Seaxburh of Ely
Saint Seaxburh | |
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Pre-Congregation | |
Feast | 6 July; 17 October (translation) |
Seaxburh, also Saint Sexburga of Ely (died about 699), was an Anglo-Saxon queen and abbess, venerated a saint of the Christian Church. She was married to King Eorcenberht of Kent.
After her husband's death in 664, Seaxburh remained in Kent to bring up her children. She acted as regent until her young son Ecgberht came of age.
Seaxburh founded the abbeys at
According to Bede, in 695, Seaxburh organised the movement (or translation) of Æthelthryth's remains to a marble sarcophagus, after they had lain for sixteen years in a common grave. On opening the grave, it was discovered that her body was miraculously preserved. The legend is described in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which celebrates the saintly virtues of Æthelthryth, but speaks less highly of Seaxburh, referring only to her marriage, succession as abbess and translation of her sister's relics. The date of Seaxburh's death at Ely is not known. The surviving versions of the Vita Sexburge, compiled after 1106, describe her early life, marriage to Eorcenberht, retirement from secular life and her final years as a nun and abbess at Ely.
Family
Seaxburh was a daughter of
Seaxburh married
Seaxburh's sisters were
The historian Barbara Yorke mentions the possibility that Seaxburh and her namesake Seaxburh of Wessex were the same person, but also notes that the accounts of Seaxburh's religious life at Ely contradict this suggestion.[3]
Seaxburh was buried at Ely with her sisters Æthelthryth and Wihtburh, along with her daughter Eormenhild.
Marriage and widowhood
Seaxburh was connected with the royal family of the
Their sons Ecgberht and Hlothhere both became kings of Kent. Their daughter
Eorcenberht died on 14 July 664,
Eorcenberht of Kent | Seaxburh of Ely | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Ermenilda | Wulfhere of Mercia | Ercongota | Ecgberht of Kent | Hlothhere of Kent | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Religious life at Ely
Shortly afterwards Seaxburh moved to the double monastery at Ely, which was the precursor to Ely Cathedral, and where her sister Æthelthryth was abbess.
According to Yorke, Seaxburh's retirement to Ely is an example an Anglo-Saxon custom represented in a law: whereby a married woman remained the responsibility of the paternal side of her family, perhaps to spend the rest of her days as a nun or an abbess.[14] Described by the Liber Eliensis as a "pretiosa virago" (precious lady-warrior)[15] she succeeded as abbess when Æthelthryth died, probably of plague, in 679.[16] Seaxburh's previous political experience in East Anglia and Kent would have been useful in preparing her for the role of abbess at the double monastery at Ely.[17]
In 695 Seaxburh decided to translate the remains of her sister Æthelthryth (who had been dead for sixteen years) from a common grave to the new church at Ely in a vivid demonstration of the dynastic value of the cult of royal saints in Anglo-Saxon England,[18] Patrick Sims-Williams has identified Seaxburh as "the chief mover behind the translation of her body and the promulagation of her cult".[19] The Liber Eliensis describes these events in detail.[20] When her grave was opened, Æthelthryth's body was discovered to be uncorrupted and her coffin and clothes proved to possess miraculous powers. A sarcophagus made of white marble was taken from the Roman ruins at Grantchester, which was found to be the right fit for Æthelthryth.
The architectural historian John Crook questions how such miraculous coincidences feature in hagiographies (the studies of the lives of saints), when he observes that "the miraculous discovery of a suitable coffin is, however, a hagiographic commonplace".[21] Seaxburh's supervised the preparation of her sister's body, which was washed and wrapped in new robes before being reburied.[22] She apparently 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 the abbey at Faremoutiers as a basis for the ceremony.[23]
The fourth book of the
Death and veneration
The date of Seaxburh's death is not known, but when she died at Ely,
Seaxburh is mentioned in a written account of Kent's earliest Christian kings and their canonised relatives, known as the Kentish Royal Legend (Old English: Þá hálgan). These kings, queens and princesses were unified by their holiness and royal connections. Pauline Stafford notes that the Legend "may have been a Christian alternative to pagan genealogy" to the rulers of 10th- and 11th-century mediaeval England, as it described an earlier period of sustained Christian piety within the royal dynasty of Kent. Being both a queen and a saint, Seaxburh was held in high regard within the Legend:[29] within it her role as queen and the founder of the minster at Sheppey was highlighted.[26]
The 1913 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia lists several separate accounts of the saint's deeds and miracles, or Lives. The Life (or Vita) printed in
See also
- List of Catholic saints
- Anglo-Saxon Christianity
- Wuffingas
Notes
- ^ See Dockray-Miller, pp. 13-14, for the text of Lambeth Palace MS 427 in both modern and Old English, which gives an account of the building of the minster at Sheppey, and alludes to Seaxburh's use of slave labour: 'Then it pleased the holy queen Seaxburh that she there might within [the isle] for pleasure and for honour for herself there build and settle a minster, so that formerly men said that for thirty years never stilled the sound of creaking wagons nor complaining slaves...' [11]
Footnotes
- ^ Earle, Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, p. 27.
- ^ Fryde et al, British Chronology, p. 8.
- ^ Yorke, Nunneries, p. 43.
- ^ Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature, p. 101.
- ^ Fryde et al, British Chronology, p. 13.
- ^ Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, p. 27.
- ^ Earle, Saxon Chronicles Parallel, p. 27.
- ^ Yorke, Nunneries, p. 27.
- ^ Bede, Ecclesiastical History, iv, 1.
- ^ Yorke, Nunneries, p. 26.
- ^ Dockray-Miller, Motherhood and Mothering in Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 13-14.
- ^ a b Fairweather, Liber Eliensis, p. 69.
- ^ Ridyard, Royal Saints, p. 90.
- ^ a b Yorke, Nunneries, p. 31.
- ^ Fairweather, Liber Eliensis, p. 376.
- ^ Williams et al, Dark Age Britain, p. 30.
- ^ Dockray-Miller, Motherhood and Mothering in Anglo-Saxon England, p. 13.
- ^ Ridyard, Royal Saints, p. 53.
- ^ Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature, pp. 100-101.
- ^ Fairweather, Liber Eliensis, pp. 56-61.
- ^ Crook, Cult of Saints, p. 78.
- ^ Ridyard, The Royal Saints, p. 179.
- ^ Yorke, Nunneries, p. 50.
- ^ Dockray-Miller, Motherhood and Mothering in Anglo-Saxon England, p. xiii-xiv.
- ^ Yorke, Nunneries, p. 154.
- ^ a b Ridyard, Royal Saints, p. 56.
- ^ Fairweather, Liber Eliensis, p. 278.
- ^ Butler, Lives of the Saints: February, p. 132.
- ^ Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith, pp. 168-169.
- ^ Ridyard, Royal Saints, pp. 57-58.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "St. Sexburga". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Sources
- ISBN 978-0-19-953723-5.
- ISBN 978-0-86012-251-7.
- Crook, John (2000). The Architectural Setting of the Cult of Saints in the Early Christian West. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-820794-8.
- Dockray-Miller, Mary (2000). Motherhood and Mothering in Anglo-Saxon England. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-22721-0.
- OCLC 10565546.
Earle, John (1865). Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel.
- Fairweather, Janet (2005). Liber Eliensis: a History of the Isle of Ely from the Seventh Century to the Twelfth. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-1-84383-015-3.
- Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (1986). Handbook of British Chronology (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-56350-5.
- ISBN 978-0-19-820815-0.
- Ridyard, Susan Janet (1988). The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England: a Study of West Saxon and East Anglian Cults. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-30772-7.
- Sims-Williams, Patrick (1990). Religion and Literature in Western England, 600-800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-38325-7.
- ISBN 978-0-631-22738-0.
- Williams, Ann; Smyth, Alfred P.; Kirby, D. P. (1991). A biographical dictionary of dark age Britain: England, Scotland, and Wales, c.500-c.1050. London: B A Seaby Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85264-047-7.
- ISBN 978-0-8264-6040-0.
External links
- Seaxburg 1 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England
- Abbey Church of The Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Sexburgha
- Alaric Hall's page, A Life of Saint Mildrith, which contains the Old English version of the Mildrith legend known as Þá hálgan, or the Kentish Royal Legend.
- A page on the Mediaeval Wall Painting in the English Parish Church website depicts two 13th century paintings at Willingham, Cambridgeshire, of Æthelthryth and an unknown saint, conjectured to be an image of Seaxburh.