William of Æbelholt

French Roman Catholic saint

William of Æbelholt (also known as Vilhelm of Æbelholt, William of Eskilsø and William of Paris) (d. Easter Sunday, 1203) was a French born churchman of Denmark.

According to the Vita composed to support his candidacy for sainthood, William died on Easter Sunday 1202, though the actual year was 1203. Numerous miracles were reported at his grave, and in 1218 the Archbishop of Lund, Anders Sunesen, requested that Pope Honorius III appoint a local commission to investigate the claims for William's sanctity. Their report was presumably sent to Rome, where it languished for some time. Then, in January 1224, William was canonized by Honorius, who acted on additional information provided by Cardinal Gregorius de Crescentio, recently returned from a papal legation to Denmark. A new church was constructed at Æbelholt Abbey and William's remains were moved there in 1238. In time, relics of St. William were distributed to Roskilde Cathedral, Lund Cathedral, the Church of Our Lady (Vor Frue Kirke) and Greyfriars Church in Copenhagen, and Greyfriars Church in Roskilde.

William of Æbelholt was the subject of a saint's Vita et miracula, composed most likely as part of his canonization process. It was printed in M. C. Gertz, ed., Vitae Sanctorum Danorum (Copenhagen, 1908–12), pp. 285–369. Gertz also included in that edition a brief treatise supposedly written by William on the authenticity of the relics of Geneviève (pp. 378–82). William's genealogy of the Danish kings can be found in M. C. Gertz, ed., Scriptores Miniores Historiae Danicae Medii Aevi, vol. 1 (Copenhagen, 1970; reprint of Copenhagen, 1917–18), pp. 176–85. William also left a substantial collection of letters, published most recently in the Diplomatarium Danicum, vol. 3,pt. 2, ed. C. A. Christensen, Herluf Nielsen, and Lauritz Weibull (Copenhagen, 1977). Further evidence can be found in charters dealing with Æbelholt (mostly transmitted through the archives of Æbelholt Abbey and its closest neighbor, Esrum). These have been published in the Diplomatarium Danicum.

Ivan Boserup, "A French Danish Letter Collection and Some Danish Diplomataria: Historical and Literary Remarks on the Epistulae of Abbot William of Æbelholt," in Living Words and Luminous Pictures: Medieval Book Culture in Denmark: Essays, ed. Erik Petersen (Copenhagen, 1999), pp. 78–95. Nanna Damsholt, "Abbot William of Æbelholt: A Foreigner in Denmark," in Medieval Spirituality in Scandinavia and Europe, ed. Lars Bisgaard et al. (Odense, 2001), pp. 3–19. Anthony Perron, "Fugitives from the Cloister: Law and Order in William of Æbelholt's Denmark," in Law and Learning in the Middle Ages, ed. Helle Vogt and Mia Münster Swendsen (Copenhagen, 2006), pp. 123–36.