Lot Essay
The portrait panels both record English missionaries to Holland and Germany. St. Willibrord (A.D. 658-739) was an English missionary, who evangelized Friesland (in modern Netherlands). He consecrated their archbishop in 695 and he set-up his throne in Utrecht. He also established a monastery in Echternacht, Luxembourg, where his feast is still celebrated on every Whit Tuesday. St. Bonifice of Crediton (A. D. 675-754) was another English missionary who in 718 set off to take the gospel to the heathen tribes of Germany. He was eventually martyred in Friesland and is buried at a monastery he had founded in Fulda (see D. Attwater, The Penguin Dictionary of Saints, Hammondsworth, 1965/1981).