(END OF 7TH CENT.)
[Anglican Martyrologies. Authorities:--Bede, lib. iii. c. 21, Ingulf,
and William of Malmesbury.]
An obstinate tradition found in the ancient English Chronicles asserts
that two daughters of the savage old heathen Penda, king of Mercia,
Kyneburga and Kyneswitha, both gave up the thought of marriage to
consecrate themselves to God. The eldest, who was married to Alcfrid,
the eldest son of king Oswy of Northumbria, is said to have left him
with his consent, after having lived with him some years in virginal
continence, to end her life in the cloister. The youngest, sought in
marriage by Offa, king of the East Saxons, used her connection with him
only to persuade the young prince to embrace the monastic life as she
herself desired to do. But it has been proved that the two daughters of
the bloody Penda contributed with their brothers to the establishment
of the great abbey of Medehampstede, or Peterborough, that their names
appear in the list of the national assembly which sanctioned this
foundation, and that it was not till after, that they retired to lead
a religious life at Dermundcaster, now Caister, near Peterborough, on
the confines of Huntingdon and Northampton. There Kyneburga became
the abbess of a community of nuns, when she was shortly joined by her
sister Kyneswitha, and a kinswoman Tibba.
After their death, they were buried at Peterborough. When the Danes
wasted England, their bodies were carried to Thorney, but were brought
back again in the days of king Henry I.
Camden, in his account of Rutland, informs us that S. Tibba was held in
particular veneration at Ryall on the Wash.