Neot, St.
NEOT, ST.
Monk, hermit; d. c. 900. After ordination he moved from glastonbury abbey to Cornwall in western England where he lived as a hermit. According to legend he became the friend of alfred the great; the story of the burned cakes and Alfred is first found in a history of the Shrine of St. Neot in Cornwall. He went on a pilgrimage to Rome to pray for Alfred's victory over the Danes. Neot was buried in Cornwall, but later his body was moved to St. Neot's in Huntingdonshire. It is possible that there were actually two saints of the same name, one a Celt from Cornwall, the other an Anglo-Saxon.
Feast: July 31.
Bibliography: Acta Sanctorum July 7:325–340. Bibliotheca hagiographica latina antiquae et mediae aetatis 2:6052–56. r. wuelcker, "Ein angelsaechsisches Leben des Neot," Anglia 3 (1880) 102–114. j. asser, Life of King Alfred, together with the Annals of Saint Neot Erroneously Ascribed to Asser, ed. w. h. stevenson (Oxford 1904) 256–258, 296–299. f. wormald, ed., English Kalendars before A.D. 1100 (London 1934–). a. m. zimmermann, Kalendarium Benedictinum: Die Heiligen und Seligen des Benediktinerorderns und seiner Zweige (Metten 1933–38) 2:518–521.
[r. t. meyer]