Venerated in Roman Catholic Church Feast 24 April Role Saint | Major shrine Ramsey Abbey Name Ivo Ramsey Patronage St Ives | |
Saint Ivo (also known as Ives) was a Cornish bishop and hermit, and became the eponymous saint of St Ives, Huntingdonshire. He appears in the historical sources in 1001/2 when a peasant allegedly found his coffin while ploughing at Slepe (later renamed St. Ives). The Abbot of Ramsey, Eadnoth the Younger, founded a monastery there as a daughter-house of Ramsey Abbey, providing Slepe as well as part of Elsworth and Knapworth as endowment. On 24 April 1002, Abbot Eadnoth translated Ivo's body, along with two of his companions, to the mother house at Ramsey.
Ivo was a Cornish saint. Rumours of a Persian link came about when Withman, Abbot of Ramsey, heard in the Holy Land of a Persian bishop named Ivo; subsequently the link to the Fenland Ivo was written down by Goscelin of St Bertin. The tradition is completely spurious. It is possible that Saint Ivo is a male double of Saint Neot, a suggestion made by historian Cyril Hart on the basis of the strangeness of two Cornish saints so close together far away in eastern England. Saint Neot turned up in Huntingdonshire around 1000 as well..