ST. IVIA, OR IVO*

WAS a Persian bishop, who preached the faith in England about the same time with St. Austin, in the seventh century; and having for some time prepared himself for his last passage, by solitude, watching, prayer, and fasting, at Slepe, now St. lve’s, in Huntingdonshire, he there died and was buried. His body was found by a ploughman, in a pontifical habit and entire, in 1001, on the 24th of April. By the fame of miracles performed at his relics, many resorted to the place, and a Benedictin priory was there built, though the saint’s body was soon after translated to the great abbey of Ramsey. Whitman, the third abbot at Ramsey, wrote a book of the miracles wrought at his tomb, which was afterwards augmented by Goscelin, a monk of Canterbury, about the year 1096. Pope Alexander V. granted a license to build a church to his honor in Cornwall, where his name was famous, and is given to a parliamentary borough. See Dr. Brown Willis, in his History of Parliamentary Boroughs, t. 1, p. 543; Camden, Harpsfield, (sæc. 9,) and William of Malmesbury, 1. 4, de Pontific.; Bolland. 10 Jun. Hist. Littér. de la Fr. t. 8, p. 667.