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Adulf

Anglo-Saxon saint (d. c. 680)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 22, 2026
Entity authorityQ4685867 ↗
Source-derived summary

Saint Adulf (also Adolph, Adolf, Athwulf, Æthelwulf or Æðelwulf) (died c. 680 AD) was an Anglo-Saxon saint.

Life

Adulf is said to have been the brother of Botolph, but virtually nothing is known about his life. Church historian Frederick George Holweck says he was not Botolph's brother.

The story, which originated with a monk of Thorney, Folcard's account of Botolph's life, that Adulf was at one-time bishop of Maastricht, is now generally thought to rest on a confusion of names and to have no substance. However, it does explain the reason today's saint is often honoured as a bishop.

The monastery at Iken, in the Kingdom of East Anglia, was destroyed in Viking raids. It is said that when by the orders of Æthelwold of Winchester, Botolph's body was disinterred for translation to the new abbey of Thorney, Adulf's body was buried with it, and as it proved impossible to disentangle the bones, the remains of both saints were taken to Thorney, where the relics of Adulf remained. The feast day of both saints is 17 June.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Adulf” as anglo-Saxon saint (d. c. 680). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Adulf, Anglo-Saxon and saint.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current 177-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Adulf, Anglo-Saxon and saint providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Adulf”, the useful work is to connect “anglo-Saxon saint (d. c. 680)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4685867. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Adulf”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Adulf primary sources, Adulf archive and Adulf research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Adulf” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.