Osburh (orOsburga) was aSaint inCoventry, probablyAnglo-Saxon but see below. Nothing about her life has survived to the present day. Her mortal remains were enshrined atCoventry.[1] Close to theForest of Arden, Coventry was at that time a tiny settlement.
There are two versions of when Osburh lived. FromButler's Lives of the Saints,[2] and the nineteenth century book by Stanton,[3] David Farmer[4] suggests that Osburh died around 1018 CE, having been, from its inception,abbess of aconvent founded byKing Cnut two years earlier.
However, it is nowadays suspected that Osburh's cult predates theViking Age.[1] A Saxon nunnery was founded around 700 CE by Osburh,[5] destroyed by King Cnut in 1016. This stood in the vicinity ofSt. Mary's Priory. Around the Saxon nunnery, Coventry gradually developed as a town, though settlement in the area dates back to theIron Age.[6] A 14th-century note in MS Bodley 438 mentions an early nunnery at Coventry.[7] The 15th-century writerJohn Rous related that Cnut the Great destroyed the old Coventry minster, and referred to the "holy virgin Osburga now laid there in a noble shrine".[8] TheAnglo-Saxon Chronicle records the devastation of neighbouringWarwickshire in 1016, so Cnut's having attacked a convent at Coventry is credible.[7]
TheEarl Leofric's 1043 Coventry charter relates that the abbey in those days was already dedicated to Osburh (as well asSt Mary,St Peter andAll Saints), though the addition of Osburh could conceivably have been at some point in the previous 27 years, after 1016.[7] According to Stanton's listing for 30 March, the nuns were expelled in 1045. Later, a new foundation for men was established on the site by Leofric and his wifeGodiva.
Osburh's shrine became the place of many miracles. In 1410 the clergy and people addressed a petition to Bishop Leterich, to ask that her festival might be observed. The Bishop assembied his synod and decreed that the festival of St. Osburh should be observed throughout the archdeaconry of Coventry.
Osburh is mentioned in the 13th-century ScandinavianRibe Martyrology, which gives 21 January as her feast-day, but nowadays it is 30 March.[1]
The remains of Osburh were said to rest at Coventry in the 12th-centuryresting-place list ofHugh Candidus.[7]Initially the location was the south transept of the post-Conquest monastery church of Coventry. Within the monastery, her relics were translated in 1482. Destroyed during the sixteenth-centuryReformation, when the monastery wasdissolved,[9] was a splendid shrine with relics, along with Osburh's head enclosed in copper and gold (description in 1539).[10]
Coventry's devotion to St Osburh endured well beyond the Reformation. In the archdiocese of Birmingham on 30 March, the feast of St Osburh is still retained.
Dedicated to St Osburh isSt Osburg's Church[11] in Coventry.
In the south aisle of St Osburg's Church[12] is a stained-glass window[13] in honour of St Osburh. She is also commemorated in the 'West Screen' window[14] engraved by the New Zealand-born artistJohn Hutton atCoventry Cathedral.[15]
Named after St Osburh is Saint Osburg's Catholic Primary School in Coventry.[16]