St Guthlac and Miracles in the Fens
Saint Guthlac, the Hermit of Crowland, led a fascinating life of miracles and political intrigue in the Fens in the 8th century.
Born into a noble family in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia (in what’s now the English Midlands), as a young man Guthlac formed a band of soldiers. Then, aged 24, he experienced a profound conversion and became a monk at a monastery in Derbyshire. Deciding that he wished to live a solitary life as a hermit, he chose a remote and desolate location on the island of Crowland in the Fens, like Christ in the desert or Saint Anthony in the wilderness.
The British author and television presenter Max Adams will guide us through Guthlac’s journey from soldier to saint, drawing on sources including the Guthrac Roll, a beautifully drawn medieval illustrated account of his life.
Speaker Bio
Max Adams is the author of fourteen books, and the writer and presenter of several documentary films. He began his career as an archaeologist, excavating widely and publishing many papers and monographs. He later became a broadcaster and woodsman and began to travel more widely for writing. He has written biography and group biography, several histories of Early Medieval Britain and a number of books on trees and woodlands. His debut novel The Ambulist was published in 2016. The Firebringers (2009) was a Guardian Book of the Week, and Max has been widely reviewed in The Times, TLS, LRB, and elsewhere. The King in the North and The Wisdom of Trees were both bestsellers.
Max continues to manage woodlands and plant trees, to travel and, increasingly, illustrate his work with his own photographs and maps.
Don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day.
