Waltheof of Melrose

{{Infobox Christian leader

| name = Waltheof

| title = Abbot of Melrose

| enthroned = 1148

| ended = 1159

| predecessor = Richard

| successor = William

| birth_date = c. 1095

| birth_place = probably Huntingdon or Northamptonshire

| death_date = {{Death date|df=yes|1159|8|3}} (aged c. 64)

| death_place = Melrose

| buried = Melrose Abbey

| parents= Simon I of St Liz, 1st Earl of Northampton
Maud, 2nd Countess of Huntingdon

| feast_day = 3 August

| venerated =

| saint_title =

| patronage = Melrose Abbey, Northamptonshire

| shrine =

| suppressed_date =

}}

Waltheof{{efn|Also Waldef or Waldeve}} ({{circa|1095}}–1159) was a 12th-century English abbot and saint. He was the son of Simon I of St Liz, 1st Earl of Northampton and Maud, 2nd Countess of Huntingdon, thus stepson to David I of Scotland, and the grandson of Waltheof, Earl of Northampton.Barlow The English Church 1066–1154 p. 208-210

Whether as a result of being a younger son in the world of Norman succession laws, or being personally unsuited to court life, Waltheof chose a career in the church.{{cite journal |last1=Baker |first1=Derek |title=Legend and reality: the case of Waldef of Melrose |journal=Church Society and Politics: Studies in Church History |date=1975 |volume=12 |page=74-5}} Between 1128 and 1131 he entered Nostell Priory to become an Augustinian canon. His noble connections enabled him to rise quickly, and by 1139 he was Prior of Kirkham, North Yorkshire. Upon the death of Thurstan, Archbishop of York, in 1140, Waltheof was nominated to be his successor.Barlow The English Church 1066–1154 p. 96 His candidacy was supported by William of Aumale, the Earl of York.Dalton "William Earl of York" Haskins Society Journal pp. 162–163 Stephen, probably sensing his links to David and hence to the Empress Matilda were too strong,{{cite ODNB |last1=Baker |first1=Derek |title=Waldef [Waltheof] (c. 1095–1159) |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-28647 |year=2004 |publisher=OUP |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/28647 |isbn=978-0-19-861412-8 |access-date=18 November 2021}} rejected the nomination.[http://british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=8457 British History Online Archbishops of York] accessed on 14 September 2007 William of Aumale withdrew his support after Waltheof refused to promise to give the earl the ecclesiastical manor of Sherburn-in-Elmet in the West Riding of Yorkshire. William fitz Herbert was instead chosen by Stephen. Waltheof featured prominently among those opposing William's provision,Appleby The Troubled Reign of King Stephen p. 120 but by 1143 he had given up and become a Cistercian monk, first at Wardon Abbey and then at Rievaulx Abbey.Baker, 'Legend and reality', 76. In 1148 he was elected to the abbacy of Melrose, a daughter house of Rievaulx. Waltheof remained in this position for the remainder of his life, even though he was offered the bishopric of St Andrews in early 1159, which he declined.{{cite book |last=Dowden |first=John |author-link=John Dowden |editor1-last=Thomson |editor1-first=J. Maitland |title=The Bishops of Scotland |url=https://archive.org/details/bishopsofscotlan00dowduoft |year=1912 |publisher=James Maclehose and Son |location=Glasgow |page=[https://archive.org/details/bishopsofscotlan00dowduoft/page/6 6]}} He died at Melrose Abbey on 3 August 1159.For this paragraph, see Derek Baker, "Waldef (c. 1095–1159)", in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28647, accessed 28 Nov 2006]

Following the death of Waltheof, his successor as Abbot of Melrose, Abbot William, refused to encourage the rumours that were spreading regarding Waltheof's saintliness. Abbot William attempted to silence these rumours, and prevent the intrusiveness of would-be pilgrims. However, William was unable to get the better of Waltheof's emerging cult, and his actions alienated him from his brethren. As a result, in April 1170, William resigned the abbacy.For the account of Abbot William and the cult of Waltheof, see Richard Fawcetts and Richard Oram, Melrose Abbey, (Stroud, 2004), pp. 23–4. In William's place, Jocelin, the prior of Melrose, became abbot. Jocelin had no such scruples and embraced the cult without hesitation. In the entry for the year of Jocelin's accession, the Chronicle of Melrose reads:

The tomb of our pious father, sir Waltheof, the second abbot of Melrose, was opened by Enguerrand, of good memory, the bishop of Glasgow, and by four abbots called in for this purpose; and his body was found entire, and his vestments intact, in the twelfth year from his death, on the eleventh day before the Kalends of June [22 May]. And after the holy celebration of mass, the same bishop, and the abbots whose number we have mentioned above, placed over the remains of his most holy body a new stone of polished marble. And there was great gladness; those who were present exclaiming together, and saying that truly this was a man of God.Chronicle of Melrose, s.a. 1171, trans. A.O. Anderson, Early Sources of Scottish History: AD 500–1286, 2 Vols, (Edinburgh, 1922), vol. ii, pp. 274–5; translation slightly modernized in Fawcetts and Oram, Melrose Abbey, p. 23; this entry was written after the year for which it was written, sometime after the death on 22 February 1174, of Enguerrand, Bishop of Glasgow.

Later, as bishop of Glasgow, Jocelin continued the promotion of sainthood and commissioned a hagiography of Saint Kentigern, the saint most venerated by the Celts of the diocese of Glasgow. It is no coincidence that Jocelin of Furness, who wrote the Life of St. Waltheof, was the same man later commissioned to write the Life of St. Kentigern. Jocelin's actions ensured Waltheof's posthumous de facto sainthood; and the need of Melrose Abbey to have its own saint's cult ensured the cult's longevity.