning "of the moon" or "moonstruck".-Lunar hypothesis:...

 woman, who plaited a garland

Garland

A garland is a class of decoration, of which there are many types.Garland may also refer to:-Places:*Garland, Arkansas, a town in Miller County*Garland County, Arkansas*Garland, Maine, a town in Penobscot County...

 of honeysuckle

Honeysuckle

Honeysuckles are arching shrubs or twining vines in the family Caprifoliaceae, native to the Northern Hemisphere. There are about 180 species of honeysuckle, 100 of which occur in China; Europe, India and North America have only about 20 native species each...

 and placed it first on the head of the corpse and then her own, whereupon the madness left her. On learning her tale the monk

Monk

A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...

s of Rochester carried the body to the cathedral and there buried it. He was honored as a martyr because he was on a pilgrimage to holy places. As a result of the miracle involving the madwoman as well as other miracles wrought at his intercession after death, he was acclaimed a saint by the people.

Veneration

In 1256 the Bishop of Rochester

Bishop of Rochester

The Bishop of Rochester is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Rochester in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers the west of the county of Kent and is centred in the city of Rochester where the bishop's seat is located at the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin...

, Lawrence de San Martino (Lawrence of St Martin; r. 1251-1274), obtained the canonization of St. William by Pope Innocent IV

Pope Innocent IV

Pope Innocent IV , born Sinibaldo Fieschi, was pope from June 25, 1243 until his death in 1254.-Early life:...

. A beginning was at once made with his shrine

Shrine

A shrine is a holy or sacred place, which is dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon or similar figure of awe and respect, at which they are venerated or worshipped. Shrines often contain idols, relics, or other such objects associated with the figure being venerated....

, which was situated first in the crypt

Crypt

In architecture, a crypt is a stone chamber or vault beneath the floor of a burial vault possibly containing sarcophagi, coffins or relics....

, then in the northeast transept

Transept

For the periodical go to The Transept.A transept is a transverse section, of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In Christian churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform building in Romanesque and Gothic Christian church architecture...

, and attracted crowds of pilgrim

Pilgrim

A pilgrim is a traveler who is on a journey to a holy place. Typically, this is a physical journeying to some place of special significance to the adherent of a particular religious belief system...

s. At the same time a small chapel

Chapel

A chapel is a building used by Christians as a place of fellowship and worship. It may be part of a larger structure or complex, such as a church, college, hospital, palace, prison or funeral home, located on board a military or commercial ship, or it may be an entirely free-standing building,...

 was built at the place of the murder, which was thereafter called Palmersdene.

Remains of this chapel are still to be seen near the present St. William's Hospital, on the road leading by Horsted Farm to Maidstone

Maidstone

Maidstone is the county town of Kent, England, south-east of London. The River Medway runs through the centre of the town linking Maidstone to Rochester and the Thames Estuary. Historically, the river was a source and route for much of the town's trade. Maidstone was the centre of the agricultural...

.

The shrine of Saint William of Perth became a place of pilgrimage second only to Canterbury's shrine of Saint Thomas Becket, bringing many thousands of medieval pilgrims to the cathedral. Their footsteps wore down the original stone

Masonry

Masonry is the building of structures from individual units laid in and bound together by mortar; the term masonry can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are brick, stone, marble, granite, travertine, limestone; concrete block, glass block, stucco, and...

 Pilgrim Steps, and nowadays they are covered with wooden steps.

On 18 and 19 February 1300, King Edward I

Edward I of England

Edward I , also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved early in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons...

 gave two donations of seven shillings to the shrine. Offerings at the shrine were also recorded for Queen Philippa (1352). On 29 November 1399, Pope Boniface IX

Pope Boniface IX

Pope Boniface IX , born Piero Tomacelli, was the second Roman Pope of the Western Schism from November 2, 1389, until October 1, 1404...

 granted an indulgence

Indulgence

In Catholic theology, an indulgence is the full or partial remission of temporal punishment due for sins which have already been forgiven. The indulgence is granted by the Catholic Church after the sinner has confessed and received absolution...

 to those who visited and gave alms

Alms

Alms or almsgiving is a religious rite which, in general, involves giving materially to another as an act of religious virtue.It exists in a number of religions. In Philippine Regions, alms are given as charity to benefit the poor. In Buddhism, alms are given by lay people to monks and nuns to...

 to the shrine on certain specified days. The local people continued to make bequests through the 15th and 16th centuries.

The coat of arms

Coat of arms

A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...

 of the ancient See of Rochester bore Saint Andrew's cross

Saltire

A saltire, or Saint Andrew's Cross, is a heraldic symbol in the form of a diagonal cross or letter ex . Saint Andrew is said to have been martyred on such a cross....

 as well as a scallop shell

Scallop

A scallop is a marine bivalve mollusk of the family Pectinidae. Scallops are a cosmopolitan family, found in all of the world's oceans. Many scallops are highly prized as a food source...

 in its center, symbolizing Saint William of Perth.

St. William is represented in a wall-painting, which was discovered in 1883 in Frindsbury church, near Rochester, which is supposed to have been painted about 1256-1266.

His feast was kept on May 23. He had another feast day on April 22.

St William Of Perth Primary School, Rochester, is named after him.

External links

William of Perth at the Catholic Encyclopedia

Catholic Encyclopedia

The Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia and the Original Catholic Encyclopedia, is an English-language encyclopedia published in the United States. The first volume appeared in March 1907 and the last three volumes appeared in 1912, followed by a master index...

Saint Patrick’s Saints Index: May 23 Saint William of Rochester Rochester Cathedral