Fursa

Family: Irish · Role: holy man and monk · First appears: Book III · Chap. XIX

c. 644, in the province of the East Angles, Fursa preached under Sigbert, converting many unbelievers and strengthening those who already believed. At Cnobheresburg, Sigbert gave him land, where he built a monastery and established its rule; afterwards Anna and certain nobles embellished it with buildings and gifts. Fursa then left its care to his brother Fullan and the priests Gobban and Dicull, seeking to withdraw from worldly affairs and live as a hermit.

His brother Ultan, who had also adopted the anchorite life, joined him in a year of self-denial, prayer, and daily manual labour. When pagan incursions threatened the province and its monasteries, Fursa left them in order and sailed to Gaul, where he was honourably received by Clovis or the patrician Ercinwald and built a monastery at Latineacum. He fell sick there and died; twenty-seven days later, Ercinwald moved his body from the church porch for reburial and found it “as whole as if he had died that very hour.”