CONVENTS AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS, A.D. 630-730.
‘Ecce catervim glomerant ad bella phalanges
Justitiae comites et virtutum agmina sancta.’
Ealdhelm, _De laude Virginum_.
§ 1. Early Houses in Kent.
The early history of the convent life of women in Anglo-Saxon England is
chiefly an account of foundations. Information on the establishment of
religious settlements founded and presided over by women is plentiful, but
well-nigh a century went by before women who had adopted religion as a
profession gave any insight into their lives and characters through
writings of their own. The women who founded monasteries in Anglo-Saxon
England have generally been raised to the rank of saint.
‘In the large number of convents as well as in the names of female saints
among the Anglo-Saxons,’ says Lappenberg[232], ‘we may recognise the same
spirit which attracted the notice of the Roman army among the ancient
Germans, and was manifested in the esteem and honour of women generally,
and in the special influence exercised by the priestess.’
A great proportion of the women who founded religious houses were members
of ruling families. From the first it was usual for a princess to receive
a grant of land from her husband on the occasion of her marriage, and this
land together with what she inherited from her father she could dispose of
at will. She often devoted this property to founding a religious house
where she established her daughters, and to which she retired either
during her husband’s lifetime or after his death. The great honour paid by
Christianity to the celibate life and the wide field of action opened to
a princess in a religious house were strong inducements to the sisters and
daughters of kings to take the veil.
We have trustworthy information about many of the Anglo-Saxon women who
founded and presided over religious settlements and whom posterity
reverenced as saints; for their work has been described by writers who
either knew them, or gained their information from those who did. But
there are other women whose names only are mentioned in charters, or
correspondence, or in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Historians however
welcome such references as chronological evidence and as proofs of these
women’s real existence; without them they would have nothing to rely upon
but accounts dating from a later period and often consisting of little
more than a series of incidents strung together in order to explain the
miracles with which the saints’ relics were locally credited. There is a
certain similarity between these later accounts and those we have of
pseudo-saints, but they differ from those of an earlier date, for the
writers of the 8th and 9th centuries were not actuated like those of a
later period by the desire to give a miraculous rendering of fact. Bede (†
735) stands pre-eminent among the earlier writers, and our admiration for
him increases as we discover his immense superiority to other early
historians.
Most of the women who were honoured as saints in England belong to the
first hundred years after the acceptance of Christianity in these islands.
A few other women have been revered as saints who lived in the 10th
century and came under the influence of the monastic revival which is
associated with the name of Dunstan († 988). But no woman living during
Anglo-Norman times has been thus honoured, for the desire to raise women
to saintship was essentially Anglo-Saxon and was strongest in the times
which immediately followed the acceptance of Christianity.
It was more than two hundred years after the Anglo-Saxons first set foot
on British shores that they accepted Christianity. The struggles between
them and the inhabitants of the island had ended in the recognised
supremacy of the invaders, and bands of heathen Germans, settling at first
near the shore, for the sake of the open country, had gradually made their
way up the fruitful valleys and into adjoining districts till they covered
the land with a network of settlements. After the restlessness of invasion
and warfare the Anglo-Saxons settled down to domestic life and
agriculture, for compared with the British they were eminently tillers of
the soil. Under their régime the cities built by the Romans and the
British fastnesses alike fell into decay. The Anglo-Saxons dwelt in
villages, and the British either lived there in subservience to them or
else retired into districts of their own which were difficult of access.
The re-introduction of Christianity into these islands is associated with
the name of Pope Gregory. Zealous and resolute in his efforts to
strengthen the papal power by sending forth missionaries who were devoted
to him, he watched his opportunity to gain a foothold for the faith in
Kent.
Tradition connects the first step in this direction with the name of a
Frankish princess, and Bede in his Church History tells how the marriage
of Berhta, daughter of King Charibert of Paris (561-567), to King
Aethelberht of Kent (586-616) brought an ecclesiastic to Canterbury who
took possession of the ancient British church of St Martin: this event was
speedily followed by the arrival of other ecclesiastics from Rome, who
travelled across France under the leadership of Augustine.
At the time of Augustine’s arrival the position of Kent was threatened by
the growing supremacy of Northumbria. Through the activity both of
Aethelfrith († 617) and of Eadwin his successor, the land extending from
the Humber to the Firth of Forth had been united under one rule;
Northumbria was taking the lead among the petty kingdoms which had been
formed in different parts of the island. The king of Kent strengthened his
independent position by accepting the faith which had proved propitious to
the Franks and by entering into alliance with his neighbours across the
Channel; and it was no doubt with a view to encouraging peaceful relations
with the north that Aethelburg the daughter of Aethelberht and Berhta was
given in marriage to King Eadwin of Northumbria during the reign of her
brother Eadbald (616-640).
Again the marriage of a Christian princess was made an occasion for
extending the faith; an ecclesiastic as usual followed in her train.
Paulinus, the Roman chaplain who came north with Aethelburg, after various
incidents picturesquely set forth by Bede, overcame King Eadwin’s
reluctance to embrace Christianity and prevailed upon him to be baptized
at York with other members of his household on Easter day in the year 627.
The event was followed by an influx of Christians into that city, for
British Christianity had receded before the heathen Angles, but it still
had strongholds in the north and was on the alert to regain lost ground.
The city of York, during Roman rule, had been of great importance in
affairs of administration. The Roman Eboracum nearly died out to arise
anew as Anglian Eoforwic. King Eadwin recognised Paulinus as bishop and a
stone church was begun on part of the ground now occupied by the
Minster[233].
Bede loves to dwell on the story of this conversion, which was endeared to
all devout churchmen by many associations. Eanflaed, the child of Eadwin
and Aethelburg, whose baptism was its immediate cause, was afterwards a
staunch supporter of Roman versus British Church tendencies. She was the
patron of Wilfrith, in his time the most zealous advocate of the supremacy
of Rome.
Among the members of Eadwin’s household who were baptized on the same
Easter day in 627 was Hild, a girl of fourteen, who afterwards became
abbess of Whitby. She was grand-niece to Eadwin through her father
Hereric, who had been treacherously made away with; her mother Beorhtswith
and her sister Hereswith were among the early converts to Christianity.
Hereswith afterwards married a king of the Angles, and at a later period
was living in the Frankish settlement of Chelles (Cala), where her sister
Hild at one time thought of joining her. Nothing is known of the life of
Hild between the ages of fourteen and thirty-four, but evidently she had
not dwelt in obscure retirement, for the Scottish prelate Aidan in 647,
knowing that she was living in the midlands, begged her to return to the
north. It is a noteworthy circumstance if, in an age when marriage was the
rule, she remained single without taking the veil, but she may have been
associated with some religious settlement[234].
It was only a few years after the acceptance of Christianity at York that
the days of King Eadwin’s reign, ‘when a woman with her babe might walk
scatheless from sea to sea,’ came to an abrupt close. Eadwin was slain in
633 at the battle of Hatfield, a victim to the jealousy of the British
king Caedwalla, who combined with the heathen king Penda of Mercia against
him. Queen Aethelburg with her children and Paulinus fled from York to
the coast and went by sea to Kent, where they were welcomed by her brother
King Eadbald and by Archbishop Honorius.
At the beginning of his reign Eadbald of Kent had been in conflict with
the Church owing to his marriage with his father’s relict, a heathen wife
whom Aethelberht had taken to himself after the death of Berhta. It is
characteristic of the position held at first by Christian prelates in
England that they depended entirely on the ruling prince for their
position. Paulinus fled from York at the death of Eadwin, and Eadbald’s
adherence to heathen customs temporarily drove the Kentish prelate abroad.
The king of Kent had, however, found it well to repudiate his heathen wife
and to take a Christian princess of the Franks in her stead. This act
restored him to the goodwill of his prelate, who returned to English
shores.
Eadbald had settled a piece of land at Folkestone on his daughter
Eanswith, and there about the year 630 she founded what is held to be the
first religious settlement for women in Anglo-Saxon England[235]. The fact
of this foundation is undisputed, but all we know of Eanswith’s life is in
the account given of her by Capgrave, an Augustinian monk who lived in the
15th century[236]. He tells us how she went to live at Folkestone and how
a king of Northumbria wished to marry her, but as the king was a heathen,
she made their union conditional on his prevailing upon his gods to
manifest their power by miraculously lengthening a beam. In this he failed
and consequently departed. There follows a description how Eanswith made a
stream to flow ‘againste the hylle,’ from Smelton, a mile distant from
Folkestone, possibly by means of a well-levelled water conduit. Capgrave
also describes how she enforced the payment of tithes.
Eanswith’s settlement was in existence at the close of the century, when
it was destroyed or deserted during the viking invasion. A charter of King
Athelstane dated 927 gives the land where ‘stood the monastery and abbey
of holy virgins and where also St Eanswith lies buried’ to Christ Church,
Canterbury, the house having been destroyed by the ‘Pagans[237].’
Capgrave says that its site was swallowed by the sea, perhaps in one of
the landslips common to the coast; the holy woman’s relics were then
transferred to the church of St Peter. A church at Folkestone is dedicated
conjointly to St Mary and St Eanswith, and a church at Brensett in Kent is
dedicated solely to her[238].
Queen Aethelburg coming from the north also settled in Kent at a place
called Liming[239]. Bede knows nothing of her after her departure from the
north, and we have to depend on Canterbury traditions for information
concerning her and the religious house she founded. Gocelin, a monk of
Flanders who came into Kent in the 11th century, describes Queen
Aethelburg as ‘building and upraising this temple at Liming, and obtaining
the first name there and a remarkable burial-place in the north porch
against the south wall of the church covered with an arch[240].’ Modern
research has shown that the buildings at Liming were so arranged as to
contain a convent of monks as well as of nuns. The church is of Roman
masonry and may have been built out of the fragments of a villa, such as
the Anglo-Saxons frequently adapted to purposes of their own, or it may
have been a Roman basilica restored.
Queen Aethelburg, foundress of Liming, is not usually reckoned a saint;
she has no day[241] and collections of saints’ lives generally omit her.
The identity of name between her and Aethelburg († c. 676), abbess of
Barking at a somewhat later date, has caused some confusion between
them[242]. Gocelin mentions that both Queen Aethelburg and ‘St Eadburga’
were buried at Liming[243]. A well lying to the east of the church at
Liming is to this day called St Ethelburga’s well, and she is commonly
held to be identical with Queen Aethelburg[244].
At a somewhat later date another religious settlement for women was
founded at Sheppey in Kent by Queen Sexburg, the wife of Earconberht of
Kent (640-664), the successor of Eadbald. We know little of the
circumstances of the foundation[245]. Sexburg was a princess of East
Anglia, where Christianity had been accepted owing to the influence of
King Eadwin of Northumbria[246] and where direct relations with France had
been established.
‘For at that time,’ says Bede, writing of these districts[247], ‘there
being not yet many monasteries built in the region of the Angles, many
were wont, for the sake of the monastic mode of life, to go from Britain
to the monasteries of the Franks and of Gaul; they also sent their
daughters to the same to be instructed and to be wedded to the heavenly
spouse, chiefly in the monasteries of Brie (Faremoutiers), Chelles, and
Andelys.’
Two princesses of Anglia, Saethrith and Aethelburg, who were sisters or
half-sisters to Sexburg, remained abroad and became in succession abbesses
of Brie as mentioned above. Sexburg’s daughter Earcongotha also went
there, and was promoted to the rank of abbess. Both Bede and the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle speak in praise of her. For her other daughter
Eormenhild, who was married to Wulfhere, king of Mercia, Queen Sexburg of
Kent founded the house at Sheppey; she herself went to live at Ely in her
sister Aethelthrith’s convent.
The statement of Bede that women at this time went abroad for their
education is borne out by the traditional records of Mildthrith, first
abbess of a religious settlement in Thanet which rose to considerable
importance[248]. A huge mass of legend supplements the few historical
facts we know of Mildthrith, whose influence, judging from the numerous
references to her and her widespread cult, was greater than that of any
other English woman-saint. Several days in the Calendar are consecrated to
her, and the site where her relics had been deposited was made a subject
of controversy in the 11th century. As late as 1882 we find that some of
her relics were brought from Deventer in Holland to Thanet, and that Pope
Leo XIII granted a plenary indulgence on the occasion[249]. Churches in
London, Oxford, Canterbury and other places are dedicated to St
Mildred[250], and Capgrave, William of Malmesbury and others give details
of her story, which runs as follows:
Her mother Eormenburg, sometimes called Domneva, was married to Merewald,
prince of Hacanos, a district in Herefordshire. King Ecgberht (664-673) of
Kent gave her some land in Thanet as a blood-fine for the murder of her
two young brothers, and on it she founded a monastery. She asked for as
much land as her tame deer could run over in one course, and received over
ten thousand acres of the best land in Kent[251].
Besides Mildthrith Eormenburg had two daughters, Mildburg and Mildgith,
and a boy, the holy child Merwin, who was translated to heaven in his
youth. Mildburg presided over a religious house at Wenlock in Shropshire,
and her legend contains picturesque traits but little trustworthy
information[252]. We know even less of the other daughter Mildgith. It is
doubtful whether she lived in Kent or in the north, but she is considered
a saint[253]. An ancient record says that ‘St Mildgith lies in Northumbria
where her miraculous powers were often exhibited and still are,’ but it
does not point out at what place[254].
According to her legend, Mildthrith, by far the best known of the sisters,
was sent abroad to Chelles for her education, where the abbess Wilcoma
wished her to marry her kinsman, and on the girl’s refusal cast her into a
burning furnace from which she came forth unharmed. The girl sent her
mother a psalter she had written together with a lock of her hair. She
made her escape and arrived in England, landing at Ebbsfleet. ‘As she
descended from the ship to the land and set her feet on a certain square
stone the print of her feet remained on it, most life-like, she not
thinking anything; God so accomplishing the glory of his handmaid. And
more than that; the dust that was scrapen off thence being drunk did cure
sundry diseases[255].’ It appears that a stone to which a superstitious
reverence was attached was walled into the Church of St Mildred in
Thanet.
Other incidents told of her influence are not without their humorous side.
One day a bell-ringer, forgetful of his duties, had dropped asleep, when
Mildthrith appeared to him and gave him a blow on the ear, saying,
‘Understand, fellow, that this is an oratory to pray in, not a dormitory
to sleep in,’ and so vanished.
Thus writes the author of her legend. The fact remains that Mildthrith was
presiding over a settlement in Kent towards the close of the 7th century.
For in a charter of privileges granted between 696 and 716 by King Wihtred
and Queen Werburg to the churches and monasteries of Kent granting them
security against interference, her name is among those of the five lady
abbesses who place their signatures to the document.[256] These names
stand after those of the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of
Rochester and are as follows; ‘Mildritha, Aetheldritha, Aette, Wilnotha
and Hereswytha.’ The settlements mentioned in the body of the charter[257]
as being subject to them are Upminstre (or Minstre) in Thanet, afterwards
known as St Mildred’s, Southminstre, a colony of Minstre, Folkestone,
Liming and Sheppey, the foundation of which has been described.
Thus at the close of the 7th century there existed in the province of Kent
alone five religious settlements governed by abbesses who added this title
to their signatures, or who, judging from the place given to them, ranked
in dignity below the bishops but above the presbyters (presbyteri), whose
names follow theirs in the list. From the wording of the charter we see
that men who accepted the tonsure and women who received the veil were at
this time classed together. Those who set their signatures to the charter
agreed that neither abbot nor abbess should be appointed without the
consent of a prelate.
The charter is the more valuable as it establishes the existence of the
Kentish convents and their connection with each other at a period when we
have only fragmentary information about the religious houses in the south.
We must turn to the north for fuller information as to the foundation and
growth of religious settlements presided over by women during the early
Christian period.
§ 2. The Monastery at Whitby[258].
A temporary collapse of the Christian faith had followed the death of King
Eadwin of Northumbria, but the restoration of King Oswald, who was not so
strong as his predecessor in administrative power but whose religious
fervour was greater, had given it a new impulse and a new direction.
Oswald had passed some time of his life in Iona or Hii, the great Scottish
religious settlement and the stronghold of British Christianity in the
Hebrides. Here he had made friends with the ecclesiastic Aidan, who became
his staunch supporter. Soon after his accession Oswald summoned a monk
from Iona ‘to minister the word of the faith to himself and to his
people,’ and when it was found that the monk made no progress, Aidan was
moved to go among the Angles himself. In preference to York he chose the
island Lindisfarne for his headquarters, but he spent much of his time
with Oswald, helping him to set the practice and teaching of religion on a
firmer footing.
It was during this part of Aidan’s career that he consecrated Heiu[259],
according to Bede ‘the first woman who took the vow and the habit of a nun
in the province of Northumbria.’ Heiu presided over a congregation of
women at Hartlepool in Durham, from which she removed to Calcaria of the
Romans, which is perhaps identical with Healaugh near Tadcaster, where
apparently Heiu’s name is retained. Further details of her career are
wanting.
Aidan’s labours were interrupted for a time. Again the fierce and
impetuous King Penda of Mercia invaded Northumbria, and again the
Christian Angles fled before the midland heathens. King Oswald fell in
battle (642) and Aidan retired to his rocky island, from which he watched
the fires kindled all over the country first by the raids of Penda, and
afterwards by civil strife between the two provinces of Northumbria, Deira
and Bernicia. This arose through the rival claims to the throne of Oswiu,
Oswald’s brother, and Oswin, who was King Eadwin’s relative.
An understanding was at length effected between them by which Oswiu
accepted Bernicia, while Oswin took possession of Deira, and Aidan, who
found a patron in Oswin, returned to his work.
He now persuaded Hild[260], who was waiting in Anglia for an opportunity
to cross over to France, where she purposed joining her sister, to give up
this plan and to return to the north to share in the work in which he was
engaged. Hild came and settled down to a monastic life with a few
companions on the river Wear. A year later, when Heiu retired to Calcaria,
Hild became abbess at Hartlepool. She settled there only a few years
before the close of Aidan’s career. He died in 651 shortly after his
patron Oswin, whose murder remains the great stain on the life of his
rival Oswiu.
A 12th century monk, an inmate of the monastery of St Beeves in
Cumberland, has written a life of St Bega, the patron saint of his
monastery, whom he identifies on the one hand with the abbess Heiu,
consecrated by Aidan, and on the other with Begu, a nun who had a vision
of Hild’s death at the monastery of Hackness in the year 680. His
narrative is further embellished with local traditions about a woman Bega,
who came from Ireland and received as a gift from the Lady Egermont the
extensive parish and promontory of St Beeves, which to this day bear her
name[261].
There has been much speculation concerning this holy woman Bega, but it is
probable that the writer of her life combined myths which seem to be
Keltic with accounts of two historical persons whom Bede keeps quite
distinct. There is no reason to doubt Bede’s statements in this matter or
in others concerning affairs in the north, for he expressly affirms that
he ‘was able to gain information not from one author only but from the
faithful assertion of innumerable witnesses who were in a position to know
and remember these things; besides those things,’ he adds, ‘which I could
ascertain myself.’ He passed his whole life studying and writing in the
monasteries of SS. Peter and Paul, two settlements spoken of as one, near
the mouth of the river Wear, close to where Hild had first settled. He
went there during the lifetime of Bennet Biscop († 690), the contemporary
of Hild and a shining representative of the culture the Anglo-Saxons
attained in the 7th century.
Hild settled at Hartlepool about the year 647. Eight years later Oswiu
finally routed the army of Penda, whose attacks had been for so many years
like a battering ram to the greatness of Northumbria. And in fulfilment of
a vow he had made that the Christian religion should profit if God
granted him victory, he gave Hild the charge of his daughter Aelflaed ‘who
had scarcely completed the age of one year, to be consecrated to God in
perpetual virginity, besides bestowing on the Church twelve estates.’
Extensive property came with the child into the care of Hild, perhaps
including the site of Streaneshalch[262], which is better known as Whitby,
a name given to it at a later date by the Danes. Bede says that Hild here
undertook to construct and arrange a monastery.
Bede thus expresses himself on the subject of Hild’s life and influence
during the term of over thirty years which she spent first as abbess of
Hartlepool and then as abbess of Whitby[263]:
‘Moreover, Hild, the handmaid of Christ, having been appointed to govern
that monastery (at Hartlepool), presently took care to order it in the
regular way of life, in all respects, according as she could gain
information from learned men. For Bishop Aidan, also, and all the
religious men who knew her, were wont to visit her constantly, to love her
devotedly, and to instruct her diligently, on account of her innate
wisdom, and her delight in the service of God.
‘When, then, she had presided over this monastery for some years, being
very intent on establishing the regular discipline, according as she could
learn it from learned men, it happened that she undertook also to
construct and arrange a monastery in the place which is called
Streanshalch; and this work being enjoined on her, she was not remiss in
accomplishing it. For she established this also in the same discipline of
regular life in which she established the former monastery; and, indeed,
taught there also the strict observance of justice, piety, and chastity,
and of the other virtues, but mostly of peace and charity, so that, after
the example of the primitive Church, there was therein no one rich, no one
poor; all things were common to all, since nothing seemed to be the
private property of any one. Moreover, her prudence was so great that not
only did ordinary persons, but even sometimes kings and princes, seek and
receive counsel of her in their necessities. She made those who were under
her direction give so much time to the reading of the Divine Scriptures,
and exercise themselves so much in works of righteousness, that very many,
it appeared, could readily be found there, who could worthily enter upon
the ecclesiastical grade, that is the service of the altar.’
In point of fact five men who had studied in Hild’s monastery were
promoted to the episcopate. Foremost among them is John, bishop of Hexham
(687-705) and afterwards of York († 721), the famous St John of Beverley,
a canonised saint of the Church, of whose doings Bede has left an account.
In this[264] we hear of the existence of another monastery for women at
Watton (Vetadun) not far from Whitby, where Bishop John went to visit the
abbess Heriburg, who was living there with her ‘daughter in the flesh,’
Cwenburg, whom she designed to make abbess in her stead. We hear no more
about Watton till centuries later, but Bede’s remark is interesting as
showing how natural he felt it to be that the rule of a settlement should
pass from mother to daughter.
Cwenburg was suffering from a swollen arm which John tells us was very
serious, ‘since she had been bled on the fourth day of the moon,’ ‘when
both the light of the moon and the tide of the ocean were on their
increase. And what can I do for the girl if she is at death’s door?’ he
exclaims. However his combined prayers and remedies, which were so often
efficacious, helped to restore her.
Aetla, another of Hild’s scholarly disciples, held the see of Dorchester,
though perhaps only temporarily during the absence of Aegilberht. A third,
Bosa, was archbishop of York between 678 and 686; Bede speaks of him as a
monk of Whitby, a man of great holiness and humility. Oftfor, another of
Hild’s monks, went from Whitby to Canterbury, to study ‘a more perfect’
system of discipline under Archbishop Theodore († 690), and subsequently
became bishop of Worcester.
The career of these men shows that the system of discipline and education
under Hild at Whitby compared favourably with that of other settlements.
At the outset she had followed the usages of the Scottish Church, with
which she was familiar through her intercourse with Aidan, but when the
claims for an independent British Church were defeated at Whitby, she
accepted the change and adopted the Roman usage.
The antagonism which had existed from the first appearance of Augustine in
England between Roman Christianity and British Christianity as upheld by
the Scottish and Welsh clergy took the form of open disagreement in
Northumbria. On one side was the craving for ritual, for refinement and
for union with Rome; on the other insistence by the Scottish clergy on
their right to independence.
Aidan had been succeeded at Lindisfarne by Finnan, owing to whose
influence discussion was checked for the time being. But after his death
(661) the latent antagonism came to a head over the practical difficulty
due to the different dates at which King Oswiu and Queen Eanflaed kept
Easter. Thus the way was cleared for the Whitby synod (664), a ‘gathering
of all orders of the Church system,’ at which the respective claims of
Roman and of British Christianity were discussed.
The British interest was represented among others by Colman, Finnan’s
successor at Lindisfarne, who temporarily held the see at York, and by
Aegilberht, bishop of Dorchester. The opposite side was taken by the
protégé of Queen Eanflaed, Wilfrith, abbot of Ripon, whose ardour in the
cause of Rome had been greatly augmented by going abroad with Bennet
Biscop about the year 653. Besides these and other prelates, King Oswiu
and his son and co-regent Ealhfrith were present at the synod. The abbess
Hild was also there, but she took no part in the discussion.
The questions raised were not of doctrine but of practice. The computation
of Easter, the form of the tonsure, matters not of belief but of
apparently trivial externals, were the points round which the discussion
turned. Owing chiefly to Wilfrith’s influence the decision was in favour
of Rome, and a strong rebuff was given for a time to the claim for an
independent British Church in the north.
The choice of Whitby as the site of the synod marks the importance which
this settlement had attained within ten years of its foundation. Those who
have stood on the height of the cliff overlooking the North Sea and have
let their gaze wander over the winding river course and the strand below
can realize the lordly situation of the settlement which occupies such a
distinguished place among the great houses and nurseries of culture at
Hexham, Wearmouth, Jarrow, Ripon and York.
The property which the monastery held in overlordship extended along the
coast for many miles, and the settlement itself consisted of a large group
of buildings; for there are references to the dwellings for the men, for
the women, and to an outlying house for the sick. These dwellings were
gathered round the ancient British Church of St Peter, which was situated
under the shelter of the brow of the cliff where King Eadwin lay buried,
and which continued to be the burial-place of the Northumbrian kings.
Isolated chapels and churches with separate bands of religious votaries
belonging to them lay in other parts of the monastic property, and were
subject to the abbess of Whitby. We hear of a minor monastery at Easington
(Osingadun)[265] during the rule of Aelflaed, Hild’s successor, and at
Hackness (Hacanos) on the limit of the monastic property, thirteen miles
south of Whitby, a monastery of some importance had been founded by
Hild[266]. Bands of men and of women dwelt here under the government of
Frigith, and it was here that the nun Begu had a vision of Hild on the
night of her death, when she saw her borne aloft by attendant angels[267].
The name of Hild and the monastery at Whitby are further endeared to
posterity through their connection with Caedmon, the most celebrated of
the vernacular poets of Northumbria and the reputed author of the
Anglo-Saxon metrical paraphrases of the Old Testament[268]. It was his
great reputation as a singer that made Hild seek Caedmon and persuade him
to join her community. Here the practice of reading Holy Scripture made
him familiar with the stories of Hebrew literature in their grand and
simple setting, and he drank of the waters of that well to which so many
centuries of creative and representative art have gone for inspiration.
Caedmon’s power of song had been noticed outside the monastery.
‘And all concluded that a celestial gift had been granted him by the Lord.
And they interpreted to him a certain passage of sacred history or
doctrine, and ordered him to turn it if he could into poetical rhythm. And
he, having undertaken it, departed, and returning in the morning brought
back what he was ordered to do, composed in most excellent verse.
Whereupon presently the abbess, embracing heartily the grace of God in the
man, directed him to leave the secular habit, and to take the monastic
vow; and having together with all her people received him into the
monastery associated him with the company of the brethren, and ordered him
to be instructed in the whole course of sacred history. And he converted
into most sweet song whatever he could learn from hearing, by thinking it
over by himself, and, as though a clean animal, by ruminating; and by
making it resound more sweetly, made his teachers in turn his
hearers[269].’
These passages are curious as showing that a singer of national strains
was persuaded to adapt his art to the purposes of religion. The
development of Church music is usually held to have been distinct from
that of folk-music, but in exceptional cases such as this, there seems to
have been a relation between the two.
Excavations recently made on several of the sites of ancient northern
monasteries have laid bare curious and interesting remains which add
touches of reality to what is known about the houses of the north during
this early period[270]. In a field called Cross Close at Hartlepool near
Durham skeletons of men and women were found, and a number of monumental
stones of peculiar shape, some with runic inscriptions of women’s names.
Some of these names are among those of the abbesses inscribed in the
so-called ‘Book of Life of Durham,’ a manuscript written in gold and
silver lettering in the early part of the 9th century[271]. Again, an
ancient tombstone of peculiar design was found at Healaugh; and at
Hackness several memorial crosses are preserved, one of which bears the
inscription of the name Aethelburg, who no doubt is the abbess of that
name with whom Aelflaed, Hild’s successor at Whitby, in 705 travelled to
the death-bed of King Ealdfrith[272].
Finally on the Whitby coast on the south side of the abbey a huge
kitchen-midden was discovered. A short slope here leads to the edge of the
cliff, and excavations on this slope and at its foot, which was once
washed by the tide, have revealed the facts that the denizens of the
original monastery were wont to throw the refuse of their kitchen over the
cliff, and that the lighter material remained on the upper ledges, the
heavier rolling to the bottom.
Among the lighter deposits were found bones of birds, oyster, whelk and
periwinkle shells, and two combs, one of which bears a runic inscription.
Among the heavier deposits were bones of oxen, a few of sheep, and a large
number of the bones and tusks of wild swine, besides several iron
pot-hooks and other implements; a bone spindle and a divided ink-horn are
among the objects specified. An inscribed leaden bulla found among the
refuse is declared by experts to be earlier than the 8th century; it is
therefore proof that these remains were deposited during the earlier
period of the existence of Hild’s monastery, possibly during her lifetime.
Hild died after an illness of several years on November 17, 680. Would
that there were more data whereby to estimate her personality! The few
traits of her character that have been preserved, her eagerness to acquire
knowledge, her success in imparting it to others, her recognition of the
need of unity in the Church, the interest she took in one who could repeat
the stories of the new faith in strains which made them intelligible to
the people, are indicative of a strong personality and of an understanding
which appreciated the needs of her time.
Various myths, of which Bede knows nothing, have been attached to her name
in course of time. According to a popular legend she transformed the
snakes of the district into the ammonites familiar to visitors to those
parts. And it is said that at certain times of the day her form can be
seen flitting across the abbey ruins[273].
At her death the rule of the settlement passed to Aelflaed, the princess
who had been given into her care as a child. After King Oswiu’s death in
670 Queen Eanflaed joined her daughter in the monastery. The princess and
abbess Aelflaed proved herself worthy of the influence under which she had
grown up, and we shall find her among the persons of importance who took
up a decided attitude in regard to the disturbances which broke out
through the action of Bishop Wilfrith. The beginnings of these
difficulties belong to the lifetime of Hild: we do not know that she took
any interest in the matter, but judging from indirect evidence we should
say that she shared in the feeling which condemned the prelate’s
anti-national and ultra-Roman tendencies.
§ 3. Ely and the influence of Bishop Wilfrith.
The further history of the monastery of Whitby and the history of the
foundation of Ely are closely connected with the prelate Wilfrith, and for
this reason his actions and attitude claim our attention. In him we
recognise a direct advocate of the principle that a queen could if she
chose leave her husband and retire to a religious settlement, and that
such a course would secure her the favour of the Church.
It has been said of him that he was the most important man in Northumbria
for forty years after the Whitby synod[274]. He owed his education to
Queen Eanflaed, whose attention he had attracted when quite a youth, and
who had sent him into Kent to complete his education; there he imbibed
strong Roman sympathies. He lived for some years in France and Italy in
the society of Bennet Biscop, and he was already held in high esteem at
the time of the Whitby synod, which he attended in the character of abbot
of the monastery at Ripon, a house he had founded with the help of
Ealhfrith.
When Colman and his adherents beat a rapid retreat to the north in
consequence of the decision of the synod, Wilfrith became bishop of York,
an appointment which meant ecclesiastical supremacy over the whole vast
province of Northumbria. His intellectual brilliancy gained him many
admirers, but an innate restlessness of disposition and a wilful
determination to support the power of Rome to the national detriment
launched him into repeated difficulties with temporal and spiritual
rulers. He was at the height of prosperity and popularity when Ecgfrith
succeeded Oswiu in 670 after the death of Ealhfrith. Wilfrith had hitherto
been on good terms with Ecgfrith, but a breach in their relations soon
occurred, partly owing to the conduct of Ecgfrith’s wife, Aethelthrith,
whom Wilfrith supported against the king.
Aethelthrith, known to a later age as Etheldred or Awdrey, was the
daughter of King Anna of the East Angles (635-645), whose province,
including the present shires of Norfolk and Suffolk, was removed from
direct intercourse with others by the almost impassable reaches of the
fens. Anglia has not left any annals of her own, and we have to depend for
the names and dates of her kings on the slight information which other
provinces have preserved.
Written legends generally consider Anna as the father also of Sexburg, the
foundress of Sheppey, and of Aethelburg and Saethrith, two princesses who
had settled in France, as well as of Wihtburg, a woman-saint of whom very
little is known, and who was associated with a religious foundation at
East Dereham in Norfolk[275]. We further learn from legend that King Anna
was married to Hereswith, sister of Hild of Whitby, and Aethelthrith is
spoken of as niece to the great abbess Hild. But this connection is
discredited by a statement in Bede which suggests that Hild’s sister
Hereswith was married not to King Anna but to his successor King
Aethelhere (654-664). It is difficult to decide to which of the kings of
the East Angles Hereswith was married, but Anna was certainly not her
husband[276].
The princess Aethelthrith at the time of her marriage with the king of
Northumbria was the widow of Tunberht prince of the South-Gyrvi, or
fen-country men. Anglia stood at this time in a relation of dependence to
Northumbria, and in 664, four years before the Whitby synod, Aethelthrith
a woman of over thirty was married to Ecgfrith a boy of fifteen, the
heir-apparent to the throne of Northumbria. The marriage was no doubt
arranged for political reasons.
The consequences which followed render these facts worthy of notice. For
Aethelthrith on her arrival in the north at once conceived a great
admiration for the prelate Wilfrith, while she treated her husband with
contumely. She bestowed on Wilfrith the extensive property at Hexham which
she had received from her husband, and on which Wilfrith built the church
which was spoken of in his days as the most wonderful building on this
side of the Alps[277]. Judging from what Wilfrith himself told him about
the queen’s attitude Bede says ‘the king knew that she loved no man more
than Wilfrith.’
The events that followed bear out this statement, for after living about
ten years with the king, Aethelthrith left him and repaired to the
monastery of Coldingham (Coludesburg) in Berwickshire, which had been
founded and was ruled over by Aebbe, sister, or perhaps half-sister, of
the kings Oswald and Oswiu[278]. King Ecgfrith may or may not have agreed
to this step. Eddi, the friend and biographer of Wilfrith, maintains a
judicious silence on the relations of the king and queen, while Bede
represents[279] that Aethelthrith had always had an aversion to the
married state and describes how he had been told by Wilfrith himself that
Ecgfrith promised much land and money to the prelate if he persuaded the
queen to allow him conjugal rights.
At Coldingham Wilfrith gave Aethelthrith the veil; this act involved her
breaking all marital ties. But she cannot have deemed her position secure,
for she presently left Coldingham, which was within her husband’s
territory, and went to Ely, the island in the fens which her first husband
Tunberht had bestowed on her.
Under the date 673 stand in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle these words: ‘And
Aetheldryth began the monastery at Ely.’ It was situated on a hill
prominent above the flatness of the surrounding fen-land, which at that
time consisted of a wilderness of marsh and water. Men and women readily
flocked thither to live under the guidance of the queen. We hear that she
received material aid from her cousin King Ealdwulf of Anglia, that Hunna
acted as her chaplain, and that Bishop Wilfrith stayed with her on his
passage from Northumbria to Rome. Thomas of Ely (fl. c. 1174) has
embellished the account of Aethelthrith’s flight and journey south by
introducing into the story various picturesque incidents, which Bede does
not mention. She, with her companions Sewenna and Sewara[280], was saved
from her pursuers by water rising round a rock on which they had taken
refuge, and she was sheltered by an ash-tree which grew in one night out
of her pilgrim’s staff and which can still be seen at a place called
Etheldredstowe[281]. As Aethelthrith of Ely is a favourite saint of
English legend it is interesting to find water and the tree miraculously
associated with her.
Shortly after Aethelthrith’s departure Ecgfrith summoned Theodore,
archbishop of Canterbury, to the north to divide the diocese of York into
three separate districts. Wilfrith resented these proceedings as an
infringement of his rights, but as he was unable to influence the king he
determined to seek the intervention of the Pope and set out for Rome. His
absence extended over several years.
It was at this time, Bede tells us, that Aethelthrith ‘having built a
monastery at Ely began both by example and by admonition of heavenly life
to be a virgin mother of very many virgins[282].’ The particulars he gives
of her life show that she had renounced the splendours which constituted
so essential a feature of royalty and had willingly devoted herself to
humility and self-denial. She wore no linen, only wool, rarely used a warm
bath, save on the eve of great festivals, and assisted at the washing of
others. When she fell ill of a tumour in her throat, she told the
physician Cynefrith, who lanced it, that she looked upon it as a
chastisement for her love of wearing necklaces in her youth. And on her
death-bed she desired to be buried in a wooden coffin in the nun’s
ordinary cemetery.
The fame of Aethelthrith spread rapidly. She was looked upon as a virgin,
and her name with the epithet virgin was inscribed at an early date in
both the Anglo-Saxon and Roman Calendars, and to this day it is to be
found in the Book of Common Prayer. Later writers of her legend say that
she lived with Ecgfrith ‘not as a wyfe but as a lady,’ and add as a
fitting pendant to this story that she maintained similar relations with
her first husband Tunberht[283]. She died in the year 679, having presided
over her monastery only six or seven years, but during that time it had
gained marked importance. Many women had come to live there with her, and
among them her sister Sexburg, widow of the king of Kent, who had founded
the monastery at Sheppey and now succeeded Aethelthrith as abbess of Ely.
The chief event of Sexburg’s rule at Ely was the exhumation of the bones
of Aethelthrith in 695, which were transferred to a stone coffin of
antique workmanship which had been opportunely, or miraculously as
contemporaries thought, discovered at the old Roman colony of Grantchester
near Cambridge[284]. This translation took place on the 17th of October, a
day on which the relics were again transferred in 1106, and which is the
date of the important fair of Ely[285].
In a supplement to the History of Ely by Bentham, Essex gives an account
of the ruins of the conventual church begun by Aethelthrith[286]. Judging
from his investigations the church consisted of two parts, the nave and
the choir, the windows of the nave outside being ornamented with pillars
and arches, and the choir being arched with stone. Traces were still left
of the apartments of the abbess from which she could enter the church in a
private manner, and of a building opposite of equal dimensions which
served as a dormitory for the nuns. At a little distance the remains of
another large building were discovered, one room of which, near the
entrance to the settlement, was a parlour for the reception of strangers,
and the apartment over it a dormitory for the men.
We know little more than the name of the next abbess of Ely. She was
Sexburg’s daughter Eormenhild, wife of King Wulfhere of Mercia, who had
hitherto dwelt in the monastery of Sheppey. Eormenhild in her turn was
succeeded by her daughter, the celebrated St Werburg of Chester, who was
never married. Various stories are preserved about Werburg’s influence,
but without reference to her work at Ely. We are indebted to Gocelin for
the oldest account of her[287]. He tells us that her uncle King Aethelraed
of Mercia entrusted her with the care of all the monasteries in his
kingdom, that she had founded religious houses at Trentham and at Hanbury,
besides turning a palace at Wedon-le-Street into a monastery[288]. He
speaks of her as a person of great cheerfulness and benevolence, and of a
peaceful and happy disposition. Several accounts of her are extant in
manuscripts of different dates, and as late as the 15th century her life
was made the subject of a most graceful metrical epic by the poet Henri
Bradshaw († 1513)[289].
We are told that Werburg died at Trentham and that the society of that
place wished to keep her body, but the nuns of Hanbury carried it off by
force and enshrined it at Hanbury where the day of her deposition was
kept[290]. During the viking invasion in 875 the body for the sake of
safety was conveyed to Chester, of which town St Werburg then became
patron saint. This incident gave rise at a later date to the story that
the saint had founded the monastery and the chief church at Chester on
land given to her by her father. Livien mentions that nine churches in
England are dedicated to St Werburg, who appears to have been a person of
considerable importance[291].
Once more we must return to the north and to the work of Bishop Wilfrith,
as he came into contact with various other religious women. When he
returned to England after an absence of several years Aethelthrith was
dead, but King Ecgfrith’s hatred of him had not abated. Insulted in his
person and nation he caused Wilfrith to be thrown into prison, offering to
give him back part of his bishopric and other gifts if he would submit to
royal authority and disclaim the genuineness of the document brought from
Rome[292]. Queen Eormenburg, whom Ecgfrith had taken to wife in place of
Aethelthrith, further embittered the king against the unlucky prelate. She
appropriated the reliquary Wilfrith had brought from Rome and wore it as
an ornament. For nine months the prelate was kept imprisoned, and the
story how he regained his liberty brings us back to Aebbe, abbess at
Coldingham, who had formerly sheltered Aethelthrith[293].
According to the account of Eddi, Wilfrith’s biographer, the king and
queen of Northumbria were staying at Coldingham when the queen was
suddenly taken ill. ‘At night she was seized like the wife of Pilate by a
devil, and worn out by many ills, hardly expected to see the day alive.’
The abbess Aebbe went to King Ecgfrith and represented to him that the
reason of this seizure was their treatment of Wilfrith.
‘And now, my son,’ she said, ‘do according to the bidding of your mother;
loosen his bonds and send back to him by a trusty messenger the holy
relics which the queen took from him and like the ark of God carried about
with her to her harm. It were best you should have him as your bishop, but
if you refuse, set him free and let him go with his followers from your
kingdom wherever he list. Then by my faith you will live and your queen
will not die; but if you refuse by God’s witness you will not remain
unpunished.’
Aebbe carried her point and Wilfrith was set free. He went into Mercia
which was at war with Northumbria, but he was not suffered to stay there,
for Queen Ostrith, the sister of King Ecgfrith, shared her brother’s
hatred of him. Forced to fly from Mercia he went into Wessex, but King
Centwin’s wife prevented him from staying there. It is curious to note the
hatred with which these married women pursued him while lady abbesses were
his friends. At last he found protection among the south Saxons, who
fifteen years before had nearly killed him, but their king Aethelwalch (†
686) had lately been converted to Christianity and gave him a friendly
reception. Wilfrith is represented as joining his civilizing influences
to those of the Irish monks who had settled on the coast. An interesting
episode of his sojourn here was his intercourse with Caedwalla, afterwards
king of Wessex (685-688), who at the time was living as an outlaw in the
forests of Sussex[294].
We get further glimpses of Aebbe and the settlement at Coldingham. She
entertained a great admiration for the holy man Cuthberht († 687), one of
the most attractive figures among the evangelizing prelates of the north,
of whom Bede has left an account.
Cuthberht was brought both by birth and education under Scottish
influences. He was prior at Melrose before the Whitby synod, but after it
came to Lindisfarne where his gentleness of temper and sweetness of
disposition won over many to accept Roman usages. Overcome by the longing
for solitude and contemplation which was so characteristic of many early
Christian prelates, he dwelt as a recluse on the desert island of Farne
from 676 to 685. There are many accounts of his life and of his
wanderings[295].
At the time when Cuthberht’s fame was spreading, Aebbe of Coldingham ‘sent
to this man of God, begging him to come and condescend to edify both
herself and the inmates of her monastery by the grace of his exhortation.
Cuthberht accordingly went thither and tarrying for some days he expounded
the ways of justice to all; these he not only preached, but to the same
extent he practised[296].’
It is recorded that during his stay at Coldingham Cuthberht went at night
to pray on the deserted beach, and the seals came out of the water and
clustered around him.
The first instance mentioned by Bede of a lapse of monastic discipline was
at Coldingham where disorders occurred during Aebbe’s rule[297]. An Irish
monk who was on a visit to the monastery had a vision of its destruction
by fire, and when questioned about it by the abbess interpreted it as an
impending retribution for the tenor of life of those assembled there.
‘For even the dwellings,’ he said, ‘which were built for praying and
reading are now converted into places of revelling, drinking, conversation
and other forbidden doings; the virgins who are vowed to God, laying aside
all respect for their profession, whenever they have leisure spend all
their time in weaving fine garments with which they adorn themselves like
brides, to the detriment of their condition, and to secure the friendship
of men outside.’
Through Aebbe’s efforts things somewhat improved, but after her death, the
date of which is uncertain, the monastery really was destroyed by
fire[298]. The story is told that Cuthberht at Lindisfarne forbade women
to cross the threshold of his conventual church on account of the life of
the nuns at Coldingham[299], but another version of his doings considers
that his attitude was due to an episode with a Scottish king’s daughter
which turned him against the sex[300].
Cuthberht was also the friend of Aelflaed, abbess of Whitby, who
entertained unbounded reverence for him. On one occasion[301] she had
fallen ill and, as she herself told the monk Herefrid, suffered so from
cramp that she could hardly creep along. ‘I would,’ she said, ‘I had
something belonging to my dear Cuthberht, for I believe and trust in the
Lord that I should soon be restored to health.’
In compliance with her wish the holy man sent her a linen girdle, which
she wore for a time and which entirely cured her. Later a nun by the help
of the same girdle was relieved of a headache, but after that the girdle
of miraculous power miraculously disappeared. The reason given for this
disappearance illustrates naïvely enough how divine power was considered
to be justified in making itself manifest with a reservation. ‘If this
girdle had remained present,’ Bede argues, ‘the sick would always flock to
it; and whilst some one of these might not be worthy to be healed, its
efficacy to cure might have been denied, whereas their own unworthiness
was perhaps to blame. Therefore, as was said above, Heaven so dealt its
benevolence, that, after the faith of believers had been confirmed, then
immediately the opportunity for detraction was entirely withdrawn from the
malice of the unrighteous.’
Contemporary witnesses bear testimony to the wisdom and prudence of the
abbess Aelflaed of Whitby, for Bede says in the life of Cuthberht that
‘she increased the lustre of her royal lineage with the higher nobility
of a more exalted virginity’; whilst Eddi speaks of her as ‘the most
virtuous virgin who is actually a king’s daughter,’ and in another passage
characterizes her as ‘ever the comforter and best counsellor of the whole
province.’
We find her in Cuthberht’s society on more than one occasion. Once he met
her at the monastery of ‘Osingadune’ (Easington) where he went to dedicate
the church, and while sitting by her at table he had a prophetic vision of
the death of one of her servants[302].
The abbess Aelflaed directly appealed to this prophetic insight of
Cuthberht’s when troubled in her mind about her brother King Ecgfrith,
whose expedition against the Picts filled her with apprehension[303]. In
the words of Bede: ‘At another time, the same most reverend virgin and
mother of Christ’s virgins, Aelflaed, sent to the man of God, adjuring him
in the name of the Lord that she might be allowed to see him, to converse
on some pressing affairs. Cuthberht accordingly went on board ship,
accompanied by some of the brethren, and came to the island which from its
situation opposite to the river Coquet receives its name, and is
celebrated for its community of monks; there it was that the aforesaid
abbess had requested him to meet her. When she was satisfied with his
replies to her many enquiries, on a sudden, while he was yet speaking, she
fell at his feet and adjured him by the sacred and venerable Name of the
Heavenly King and His angels, to tell her how long Ecgfrith, her brother,
should live and rule over the kingdom of the Angles; “For I know,” she
said, “that you abound in the spirit of prophecy, and that you can tell me
this, if you will.” But he, trembling at her adjuration, and yet not
wishing openly to reveal the secret which she asked for, replied, “It is
marvellous that you, a woman wise and well-instructed in the Holy
Scriptures, should speak of the term of human life as if it were long,
seeing that the Psalmist says, ‘Our years shall be considered as a
spider[304],’ and that Solomon warns us that, ‘If a man live many years
and have rejoiced in them all, he must remember the darksome time and the
many days, which, when they shall come, the things passed shall be accused
of vanity[305].’ How much more then ought he, to whom only one year of
life remains, to be considered as having lived a short time, when death
shall stand at his gates?”
‘The abbess, on hearing this, lamented the dreadful prophecy with floods
of tears, and having wiped her face, with feminine boldness she adjured
him by the majesty of the sovereignty of God to tell her who would be the
heir of the kingdom, since Ecgfrith had neither sons nor brothers.
Cuthberht was silent for a short time, then he replied, “Say not that he
is without heirs, for he shall have a successor whom you may embrace with
sisterly affection as you do Ecgfrith himself.” But she continued: “Tell
me, I beseech you, where he is now.” And he said, “You see this mighty and
wide ocean, how it abounds with many islands. It is easy for God from one
of these to provide a ruler for the kingdom of the Angles.” Then she
understood that he spoke of Ealdfrith (Aldfrid) who was said to be the son
of Ecgfrith’s father, and who at that time lived in exile, in the islands
of the Scots, for the sake of studying letters.’
This meeting, if we credit the historian, took place in 684, and
Aelflaed’s forebodings were realized. Ecgfrith lost his life, and part of
his kingdom was taken by the Picts. In consequence of his defeat the
settlement Whithern, set up as a religious outpost in the territory south
of the Firth of Forth, was destroyed. Trumwin who had been entrusted with
it was forced to fly. He and his friends sought refuge at Whitby where he
remained and had much intercourse with Cuthberht and Aelflaed. Bede says
that the abbess found ‘great assistance in governing and also comfort for
her own life’ in Trumwin[306].
Northumbria had now passed the zenith of her greatness as a political
power, for the territory in the north which was lost through Ecgfrith’s
defeat was not regained, while in the south the province of Mercia began
to shake off the Northumbrian yoke. King Ecgfrith had been succeeded by
his half-brother Ealdfrith († 705) and owing to his attitude Wilfrith’s
exile came to an end. Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, wrote a letter
in his behalf to Ealdfrith and also one to Aelflaed of Whitby begging her
to be at peace with him[307]. The prelate left Sussex for the north, where
he remained for five years in undisturbed possession of his see[308]. But
again the old quarrels revived, and Wilfrith in consequence of a council
assembled by order of Ealdfrith at Eastrefield was robbed of his episcopal
dignity and reduced to his abbacy at Ripon. He again insisted that the
king and bishops should submit to the Pope, and at the age of well-nigh
seventy he undertook another journey to Rome. But it was in vain he sent
envoys to the king on his return. Ealdfrith was determined not to relent,
but afterwards approaching death intimidated him. Feeling his end draw
nigh he sent for Aelflaed of Whitby, who with the abbess Aethelburg
(probably of Hackness) came to where he lay ill at Driffield in the East
Riding. Aelflaed received the king’s dying words, and at a council of
prelates subsequently assembled on the river Nidd bore testimony that he
had spoken in favour of making peace. Wilfrith regained part of his
influence but remained in retirement at his monastery.
Aelflaed outlived him and her friend Cuthberht who died in 687. It is
probable that she assisted at the translation of Cuthberht’s body in 698,
for in the inventory of the church at Durham one of the linen cloths or
outer envelopes of his body, which was taken from it in 1104, is described
as ‘a linen cloth of double texture which had enveloped the body of St
Cuthbert in his grave; Elfled the abbess had wrapped him up in it[309].’
Aelflaed is the last abbess of Whitby known by name. Her death is supposed
to have taken place in 713. Her monastery, like so many houses in the
north, which had grown to prosperity with the rising power of Northumbria,
sank into insignificance with the decadence of that power. This decline
was partly due to political reasons, but the dislike which the later kings
of Northumbria felt towards monasteries may have had something to do with
it. For as we shall see later on the example Queen Aethelthrith had set
was probably followed by two other Northumbrian queens, Cyneburg, the wife
of Ealhfrith, and Cuthburg, wife of Ealdfrith († 705), who returned to
their own countries and there founded monasteries.
§ 4. Houses in Mercia and in the South.
From the north we turn to Mercia and Wessex, the central and south-western
provinces of England. Mercia had clung longest to her heathen beliefs, for
Christianity was not accepted there till after the defeat of Penda in 655
when Northumbria gained supremacy. Penda, king of Mercia, remained
faithful to his gods to the end himself, but his children adopted the new
faith. His son Peada had already been baptized in Northumbria by Finnan
who sent four ecclesiastics back with him to evangelise the Midlands, and
Wulfhere (c. 658-675) Peada’s brother and successor was married to the
Christian princess Eormenhild of Kent, for whom Queen Sexburg had made the
religious foundation at Sheppey. Peada had founded a religious settlement
at Burh or Medehampstead which is better known as Peterborough, a name
bestowed on it after its restoration in 970. The charter of the foundation
of Burh is dated 664, and besides the signatures of Wulfhere and other
princes and thanes it bears those of Wulfhere’s sisters Cyneburg and
Cyneswith[310].
Cyneburg and Cyneswith were esteemed as saints on the strength of their
religious foundations at Castor, a village some miles distant from
Peterborough; the name Cyneburg is held by the local historian to survive
in the appellations of Lady Connyburrow Walk and Coneygreve Close[311].
Cyneburg had been married to Ealhfrith, who was for some time co-regent of
Northumbria, but little is known of him after his presence at the synod of
Whitby in 664. The charter of the Medehampstead foundation above referred
to establishes beyond a doubt that Cyneburg had left her husband to found
and preside over her monastery; for she is designated as ‘formerly a queen
who had resigned her sway to preside over a monastery of maidens[312].’
Her legend, which is not older than John of Tinmouth[313], enlarges on
this fact, and like Aethelthrith of Ely, Cyneburg together with her sister
Cyneswith has found a place in the Calendar as a virgin saint[314].
The legend which tells of Cyneburh and Cyneswith also refers to St Tibba
or Tilba, their kinswoman, who dwelt at Ryhall not far from Castor. The
same day was kept in commemoration of all these three saints at
Peterborough, to which place their bodies were transferred at an early
date. For the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (972) says of Aelfsi, abbot of
Peterborough: ‘And he took up St Kyneburg and St Kyneswith who lay at
Castor, and St Tibba who lay at Ryhall, and brought them to Burh, and
offered them all to St Peter in one day.’ Camden[315] speaks of Tibba as a
‘saint of inferior order, who was worshipped as another Diana by fowlers,
a patroness of hawking,’ and adds information which shows that she was
popularly connected with heathen survivals.
Mercia was the birthplace of many picturesque legends about the conversion
of members of the ruling family and about their religious foundations.
When once Christianity was accepted the activity which kings, queens and
prelates displayed in its favour was great, but the historical information
we have about them is meagre.
Thus Repton (Repandune) in Derbyshire, a monastery for women, had gained
considerable importance when the noble youth Guthlac repaired thither in
694 to devote himself to learning under the abbess Aelfthrith[316].
Nothing is known about the beginnings of the house, and if the abbess
Aelfthrith founded it she has not on this account been accepted as a saint
like the founders of other houses. This omission may however be due to the
difficulties which arose between Aelfthrith and the prelates of Mercia. We
do not know their nature, but in 705 a council of Mercian clergy assembled
to consider the re-admission of Aelfthrith to Church privileges[317]. A
letter is also extant from Bishop Waldhere of London to Archbishop
Brihtwald of Canterbury in which he mentions that a reconciliation has
taken place[318].
The noble youth Guthlac who came to study at Repton afterwards became
famous, and many accounts of his life have been written[319]. The earliest
version, drafted by his friend Felix, supplies some interesting details of
the life at Repton and the studies there[320].
We are told that Guthlac’s progress was wonderful. ‘When he had been there
two years he had learnt the psalms, the canticles, the hymns and prayers
after the ecclesiastical order,’ but he met with disapproval in the
monastery by refusing to drink wine. The accounts which he read of the
solitary life of the older monks filled him with a longing for solitude,
and he left Repton and wandered about till he found the place of his
heart’s desire at Crowland in the fen country, where he determined to
settle. He had received the tonsure at Repton and returned there on a
visit before finally settling at Crowland. He did not break his connection
with Repton, for we hear that the abbess Ecgburh who succeeded Aelfthrith
sent him as a gift a coffin made of wood and lead, together with a linen
winding-sheet, and asked who should be warden of the place after him, as
though she regarded Crowland as a dependency of Repton[321].
The abbess Ecgburg was the daughter of King Ealdwulf of East Anglia (†
714)[322], and an eloquent letter which is quoted later in my account of
Boniface’s correspondents was probably written by her[323].
In connection with Guthlac’s solitary life we hear of a woman Pega, who
had also chosen a retreat in the fen country, at a place afterwards known
as Peykirk, which is now situated on a peninsula formed by the uplands of
Northamptonshire and connected with the mound on which Guthlac dwelt by a
ridge of gravel, but which at that time formed an island[324]. One version
of Guthlac’s life tells how ‘he had a sister called Pega whom he would not
see in this life, to the intent that they might the rather meet in the
life to come’; and another manuscript life says that the Evil One appeared
to the saint in the form of Pega. Mr W. de Birch Gray who has reprinted
these accounts notices that the tone in which Florence of Worcester speaks
of Pega suggests that to him at least she appeared more famous than
Guthlac[325].
Different accounts of Guthlac agree that at his death his companions at
once departed to fetch Pega. In the celebrated series of drawings of the
12th century, which set forth the story of St Guthlac, the holy woman Pega
is depicted twice[326]. In one picture she steps into the boat, in which
the companion of Guthlac has come to fetch her, and in the other she is
represented as supporting the saint, who is enveloped in his shroud.
The connection between Guthlac and Pega is at least curious, and the
authority she at once assumed is noteworthy. ‘For three days’ space with
sacred hymns of praise she commended the holy man to God,’ says the
Anglo-Saxon prose version of his life[327]. And further, ‘After his death
when he had been buried twelve months God put it into the heart of the
servant of the Lord that she should remove the brother’s body to another
tomb. She assembled thither many of the servants of God and mass-priests,
and others of the ecclesiastical order.... She wound the holy corpse, with
praises of Christ’s honour, in the other sheet which Ecgbriht the
anchoress formerly sent him when alive for that same service.’
The Acts of the Saints give an account of St Pega or Pegia and tell us
that she went to Rome where she died[328]. Her reputation for holiness, as
far as it is preserved, is based chiefly on her connection with Guthlac,
but these accounts leave room for much that must necessarily remain
conjecture.
Other women-saints who were reputed to have lived about this period, and
who were brought into connection with the rulers of Mercia, claim a
passing attention, although their legends written at a much later date
supply the only information we have about them. Thus there is St
Osith[329] of Colchester, whose legend written in the 13th century is full
of hopeless anachronisms. The house of Augustinian canons at Chich[330] in
the 12th century was dedicated conjointly to the saints Peter and Paul and
to the woman-saint Osith; a canon of this house, Albericus Veerus,
probably wrote her legend. Perhaps St Osith of Aylesbury is identical with
her[331].
Our information is equally untrustworthy concerning St Frideswith, patron
saint of Oxford, for it dates no further back than the 12th century[332].
The chief interest in her legend is that its author establishes a
connection between incidents in the life of Frideswith, and the dread
which the kings of England had of entering Oxford; a dread which as early
as 1264 is referred to as an ‘old superstition[333].’
All these women are credited in their legends with founding monasteries
and gaining local influence, and excepting in the case of St Tibba, I have
come across no coupling of their names with profane cults. Other
women-saints who may perhaps be classed with them, though little survives
except their names, are St Osburg of Coventry[334], St Modwen of Strenhall
in Staffordshire and Burton-on-Trent[335], and St Everhild of Everingham
in Yorkshire[336].
Other names which occur in local calendars will be found in the _Menology_
of Stanton, who has compiled a very complete list of men- and women-saints
in England and Wales from a number of local calendars.
In contrast to the uncertainty which hangs about the settlements under
woman’s rule in the Midlands and around their founders, two houses founded
in the south of England during the 7th century stand out in clear
prominence. Barking in Essex, and Wimbourne in Dorsetshire, attained a
considerable degree of culture, and the information which has been
preserved concerning them is ample and trustworthy.
Bede has devoted several chapters of his history to stories connected with
Barking[337]. It owed its foundation to Earconwald sometime bishop of
London (675-693) who, after founding a settlement at Chertsey in Surrey
under the rule of an abbot, in 666 made a home for his sister Aethelburg
at Barking[338] where ‘he established her excellently in the regular
discipline.’ Aethelburg appears to have been an energetic person, and has
been raised to the rank of saint[339]. Her settlement included men as well
as women, and young children seem to have been entrusted to her care for
their education.
Bede says that ‘having taken the rule of the monastery she showed herself
worthy of her brother the bishop in all respects, both by living rightly
herself, and by the pious and prudent course she took to rule those who
were subject to her; this was proved by celestial miracles.’
A number of these miracles are described by him with considerable power.
Between 664 and 684, a great pestilence, the earliest on record in
Christian times, visited England and carried off many of the inmates of
Barking. First a boy of three years fell ill and in dying called by name
the nun Eadgith, who presently died. Another nun called Torctgith[340]
also had a vision of impending death. ‘One night at the beginning of dawn,
having gone forth from the chamber in which she abode, she saw plainly as
it were a human body, which was brighter than the sun, carried up on high,
wrapped in fine linen, and lifted apparently from the house in which the
sisters were usually placed to die. And when she looked more intently to
see by what means the apparition of a glorious body which she beheld was
raised on high, she saw that it was lifted up into the upper regions as it
were by cords brighter than gold, until being introduced into the opening
heavens it could no longer be seen by her.’
This imagery foretold the death of Abbess Aethelburg, who was carried off
by the pestilence. She was succeeded at Barking by Hildelith, whom
Boniface refers to as a very estimable person and who has also found a
place among the saints[341]. Capgrave speaks of her having been educated
in France, whence she came to Barking at the desire of Bishop Earconwald
to help in establishing the foreign system of discipline.
It was for the abbess Hildelith and her companions at Barking that the
scholar Ealdhelm († 709) wrote his great treatise on Virginity, a long and
elaborate composition which sets before these women the beauties of the
virgin life with a mass of illustration taken from religious and classical
literature. From the point of view of women’s religious life, it is worth
while to describe this treatise at some length, for it shows what a high
degree of culture had been attained at Barking towards the close of the
seventh century.
Ealdhelm, born of noble parentage about the year 640, is the
representative in southern England of the classical revival which was
about this time engrafted on Christian teaching. He studied first at
Malmesbury under the learned Scot Maidulf and then at Canterbury where
Archbishop Theodore and Abbot Hadrian were attracting many students, and
where he perfected his Latin and musical studies and acquired in some
measure the rare and much esteemed knowledge of Greek. ‘A wonder of
erudition in liberal as well as in ecclesiastical writings,’ Bede calls
him[342]. From Canterbury he returned to Malmesbury, which owing to his
influence attained a fame which it kept till the Middle Ages. In 705 when
Wessex was divided into two bishoprics, Ealdhelm was made bishop of the
see of Sherbourne.
The interest Ealdhelm took in women was so great that posterity pictured
him as continually in their society[343]. Besides his great treatise,
passages in his other works bear witness to this interest. In a letter
addressed to Sigegith[344], he gave advice about the baptism of a nun who
had been received into her community while still a heathen; to another nun
whose name is not mentioned he sent a letter together with several
poems[345]. He composed verses in praise of a church which Bugga, a
daughter of King Centwin (670-685), had built[346]. And besides the prose
treatise on virginity addressed to the sisterhood of Barking, he wrote a
long poem in heroic hexameters on the same subject called the ‘Praise of
Virgins’; it has a preface addressed to the abbess Maxima, and is followed
by a poem on the ‘Eight chief Sins,’ likewise intended for the perusal of
nuns[347].
Ealdhelm opens his prose work on virginity[348] with thanks to the women
of Barking for the writings they have sent to him. Hildelith, Justina,
Cuthburg, Osburg, Ealdgith, Scholastica, Hidburg, Burngith, Eulalia and
Tecla are addressed by name. He praises them as gymnosophists, as scholars
and as fighters in the arena of discipline (c. 2). Like unto bees, he says
(c. 4), they collect everywhere material for study.
Sometimes, he says, you study the Prophets, sometimes the Books of the
Law, ‘now skilfully tracking the fourfold wording of the gospel story,
expounded in the mystic commentaries of the Catholic fathers, and
spiritually bared to the kernel, and disposed fitly according to the
four-square pattern of ecclesiastical usage, namely according to the
letter, allegory, tropology and anagogy[349]; now carefully searching into
the writers of history and into the collections of chronographers, who
have handed down the changing events of the past in wording that impresses
the mind. Sometimes you carefully examine the rules of grammarians, the
laws of accentuation measured by tone and time, fixed in poetic feet by
marks of punctuation, that is divided into parts of verse consisting of
two and a half and three and a half feet, and changed in endless varieties
of metre.’
Ealdhelm then enlarges on the beauties of the virgin’s life, and dwells
especially on the charms of peaceful companionship which it secures. Again
in their dwelling and working together the women are likened to bees.
The charms of the virgin’s life are then set forth in language redundant
of imagery, verbose and grandiloquent in the extreme. We are told of the
temptations which those who have adopted a religious life must guard
against (c. 11). There are eight sins as to which they are especially
warned; the chief of these is pride. Women are then directed as to the
books they should make a special subject of study, and are recommended to
peruse the works of Cassian (who in the 5th century wrote the ‘Duties of
Monastic Life’) and the ‘Moralities’ of Gregory the Great (which contain
reflections suggested by the book of Job), and they are advised to study
the Psalms to avoid unhappiness (c. 14). With the love of contrast
peculiar to early writers, Ealdhelm shows how the women who serve God and
those who do not are different in their bearing and outward appearance,
and enlarges on the relative value of different estates (c. 17): virginity
is of gold, chastity is of silver; marriage (jugalitas) is of brass; and
again: virginity is wealth, chastity is sufficiency, marriage is poverty,
etc.
He then displays the wide range of his learning by adducing many writers
in support of his views (c. 20-40), in passages which are elaborate and
instructive but wearisome through their reiterations. He enumerates all
the women famous for their religious lives. The Virgin Mary comes first
and she is followed by many women-saints of Italy and the East, on whom
there is in some cases much, in others little, comment. In this list we in
vain look for the names of religious women living on this side of the
Alps. Helen the mother of Constantine (c. 48) is referred to, but her
British origin is not mentioned and the idea of it had probably not arisen
in Ealdhelm’s time.
The writer again turns to those who are devoted to religion, and in
passages which are full of interest as a study of the times complains of
the personal appearance of the clergy and of those women who have chosen
religion as a profession. These passages are among the most instructive in
regard to women and clearly show how completely life in a nunnery at the
beginning of the 8th century differed from what it was later on.
‘It shames me,’ he says, ‘to speak of the bold impudence of conceit and
the fine insolence of stupidity which are found both among nuns
(sanctimoniales) who abide under the rule of a settlement, and among the
men of the Church who live as clergy under the rule of the Pontiff. These
act contrary to canonical decrees and to the rule of regular life, for
with many-coloured vestments[350] and with elegant adornments the body is
set off and the external form decked out limb by limb. The appearance of
the other sex agrees with it; a vest of fine linen of a violet colour is
worn, above it a scarlet tunic with a hood, sleeves striped with silk and
trimmed with red fur; the locks on the forehead and the temples are curled
with a crisping iron, the dark head-veil is given up for white and
coloured head-dresses which, with bows of ribbon sewn on, reach down to
the ground; the nails, like those of a falcon or sparrow-hawk, are pared
to resemble talons’.... This state of things Ealdhelm strongly condemns.
But he adds the remark that he is addressing no one in particular,
evidently to avoid any umbrage his women friends might take at these
remarks. His reference to luxurious clothing does not stand alone. The
description Bede gives of the women at Coldingham has been quoted, and
Boniface in a letter[351] to Cuthberht of Canterbury speaks of ‘the
adornment of clothes, trimmed with wide edging of purple,’ which, he says,
is deteriorating the young men in the monasteries, and foretells the
coming of Antichrist. Sumptuous clothes as vestments during religious
service remained in use, but in all other respects they were condemned as
prejudicial to the welfare of those who were vowed to religion.
Ealdhelm’s work on virginity closes with an affectionate greeting to his
women friends in which he addresses them finally as ‘Flowers of the
Church, sisters of monastic life, scholarly pupils, pearls of Christ,
jewels of Paradise, and sharers of the eternal home.’
His work was greatly prized and widely read both by his own and by later
generations. It is extant in several copies of the 8th century[352], and
maintained its reputation throughout the Middle Ages. William of
Malmesbury († 1141) in his account of Ealdhelm specifies the work on
virginity as one ‘than which nothing can be more pleasing[353].’ It still
held its own when printing was introduced, for it was published at
Deventer in Holland in 1512, and has since been reprinted for devotional
purposes[354].
Among those on whom the book made a profound impression was Cuthburg,
sister of King Ina of Wessex (688-725). She was at one time an inmate of
the Barking settlement and was probably one of those to whom the work was
addressed.
Cuthburg was held as a saint for founding a settlement at Wimbourne in
Dorset[355], where the cult of her sister Cwenburg was associated with
hers. Cuthburg as mentioned above was said to have left her husband
Ealdfrith of Northumbria († 705) from religious motives. Her being held in
veneration as a virgin saint may be due to her name being coupled with
that of a virgin sister[356]. Missals printed at Rouen in 1515, and at
Paris in 1519 and 1529, have an office prescribed for Cuthburg as a
virgin[357]. The statement that she was the mother of Osred, afterwards
king of Northumbria (706-717), is perhaps unfounded.
There is no doubt as to Ealdhelm’s friendly relations both with Cuthburg
and her husband. He dedicated his enigmas to Ealdfrith under the title
‘Adcircius[358],’ and in a letter dated 705 he declares that liberty of
election is granted to all congregations under his government including
that called ‘Wimburnia,’ over which Cuthburg, the king’s sister,
presides[359]. A manuscript of the 14th century, preserved in the nunnery
of Romsey, contains a collection of saints’ lives, and gives a full
account of a conversation Cuthburg had with her husband previous to their
separation[360]. It further relates how she placed the basilica of her
settlement under the protection of the Mother of God, and was herself
buried in it. She died some time between 720 and 730, probably nearer the
earlier date, for several abbesses are said to have ruled between her and
Tetta. The name of Tetta has been brought into connection with a place
named Tetbury, but we know nothing definite concerning a monastery
there[361]. As abbess of Wimbourne she was the teacher of Lioba, called
also Leobgith, who went abroad at the desire of Boniface as we shall see
further on.
In the life of Lioba we get a description of the settlement of
Wimbourne[362], which may be somewhat coloured to show the result of
Tetta’s strict and beneficent rule, but which deserves attention as
yielding a fair example of the arrangements which in the eyes of its
author appeared desirable for a monastery of women. The author, Rudolf of
Fulda, was a monk who wrote between 800 and 850, and who compiled his work
from notices which Magno († c. 838) had collected from women pupils of
Lioba[363].
‘There were two settlements at Wimbourne, formerly erected by the kings of
the country, surrounded by strong and lofty walls and endowed with ample
revenues. Of these one was designed for men, the other for women; but
neither, for such was the rule of their foundation, was ever entered by
any member of the other sex. No woman had permission to come among the
congregation of the men, no man to enter into the dwellings of the women,
with the exception of the priests who entered to celebrate mass and
withdrew at once when service was over. If a woman, desirous of quitting
the world, asked to be admitted to the sisterhood (collegium), she joined
it on condition that she should not leave it unless a reasonable cause or
a special occasion took her out with the leave of the abbess. The abbess
herself, when she gave orders in affairs of the settlement or tendered
advice, spoke through a window and there gave her decision....’
Wimbourne stands last in the list of well authenticated monastic
foundations made by women during the early Anglo-Saxon period; of such
foundations more than twenty have been mentioned in the course of this
chapter. Others no doubt existed at this time, but we only hear of them at
a later date. We find among them some of the centres most influential in
enabling the Anglo-Saxons to attain a high degree of culture within a
hundred years of their conversion to Christianity.