It was to King Canute that the monks owed the relics of Saint Wistan, which held the place of honour in the church in mediaeval days.  They were enclosed in a magnificent tomb erected behind the high altar, in the position occupied by the shrine of Edward the Confessor in the Abbey Church of Westminster.  Soon afterwards we hear of the acquisition by purchase of the body of Saint Odulf from some travelling merchants, dealers in relics of sanctity, who, as will be seen, had no right to have the remains of the saint in their possession.

Saint Wistan was a scion of the royal house of Mercia, heir to the throne, and for a short period nominal monarch, but his nature was more fitted for a religious than a political life, and he took little part in the affairs of the state.  In the year 849 he fell a victim to the treachery of his cousin Britfard, a rival claimant to the kingdom.

Saint Odulf was not an Englishman, his whole life having been spent at the monasteries of Utrecht and Stavoren in the Netherlands.  Several miracles are recorded as having been worked by him both before and after death.  To the monastery of Stavoren, which he had founded, his body belonged by right, but from here it was stolen and conveyed to England.  By unknown means it came into the hands of certain vendors of holy wares, as related above, and from them it was purchased by Abbot Aelfward, for something like a hundred pounds, about the year 1034.

A curious story relating to the remains of this saint is told in the monastic chronicles.  Edith, the queen of Edward the Confessor, being anxious to acquire some precious relic for purposes of her own, called upon a number of the religious houses of England to send their treasures to Gloucester, there to be inspected by her, and, among others, the convent of Evesham sent the remains of Saint Odulf and Saint Egwin.  As the queen was examining the shrine of the former, she was suddenly struck with a peculiar form of blindness, and not until she had invoked the saint’s intercession, and declared her intention of restoring the sacred relics to the monks, did she regain her sight!

Another interesting personality gained in a very different manner the reverence, if not the worship, of the religious devotees of the time.  This was Saint Wulsy, a hermit of repute, who, we are told, lived for seventy-five years a life of contemplation and seclusion.  From Crowland Abbey, his earlier home, Wulsy was led blindfolded, that he might not be contaminated by the world, to Evesham, and near the church he built with his own hands a chapel in honour of Saint Kenelm, saint and martyr, with a cell adjoining, in which he spent the rest of his life.

In the reign of Edward the Confessor the church was rebuilt and greatly enlarged by Abbot Mannie, noted as a skilful craftsman in gold and silver; but even this must have seemed to the ambitious Norman insignificant, and unworthy of its high purpose, for very soon after the Conquest it was pulled down to make way for a much larger and more dignified building.