Devotional card
St. Neot
Saint-specific image not yet available.
This devotional card is shown because a saint-specific image is not yet available.
Saints and feasts
St. Neot
Anchoret, Confessor
Neot was a monk of Glastonbury who withdrew to a hermitage in Cornwall. Butler remembers his prayer, counsel to Alfred and later veneration, while recording July 31 as his principal feast.
The reading
ⓘ Butler source
Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume X (October), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; October 28, “St Neot, Anchoret, Confessor,” pp. 658-679.
Neot entered the monastic life at Glastonbury, where study and prayer shaped his early formation. Butler describes his ordination to the priesthood and his desire to avoid the distractions of public honour. With his superior’s permission he withdrew to a hermitage in Cornwall.
The traditional account remembers his fasting, contemplation and pilgrimage to Rome, after which he returned to his cell. People came to ask for his prayers and counsel. Butler also associates him with King Alfred, who sought the hermit’s guidance and later prayed at his tomb.
His relics were first kept in Cornwall and later taken to the place in Huntingdonshire that bore his name. Butler prints this life under October 28 but gives July 31 as the principal feast and reported day of death, alongside commemorations of translations of the relics. His discussion of Neot and the early schools at Oxford includes disputed claims; this reading does not make Neot the founder of the university or its first professor.
Historical note
An original Novena Regina reading adapted and summarized from the cited 1846 edition of Alban Butler. This is not a transcription of Butler’s words.
The October 28 placement follows Butler’s entry. Butler separately gives July 31 as the principal feast and reported day of death. The precise death year and the disputed accounts of Oxford’s foundation are not asserted. Alfred’s presence in the narrative is not used to add him to the saint catalogue.
Carry this reading into prayer
Act of Charity
Ask God for love of Him and your neighbor, and carry this reading into your own life.
Pray now →
Keep reading
Nearby saint lives
Move through the calendar without leaving the saint library. These nearby feast-day lives help keep the reading trail connected.
More prayers, novenas and litanies
More devotions
Continue in prayer
Choose a connected devotion or a clearly labeled general prayer.
Keep learning
What is prayer?
Read question 1099 and its complete answer in the Baltimore Catechism.
Read the Beatitudes in Matthew 5