Botulf (_i.e._ Ruling Wolf) is said by Bede to have been born in the seventh century of a gentle Saxon family, and to have studied with his brother Adulf on the Continent. On his return (Adulf remaining to preside over a monastery at Utrecht, and becoming Bishop of Maestricht), Botulf begged permission of Ethelmund, King of East Anglia, to found a monastery in some retired and desolate spot, and chose Icanho (Ox Island) beside the Witham, probably the site of Boston. At Icanho he died on 17th June 655. The monks’ huts were burnt by the Danes in 870, but the relics of the saint had been safely translated, part to Ely, and part to Thorney, and the site of Boston was in later Saxon times included in the wapontak of Skirbeck. After the Norman Conquest the greater part of the parish of Skirbeck, with its two churches, one of which presumably stood on the site of Boston Church, was granted as part of the honour of Richmond in Yorkshire to Alan Rufus, who, shortly before his death in 1089, obtained the ordination of the rectory of Boston, and granted the patronage to the Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary at York, the monks of Boston constituting a priory of that abbey, and the church, which was probably of wood, apparently serving both the parish and the priory. A new church of stone was built at once. It consisted of a nave 25 feet by 60 feet, with aisles each 12 feet wide, a chancel, and a western tower 9 feet square; the floor level was about 4 feet below the present floor. The foundations were exposed in the restoration, 1851-53. The priory buildings were on the north side of the church. In 1309, when the fervour excited by the preaching of the friars was still felt, and the prosperity of the town was at its height, the pious gratitude of the burghers led them to begin the present magnificent church, the foundation-stone being laid on the Monday after St. John Baptist’s Day by Dame Margaret Tilney, assisted by Richard Stephenson, merchant, and John Truesdale, the rector. This church originally consisted of a nave of seven bays with aisles, a chancel originally of three bays, and a south porch. In the Perpendicular Period the chancel was lengthened by two bays, when Fleming, formerly rector of Boston, was Bishop of Lincoln; and the magnificent tower was added outside the former west window. A chamber was also added over the porch, and there were six subsidiary chapels (all but one of which have now been destroyed), besides, at least, two others (those of St. Mary and SS. Peter and Paul) at the east ends of the south and north aisles respectively, screened off within the church itself. The whole was probably completed about 1500; as it now stands the church is, in cubical content, the largest purely parish church in the kingdom, and is only surpassed in floor area (20,270 square feet) by those of St. Michael, Coventry (24,015 square feet), and of Yarmouth (23,265 square feet).