Elfleda

ON ST. ELFLEDA, VIRGIN, ABBESS OF STRENSALL IN ENGLAND

In the year of Christ 706.

Historical Commentary.

Elfleda, Virgin, Abbess of Strensall in England (St.)

By the author I. B.

Section I. The parents and ancestors of St. Elfleda the Virgin.

[1] The region in England that extends from the Humber estuary and the mouth of the river Ure all the way to the wall of Severus was once a great kingdom called Northumbria, because it lay to the north of the Humber. The name now extends less widely, being proper to a single province stretching from the diocese of Durham to the borders of the Scots. This kingdom is said to have been founded around the year of Christ 547, with Ida, a man of the most noble lineage, arrogating to himself the royal title. He was succeeded by Alla, from whose province of the kingdom, called Deira, under Pope Benedict, English boys were brought to Rome and put up for sale, giving St. Gregory the occasion to prophesy that the English (Angli), having angelic faces, would in heaven be fellow citizens of the Angels (Angeli) and would be rescued from wrath (de ira), and that in the kingdom of Alla, Alleluia would be sung.

[2] Alla was succeeded by Ethelric, son of Ida, and he by Ethelfrid, renowned for his knowledge of the art of war; whom nevertheless Edwin, or Eadwin, son of Alla, with the aid of Redwald, King of the East Angles, overthrew and deprived of both kingdom and life, while his young sons, by the diligence of their guardians, escaped by flight to the Scots, where they were also imbued with the Christian mysteries. Edwin too learned these things, at the exhortation of his wife, St. Ethelburga, and through the instruction of Bishop St. Paulinus. But at last, when he was at the height of his power, with Caedwalla, or Cadwallon, King of the Britons, and Penda of Mercia rebelling against him, he was slain together with his son Osfrid. The kingdom was then divided between the son of his brother, Osric, and Eanfrid, son of Ethelfrid, so that the Bernicians obeyed the latter and the Deirans the former. But when both had abjured the faith of Christ, Caedwalla killed them both "with impious hand but just vengeance," as Bede says in book 3, chapter 1. Soon Oswald, brother of Eanfrid, having driven out the Briton with a small force, obtained the undivided kingdom and labored to unite the entire nation to Christ. At last he too was killed by Penda, the most cruel King of the Mercians.

[3] After the death of St. Oswald, the kingdom was again divided, with Oswin, son of Osric, ruling the Deirans, and Oswy, brother of Oswald and son of Ethelfrid, ruling the Bernicians. But since almost all power is impatient of a partner, rivalries first began to grow between them, chiefly from the ambition of Oswy; then preparations for war were made and levies held. Oswin, seeing himself outmatched, voluntarily dismissed his army and took refuge with Count Hunwald, whom he considered his most intimate friend; but he was treacherously betrayed by Hunwald to Oswy, and was killed by the latter with savage cruelty. "Thus Oswy," says William of Malmesbury in book 1 of the Deeds of the Kings of England, chapter 3, "in possession of the entire kingdom, afterward attempted everything to purge his reputation and increase his majesty, diminishing the offense of his atrocious deed by the probity of his subsequent conduct. And the first and most ample crowning glory of his praises was that, nobly avenging his brother and uncle, he destroyed Penda, King of the Mercians—that scourge of his neighbors, that nursery of rebellion. From which time he either presided over both the Mercians and almost all the English, or commanded those who presided." "Thenceforth, wholly turned to the duties of piety, in order to respond with worthy diligence to God's benefits flowing upon him, he strove to raise up and animate with full spirit the infancy of Christian worship in his kingdom, which was faltering after his brother's death. And that same worship, which had become mature through the teaching of the Scots but was wavering in many ecclesiastical observances, he first brought to canonical order through Angilbert and Wilfrid, and lastly through Archbishop Theodore."

[4] These things must be explained individually, insofar as they pertain to St. Elfleda, daughter of Oswy. Those whose death Oswy is said to have avenged were Saints Oswald and Eadwin: the former his own brother, the latter his uncle. For Acca, daughter of Alla and sister of Elfric and Eadwin, married to Ethelfrid, bore him Oswald and Oswy. She was the grandmother of St. Elfleda; Eadwin was the maternal grandfather and father of St. Eanfleda. For thus Bede states in book 2 of the Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, chapter 20: "Edwin was killed on the fourth day before the Ides of October, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 633, when he was forty-seven years old, and his entire army was either destroyed or scattered. In that same battle, before him, one of his sons, Osfrid, a warlike young man, fell; the other, Eadfrid, compelled by necessity, deserted to King Penda and was afterward killed by him, during the reign of Oswald, in violation of his oath." And shortly after: "When the affairs of the Northumbrians were thus thrown into confusion at this crisis of calamity, and there seemed to be no source of protection anywhere except in flight, Paulinus took with him Queen Ethelburga, whom he had previously brought, and returned to Kent by ship, and was received with great honor by Archbishop Honorius and King Eadbald. He came thither under the escort of Bassus, a most valiant soldier of King Edwin, having with him Eanfleda, the daughter, and Wuscfrea, the son of Edwin, as well as Yffi, the son of Osfrid, his son. Their mother afterward, out of fear of Kings Eadbald and Oswald, sent them to be raised in Gaul by a king who was a friend of hers; and there both died in infancy and were buried in a church with the honor befitting both royal children and innocents of Christ." Another edition of Bede has that they were sent to King Dagobert. Then in book 3, chapter 15: "A certain Priest named Utta, a man of great gravity and truthfulness, and on that account honorable to all, even to the very Princes of the world, was sent to Kent to bring thence a wife to King Oswy, namely Eanfleda, daughter of King Edwin, who had been brought there after her father's death," etc.

[5] The father of St. Elfleda was therefore Oswy, and her mother St. Eanfleda. The father of Oswy was Ethelfrid, son of Ethelric, grandson of Ida; his mother Acca, sister of St. Edwin, daughter of Alla. The father of St. Eanfleda was St. Edwin, son of the same Alla; her mother St. Ethelburga, or Aethilburga, daughter of St. Ethelbert, King of Kent, who is venerated on 24 February, and of Bertha, or Aldoberga, daughter of Charibert, King of Paris.

Section II. St. Elfleda offered to God by her father after his victory.

[6] Elfleda, born of these ancestors, was devoted to divine worship in a monastery for the following reason. Although her father Oswy deeply repented of the crime he had committed in the killing of Oswin, and strove to expiate it by constant benefactions, God nevertheless demanded of him other punishments, and grievous ones, using both him and Penda of Mercia as instruments and agents of His justice for mutual chastisement—the one for temporal punishment, the other for eternal. For after suffering many defeats at the hands of Penda, when he at last sent him vanquished and slain to the underworld in battle, it was not without the manifest help of God. Bede recounts this in book 3, chapter 24.

[7] "In those times, King Oswy, since he was suffering fierce and intolerable invasions from the aforementioned King of the Mercians, who had killed his brother, at last, compelled by necessity, promised to lavish upon him innumerable royal ornaments and gifts, greater than can be believed, as the price of peace, provided only that he would return home and cease ravaging the provinces of his kingdom to the point of annihilation. But since the faithless King would in no way assent to his prayers, having resolved to destroy and exterminate his entire nation from the least to the greatest, Oswy looked to the aid of divine mercy, by which he might be rescued from barbarian wickedness. And binding himself with a vow, he said: 'If the pagan does not know how to accept our gifts, let us offer them to One who does know: the Lord our God.' He therefore vowed that if he were victorious, he would offer his daughter to the Lord, to be consecrated in sacred virginity, and would also give twelve estates for the construction of monasteries. And so with a very small army he gave himself to battle."

[8] "It is said that the pagans had an army thirty times larger; for they had thirty legions, equipped with the most noble commanders, in the war. King Oswy, with his son Alchfrid, having (as I said) a very small army, but trusting in Christ as his leader, went to meet them. For his other son, Egfrid, was at that time held as a hostage in the province of the Mercians by Queen Cynwise. The son of King Oswald, Ethelwald, who ought to have been their ally, was on the side of the adversaries and had even been a leader for those about to fight against his fatherland and his uncle—although at the very time of the battle he withdrew himself from the fighting and awaited the outcome of the engagement in a safe place. When battle was therefore joined, the pagans were routed and slain; nearly all of the thirty commanders of the King who had come to his aid were killed. Among them Aethelhere, brother of Anna, King of the East Angles, who reigned after him, the very instigator of the war, was killed with his soldiers or auxiliaries destroyed. And because the battle was fought near the river Winwaed, which at that time, on account of the flooding of the rains, had widely overflowed its channel—indeed, all its banks—it happened that the water destroyed many more of those fleeing than the sword destroyed of those fighting."

[9] "Then King Oswy, according to what he had vowed to the Lord, giving thanks to God for the victory granted him, gave his daughter Elfleda, who had not yet completed one year of age, to be consecrated to Him in perpetual virginity; and in addition he gave twelve small estates of land, in which, the pursuit of earthly warfare being set aside, there might be place and means for the devoted diligence of monks to exercise the heavenly warfare and to pray for the eternal peace of his nation. Of these estates, he gave six in the province of the Deirans and six in that of the Bernicians. Each estate was of ten families; that is, all together one hundred and twenty."

[10] "The aforementioned daughter of King Oswy, to be dedicated to God, entered the monastery called Heruteu, that is, the Island of the Stag, over which the Abbess Hilda then presided. She, after two years, having purchased an estate of ten families in the place called Strensall, built a monastery there. In that monastery, the aforementioned King's daughter was first a pupil of the regular life, then also a teacher, until, having completed the number of sixty years, the blessed Virgin entered into the embrace and nuptials of the heavenly Bridegroom. In that monastery both she and her father Oswy and her mother's father Edwin and many other nobles were buried in the church of the holy Apostle Peter."

[11] "King Oswy completed this battle in the region of Leeds, in the thirteenth year of his reign, on the seventeenth day before the Kalends of December, with great advantage to both peoples. For he both liberated his own nation from the hostile devastation of the pagans and converted the very nation of the Mercians and the neighboring provinces, their treacherous leader having been destroyed, to the grace of the Christian faith."

[12] Bede reports that the fateful battle was fought in the region of Leeds near the river Winwaed (or, as another reading has it, Winued; the edition of Laurentius Barreus and the Heidelberg edition of 1587 have Juwet). Camden says the battle was fought near the river Aire, which, having received the Calder, flows into the Ure below York, because the Aire flows past Leeds (in Saxon, Loides), as he says, a town wealthy from its woolen manufacture and formerly a royal estate. Has the name of the river perhaps changed? Henry of Huntingdon, in book 2 of his History, writes thus: "Penda was smitten by King Oswy at the river Winwed, whence it is said: 'At the river Winwed was avenged the slaughter of Anna, the slaughter of Kings Sigebert and Eognic, the slaughter of Kings Oswald and Edwin.'" For Penda had indeed killed these Kings. The Westminster chronicler has the same. Camden adds: "The very place where the battle was fought is called Winwidfield by the writers, a name I suspect was imposed from the victory." Thus indeed Florence of Worcester: "Oswy, trusting in Christ as leader, met Penda at the place called Winwidfield." But he had prefaced this by saying that Penda had gone up into Bernicia to defeat King Oswy. But both the town of Leeds and the river Aire are far away—in the western part of the county of York—from Bernicia, which, by Camden's own judgment, extended from the Tyne all the way to the Scottish Firth, with the Deirans holding everything on the nearer side down to the Humber. Perhaps the Worcester chronicler used Bernicia synecdochically for the kingdom of Northumbria, because the reins of this kingdom were now in the hands of the descendants of Ida, who were from Bernicia. Or perhaps the sagacious warrior Oswy went to meet the enemy as far as the Aire and the territory of York, before the latter could advance further and devastate everything and enrich his men with plunder. And certainly Ranulph of Chester says that the battle was fought in the region of Leeds, not far from York, near the river Wynwed. One might otherwise wonder whether there was not perhaps another river Windwed or Winwed among the Bernicians, where there is also the Tweed, now the border of Scotland, and the Wenta, commonly Wentsbeck. Bernicia was indeed farther from Penda's kingdom, but close to Cumbria, which Caedwalla, the instigator and ally in this wicked war, who was himself killed in it, held. Let others who have the opportunity to survey the places in person investigate these matters.

Section III. The three brothers of St. Elfleda who were Kings, and her two sisters who were Queens.

[13] Oswy's daughter Alhfleda had been married two years earlier, that is, in the year 653, to Peada, son of Penda, Prince of the Middle Angles (or Mediterranean Angles). Peada, as Bede writes in book 3, chapter 21, "being a most excellent young man and most worthy of the name and person of a King, was placed over the kingdom of that nation by his father. He came to King Oswy of the Northumbrians, requesting that his daughter Alhfleda be given to him in marriage; nor could he obtain what he asked unless he accepted the faith of Christ and baptism, together with the nation over which he presided. But he, having heard the preaching of truth and the promise of the heavenly kingdom and the hope of the resurrection and future immortality, freely confessed that he was willing to become a Christian, even if he should not receive the maiden—persuaded especially to accept the faith by Oswy's son, named Alchfrid, who was his kinsman and friend, having his sister as wife, named Cyniburga, daughter of King Penda." Whether Alhfleda (whom Ranulph and Harpsfield also call Elfleda) was a full sister of St. Elfleda the Virgin, or, like Alfrid, illegitimate, is not sufficiently clear to us.

[14] The consideration of double kinship had not moved Penda to refrain from waging wicked war against Oswy; but it moved the pious King Oswy to grant his son-in-law a portion of his father's kingdom, which he had subjugated. Thus Bede in book 3, chapter 24: "The same King Oswy for three years after the killing of King Penda presided over the nation of the Mercians and also the other peoples of the southern provinces. He also subjected the nation of the Picts for the most part to the kingdom of the English. At which time he gave to the aforementioned Peada, son of King Penda, because he was his kinsman, the kingdom of the Southern Mercians, who are (as they say) five thousand families, separated by the river Trent from the Northern Mercians, whose land is of seven thousand families. But that same Peada was most wickedly killed the next spring, through the treachery (as they say) of his own wife, at the very time of the Easter feast."

[15] Another daughter of Oswy, sister of St. Elfleda, was Ostritha, whom others call Ostrida, Ostrica, Ostgilda, or Ostgida. She was afterward married to Ethelred, son of Penda, who succeeded his brother Wulfhere in the kingdom of the Mercians in 675, and having vigorously administered it for twenty-nine years, became a monk in the year 704. But his wife was killed in 697 by the Suthumbrians, as Florence of Worcester relates. The Westminster chronicler says elsewhere that she was Oswy's daughter, elsewhere Egfrid's, and records her death under the year 696 thus: "The Mercians who are called Suthumbri, that is, that part of the Mercians that is on the northern side of the river Trent, committed a most wicked crime: for they cruelly slew Queen Ostrica, wife of their King Aethelred and daughter of King Egfrid of the Northumbrians." Ranulph, under the same year, writes that she was Oswy's daughter, but that she was killed by the Northumbrians. Bede in his Epitome says she was killed by the leading men of the Mercians.

[16] The brothers of St. Elfleda were: Egfrid and Alfwin (or Elfuin) as full brothers, and Alfrid as a half-brother. Alfrid was first, during his father's lifetime, King among the Deirans—that is, in those provinces which had previously belonged to King Ethelwald, son of St. Oswald. These seem to have been given to Elfwin after Oswy's death; it is certain that he was a King, as Florence of Worcester writes under the year 679: "When a fierce battle was joined between Egfrid, King of the Northumbrians, and Aethelred, King of the Mercians, near the river Trent, King Alfwin, brother of King Egfrid, was killed—whose sister Ostritha King Aethelred had as his wife." The Westminster chronicler narrates the same under the same year, calling him Esewin, and says in Bede's words that he was "a young man very dear to both provinces." He was then, as Bede has it in book 4, chapter 21, eighteen years old. Egfrid succeeded his father Oswy in 670. Then in 685, on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of June, on a Saturday, he was killed by the Picts. He was succeeded by Alfrid, who had been living in exile in Ireland, senior to Egfrid and honored with the royal title in the time of his father Oswy, as has already been said.

Section IV. St. Hilda, the teacher of St. Elfleda.

[17] After the victory we have described was won, Oswy consecrated his daughter to God, with a more illustrious example of religion than that of Jephthah, who in a similar situation and moved by the same Spirit, had shed blood and lamented the untimely meeting with his daughter; whereas Elfleda so far from bewailing a virginity empty of the fruit of posterity, for the sixty years she thereafter lived, she rejoiced that the necessity of preserving herself inviolate for the eternal King had been imposed upon her when she did not yet understand it, by another's vow.

[18] When she had not yet completed one year of age, as Bede writes, she was entrusted to the Blessed Hilda—who was herself born of the blood of the Northumbrian Kings, but from the branch of the Aellings—to be dedicated to God, around that day (the seventh after the victory) on which the Catholic Church celebrates the Mother of Christ, offered to God in the Temple of Jerusalem, by her own piety and not solely by the devotion of her parents, in the third year of her age. Perhaps Ranulph was looking to this when he wrote: "Having won this victory, King Oswy entrusted his daughter, then scarcely three years old, to the tutelage of the Abbess Hilda." Bede, as a contemporary, deserves greater credence. But why was she committed to St. Hilda and not rather to St. Ebba, her aunt, sister of Kings Oswald and Oswy, under whom St. Etheldritha, Oswy's daughter-in-law, somewhat later served her novitiate in the monastic life? What reasons chiefly moved the father and mother to prefer the teaching of Hilda, I do not think can be established from the writings of the ancients, nor would it be worthwhile to investigate by conjecture. But it seems to have been done by divine counsel, so that the innocent soul should not contract any stain of earthly corruption from the company of others, concerning whose degenerate conduct we have related the following on 31 January in the Life of St. Adamnan the Priest from Bede, number 4: "The Virgins also dedicated to God in St. Ebba's monastery of Coldingham, scorning the reverence due to their profession, whenever they had leisure, devoted their efforts to weaving finer garments, with which they either adorned themselves like brides, to the peril of their state, or procured the friendship of men from outside; whence a severe vengeance from heaven, raging with flames, was deservedly prepared for this place and its inhabitants."

[19] Concerning Hilda, Bede writes the following in book 4, chapter 23, which sheds light on the deeds of Elfleda: "In the year of the Lord's Incarnation 680, the most devout handmaid of Christ, Hilda, Abbess of the monastery called Strensall, after many heavenly works which she performed on earth, was taken from earth to receive the rewards of the heavenly life, on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of December, being sixty-six years of age, of which, divided into equal portions, she completed the first thirty-three in the secular habit, living most nobly, and consecrated the following thirty-three to the Lord in the monastic life, yet more nobly. For she was also of noble birth—that is, the daughter of a grandson of King Edwin, named Hereric—and together with that King, at the preaching of Paulinus of blessed memory, the first Bishop of the Northumbrians, she received the faith and sacraments of Christ; and these she preserved inviolate until she merited to attain the vision of Him."

[20] From these facts it follows that Hilda was born in the year 614, baptized either with Eanfleda in 626, on the holy vigils of Pentecost, or with Edwin himself in 627, at Easter, as is noted in the Saxon Chronicle. In the year 647, she seems to have laid aside the secular habit. Then, after remaining for one year in the province of the East Angles, she was recalled to her homeland by Bishop Aidan and, on the northern bank of the river Wear, lived the monastic life for equally one year with very few companions. We treated of the Wear, or Vedra, river on 12 January in the Life of St. Benedict Biscop. It flows past the city of Durham and waters no small part of that diocese. The mouth of the Wear, or at least the village situated on its northern shore, is called Monkwearmouth, that is, Monks-Wear-mouth, because there was a habitation of monks there, and indeed of nuns as well; otherwise, on the southern side of the Wear, the celebrated monastery was later built by the aforementioned Benedict.

[21] "After this," says Bede, namely in the year 649, "Hilda was made Abbess in the monastery called Heorteu"—which monastery had been founded not long before by a devout handmaid of Christ named Heiu, "who is said to have been the first woman in the province of the Northumbrians to receive the vow and vesture of the monastic habit, with Bishop Aidan consecrating. But she, not long after the founding of the monastery, withdrew to the city of Calcaria, which is called by the English Kalcacester, and there established a dwelling for herself." Calcaria, a small town of Roman origin, is nine miles from York and is now commonly called Tadcaster. She who is here called Heiu, and elsewhere Heru, and more commonly Heina, is inscribed in the English Martyrology under 30 May.

[22] Between the mouths of the rivers Wear and Tees, on the eastern shore of the Ocean, a small promontory is seen, on which the celebrated trading town of Hartlepool, with a safe harbor, sits in a very convenient location, as Camden attests. He considers it to be the same place that Bede calls Heorteu, or Herutheu, Heortesig, Heruten, Heortei, as various codices have; Capgrave calls it Hertheia, John Bromton in his Chronicle calls it Ercen, Huntingdon Hertei, and Ranulph and others Hertesei. The last two come closest to the meaning transmitted by Bede above in Section 2, number 10. For hert in the Teutonic or Saxon language, which the English then used, means "stag," and ey or ey-land means "island"; whence Hertsey or Hertesey means "Island of the Stag." Camden suspects, however, that Heorteu is the name of that small district, which he says is called Heort-nesse in a certain Durham codex; and that Nesse means a promontory, as it were a nose of land. In his chorographic map of that region, and in Speed's as well, Harte is a village close to that promontory on which the town of Hartlepool stands, and formerly, as we believe, the monastery of Heina.

[23] "Christ's handmaid Hilda, having been placed in charge of this monastery, soon took care to organize it in all things according to the regular life, as she was able to learn from learned men," as Bede reports. But what regulations, what Rule did she prescribe? Those which she had received from the Scots, especially from St. Aidan. Thus Bede: "For both Bishop Aidan and all who knew her as a devout woman used to visit her diligently, love her earnestly, and instruct her carefully, on account of the wisdom implanted in her and her love of divine service." Aidan died two years later, in 651, as the Saxon Chronicle and Bede's Epitome have. St. Wilfrid was the first to introduce the Rule of St. Benedict into those regions and impose it upon monks; whether he did so for the community of Strensall, we rightly doubt, on account of what is mentioned below about Hilda and Elfleda being less devoted to him.

Section V. The life of St. Elfleda in the monastery until her twenty-sixth year; the deeds of her parents and brothers during that time.

[24] Elfleda had completed her third year of age when she migrated from Hartlepool to Strensall with Hilda; for she was more attached to her teacher than to the place, and it is probable that the new monastery was founded with the estates given to her by her father. It was certainly enriched by her to no small degree, as we shall say below. Concerning its first foundation, Bede in book 4, chapter 23: "When Hilda had presided over the monastery of Hartlepool for several years, very intent upon the institution of the regular life, it came about that she also undertook the building, or establishment, of a monastery in the place called Strensall; and she fulfilled the task enjoined upon her without sloth. For she established this monastery also with the same disciplines of regular life as the first. And indeed she taught therein also great observance of justice, piety, chastity, and other virtues, but especially of peace and charity, so that after the example of the primitive Church, no one there was rich, no one poor; all things were common to all, since nothing seemed to be the property of anyone. She was herself of such great prudence that not only people of ordinary rank in their necessities, but sometimes even Kings and Princes sought and found counsel from her." Bede indicated the time of the building of the monastery of Strensall above in Section 2, number 10: namely, two years after Elfleda's arrival at Hartlepool. And Florence of Worcester under the year 658: "The Blessed Abbess Hilda began to build a monastery in the place called Strensall, in which the daughter of King Oswy was first a pupil of the regular life, then became a teacher."

[25] Strensall was where Whitby now stands, in the northern part of the county of York, on the eastern coast near the bay of Dunum; but it scarcely bears even a faint trace of its ancient dignity, as Camden attests. Bede interprets Streaneshalh in book 3, chapter 21, as "the Bay of the Lighthouse." Camden thinks it rather signifies "the Bay of Salvation."

[26] In the year 660, St. Ethildritha, daughter of Anna, King of the East Angles, was married to King Egfrid, St. Elfleda's brother, son of King Oswy, who was then fifteen years old. As Bede writes in book 4, chapter 19, "although she shared his company for twelve years, she nevertheless remained gloriously in the perpetual integrity of virginity." More on this will be said in her Life on 23 June.

[27] In the year 664, a Synod was held in St. Hilda's monastery at Strensall, which some call the Synod of Pharos, others the Synod of Whitby; others prefer it to be called not a synod but a conference or colloquy. The principal question debated there was about the legitimate time of Easter, since the Scots celebrated it even on the fourteenth day of the moon when that day fell on a Sunday. The Scottish custom was defended by Colman, Bishop of Lindisfarne, and other Scottish Bishops, Ceadda, Bishop of the East Saxons, King Oswy, the Abbess Hilda, and others; but the Roman and legitimate practice was defended by Agilbert, Bishop of the West Saxons, King Alfrid, son of Oswy, the Abbot Wilfrid, the Priest Agatho, the Deacon James, Ronan, and Queen Eanfleda. This dispute will have to be discussed frequently elsewhere.

[28] In the year of Christ 670, the most pious King Oswy, father of Elfleda, died in the fifty-eighth year of his age, the sixteenth of his daughter, on 15 February, as Bede has it in book 4, chapter 5. Florence of Worcester writes that he died on the Kalends of March. He was succeeded by Egfrid. Alfrid, however, who held part of the province of Deira with the royal title, previously administered by Ethelwald, son of St. Oswald, because he was illegitimate (as Malmesbury has it in book 1 of the Deeds of the Kings, chapter 3), was deemed unworthy of the kingdom by the faction of the nobility, though he was the elder, and withdrew to Ireland either by compulsion or in indignation. "There, both safe from his brother's hatred and thoroughly imbued with letters in great leisure, he composed his mind with all philosophy."

[29] In the year 672, Queen Ethildritha, Elfleda's sister-in-law, having long and earnestly petitioned the King that she be allowed to leave the cares of the world and serve only the true King Christ in a monastery, when she had scarcely at last obtained her request,

she entered the monastery of the Abbess Ebba, who was the aunt of King Egfrid, situated in the place called the City of Colud, having received the veil of the monastic habit from the aforementioned Bishop Wilfrid. After a year, she herself was made Abbess in the region called Ely, "where, having built a monastery, she began to be, as a Virgin Mother of very many Virgins devoted to God, both in the examples and admonitions of the heavenly life." So Bede. Eanfleda also, Egfrid's mother, entered the monastery of Strensall in an uncertain year, as will be said below.

[30] Meanwhile, Egfrid and Elfwin, his full brother, both Kings, as Malmesbury says in book 3 of the English Bishops, honored St. Wilfrid, Bishop of York, with many great services over several years, and endowed his monastery of Ripon with splendid possessions. God immediately rewarded this generosity. For both the Picts and the Mercians were defeated by Egfrid, which the same author narrates thus: "The Picts, making light of the tender infancy of the young king after King Oswy's death, burst forth spontaneously and conspired against the Northumbrians. The royal youth, going to meet them with the sub-king Bernego, so destroyed the innumerable army of the Picts with his few soldiers that the fields, strewn with corpses, lost their flatness and the rivers, their course intercepted, stood still. Wulfhere also, King of the Mercians, enraged against them, led his army against them, for he remembered that his father had been killed by them. And so he came with a confident spirit, either to repair his loss or acquire the kingdom. But fortune did not follow him well, and scarcely more prosperously than his father's; except that, shamefully showing his back, he fled without glory, and surviving not many days afterward, he ceded part of the provinces to the King of the Northumbrians." Wulfhere died in the year 675.

[31] Gradually, alienated from Wilfrid by the envy of Queen Ermenburga and certain nobles, Egfrid proceeded to such a pitch of fury that he at last drove him from his See and even persecuted him in exile, having enlisted the aid of foreign Princes, even pagans, such as Adalgis, King of Frisia. But Egfrid immediately paid the penalty, though he did not return to his former disposition and reverence toward Wilfrid. "For Ethelred, King of the Mercians, brother of Wulfhere," says the same Malmesbury, "not many days after Wilfrid's departure, beginning a war and desiring to avenge the injuries done to his brother, Egfrid went to meet him spiritedly, thinking he would proceed with his usual terror; but he routed the Mercian forces and cut down his brother Elfwin. By which grief, Northumbria was turned to mourning, now lamenting the absence of their former counselor. And it happened that a year later, on the very same day on which Wilfrid had suffered his unjust condemnation at York, the body of the royal youth was brought into the city, commanding a long period of mourning." These events occurred in the year 679, in which also the blessed Virgin Ethildritha, Abbess of the monastery of Ely, died on 23 June.

[32] In the year 680, St. Hilda died. St. Elfleda the Virgin succeeded her in the governance of the monastery of Strensall, together with her mother Eanfleda, as will be established below on the authority of Bede, Section 9, number 59.

Section VI. The friendship of St. Elfleda with St. Cuthbert; future events learned from him.

[33] The consciousness of his brother's death, the disgrace of the defeat he had suffered, and the loss of the province he had previously added to his kingdom did not move Egfrid to the point that, when Wilfrid returned from Rome bearing the most weighty letters of Pope St. Agatho, by which he was ordered to be restored to his former dignity, Egfrid threw him into prison, stripped of all his possessions, with his companions led away in different directions. When heavenly signs then proved the innocence of the most holy Bishop, Egfrid either mocked them in jest or defamed them with reproach, as will be more fully told in the Life of Wilfrid on 12 October. Divine Justice did not endure such contempt either for the Apostolic See or for these marvels produced by the Holy Spirit, but punished him with a premature death—not, however, we may hope, with an eternal one, because, as the merciful God once pronounced of another king, "good works were found in him." For in the year 682, as Florence of Worcester writes, he gave the Abbot Benedict land for forty families, for the redemption of his soul, where the monastery of Jarrow was built.

[34] Then in the year 684, with his own fate pressing upon him, or rather furies driving him to his destruction, having sent an army to Ireland under the command of Duke Berht, as Bede writes in book 4, chapter 26, "he miserably devastated an innocent nation that had always been most friendly to the English nation, so that the hostile hand did not even spare churches or monasteries. But the islanders both repelled arms with arms as much as they could and, invoking the aid of divine mercy, sought by continual prayers over a long time that they might be avenged from heaven. And although those who curse cannot possess the kingdom of God, it was nevertheless believed that those who were cursed by the merit of their wickedness would soon, with the Lord as avenger, pay the penalties of their guilt."

[35] In the same year, St. Cuthbert predicted to St. Elfleda that Egfrid would soon die. This is narrated as follows in the shorter Life of Cuthbert, written by a monk of Lindisfarne while Alfrid was reigning—that is, before the year 705: "Moreover, the holy Virgin and royal Abbess Elfleda humbly petitioned the holy anchorite of God, in the name of the Lord, to sail to meet her at Coquet Island. To this handmaid of God, kneeling, she began to ask many questions. But at last, she boldly adjured him by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the nine orders of Angels and the persons of all the Saints, inquiring about the length of life of her brother King Egfrid. The man of God, gravely adjured and fearing the Lord, began to speak of the brevity of human life in a roundabout way of words, and added, saying: 'O handmaid of God, is it not a short thing, even if someone should live twelve months?' She immediately grasping in her mind what had been said, wept with bitter tears. Just as, after the space of a year, the fall of the royal house by the wicked hand of the enemy's sword renewed all bitterness for her and many others."

[36] "She further added, saying: 'By the same Unity and Trinity mentioned above, I adjure you to tell me what heir he will have.' He too, being silent for a little while, said: 'You shall consider that one no less your brother than the other.' This seemed incredible; yet inquiring more diligently where he was, he patiently bore with her and said: 'O handmaid of God, why do you wonder, even if he should be on some island upon this sea?' She then quickly recalled that it had been said of Alfrid—WHO NOW REIGNS PEACEFULLY—who was then on the island called Hy."

[37] "Adding also a question about Cuthbert himself, because she knew the King wished to invite him to the episcopate, if this plan should come to fruition, and what length of time would be spent in the episcopate: he, excusing himself as unworthy, yet said that he could not be hidden from such an honor either on sea or on land. 'And in the brief space of two years I shall find rest from labor. And you also, hear what I command you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ: that as long as I shall live, you shall have indicated this to no one.' And after many prophetic words, all of which without doubt came to pass, he sailed back to his own place."

[38] The Venerable Bede, in the Life of the same Saint, narrates this threefold prediction as follows: "At another time, the same most reverend Virgin and Mother of Christ's Virgins, Elfleda, sent and asked the man of God, adjuring him in the name of the Lord, that she might deserve to see him and speak with him about necessary matters. He, having boarded a ship with the Brethren, came to the island that lies before the mouth of the river Coquet and takes its name from it, itself distinguished for its communities of monks. For the aforementioned Abbess had asked him to come to meet her there. After arriving at the conversation she sought, when she had heard from him many things she was inquiring about, behold, suddenly in the middle of the conversation she fell at his feet and adjured him by that terrible and venerable name of the heavenly King and His Angels, to tell her how long her brother Egfrid would live and govern the kingdom of the English. 'For I know,' she said, 'that by the spirit of prophecy, with which you are endowed, you can say this also, if you will.' But he, alarmed at the adjuration, yet not wishing to reveal openly the secret that was being sought, said: 'It is strange that a wise woman, learned in the holy Scriptures, should wish to call the times of human life long, when the Psalmist says that our years are like a spider's meditation; and when Solomon warns: If a man lives many years and has been happy in them all, he must remember the dark time and the many days which, when they come, convict the past of vanity. How much more does he, to whom only one year of life remains, seem to have lived a short time, when death stands at the gates?'"

[39] "Hearing this, she wept at the dire presage; and wiping her face, she again with feminine boldness adjured him by the majesty of the supreme Divinity to tell her what heir of the kingdom Egfrid would have, since he had neither sons nor brothers. After a brief silence, he said: 'Do not say that he has none. For he will have a successor whom you shall embrace with sisterly affection, as Egfrid himself.' But she said: 'I beg you to tell me in what place he is.' He said: 'You see this great and spacious sea, how it abounds in islands? It is easy for God to provide from some one of these a person to place over the kingdom of the English.' She therefore understood that he was speaking of Alfrid, who was said to have been the son of Egfrid's father, and was then living in exile on the islands of the Scots for the pursuit of learning."

[40] "Now she knew that Egfrid planned to make Cuthbert a Bishop, and wishing to ascertain whether the plan would be followed by its effect, she began her inquiry thus: 'O how the hearts of mortals are divided by various intentions! Some rejoice in having obtained riches; others, loving riches, are always in want. You despise the glory of the world even when it is offered; and even if you could attain the episcopate, than which there is nothing higher among mortals, you would prefer the enclosure of your desert to this rank.' But he said: 'I know that I am not worthy of so great a rank; yet I shall not be able to escape anywhere the judgment of the supreme Governor; and if He has determined that I am to be subjected to so great a burden, I believe that after a short time He will set me free, and perhaps, after no more than two years have passed, He will send me back to the accustomed quiet of my solitude. But I command you in the name of the Lord and our Savior that you report to no one before my death what you have heard from me.' And when he had explained to her many other things that she was asking about and instructed her on what she needed, he returned to his island and monastery and diligently continued the solitary life as he had begun."

[41] And all these things came to pass as the holy man had predicted. For in the same year, as Florence of Worcester writes, a Synod was assembled in the presence of King Egfrid near the river Alne, in the place called Twyford, over which Archbishop Theodore presided. When Tunbert was deposed from the episcopate, by the unanimous consent of all, Cuthbert was elected to the episcopate of the Church of Hexham. But since he preferred to be placed over the Church of Lindisfarne, it was agreed that Eata should return to Hexham and Cuthbert should receive the Church of Lindisfarne. This Synod was held in what is now the county of Northumberland, on the river Alaun, commonly called the Alne, at the place Twyford, which means "double ford." Different from this is a Synod held somewhat later at a place called Alne, in what we conjecture to be the diocese of Worcester, which is mentioned in the Life of St. Egwin on 11 January.

[42] St. Cuthbert was not ordained until the following year. Thus Florence of Worcester: "The ordination of Blessed Cuthbert was completed on the very solemnity of Easter at York, in the presence of King Egfrid, with seven Bishops assembling for his consecration, among whom Archbishop Theodore held the primacy." "King Egfrid, having rashly led an army to devastate the province of the Picts, in the fortieth year of his age and the fifteenth of his reign, was killed on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of June, on a Saturday." He was succeeded in the kingdom by his brother Alfrid, "a man most learned in the Scriptures." "In the year 686, having spent two years in the episcopate, the man of the Lord, Bishop Cuthbert, admonished by a divine oracle, returned to the island of Farne." "In the year 687, the most reverend Father Cuthbert, in the fifteenth Indiction, on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of April, on Wednesday, died on the island of Farne." So Florence of Worcester.

[43] The place where the meeting between Saints Cuthbert and Elfleda, which we have related, was held was the island commonly called Coquet, or Coket, lying before the mouth of the river Coquet, quite rich in fossil coal, as Camden writes. The Coquet, or Coqueda, is a river of Northumbria, not far from the Alne, toward the south. What is called Cocpedese island in the earlier Life of St. Cuthbert should, I believe, be read as Cocwedes-ey, that is, the island of Cocwed.

Section VII. The health of St. Elfleda restored through the merits of St. Cuthbert; heavenly visions during their meeting.

[44] Before the events we have described took place or were predicted by Cuthbert, a holy friendship existed between him and Elfleda, and her health had been restored through his merits. Bede recounts it thus: "Nor did miracles of healing cease to be performed through the man of God, even though he was placed far from men. For the venerable handmaid of Christ, Elfleda, who amid the joys of virginity showed a mother's care to no small company of Christ's handmaids and augmented the garlands of royal nobility with the greater nobility of the highest virtue, always honored the man of God with great love. At that time, as she herself afterward told the most reverend Priest Herefrid of the Church of Lindisfarne—and he told me—she was struck by a severe illness and, long tormented, seemed almost to have reached the point of death. When the physicians were unable to bring her any cure, suddenly, with divine grace healing her from within, she was gradually withdrawn from death, yet not fully healed. For the internal pain indeed departed and the vigor of her limbs returned, but the ability to stand or walk was utterly absent, since she could neither raise herself to stand nor walk except on all fours."

[45] "She began therefore to fear, in sorrow, an eternal disability; for hope of help from the physicians had long since been abandoned. When one day, amid the anguish of sorrowful thoughts, the blessed and serene conversation of the most reverend Father Cuthbert came to her mind, she said: 'If only I had something from the possessions of my Cuthbert! I know for certain and trust in the Lord that I should soon be healed.' Not long after, someone arrived bringing her a linen girdle sent by him. She was greatly gladdened by the gift and, understanding that her desire had already been revealed to the holy man from heaven, she girded herself with it, and in the morning she was soon raised up to stand, and on the third day was fully restored to health."

[46] "After a few days, a certain one of the Virgins of her monastery began to fall ill with an intolerable headache. As the disease grew worse day by day and she seemed about to die, the venerable Abbess came in to her; and seeing her gravely afflicted, she brought the aforementioned girdle of the man of God and had it bound around her head. On that same day, with the pain departing, she was healed. She took the girdle and stored it in her box. When the Abbess sought it some days later, it could not be found either in that box or anywhere at all. This is understood to have happened by divine dispensation: namely, so that the sanctity of the Father beloved by God might appear to believers through two miracles of healing, and thereafter the occasion for doubting his sanctity might be removed from the incredulous. For if that same girdle were always at hand, the sick would always want to resort to it; and if some of them should happen not to deserve to be cured of their illness, they would disparage the powerlessness of the one who did not save them, when rather they themselves were unworthy of salvation."

[47] In the year 686, shortly before he laid down the episcopate, Cuthbert conversed with Elfleda, which Bede records thus in his Life: "Meanwhile, the man of the Lord Cuthbert, foreknowing his approaching death, had already resolved in his mind to lay aside the care of the pastoral office and return to the solitary life, so that, having shaken off external solicitude, amid the free pursuit of prayers and psalmody, he might await the day of death—or rather the entrance into heavenly life. But first he wished not only to visit his own parish but also other dwellings of the faithful roundabout, to confirm all with a word of necessary exhortation, and so to be refreshed by the joy of his longed-for solitude. While he was doing this, at the request of the most noble and most holy Virgin of Christ, the Abbess Elfleda, of whom I have made mention above, he came to a possession of her monastery, so that he might both see and speak with her and dedicate a church there. For that possession also was distinguished by a goodly number of Christ's servants."

[48] "When at the hour of refreshment they had sat down to table, suddenly the venerable Father Cuthbert lifted his mind, turned away from bodily food, to the contemplation of spiritual things. Whereupon, with the members of his body relaxed from their function, the color of his face changed and his eyes were fixed as if in astonishment, contrary to his custom, and the knife he held fell onto the table. When his Priest, who was standing by and serving, noticed this, he leaned over to the Abbess and said in a whisper: 'Ask the Bishop what he has seen. For I know that his trembling hand did not drop the knife without cause, and his countenance is changed; but he has seen something spiritual that the rest of us were unable to see.' She immediately turned to him and said: 'I beg you, my Lord Bishop, tell me what you have just seen. For your exhausted right hand did not lose the knife it was holding without reason.' He, trying to conceal that he had seen something secret, jokingly replied: 'Could I eat all day long? I had to rest at some point.' But when she adjured and demanded more insistently that he explain the vision, he said: 'I saw the soul of a certain Saint being carried by the hands of Angels to the joys of the heavenly kingdom.' She asked: 'From what place was it taken?' He answered: 'From your monastery.' She proceeded to inquire the name. And he said: 'Tomorrow, when I celebrate Mass, you shall tell me his name.'"

[49] "Hearing this, she immediately sent to her larger monastery to see who had recently been snatched from the body. But the messenger, finding everyone there safe and sound, when he began to return to his lady the next morning, met those who were carrying the body of a dead Brother on a cart to be buried. Inquiring who it was, he learned that a certain one of the shepherds, a man of good conduct, having incautiously climbed a tree, had fallen down, and with his body shattered, had breathed his last at the very hour when the man of the Lord saw him being led to the heavens. When the messenger returned and reported this to the Abbess, she immediately went in to the Bishop, who was already then dedicating the church, and with feminine astonishment, as though about to announce something new and uncertain, she said: 'I pray, my Lord Bishop, remember at Mass my Halwald' (for this was the man's name), 'because yesterday he died by falling from a tree.'"

[50] The earlier writer of the Life of St. Cuthbert, the monk of Lindisfarne, narrates the event more briefly but sets forth certain things omitted by Bede: "The most faithful Abbess Elfleda," he says, "revealed to me another miracle of spiritual knowledge concerning the holy Bishop. For when on a certain day, in a parish of his called Osingadum, they were sitting together at a banquet, she saw the man of God seized by a wondrous astonishment in an ecstasy of mind, and the knife he had in his hand fell upon the table, abandoned. She, with others not hearing, humbly asked what it was that had been shown to him. He answered: 'I saw the soul of a servant of God from your household being carried up to heaven in the hands of Angels and placed in the choir of the holy Martyrs.' When she asked what name he was called by, he answered: 'You shall name him to me tomorrow when I celebrate Mass.' And so at that hour the Abbess was sending a messenger to her monastery to ask which of the Brethren had recently died. He found them all alive there; but at last, inquiring more diligently, they heard that one of the Brethren, in the pastoral dwellings, falling from the top of a tree, had died with his body broken. The messenger returned the next day to the Abbess and reported the matter as it had happened. She immediately ran to the holy Bishop, and as he was dedicating a church that day and singing Mass, at the moment in the liturgy where it says, 'Remember, O Lord, Your servants,' she arrived breathless in the basilica and indicated the name of the Brother, who was called Hadowald. Understanding in this not only the spirit of prophecy but recognizing apostolic providence in all things, she also clearly predicted his death in many ways."

[51] Bede, in the metrical Life of St. Cuthbert, expresses certain things he omitted in the prose version. For when St. Elfleda had inquired the name of the dead Brother, the Bishop's reply is given:

"Tomorrow, he said, when I offer the sacred mysteries at the altar, his name and the manner by which he seeks the stars shall be revealed in order by your words."

And then the passage about who fell from the tree follows.

With intent prayers and vows she tells at the altars that someone, while climbing the heights of a leaf-bearing grove to cut down fodder from a treetop for his flock, fell and laid down his soul, his limbs shattered.

Section VIII. St. Wilfrid restored to the episcopal throne chiefly through the efforts of St. Elfleda.

[52] The storm of public hatred against the holy Bishop Wilfrid also carried away Hilda, Elfleda's teacher—and it is uncertain whether not Elfleda herself as well. Both were easily deceived, and perhaps led astray by the appearance of piety and equity, since on the side opposed to Wilfrid were holy men such as Bosa, John of Beverley, and even Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury himself—who afterward, however, moved by repentance, begged Wilfrid's pardon for the injury rashly inflicted upon him. Concerning Hilda, William of Malmesbury attests in book 3 of the English Bishops: "So that it may be plain," he says, "in what great misery mortals are entangled: those very men whom antiquity celebrates as most holy—Theodore, Berhtwald, John, Bosa, and also the Abbess Hilda—assailed with deadly hatred Wilfrid, who was most acceptable to God." He then subjoins the letters of Pope John VII to Ethelred, King of the Mercians, and Alfrid, King of the Deirans and Bernicians, already indicated by us, in which the Pontiff attests that accusers had been sent to Rome by Archbishop Theodore and by Hilda, Abbess of revered memory.

[53] That Elfleda also adhered to the adversaries of Wilfrid is indicated by the Westminster chronicler, who writes: "Theodore exerted himself with all his strength that Wilfrid should receive back the episcopate, sending envoys and writings to Alfrid, King of the Northumbrians, who had succeeded Egfrid, and to his sister the Abbess Elfleda of Strensall, that, setting aside their animosities, they should unhesitatingly embrace his friendship... When Wilfrid therefore came to the Kings with the Archbishop's letters, a greeting was bestowed and favor granted. Alfrid, who had once known him well, having voluntarily invited him to himself, first liberally granted him the monastery of Hexham, and then by decree of the Council the episcopate of York and the monastery of Ripon." This friendship between them lasted scarcely five years. Florence of Worcester also records: "In the year 686, Wilfrid the Bishop, after a long exile, received back his See and the episcopate of the Church of Hexham, at the invitation of King Alfrid." But under the year 691: "Wilfrid, Bishop of Hexham, being again accused, was expelled from the episcopate by King Alfrid and many Bishops."

[54] Having tried everything before, Wilfrid again had recourse to the Apostolic See, and brought back from Pope John VII letters to Ethelred, King of the Mercians (now a monk), and Alfrid—the letters previously indicated by us. "The Mercian received them with great reverence, on bended knee, and without reluctance obtained from Kenred, son of Wulfhere's brother, whom he had placed as his successor, that what they commanded should be carried out," says Malmesbury. "Alfrid alone, King of the Northumbrians," says the same writer, "holding to the judgment of a more obstinate mind, maintained his stubbornness... But he himself did not linger in life for much longer after that. For immediately upon the departure of Wilfrid's envoys, he was seized by a severe illness and was being driven toward death. The bitterness of torment drew forth the reason that had long been dormant in his royal mind, and according to the Prophet, 'Vexation gave understanding to the hearing.' For understanding that he was justly punished for his disobedience, he promised that he would render every amends to Wilfrid, if Wilfrid could be brought to him while he still lived. Nor did he cease, as long as he could speak before his voice was shut off, to repeat the same promise, and to adjure his heir to do it if he himself should lack the fulfillment of his vow. And he, having died shortly after, REPENTED TOO LATE OF HAVING SCORNED THE APOSTOLIC LETTERS, whose threats he did not merit to escape." So Malmesbury, and more briefly Bede in book 5, chapter 20. King Alfrid died, as Florence of Worcester records, at Driffield, on the nineteenth day before the Kalends of January, in the year 705, the twentieth of his reign.

[55] Two months after the death of Alfrid, when Edulf who had seized the kingdom had been killed, Osred, son of Alfrid, was restored to the throne by the nobles, "the greatest of whom," says the same Malmesbury, "in fidelity and authority, Berhtfrid, having been summoned by Archbishop Berhtwald, agreed to a council being held in Northumbria, so that at last the just cause of Wilfrid might receive a peaceable resolution. There, according to the Apostolic precepts, the Bishops were given the choice either to yield to Wilfrid in his episcopal See or to go to Rome to defend their cause; whoever should think to resist these terms would be cut off from communion." "With the Bishops resisting in their usual manner, the most blessed Virgin Elfleda, sister of Alfrid and Abbess after Hilda of Strensall, put an end to the matter, saying: 'Setting aside all evasions, I produce the testament of my brother, at which I was personally present: who, if he should recover, promised that he would unhesitatingly carry out the commands of the Apostolic See; or what he was unable to do because death intervened, he is known to have transmitted to his heir to be done.'"

[56] "Then Berhtfrid, joining his own words to those of the Virgin, said: 'I judge that the commands of the Pope must be obeyed, especially since to their authority is added both the command of our King and the pledge of our necessity. For when, after his death, we were enclosed by pressing enemies within Bamburgh, in the straits of a siege, in peril of our lives, we vowed to God that we would carry out the Pope's command if we could escape. We had scarcely finished the vow, and—I confess it, most sacred Bishop—immediately the compliance was eager; the whole province rushed to agree with us. The royal boy was raised as King, the enemy was driven off, the tyrant was destroyed. It is therefore the royal will that Bishop Wilfrid be restored.' When these words were spoken, the clouds of dissension were dispersed and the serenity of peace was poured in. Episcopal gravity ran to the embrace, and with harmonious minds they passed whatever of life remained." So Malmesbury. Bede in book 5, chapter 20, briefly touches on these events and reports that this Synod was held beside the river Nidd.

Section IX. The death of St. Elfleda, her relics, and her annual commemoration.

[57] Elfleda at last, having completed the number of sixty years, as was related above from Bede, entered into the embrace and nuptials of the heavenly Bridegroom, a blessed Virgin. If she completed sixty years of monastic life, and was dedicated to God by her father toward the end of the year 655, it follows that she is believed to have died toward the end of 715, or rather at the beginning of the following year—a year sooner if that was the total span of her life.

[58] She who had long before so anxiously inquired of St. Cuthbert who would succeed her brother Egfrid in the kingdom of Northumbria was opportunely taken from this world, so that she would not see the kingdom, after the murder of her brother's son Osred, engulfed in many great calamities. Although Osred himself could not fail to strike great grief into her soul by his shameful morals. For Malmesbury writes that he darkened the kingdom for eleven years and, leading a disgraceful life by defiling nuns, was at last killed by the plots of his kinsmen—in the year 716, as Florence of Worcester has it, who says that Kenred, son of the noble Cuthwin, succeeded him, then Osric succeeded Kenred, and St. Ceolwulf, brother of Kenred, succeeded Osric—of whom we treated on 15 January.

[59] At the time when Egfrid was killed by the Picts—namely in the year 685—St. Trumwin the Bishop, "having fled from the neighborhood of the strait that separates the lands of the English from those of the Picts (says Bede in book 4, chapter 26), chose a place of residence in the oft-mentioned monastery of the servants and handmaids of God called Strensall, and there, with a few of his own, led a life in monastic strictness, useful not only to himself but to many, for a very long time of years... Indeed, the royal Virgin Elfleda was then presiding over the same monastery, together with her mother Eanfleda... But upon the arrival of the Bishop there, the devout instructress found the greatest aid in governing and at the same time a consolation for her own life."

[60] Many other holy men either came of their own accord to the monastery of St. Elfleda or were summoned by her, to instruct both herself and her nuns in sanctity. Among these was St. John of Beverley, Bishop of York, whose Life we shall present on 7 May. Thomas Stubbs says of him in the Acts of the Bishops of York: "John, on account of the abundant grace of heavenly teaching, was invited from his school to teach the peoples and instruct the churches everywhere by fraternal charity; and, illuminated by the grace of such great excellence, he was detained for a number of days at the monastery of Strensall by the Abbess Elfleda." Not only there but also in the surrounding regions he evangelized the word of God to the English peoples, still unlearned, etc. This occurred before the year 688, before he was ordained Bishop.

[61] What fortune befell the monastery of Strensall after the death of St. Elfleda, Malmesbury explains thus in book 1 of the Deeds of the English Kings, chapter 3: "The foremost monastery then of women, now of monks, situated thirty miles from York in the northern part, was called by the ancient name Strensall, and now Whitby; which, begun by Hilda, a woman of distinguished religion, Elfleda, daughter of the same King, succeeding in its governance, augmented with great heaps of crown revenues; and there she also paid the last rites to her father after the twenty-eighth year of his reign. That monastery, like all those of the same region, was destroyed during the time of the Danish infestation—of which we shall speak below—and lost many bodies of Saints. For the bones of the most holy heroine Hilda were then translated to Glastonbury, and those of other Saints to other places. Now, with its name slightly changed, somewhat restored for the time being, it scarcely presents even a faint vestige of its ancient opulence." Concerning the same Strensall, Harpsfield writes in century 7, chapter 27: "That monastery was afterward destroyed by the Danes and then occupied by Benedictine monks and called Whitby; it was later transferred to the walls of York and consecrated to the Blessed Virgin Mary." These devastations and destructions of monasteries by the Danes occurred especially in the ninth century, although the Danes also harassed the English in the eighth century, and in the tenth and eleventh until the reign of St. Edward the Confessor, as was said in his Life on 5 January.

[62] Concerning the same devastation and the subsequent discovery of the bodies of St. Elfleda and other Saints, Malmesbury writes the following in book 3 of the Deeds of the English Bishops: "Long ago, in the time of the Danes, the monasteries shining like stars throughout the entire province had fallen to ruin. Half-ruined walls still stand, which serve not for the delight of the eye but as a memorial of sorrow. There was once at Wearmouth a monastery, the noble school of Bede and many learned men."

"There was Strensall, distinguished for its choir of holy Virgins, the mausoleums of blessed Bishops and outstanding Kings—which, now called Whitby, the industry of certain men is striving to rouse from half-dormant ashes to life. And the bodies of Saints have been recently found and elevated to a place of eminence: Bishop Trumwin, King Oswy, and his daughter Elfleda, who presided over that monastery after Hilda; as well as that monk who, as Bede reports, received by divine gift the knowledge of singing," etc.—namely Caedmon, of whom we shall treat on 11 February. To the same effect, Harpsfield in century 7, chapter 36: "In this monastery, Elfleda was buried together with her father Oswy, her mother Eanfleda, and many other nobles and Bishops, in the church dedicated to St. Peter. The monastery was destroyed in the Danish devastation (as were very many others). After the time of William the Norman, the sacred relics of Elfleda and the aforementioned Caedmon and others were found and honorably placed in a suitable location."

[63] Harpsfield calls her Elfreda, though she is commonly known as Elfled, Aelfled, Elfleda, Elfledis, Edelfleda, Ethelfleta, and Elsfleda. Wion errs in book 4 of Lignum Vitae, chapter 28, by positing two persons: Elfleda, or Edelfleda, and Ethelfreda, both daughters of Oswy and both nuns—the former raised in the monastery of Heorteu under Hilda's governance in all piety and religion, then transferred by the election of the sacred Virgins to the monastery of Saints Peter and Paul at Strensall... dying at sixty years of age and buried in the same monastery around the year of the Lord 670 (so that she would have been two years older than her father Oswy, who died at the beginning of that year). The latter, Ethelfreda, he says, professed the monastic life under the most holy Abbess Gongylda in a monastery founded by her father Oswy in the parish of Whitby... and lived around the year 670. Antonius Yepes writes the same in his Chronicle of the Benedictine Order, volume 2: of Elfleda under the years 664 and 687; of Ethelfrida, whom he calls her sister, under the year 688. For Elfleda, Wion cites Bede, whom he does not seem to have read; for Ethelfrida, Polydore Vergil, whom he did not understand. For the latter treats of a single daughter of Oswy, whom he calls Edelfreda, and writes thus in book 4 of his English History: "The excellent King likewise founded a monastery at the village of Whitby and there established a college of nuns, placing at its head Congilda, a most holy woman, and gave to her for training his daughter, named Edelfreda, who became a nun. But long afterward, the monastery having been destroyed by the barbarians, Benedictine monks restored it and occupied it." From that place afterward came most distinguished monks, who then established that magnificent monastery, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, close to the walls of York. It began to be restored by the monk Reinfrid in the year 1082, as Simon attests in the History of Durham, book 3, chapter 22.

[64] The name of St. Elfleda is inscribed in the English Martyrology under 8 February by John Wilson, in the Benedictine martyrology by Hugo Menard, and in the General Catalogue of Saints by Philippus Ferrarius; but the latter, in citing Heribert's Calendar of the Saints of Britain, is held by a double error: for Heribert did not write a special Calendar of the Saints of Britain, nor in the Calendar he published of Saints whose Lives in manuscript he believed to exist in Belgian libraries does he mention this Elfleda, but rather the Abbess of Romsey in Hampshire, of whom we shall treat on 29 October. But this Elfleda of Strensall is also recorded under 8 February by Edouard Maihew in his Benedictine Trophies of the English Congregation, and by Hieronymus Porterus in his Flowers of the Saints.

[65] A certain Calendar of the Saints of the Benedictine Order, written in a somewhat recent hand, has the following under 11 April: "St. Elfleda, Virgin and nun, daughter of the former King Oswy (read: Oswy) of the English, and granddaughter of St. Oswald the King." The manuscript Florarium under 20 March: "In England, Elfledis, Confessor." We know of no Confessor named Elfled. Besides the two already mentioned, there are in the English Martyrology another Elfleda under 13 April and another under 12 December.