Wereburga

CONCERNING ST. WEREBURGA, VIRGIN, DAUGHTER OF THE KING OF THE MERCIANS IN ENGLAND,

IN THE EIGHTH CENTURY OF CHRIST.

Preliminary Commentary.

Wereburga, Virgin in England (Saint)

By the author G. H.

Section I. The royal lineage of St. Wereburga. Her Life written. The time of her monastic governance.

[1] St. Wereburga was born of Wulfhere, most Christian King of the Mercians, the Middle Angles, the parents of St. Wereburga: Wulfhere the King and St. Ermenilda, and the Southern kingdoms, and of his most pious wife St. Ermenilda the Queen, whose feast day is the 13th of February, on which day we shall join with the Acts of the same Ermenilda the illustrious deeds performed by her husband Wulfhere, and together with these the situation and conditions of the kingdom of the Mercians, founded in his great-grandfather Crida, or Creadda, and of the other regions annexed thereafter, as well as the various Kings succeeding from the same family of Crida and Wulfhere: and we shall inquire how St. Wereburga is held by some to be the only offspring of St. Ermenilda, whether Ceonred the King was her brother, and yet by some Ceonred, or Coenred, the King (between whom and Wulfhere reigned St. Ethelred, Wulfhere's brother) is said to have been a son of the said Wulfhere. But we shall especially there expunge the fabulous charge of murder, by which men, even those otherwise learned in Anglo-Saxon historical antiquity, believe that Wulfhere, not Saints Wulfhad and Ruffinus, Martyrs: either a most bitter enemy of Christians from the very beginning of his reign, or most foully having relapsed from the faith and baptism previously received into idolatry, an apostate, killed his own sons with his own hand out of hatred for the Christian religion: and we shall show that Saints Wulfhad and Ruffinus, who are venerated as Martyrs for having been slain for the faith of Christ, were not brothers of St. Wereburga, born of the said Wulfhere and St. Ermenilda. The remaining maternal lineage of St. Wereburga from the Kings of Kent, and the royal family joined to them by legitimate marriages, both of the East Angles and of the Franks across the sea, we explain below in the Acts themselves. In the same Acts are recounted Weduna, the birthplace of St. Wereburga, places inhabited by her, made illustrious by her miracles: the monastery of Ely, where she first embraced the monastic life: Tricingham, commonly called Trentham, another monastery made famous by her death; and a third at Hamburg, where her body was interred, and by divine power remained for a long time incorrupt.

[2] We present the Acts of St. Wereburga from a most ancient manuscript codex sent from England by William Camden to Rosweyde. The name of the author is not appended: the Life was written by Goscelin he is, in our judgment, that Goscelin, or Gotzelin, who, as the Malmesbury author testifies in book 4, chapter 1, of the Deeds of the Kings of the English, composed innumerable Lives of Saints in his style, or more elegantly corrected those that had been shapelessy published -- second after Bede in recounting the praises of the Saints of England. He flourished around the year of Christ 1100, summoned to England from Belgium by St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, and others, on account of his singular learning and piety, where previously as a monk of St. Bertin at Saint-Omer he had illuminated various Lives of the Saints, and among them had also corrected in a more polished style the Life of St. Amelberga the Virgin, which we have in manuscript, intending to publish it on July 10, her feast day. Moreover, while he here in chapter 6 acknowledges this Life as reworked in his own style, he also reveals himself to be its author. Both Lives, furthermore, are divided in the same manner into their own chapters with their own titles. Moreover, what Molanus observes from the Catalogue of the Writers of Britain in his notes on Usuard for July 8, and Valerius Andreas following him in the Bibliotheca Belgica, that the Life of St. Witeburga the Virgin was written by Goscelin, perhaps cited by others under the name of St. Witeburga, we rather suspect to be that of St. Wereburga the Virgin, whose great-aunt she was, or the sister of her grandmother St. Sexburga: who, as we shall say below, is confused with St. Wereburga on account of the similarity of their names: although, since Goscelin wrote the Lives of very many Saints, he could have composed the Acts of both St. Witeburga and St. Wereburga, since he was living at Ramsey not far from the monastery of Ely, where both St. Wereburga had dwelt, and the body of St. Witeburga then rested, having been translated thither from Dereham in the county of Norfolk, where she had led a holy monastic life in a monastery she had built; and placed alongside the sacred relics of the two sisters St. Etheldreda and Sexburga, and of the latter's daughter St. Ermenilda. Finally, just as St. Anselm persuaded Earl Hugh, of whom more below, to give the church and monastery of Chester to monks of St. Wereburga, so he could easily have induced Goscelin to write this Life of St. Wereburga. An abridgment of this Life is found in John Capgrave's Legend of the Saints of England and in a manuscript codex of the monastery of Rouge-Cloitre near Brussels, an epitome of the same, retaining the very words of Goscelin, so that from this alone one may gather that other abridgments of the same Capgrave were often taken from the same Goscelin: which we note regarding the Life of St. Ermenilda his mother, and of St. Laurence, Archbishop of Canterbury, on February 2, where we give more on Goscelin.

[3] Partly from the same Life, partly from elsewhere, the following is read in the manuscript history of Ely: "Wereburga, daughter of St. Ermenilda, an encomium from the manuscript history of Ely, after the death of her father, entered the monastery of St. Etheldreda at Ely, as is read in her Life, before her mother entered the same monastery: whose sanctity when King Ethelred her paternal uncle had learned, he took her from there and committed to her the governance of the monasteries and nuns in his kingdom. The bride of the Lord, Wereburga, therefore, when she presided over certain churches, whether she was Abbess of Ely after the death of her beloved mother, by right of her superiority also assumed the monastery of Ely. When therefore, burning with exceeding charity, she wished to be present to all the households and monasteries entrusted to her, and conversely it seemed intolerable to any of them to be deprived of her sweet presence, she chose with divine foreknowledge to rest in body at the monastery of Hanbury. Wherefore she commanded the household of Hanbury that wherever she should depart from this life, they should come without delay and carry her body to their monastery... It is read in an English source that Sexburga, in the church of Sheppey, which she built, and of Sheppey, received the veil of sanctity from Archbishop Theodore, and that her daughter Ermenilda, having spurned the height of royal power, afterward took upon herself the rule of religious life there under her; and when she had prepared to journey to Ely, she appointed her daughter Wereburga as Abbess in her place in the monastery, as she had long desired." Sheppey is moreover an island of East Kent, in which, on account of the monastery of nuns then built there, the village is still called Minster.

[4] Concerning the time at which she was either placed over the remaining monasteries, or departed from this mortal life to the reward of her labors, nothing has been handed down anywhere. St. Etheldreda began to build the monastery of Ely in the year 673. King Wulfhere ended his life and reign in the year 675: after whose death, under St. Etheldreda, who died in the year 679, she became a nun after the year 675, she assumed the habit of sacred religion among the community at Ely, to whom St. Sexburga was then given as second Abbess: who, according to the Malmesbury author in book 4 on the Bishops of the English, is said to have grown old under the rule and title of Abbess. But she was then quite elderly, since her granddaughter through her daughter, St. Wereburga, had already long ago, while her father Wulfhere was still alive, rejected noble

suitors who solicited her to marriage. Hence Edward Maihew in his Chronological Index to the Trophies of the English Benedictine Order has this under the year 680: "At the same time St. Sexburga, Queen and Abbess, flourished. Likewise St. Ermenilda, her daughter, Queen, then Abbess": as if St. Sexburga did not long survive, and St. Ermenilda succeeded her as third Abbess at Ely: which is more approved by us than what we read in Wion's Notes on February 13, that St. Ermenilda was made Abbess in the year of Christ 703, when we believe that she had departed from this life by that date, or even earlier. Moreover, at the time when she migrated to Ely, when she was Abbess of Sheppey: she is said to have placed her daughter St. Wereburga in charge of the monastery of Sheppey in Kent, if the English monument cited by the Ely community is to be trusted. Thence she would have been summoned by her paternal uncle St. Ethelred the King, and placed in charge of the monasteries of nuns of his kingdom with the right of Abbess (as the Worcester author explains under the year 676): and of other monasteries. and at the same time, upon the death of her mother St. Ermenilda, she would have been made the fourth Abbess of Ely. That Weduna, and of Weduna, built by herself, the royal seat of her father Wulfhere, was converted into a monastery by the same St. Wereburga is reported, after Ranulph of Chester, by Camden in his treatment of the Coritani regarding the county of Northampton, by Harpsfield in century 7, chapter 23, and by Edward Maihew in his treatise on the Life of St. Wereburga. St. Ethelred, having left his kingdom, became a monk in the year of Christ 704, she survived after the year 704, at which time St. Wereburga was still alive: but to what old age she attained, or in what year she died, we nowhere read. Some write that her mother St. Ermenilda survived to the year 710, which we would prefer to say of her daughter: if indeed she did not survive even longer. How long.

Section II. The relics of St. Wereburga translated to Chester, and her public veneration.

[5] There were two cities called Urbs Legionum among the Britons, commonly Caerlegion one Urbs Legionum in South Wales, or Caerlion, named from the winter quarters or standing camps of the legions. One in Britannia II among the Silures, called Isca by the ancients, then Legio II, assigned by Ranulph of Chester in book 1 of the Polychronicon, chapter 48, to Demetia, or South Wales; and situated in that part of it which is encompassed by the county of Monmouth, on the river Usk. It formerly had an Archiepiscopal See under the first Christian Britons, afterward translated to Llandaff and then to Menevia, which we call the city of St. David. Gildas, the most ancient of British writers, reports in his book on the ruin of Britain that Saints Aaron and Julius, citizens of this City of the Legions, were crowned with the palm of martyrdom in the persecution of Diocletian. Celebrated for the veneration of Saints Aaron and Julius: That a church was erected there to each of them by the Britons is shown by Giraldus Cambrensis in book 1 of his Itinerary of Wales, chapter 5, and by Geoffrey of Monmouth in book 9 of his History of Britain, chapter 12, concerning whom we shall treat on the Kalends of July. The other City of the Legions, no less famous, endured: the other now Chester, called by the Britons Caer-Legion, Caer-Leon-Vawr, by the Saxons Lege-cester, commonly by the English Chester, and from its situation Westchester, in Latin Cestra and Cestria, and gave its name to the adjoining county: it is believed by the Romans to have been called Deva, Deunana, or Divana, cultivated by the Cornavii, and assigned to the province of Flavia Caesariensis: according to Ranulph, who elaborated his history here, it was held in the time of the Britons as the capital and metropolis of Venedotia and North Wales, afterward on the border of the English within sight of Wales: situated between two marine estuaries, or two rivers, the Dee and the Mersey. Formerly held by the Britons: It is believed that at the beginning of the seventh century it was still held by the Britons, and that its Bishop together with other Britons was present at the conference with St. Augustine, Archbishop of Canterbury, held in the borders of the Hwicce and the West Saxons, of which Bede treats in book 2, chapter 2; and concerning the British Bishops, Ussher discusses various matters in his work on the origins of the British Churches, chapter 5. Ranulph of Chester in book 5 of the Polychronicon, chapter 18, reports that St. Wereburga lay buried at Hanbury until the coming of the Danes. Then, with the Danes wintering at Repton, and Burgred the King of the Mercians having been put to flight (which we read happened in the year 875 in the Saxon Chronicle), the citizens of Hanbury, fearing for themselves, her bones were brought thither: with the bier containing the body of the Virgin, then dissolved into dust, fled to Legecester, which is now called Chester, as to a most secure place against the barbarian slaughter.

[6] Meanwhile Camden and Speed, where they treat of Chester, hold that it was miserably disfigured by the Danes, but splendidly restored by Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, sister of King Edward the Elder, who reigned over the English from the year 901 to 925, under whom Aethelflaed with her husband Ethelred ruled the Mercians until the year 912, and as a widow for seven years thereafter. Edward was succeeded by Athelstan, from whose time in the city of Chester, according to Ranulph, until the coming of the Normans, secular canons, with possessions bestowed upon them in turn, served in the praises of the Virgin; a monastery of St. Wereburga built, but according to the Malmesbury author in book 4 on the Bishops of the English, it was from of old a monastery of nuns, among whom he incorrectly adds that St. Wereburga, having professed celibacy, had shone forth with good virtues through a very long course of time. In the year of Christ 973, Chester saw King Edgar triumphing in magnificent pomp, when, with Kings Kenneth of the Scots, Malcolm of the Cumbrians, and Maccus of very many islands, and five sub-kings of Wales stationed at the oars, he himself, having seized the helm of the rudder, sailed from the palace to the monastery of St. John; and having offered a prayer, returned to the palace, as the Worcester author and others relate at greater length. Edgar was succeeded by his son St. Edward, afterward a Martyr, and after others the second St. Edward the Confessor; we shall treat of the former on March 18, and we celebrated the latter on January 5, where in chapter 7 of his Life, Earl Leofric saw Christ standing upon the altar, extending His right hand over the King and drawing the sign of the holy Cross in blessing upon him. This Earl Leofric, and his noble wife Countess Godiva, a worshipper of God and devout lover of St. Mary ever Virgin, built the monastery of Coventry from its foundations: and enriched with precious ornaments the monastery of Leominster also, and that of Winchcombe, enriched with ornaments by Earl Leofric, the monasteries of St. John the Baptist and of St. Wereburga the Virgin situated in Legecester, and the Church of St. Mary at Stow. They also enriched the monastery of Worcester with lands, and that of Evesham with buildings, various ornaments, and lands. Leofric died in a good old age on the second day before the Kalends of September in the year 1057, as the Worcester author, Hoveden, the Westminster author, the Chester author, and perhaps a church was added: and others record under that year. Camden adds that a church was erected at Chester in honor of St. Wereburga by Leofric. Under William the Conqueror, Bishop Peter transferred his See from Lichfield to Chester, as the Malmesbury author observes; then, as the Worcester author attests, it was moved to Coventry in the year 1102. Lichfield and Coventry are moreover cities of the county of Stafford: from all of which sees the later Bishops often take their title. This King William I created Hugh Lupus hereditary Palatine, Earl of Chester, to whom six Earls from his heirs succeeded in order. This is that Hugh through whom the Malmesbury author reports that the monastery of St. Wereburga at Chester was filled with monks in place of nuns, monks having been introduced by Earl Hugh: on the Bishops of the English, book 4; whom however the Chester author prefers to have succeeded secular canons, who, few in number, ejected, and subsisting on a foul and meager diet, as the Malmesbury author also writes in book 2 of the Deeds of the Kings of the English, chapter 13, so that these alone were present then, or were added to the nuns for the more fitting celebration of the divine office. Camden adds that the church of St. Wereburga was restored by Earl Hugh and granted to monks on the advice of St. Anselm, which all writers generally state was done in the year 1092 under King William Rufus, together with the Annals of Stow and the first edition of the English Martyrology. In its later edition the bones of St. Wereburga are then first reported to have been translated from the church of Hanbury to Chester with solemn pomp, and the church dedicated to her was built by Hugh, together with the monastery, now honored as a Cathedral See: after the sacred relics had rested among the people of Hanbury for about three hundred years, which the Chester author also had noted: although, with King Burgred of the Mercians having been put to flight, therefore in the year 884, as we have shown above, he describes her body as having been translated to Chester, so that by some error of copyists 300 years appear to have been inserted in place of 170; indeed, since that translation is said to have been made under William II, about eighty years beyond the assigned three hundred would have elapsed: and if we believe the same

Martyrology, in which she is reported to have died about the year 676, there will be more than four hundred years from her death.

[7] Near the end of the manuscript history of the monastery of Peterborough, it is observed that St. Wereburga rests at Legecester. Veneration from the sacred calendars: The same is recorded on this February 3, besides the English Martyrology, by the Carthusians of Cologne in the Supplement to Usuard in these words: "Likewise of Wereburga, Virgin." Ferrarius in the General Catalogue: "In England, of St. Wereburga, Virgin"; whom in the Notes he calls Wereburga. Menard in the Benedictine Martyrology: "In the monastery of Chester, of St. Wereburga, Virgin and Abbess, daughter of Wulfhere, King of the Mercians." Edward Maihew in the Trophies of the English Benedictines: "At Trincingham, commonly Trentham, in the county of Stafford, of St. Wereburga, Virgin and Abbess, most illustrious for the splendor of her lineage and the sanctity of her life." And he reviews her deeds from various sources. A compendium of the same Life is given on this day by Jerome Porter in the Flowers of the Saints of England, in which she is also said to have died around the year of our Lord 676, when she perhaps began her monastic life, her father Wulfhere having died the preceding year. Arnold Wion confuses her with St. Witeburga, her great-aunt, and celebrates her on July 8. "In England," he says, "of St. Witeburga, Virgin, daughter of Wulfhere, King of the Mercians, and a nun of Ely, renowned for sanctity and miracles"; and he adds in the Notes that she is called by others Wereburga and Vereburga, St. Wereburga confused with St. Witeburga, and that she was offered to God by her mother Ermenilda the Queen in the monastery of Ely around the year of the Lord 670. A manuscript Florarium on February 19 has this: "In England, of St. Wicburga, Virgin": so that it may be doubted whether the author treats of St. Witburga or indeed of Werburga. Whether St. Wereburga, confused with St. Walburga, Virgin and Abbess, by some gave occasion for the latter to be believed the daughter of a King, and St. Walburga, and for her father St. Richard to be held a King of England, we shall inquire on February 7 in the Life of St. Richard, and on February 25, the feast day of St. Walburga.

[8] Finally, Florence of Worcester under the year 675, and the Westminster author under 676, treat of St. Wereburga, by whom she is called a Virgin of great virtues, who, with God cooperating, wrought many miracles, the praises of others, having been placed over certain monasteries of Virgins devoted to God, living with them according to rule, and piously providing for them in all things, and at the end of her life having served Christ the King; and thus departing from this world, entering into the embrace and nuptials of her heavenly Spouse. In the Malmesbury author, book 2 of the Deeds of the Kings of the English, chapter 13, the merits of St. Ermenilda at Ely, and especially of her daughter Wereburga at the City of the Legions, are praised, and her miracles extolled, and since they are unhesitatingly favorable to all petitions, they especially attend the prayers of women and children with a near and immediate step of assistance. Patronage of women and children. Nearly the same things are read in Vincent of Beauvais, book 25 of the Mirror of History, chapter 32, and in Peter de Natalibus in the Catalogue, book 11, chapter 67. Illustrious heralds of those virtues are also Polydore Vergil, book 4 of the English History, Harpsfield in century 7, chapter 23, Andrew du Chesne, book 6 of the English History, and many others passim.

[9] The following Life was divided in the manuscript codex into these chapters, which it suffices to have placed here, the division of the Life into chapters in the manuscript codex, with a new division made in our manner.

Chapter I. The Genealogy of St. Wereburga. II. Her manner of life in the monastery of Ely. III. The manner of life of her mother in the same monastery. IV. Wereburga is placed over monasteries of nuns by her paternal uncle King Ethelred. The same King, by the example of her sanctity, becomes a most blessed monk. V. Wereburga, as a devoted mother, becomes the servant of all rather than their superior. VI. She captures and releases flocks of birds by her command. VII. Her humility. She rebukes a butcher whose neck is twisted back, and reforms the supplicant. VIII. Her passing on the third day before the Nones of February. IX. The people of Trentham, guarding her body, fall asleep: and the people of Hanbury carry it away, the doors having been divinely opened. X. After nine years, being raised up, she was found in her whole body and garments as if living, most flourishing.

LIFE

By the author Goscelin the monk From the manuscript of William Camden.

Wereburga, Virgin in England (Saint)

BHL Number: 8855

By the author Goscelin, from the manuscript.

CHAPTER I

The illustrious lineage of St. Wereburga from four royal families.

[1] A daughter of Kings and most fitting bride of Christ, the Virgin Wereburga rests in the city of Chester, glorious with signs of her merits. She is renowned throughout all England both for her pure sanctity and royal dignity, St. Wereburga, born of a fourfold royal stock: and for the attestation of her virtues, and for the fame of the English histories. She shines forth sublimely from the earliest Kings of the English; indeed from the most powerful King a Ethelbert of Canterbury, that is, of Kent, who was the first of the Kings of the English to deserve to be consecrated to Christ through his first teacher b Augustine, she draws her lofty and holy lineage from four kingdoms: from Ethelbert of Kent, her great-great-grandfather, which it seems pleasant to set forth here in the following order: so that this gem of God may be more dearly esteemed, and as from preceding stars this morning star may be more clearly observed. Ethelbert therefore from c Bertha the Queen, daughter of the King of the Franks, begot d Eadbald together with his daughter Ethelburga, whom he left as the excellent heir of both his piety and his kingdom. e Ethelburga the Queen moreover, after the slaying of her own husband f Edwin, King of the Northumbrians, returned to her brother Eadbald and built a monastery in the village of g Lyminge, from Eadbald, her great-grandfather, in which she rests together with h St. Eadburga. Eadbald also from the daughter of another i King of the Franks, Emma, propagated k Eormenred and l Ercombert, princes, and the holy Virgin m Anfwyra, who is venerated as buried at n Folkestone. Moreover from Eormenred and his illustrious wife Oslava were born o Ethelred and from the Franks through their wives: and Ethelbriht, whom, innocently slaughtered, a splendid p column of light from heaven revealed as Martyrs of Christ: and four holy daughters, q Domneua, Ermenberga, Ermenburga, and Ermengida, flashed forth like the fourfold rivers of the paradisiacal spring. To his brother Ercombert the King, r Sexburga, daughter of King Anna, sister of the perpetual Virgin t Etheldreda, was royally joined in marriage [from Ercombert, her grandfather, and St. Sexburga, daughter of the King of the East Angles:] and bore u Egbert and x Lothar, Kings, and the heaven-worthy queens y Ermenilda and z Eorcongota. Ermenilda, given to Wulfhere, King of the Mercians, son of King Penda, begot the most splendid Wereburga, for whom this record of her parentage is set in bloom.

[2] Her most blessed great-aunt, the Virgin Eorcongota, having gone abroad out of love for the sacred religious life, rests across the sea, from St. Ermenilda her mother and Wulfhere, King of the Mercians: where she showed by many miracles that she had been received by the Lord as His pilgrim. But the blessed and royal cc Domneua, wedded to the royal Merewale, brother of Wulfhere, brought forth to the grace of the most high Trinity a threefold garland of Virginity, namely the most holy sisters dd Milburga, Mildreda, and Mildgytha, other saintly kinswomen, who illuminate their country, shining like the stones of their several monasteries. There was also born to her a son Merewin, who was snatched away as a small child from baptism to join the Holy Innocents. The nobility and sanctity of the grace-bestowing Wereburga are most nearly adorned by her most holy paternal aunts, daughters of King Penda, ee Cyneburga and Cynewitha, who together with their most blessed kinswoman Tibba ff illuminate the church of the heavenly gatekeeper Peter at Peterborough. Her own aforementioned father and his brothers the Kings, that is, Peada, gg Ethelred, her uncles, Kings:

and the aforesaid Merewale, brothers of the aforesaid sisters, were not only worshippers of the Christian faith but also its first and most intense propagators: and just as Ethelbert in Kent, so Wulfhere in Mercia first spread Christianity. And so, as we have set forth above, from four kingdoms and ancient Kings the rose of Christ, Wereburga, blossoms forth. From Ethelbert of Kent, the prince of the received faith; from Bertha or Emma of the Franks; from King Anna and her grandmother Sexburga of the East Angles; and from her father she was made the most illustrious of the Mercians. These things are set as a preface to the glory of the Virgin we are about to praise, so that from a holy root a holy branch may be fitting in holiness; indeed, from the royal eminence she despised, a greater renown may be ascribed. It now remains for us to unfold her holy manner of life and her praiseworthy end in the Lord.

a St. Ethelbert. St. Ethelbert the King, her great-great-grandfather, died in the year 616 and is venerated on February 24, on which day we shall treat of his ancestors.

b St. Augustine is venerated on May 26; his companion and successor in the Archbishopric, St. Laurence, on February 2.

c Bertha, Called Adilberga by St. Gregory, daughter of Charibert, King of the Parisians, who, as great-great-grandfather of St. Wereburga, died in the year 570; Clothar I, her great-great-great-grandfather, in 562; and Clovis I, father of the great-great-great-grandfather, in 509.

d Eadbald, her great-grandfather, reigned from the year 616 to 640, who, as Bede testifies in book 2, chapter 6, having anathematized all worship of idolatry, into which he had relapsed after the death of his father, Eadbald, and having renounced the unlawful marriage which he had contracted with his stepmother, received the faith of Christ, and being baptized, took care to consult and favor the affairs of the Church in all things as much as he could. Bede treats of his death in book 3, chapter 8.

e St. Ethelburga. St. Ethelburga is venerated on September 8. In Bede, book 2, chapter 9, she is called Edelburga, by another name Tate; by her marriage she was the occasion of the Northumbrian people receiving the faith. The letter which Pope Boniface V sent to her is given by Bede in chapter 11.

f St. Edwin, the first Christian King of the Northumbrians, reigned for 17 years, St. Edwin, killed on October 12, 633. Bede treats of him from chapter 9, with a few chapters interspersed, to chapter 20.

g King Eadbald gave his sister Ethelburga the estate of Lyminge, in which she herself built a monastery, and having been consecrated with the veil by the Blessed Honorius, Archbishop of Canterbury, the monastery of Lyminge, she was the mother of very many Virgins and widows. Thus Capgrave in the Life of St. Honorius. Lyminge is, according to Camden, in the district or lathe of Shepway, near the town of Elham, not far from the sea and the port of Dover.

h Eadburga, or Edburga, is called by Capgrave in her own Life a daughter of St. Ethelbert, so that it should be read here "she rests with her sister Eadburga." St. Edburga. Which is more consistent with this author. But this Edburga is confused by Capgrave with another, younger one, who lived on the island of Thanet as Abbess of the monastery of St. Mildred, whose body she translated into a new church dedicated by Archbishop Cuthbert, who, according to the Worcester author after the Saxon Chronicle, succeeded Nothhelm, who died on the 16th day before the Kalends of November in the year 741.

i Who this King was, we have read nowhere. At the time of Emma's marriage, Clothar II reigned as monarch of the Franks, whose daughter, or sister, or kinswoman she may have been, descended from the Kings of Austrasia or Burgundy.

k Called by others Ercomred and Ermenred; in the manuscript History of Peterborough he is called a Saint.

l Ercombert, grandfather of St. Wereburga, reigned from the year 640 to 664. Ercombert. He, as Bede testifies in book 3, chapter 8, commanded that idols be destroyed throughout his whole kingdom, and that the Lenten fast be observed.

m St. Eanswitha, or Enswitha, is venerated on September 12.

n "Folkestone," says Camden in his section on Kent, "was celebrated among the Anglo-Saxons for religion, the monastery of Folkestone, on account of the monastery which Eanswitha, daughter of Eadbald, King of Kent, consecrated to Virgins; it is now a small village, and the Ocean, to which it is adjacent near Dover toward the West, has eroded the greater part of it."

o These brothers Ethelred and Ethelbriht are venerated on October 17, on which day they were translated to the monastery of Ramsey under King Ethelred. Saints Ethelred and Ethelbriht, Martyrs.

p "A ray of extensive and immense light, like a blazing torch, seemed to the King to extend from the top of the royal hall, where they had been buried that very night, all the way to heaven." Manuscript Life.

q In the same Life they are called Dompnena, Ermenburga, Etheldritha, and Ermengitha. Of these, Ermenburga is venerated on November 19.

r Anna, another great-grandfather, King of the East Angles, was killed in the year 654. Among his predecessors as Kings was St. Sigebert the Martyr, his cousin, King Anna, whose feast day is September 17. Anna himself, according to Bede, book 4, chapter 29, was "a man of great religion, and in all things outstanding in mind and deed." In the manuscript Ely history he is also called a Saint.

s St. Sexburga, the maternal grandmother, is venerated on July 6: her sisters too, St. Withburga and Ethelburga, on July 8 and 7.

t St. Ethildritha, Etheldreda, or Etheldrudis, married first to Tondbert a Prince, then to Egfrid, afterward King of the Northumbrians, for 12 years, preserved her virginity: Bede treats of her in book 4, chapters 19 and 20. She is venerated on June 23. Egfrid began to reign in the year 670.

u Egbert, her maternal uncle, reigned in Kent from the year 664 to 673.

x Lothar, another uncle, reigned after his brother to the year 685.

y St. Ermenilda, her mother, is venerated on February 13.

z St. Etheldreda, St. Eorcongota Earcongota, or Erkengotha, lived under her maternal aunt St. Ethelburga the Abbess in the monastery of St. Fara in the diocese of Meaux, not far from the city of Paris. Both are venerated on July 7: Bede treats of them in book 3, chapter 8.

aa Wulfhere, her father, reigned from the year 657.

bb Penda, her paternal grandfather, reigned from the year 626 to 655, whom his other son Peada then succeeded, and after him Wulfhere succeeded.

cc The Life of St. Milburga in Capgrave and the manuscript Life of the brothers Saints Ethelred and Ethelbriht agree. On the other hand, the Malmesbury author in book 1 of the Kings of England, chapter 4, the Worcester author under the year 675, and the Westminster author under the year 676, write that St. Ermenburga was married to Merewale, or Merewald. Wife of Merewald.

dd St. Milburga is venerated on February 23, St. Mildreda or Milthrida on July 13: saintly daughters we treated of St. Mildwitha on January 17, where many things were said about the boy Merewin; we shall treat of the kingdom of Merewald on February 23.

ee Saints Cyneburga and Cynewitha, by others called Chineburga and Chineswitha, are venerated on March 6: Saints Cyneburga and Cynewitha. in the Life of St. Tibba she is joined to them and is said to have died on December 13.

ff The bodies of these women are said to have been translated in the year 1005 to the monastery of Peterborough, commonly called Peterborough, built by Wulfhere and by his brothers and these sisters. We treat of this in the Life of St. Ermenilda.

gg St. Ethelred is venerated on May 4. In the Appendix of the Worcester author another brother Mercelm is added, where also Merewald, here called Merwale, is held to be a Saint.

CHAPTER II

The manner of life of St. Wereburga in the monastery of Ely: her governance of various monasteries.

[3] From the tender flower of her youth, therefore, when the beauty of her form signally answered to her nobility, the maiden, fair of face with a most fair mind, began to strive toward Him who is beautiful in form above the sons of men: out of love for Christ whose inestimable sweetness as soon as she was able to taste, she immediately burned in love for Him with panting breast, and, as the hart for the springs of water, her virginal soul thirsted for Him: so greatly did the sweet and gentle Spirit of the Lord, proceeding from the Father of love, draw her to Himself, kindling heavenly desires in her heart and extinguishing earthly ones. She, out of love for perpetual virginity, flew to the Spouse of eternal purity, repelling with angelic modesty her suitors and royal admirers, she rejects her suitors, indeed Christ, dwelling in His chosen one, snatched her from all who sought her. Her most holy mother did not cease with constant admonitions to water the garden of the Lord, and to plant in her the unfading shoots of paradise, and to light her lamp with the oil and unquenchable flame of charity. For she was training her most ardent offspring to that life for which she herself, still under the yoke of marriage, sighed with unutterable groans. But the most high providence of God, benignly ordering all things, she spurns the splendor of the royal court: established her mother in the kingdom as the refuge of all the destitute, of all those in need, and at the same time, that with her loving heart she might bring forth a child most acceptable to God, and at last receive a greater crown for her long-deferred desires. Riches had become worthless both to the mother and to the daughter: they regarded the palace as a monastery: gold, gems, garments woven with gold, and whatever the ostentatious vanity of the world affords were more burdensome to them than glorious; and if perchance royal dignity compelled them to use these things for a time, they grieved that they were rather subjected to vanity as captives.

[4] But the virginal liberty of the Blessed Wereburga, as soon as she was able, cast off these bonds, and with the dutiful support of her exalted parents, a victim of God, she migrated to the b monastery of Ely: she enters the monastery of Ely, where first her blessed and immaculate great-aunt c Etheldreda, and then the sister of the same Virgin, her own grandmother, as was said above, Sexburga, held authority. Immediately the adornment of earthly splendor was cast off, the habit of sacred religion was put on, a dark garment was assumed in place of the ornament of glory, a humble

veil for the head in place of the diadem of a kingdom. Thus the illustrious Virgin strove to trample down the pride of the world; in mind and manner of life, as a pilgrim here below, to press toward her heavenly fatherland; with every submission of soul to present herself as the most humble handmaid of Christ, whom He Himself might deign to exalt as His bride. She anticipated all the duties of the monastery: she showed herself inferior to all: she devotes herself to humility: she expended the depths of her wounded charity upon the needs of all.

[5] Chapter 3. Already her father Wulfhere, beloved of God, a builder of many churches, a supreme lover and propagator of the Christian faith -- who indeed even attracted subject Kings to the worship of Christ, d giving them provinces as reward -- in the seventeenth year of his reign e passed from his temporal kingdom to the eternal one. Her mother Ermenilda, now a widow, enters the same monastery, Then the most blessed Queen Ermenilda, after pious tears, triumphing that she was freed from the worldly chain, seized upon the long-desired manner of religious life, and together with her blessed daughter took upon herself the sweet yoke of the Lord in the monastery of Ely. Here thenceforth she lived with such burning fervor of virtues in all holiness and religion, indefatigable, that she was an example of chastity and every virtue even to the Virgins. She vies with her daughter in the progress of virtues, Mother and daughter contended with each other in piety -- which could be more humble, which more submissive: the mother preferred to herself the virginity of her whom she had borne; the Virgin preferred her mother's authority: on both sides they rejoiced both to conquer and to be conquered. Now moreover, in the same monastery, at the health-giving tomb of that most benevolent parent, it shines forth conspicuously with what depths of mercy she poured herself out upon all, she is renowned for miracles, while she lived in the body; so much so that those who have experienced her benefits dare faithfully to assert that no believing petitioner is frustrated of her aid.

[6] Chapter 4. Therefore the paternal uncle of the gracious Wereburga, King Ethelred, who had succeeded his brother Wulfhere, being with holy mind most benevolent toward all sanctity, St. Wereburga is placed over the monasteries of the Mercians, seeing that in his blessed niece divine prudence and holiness shone forth more sublimely -- he who indeed was able to love virtue beyond kinship -- committed to her the governance of the monasteries of holy women which flourished in his kingdom. Fittingly indeed was this done by heavenly providence, that she who was a perfect disciple of sacred training might be a most fitting teacher of it for the salvation of many.

[7] The King moreover began more and more to grow weary of his rule, while he considered himself amid secular affairs as a creature bent toward the earth, by St. Ethelred the King, afterward a monk, but her to be flying on the dove-like wings of her merits toward heaven. And what more? The fervor of his spirit did not rest until f in the twenty-ninth year of his reign, in the g monastery of Bardney, from being a King he was made a monk, who is now already proved by heavenly favor to be venerable for his merits.

[8] Chapter 5. But Wereburga, most beloved of God, was so much a teacher toward her subjects that she seemed rather their servant: she made herself equal to, or rather placed herself below, the lowest; gentle toward her subjects, preferring, if it were permitted, the place of the least rather than of the greatest. She bore all as if they were her own heart, she cherished them as if they were children of her own womb, she instructed them more attentively by example than by command. Love had possessed her entirely, and kindness, peace, and cheerfulness. Her generosity to the needy was most prompt: exercised in every virtue, her pity toward the afflicted was most compassionate: patience laughed at adversity, confidence overcame it, heavenly joy trampled it underfoot: for the use of divine wisdom she accepted prosperity; she regarded abstinence as her delicacy, vigils instead of h sleep, labors instead of pleasure, sacred readings and prayers instead of feasts: in body she was on earth, but in spirit she dwelt in heaven.

a Capgrave and the Rouge-Cloitre manuscript read "conscendere."

b Ely, according to Bede, book 4, chapter 19: called by others Elia and Eli, formerly a monastery, now a town on the island of the same name, named from the eels according to Bede, the monastery of Ely, on the river Granta in the county of Cambridge among the East Angles.

c She built that monastery in the year 673, and died in the year 679.

d We fully illustrate these matters on February 13.

e In the year 675.

f In the year 704: he had begun to reign from the death of Wulfhere in the year 675.

g Bardney, Beardena, Peartaneau, commonly Bardney, in the county of Lincoln, not far from the city on the left bank of the Witham.

h Bardney. The Camden manuscript reads "solenniis."

CHAPTER III

The obedience of the wild geese: the disobedience of a steward punished.

[9] Chapter 6. But perhaps we now weary the reader while we hold off the miracles. Greater than miracles are the merits by which the miracles themselves are wrought: She is eminent in merits and miracles. because perfect merits can exist without signs, but signs are nothing without merits. Yet this most worthy Virgin is proven to have shone forth with many wonders, both in the monastery of Ely and wherever she dwelt. At a Weduna moreover, her royal patrimony, which is in the province of Northampton, this joyful and most celebrated miracle of hers is attested from generation to generation by the entire people.

[10] While the royal Virgin was residing at the manor of Weduna itself, a boundless multitude of untamed b geese, which they call "gantas," was devastating her fields more than usual. A household peasant reported this damage to his Lady. Then she, with the faith of a great spirit, commanded him Wild geese to bring them all in and shut them up, after the manner of animals that graze on others' crops. "Go," she said, "and bring all these birds in here." obey her voice; the peasant, He went, greatly astonished, wondering whether this command was a joke or a folly. For how could

[13] Chapter 8. Moreover, there is no doubt that Wereburga, most beloved of God, shone forth with very many other signs and healed various sick and infirm persons by heavenly beneficence. She was also able to foreknow and foretell many things by divine inspiration, and the last day, which she always kept before her eyes and had watched from afar with total vigilance and a blazing lamp, she could not now fail to know was at hand. When therefore, out of exceeding charity, she constantly wished to be present to her entire household and the monasteries entrusted to her, and conversely it seemed intolerable to any of them to be deprived of her sweet presence, she nevertheless chose, by divine foreknowledge and will, to rest in body at the a monastery of Hanbury, she who would always be present to all in spirit. She designates her burial at the monastery of Hanbury. Wherefore she commanded b the household of Hanbury that wherever she should depart from this life, they should come c without delay and transport her body to their monastery.

[14] There came therefore to the heaven-dwelling Virgin the long-desired end of earthly labors and sorrows, and the entrance into heavenly and eternal joys: the night of immortality advanced, and the day of eternity dawned: the shadows passed away, and the true light shone, and the sun of perennial gladness rose for her. The blessed soul rejoiced as one invited to a banquet, about to pass, that is, from exile to her fatherland, from prison to a kingdom, from death to life, from captivity to triumph, from the tyranny of the world to Him whom she desired, she dies among the people of Trentham: the Spouse of everlasting glory. Laid down therefore in the monastery which is called d Trentham, through the languor and death of her body she was taken up to the immortal solemnities by the angelic choirs, and triumphed into the heavenly court with celestial harmonies. Her deposition is celebrated on the third day before the Nones of February.

[15] Chapter 9. The sacred body was carried into the church, and in the midst of the people of Trentham, the doors having been most carefully barred, it was guarded, while all struggled in vain to exclude the people of Hanbury, and by their zealous service or defense to overcome the command of the prophetic Virgin, While these guarded in vain, and to retain the sacred treasure in that same place forever. But there is no wisdom, there is no counsel against God. For while they were keeping watch most attentively during the night itself, suddenly a most heavy sleep seized them all. Immediately there arrived a copious crowd of people from Hanbury with the ministers of God; at once all the doors of the monastery the people of Hanbury carry off the body: were opened to them, the bolts and bars falling to the ground. They burst in therefore while the entire company of guards was buried in sleep, they seized the e remains of the Virgin with none of the opposing party stirring, and carried them away, and with immense joy and resounding thanksgiving they brought them to the monastery of Hanbury, the rebels being confounded.

[16] Who therefore could adequately consider with what solemnity her soul was received by God, whose body He granted to be transferred to its preordained place of rest by so great a prodigy? She shines with miracles. In this sacred place, therefore, the pearl of God, entombed with due reverence and solemn jubilation, proves by very many signs and evidences that she lives in the heavenly palace: health is restored to the sick, sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the mute: lepers rejoice in cleansing, and those oppressed by various infirmities rejoice in the one health received. So many, then, she restores to life after her death, she who lived so holy a life.

[17] After this, the indescribable grace of the Lord also deigned to show evidently in the virginal flesh itself, long remaining incorrupt, Chapter 10. how pleasing to Him was her inviolate purity together with the mind, most pure, by which she beheld God. For after nine years of her burial, at the suggestion of the people of Hanbury, it pleased King f Ceolred, who then reigned in Mercia, that her most sacred remains should be elevated from the tomb, all crying out that it was unworthy for so great a light to be hidden under a bushel of earth. When therefore the cover of the sepulchre was removed, and it was supposed by all that, according to the manner of the human condition, all the flesh had decayed and only bare bones remained, the Virgin was rather found most perfectly intact, as if sleeping in a sweet bed; her garments most shining and whole, the body with its garments found incorrupt, just as she had been originally clothed, appeared entirely so; her face white and her cheeks rosy, as in their first bloom, were seen when the veil was reverently removed. A shout of thanksgiving rose to heaven, she is elevated: and amazement at so great a grace kindled the assembled people to praises of the Lord. She was therefore taken up by the priests, solemnly adorned, with suppliant vows and the melodious strains of the chanting Church. To those who examined her further with diligent care, no injury at all, no corruption, was found in her. Thus finally she was placed in a chest fittingly prepared for her, where with her illustrious lamp she conspicuously illuminates the faithful peoples.

[18] This honor of the unharmed body endured for a long time under angelic guardianship, namely until the times of the g Pagans and the day of evils, when by the most just dispensation of God this homeland of the English was delivered to the swords of the Gentiles. Then at last the vital remains chose to yield to the mortal law and dissolve, the body is consumed, lest the impious hands of enemies should touch them -- enemies incredulous of God's miracles and ungrateful for His benefits. h The omnipotence of God could indeed have protected

His beloved even in the day of evils, just as He preserved very many Saints of this homeland from unjust contamination, who even now, after more than four hundred years, still bloom with a whole and incorrupt body, and will without doubt be able to endure by the divine will until the end. But truly God, wonderful and glorious in His Saints, by a wonderful and inestimable providence dissolves some for a time unto a greater glory of the resurrection, and preserves others in perpetual incorruption as an example of His promise. So many most noble Martyrs and supreme Priests of the Lord have been consumed by beasts, or birds, or fires. Ps. 78:2 "They have given," says the Psalmist, "the dead bodies of Your servants, O Lord, as food for the birds of the air, the flesh of Your saints for the beasts of the earth." The greater the ignominy, the greater will be the glory. Stephen, the chief leader of the Martyrs, while he is read to have worked many signs in his life, is not read there to have raised the dead. But after the triumph of his death and the dissolution of all his members, he is described as having restored many dead to life, so that from the injury of death a greater power of life might be born. The regard of God's great grace was therefore upon the solid body of Blessed Wereburga, but a greater hope of eternal renewal remains in the body now consumed.

[19] Let us therefore celebrate with most ready devotion her most sacred feast, because all her celebration pertains to the honor of Christ the Lord, who made her so worthy of celebration by her fitting merits: whom He assuredly provided for us as an Intercessor before Himself; St. Wereburga is to be invoked. so that through the veneration of His beloved, we may deserve His propitiation, we who do not have the merit of our own works. For the more kindly will He hear her praying for us, the more ardent we have been in offering her praises to God. May the Crowner of Wereburga, ever to be remembered, grant us that through her holy intercession we may both attain here desires profitable to us, and in eternity may deserve the fellowship of His blessed vision and resurrection. May He grant it, I say, the Savior Himself, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit reigns and holds dominion through all ages. Amen.

a Commonly Hanbury in southern Staffordshire.

b Capgrave and the Rouge-Cloitre manuscript read "to all her people."

c Ibid: "that they should transfer her body to the monastery of Hanbury and bury it without delay."

d Tricingham, by others Trentham, commonly Trentham in the county of Stafford, not far from the source of the Trent, after the river Lyme has flowed into it. Trentham.

e Others read "body."

f Ceolred, son of St. Ethelred, became King when Coenred was tonsured a monk at Rome in 709, and died in 716, buried at Lichfield. King Ceolred.

g Others read "of the Danes." These began to devastate England from the year 832. They put Beorhtwulf, King of the Mercians, to flight with his army in the year 851. The Mercians under King Burgred made a treaty with the Danes, who refused to leave, in the years 868 and 872: and when King Burgred departed for Rome in the year 874, a certain Thegn administered the kingdom, Mercia subjugated by the Danes, part of which in the year 877 was conceded to King Ceolwulf: under whom the kingdom of the Mercians utterly withered. Then as the English heptarchy coalesced into a monarchy, King Edward at the beginning of the tenth century liberated the Mercians, having appointed Ethelred, husband of Aethelflaed, as Earl of the Mercians, and liberated. under whom we said above that Chester was restored. Finally in the year 942 King Edmund invaded Mercia, seized the cities of Lincoln, Nottingham, Stamford, Derby, and others, and reduced all Mercia into his power, as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicler, who wrote in that tenth century, reports in nearly these words. The Danes returned to England in the year 991 and laid waste the provinces of Mercia, most powerfully from the year 1010 to 1016, when Cnut, King of the Danes, received the northern part of England, obtaining the rule of all England the following year.

h Capgrave with the Rouge-Cloitre manuscript concludes the Life here thus: "And then her bones were translated to Chester, where they rest to this day, and by her merits frequent miracles are wrought."