St Godric

Godric did not begin as monk or noble, but as a poor man moving through the rough ordinary world of trade, travel, and slow conversion. For years he bought, sold, and journeyed widely, and those restless years included pilgrimages that gradually changed the direction of his life. What makes the life so appealing is that sanctity did not come to him in one dramatic moment. Repentance ripened over time. By the time he settled at Finchale near Durham, the wandering merchant had become a man hungry for hidden prayer and almost fierce solitude. The hermit life he embraced was severe: fasting, vigils, silence, hard living, and a real delight in being forgotten.

Yet austerity is not the whole picture. Godric's holiness had a sweetness that drew people against his preference for seclusion. Visitors sought his counsel, kings and monks respected him, wild creatures were remembered as strangely peaceable around him, and stories of prophecy and supernatural knowledge attached themselves to his name. He stands as one of those medieval hermits whose interior life became visible in spite of itself. The cell was hidden, but the holiness within it could not remain entirely unseen.