Arculf

Who is Arculf?

Arculf, was a Frankish Bishop who toured the Levant in around 680. Bede claimed he was a bishop. According to Bede's history of the Church in England, Arculf was shipwrecked on the shore of Iona, Scotland on his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He was hospitably received by Adamnan, the abbot of the island monastery of Iona from 679 to 704, to whom he gave a detailed narrative of his travels. Adamnan, with aid from some further sources, was able to produce De Locis Sanctis, a descriptive work in three books dealing with Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and other places in Palestine, and briefly with Alexandria and Constantinople. Bede came to know of this and spoke about him in his Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation. Many details about Arculf's journeys can be inferred from this text.