Æthelthryth | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Virgin, Abbess of Ely | |
| Born | 4 March 636 Exning, Suffolk |
| Died | (679-06-23)23 June 679 Ely, Cambridgeshire |
| Venerated in | Eastern Orthodox Church,True Orthodox Church Catholic Church Anglican Communion |
| Majorshrine | St Etheldreda's Church, Ely Place,Holborn, London; OriginallyEly Cathedral (now destroyed) |
| Feast | 23 June (Catholic), 17 October (Anglican) |
| Attributes | Abbess holding a model of Ely Cathedral |
| Patronage | Throat complaints |
Æthelthryth (orÆðelþryð orÆþelðryþe; 4 March 636 – 23 June 679) was anEast Anglian princess, aFenland andNorthumbrian queen andAbbess of Ely. She is anAnglo-Saxon saint, and is also known asEtheldreda orAudrey, especially in religious contexts. She was a daughter ofAnna, King ofEast Anglia, and her siblings wereWendreda andSeaxburh of Ely, both of whom eventually retired from secular life and foundedabbeys. Æthelthryth was "in turns, princess, wife, queen, nun and abbess, enjoying every possible position of power a woman could claim in early Anglo-Saxon England".[1]
There are a number of accounts of Æthelthryth's life inLatin,Old English,Old French, andMiddle English. According to Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, "more medieval vernacular lives [about Æthelthryth] were composed in England than any other native female saint".[2] Æthelthryth appears inBede'sEcclesiastical History of the English People,Ælfric'sLives of Saints,Goscelin of Saint-Bertin'sLives of Female Saints, theLiber Eliensis,Marie de France'sLa vie seinte Audree, theSouth English Legendary, and aMiddle English life in BL Cotton Faustina B.iii, among others.
The earliest account for Æthelthryth's life comes in Bede's Ecclesiastical History, Book iv.19, in which Bede calls her 'the virgin mother of many virgins'.[3] Æthelthryth was probably born inExning, nearNewmarket in Suffolk. She was one of the four saintly daughters ofAnna of East Anglia,[1] includingWendreda andSeaxburh of Ely, all of whom retired from secular life and foundedabbeys.
Æthelthryth made an early first marriage in around 652 to Tondberct, chief or prince of theSouth Gyrwe. Throughout the marriage, she maintained her vow of perpetual virginity that she had made.[1] Upon Tondberct's death in 655, she retired to theIsle of Ely, which she had received from Tondberct as amorning gift.[4]
Æthelthryth was remarried for political reasons in 660, this time toEcgfrith of Northumbria, who was fourteen or fifteen at the time. Shortly after his accession to the throne in 670, Æthelthryth wished to become a nun. This step contributed to Ecgfrith's quarrel withWilfrid, bishop ofYork, who was Æthelthryth's spiritual counsellor.[5]
One account[which?] relates that while Ecgfrith initially agreed Æthelthryth could remain a virgin, about 672 he appealed to Wilfrid for the enforcement of his marital rights. The bishop succeeded at first in persuading the king to consent that Æthelthryth should live for some time in peace as a sister of the Coldingham nunnery, founded by his aunt,Æbbe of Coldingham.[4] Eventually, in light of the danger of being forcibly carried off by the king, Æthelthryth fled back to theIsle of Ely with two nuns as companions.[4] They evaded capture, thanks in part to the rising of thetide.
Another version of the legend related that Æthelthryth halted on the journey at 'Stow' and sheltered under a miraculously growingash tree which sprung from her staff planted in the ground. Stow came to be known as 'St Etheldred's Stow', when a church was built to commemorate this event (although 'Stow' may actually refers toanother fair,[6][7] nearThreekingham).[8][9]
Ecgfrith later married Eormenburg and expelled Wilfrid from his kingdom in 678.
According to theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, Æthelthryth foundedEly Abbey, adouble monastery atEly in 673, which was later destroyed in theDanish invasion of 870.
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According toBede, Æthelthryth died of a neck tumour, which she interpreted as sent by God in his goodness to relieve her of guilt for her vanity in having worn heavy necklaces in her youth.[10]
Bede states that after her death, her bones were disinterred by her sister and successor,Seaxburh and that heruncorrupted body was later buried in a white, marblecoffin.
In 695, Seaxburh translated the remains of her sister Æthelthryth, who had been dead for sixteen years,[11] from a common grave to the new church at Ely. TheLiber Eliensis describes these events in detail.[12] When her grave was opened, Æthelthryth's body was discovered to be uncorrupted and her coffin and clothes proved to possess miraculous powers. Asarcophagus made of white marble was taken from the Roman ruins atGrantchester, which was found to be the right fit for Æthelthryth. Seaxburh supervised the preparation of her sister's body, which was washed and wrapped in new robes before being reburied.[13] She oversaw the translation of her sister's remains without the supervision of her bishop, using her knowledge of procedures gained from her family's links with theFaremoutiers Abbey as a basis for the ceremony.[14]
After Seaxburh, Æthelthryth's niece and her great-niece, both of whom were royal princesses, succeeded her as abbess of Ely.
Æthelthryth, as Etheldreda, isremembered in theChurch of England with aLesser Festival on 17 October according toBook of Common Prayer tradition,[15] and alternatively 23 June in theCommon Worship calendar of Saints.[16]
St Etheldreda's Church inEly Place inHolborn is dedicated to the saint. It was originally part of the London palace of thebishops of Ely. After theEnglish Reformation, part was briefly used by a Spanish ambassador forRoman Catholic worship. The chapel was purchased by the Catholic Church in 1874 and is one of the oldest churches in England to be in current use by the Catholic Church.
St Etheldreda's Church, Hatfield is 13th century and was originally Anglo-Saxon. It was named for St Etheldreda because it was adjacent to a palace of the Bishops of Ely who held her as their patron saint.
St Etheldreda's is a Roman Catholic parish church in Ely, Cambridgeshire. It is part of the Diocese of East Anglia within the Province of Westminster. The church contains the shrine and relics of Æthelthryth, including her hand.
St Etheldreda's Church inWhite Notley, Essex, is a Church of England parish church, of Anglo-Saxon construction, built on the site of a Roman temple, with a large quantity of Roman brick in its fabric. The church has a small Mediaeval English stained-glass window, depicting St Etheldreda, which is set in a stone frame made from a very early Insular Christian Roman Chi Rho grave marker.
The church of St EtheldredaHiston, perhaps a shrine on the pilgrimage route to Ely, was demolished in 1599 and the material used in part to build Madingley Hall; that church is commemorated in a stained glass window.[17]
The common version of Æthelthryth's name was St Audrey, which is the origin of the wordtawdry, which derived from the fact that her admirers bought modestly concealinglace goods at an annualfair held in her name in Ely. By the 17th century, this lacework had become seen as old-fashioned,vain, or cheap and of poor quality, at a time when thePuritans of eastern England disdainedornamental dress.[18]
Artists and writers have created work in response to Æthelthryth's story, including:
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