Ermenilda

CONCERNING ST. ERMENILDA, QUEEN OF MERCIA IN ENGLAND AND ABBESS OF ELY

AROUND THE YEAR 700

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Ermenilda, Queen of the Mercians in England (Saint)

By G. H.

Section I. The lineage of St. Ermenilda and of her husband Wulfhere, Christian King of the Mercians. The conversion of the Mercians.

[1] Illustrious is Ermenilda because she was born of a most holy line of Kings and was married to a most pious King; but far more illustrious for having spurned royal glory and ended the rest of her life amid monastic exercises in every virtue and sanctity. the royal lineage of St. Ermenilda, her father, Her father was Ercombert, King of Kent, the first, as Bede attests in book 3 of his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, chapter 8, to command in his kingdom both the destruction of idols and the observance of the Lenten fast. Her grandfather Eadbald, instructed by St. Laurence, Archbishop of Canterbury, her grandfather, received the faith of Christ, and once baptized, took care to consult and favor the affairs of the Church in all things as much as he could: as the same Bede relates in book 2, chapter 6. Her great-grandfather, finally, St. Ethelbert, her great-grandfather, Kings of Kent, was the first of the Anglo-Saxon Kings to be initiated into the faith of Christ and holy baptism: whose Life we give on February 24. She who was wife of St. Ethelbert and great-grandmother of St. Ermenilda, descended from the first Kings of the Franks, named Bertha, or, as St. Gregory the Pope calls her, Aldiberga, her great-grandmother, and her ancestors, Kings of the Franks was the daughter of Charibert, King of Paris, granddaughter of Clothar I, son of Clovis I, who was baptized by St. Remigius, Bishop of Rheims: which illustrious Kings of the Franks St. Ermenilda had as her great-great-grandfather, as well as her grandfather and great-great-great-grandfather. The wife of Clovis I and great-great-great-grandmother of St. Ermenilda was St. Clotilde the Queen, daughter of Chilperic, King of the Burgundians, and of the Burgundians: of whom we shall treat below on February 28, at the Life of SS. Romanus and Lupicinus. St. Clotilde is venerated on June 3. Concerning the Kings of the Franks we have treated on February 1, at the Life of St. Sigebert. From the same family of the Kings of the Franks was born Emma, wife of King Eadbald and grandmother of St. Ermenilda.

[2] The wife of King Ercombert and mother of St. Ermenilda was St.

Sexburga, descended from the Kings of the East Angles: concerning whom and other holy women of both royal lines we shall say something below. the mother St. Sexburga, daughter of Anna, King of the East Angles. Her maternal grandfather was therefore King Anna, a good man and blessed with good and holy offspring: in whose court Cenwalch, King of the West Saxons, while exiled for three years, came to know the faith of Christ and embraced the truth. So Bede, book 3, chapter 7. King Anna succeeded his cousin St. Sigebert and his kinsman Egric, and was slain by Penda, King of the Mercians, in battle. St. Sigebert is venerated on September 27. Anna also is called a Saint in the manuscript Ely History. Born therefore of these Christian ancestors, Ermenilda, as John Bromton says in his Chronicle of the kingdom of Mercia, St. Ermenilda piously educated: having been formed by her parents in the alphabet of the Proto-Doctor St. Augustine, and aided in the exercise of virtues by the Archbishops of Canterbury, advanced greatly. Those who presided over that See after SS. Augustine, Laurence, Mellitus, and Justus were St. Honorius, and, after his death in the year 655, St. Deusdedit was substituted for him: the feast day of the former is September 30, and of the latter June 30.

[3] She was then given in marriage to Wulfhere, King of the Mercians, a man eminently and consistently Christian, married to Wulfhere, the Christian King of the Mercians, for King Ercombert, who was the first to destroy all idols in the kingdom of Kent, would not have given his daughter to an idolatrous King, emulating in this respect the virtues of his father Eadbald, by whom, as Bede attests in book 2, chapter 9, when St. Edwin, King of the Northumbrians, not yet a Christian, had sent suitors to seek his sister St. Ethelburga as his wife, the reply was given: "that it was not lawful for a Christian maiden to be given in marriage to a pagan, lest the faith and sacraments of the heavenly King be profaned by the fellowship of a King who was utterly ignorant of the worship of the true God." And this judgment concerning Ercombert and his wife St. Sexburga is confirmed by their other daughter St. Earcongota, who is called by Bede in book 3, chapter 8, an offspring worthy of her parents, a maiden of great virtues. For she, sent by them across the sea, was dedicated to God among the Franks in the monastery of St. Fara, whose holy soul, released from the bonds of the flesh, was led amid the songs of singing Angels to the eternal joys of the heavenly homeland: for whom the ecclesiastical calendars indicate the seventh day of July as sacred: on which day also her aunt St. Ethelburga, under whom she had lived there as a nun under the Abbess, is inscribed in the sacred records. Yet notwithstanding these facts, certain later writers, seduced by I know not what old wives' tale, have dared to write that Wulfhere reigned for a long time utterly averse to the Christian faith, and in the manner of a tyrant laid violent hands upon his own sons in hatred of the Christian religion: from which calumny, to vindicate the pious King, we briefly indicate his lineage, deeds, and the time of his reign.

[4] Cridda, Cridda, Wipha, Cherlus, Kings of Mercia, or Creadda, is recorded to have established the line of the Mercian Kings around the year of Christ 582, and authors make him the great-grandfather of Wulfhere. His son Wipha, or Wibba, succeeded him, then his kinsman Cherlus, or Keorlus: whom some call merely petty kings, because they possessed only a few provinces. These petty kings were succeeded by Penda, and the idolater Penda: the father of Wulfhere, who became King around the year 625. Bede, book 2, chapter 20, asserts that he was a most valiant man of the royal stock of the Mercians, but with his entire nation of the Mercians was given over to idols and ignorant of the Christian name: by whom the kingdom of Mercia was very greatly enlarged, with SS. Edwin and Oswald, Kings of the Northumbrians, St. Sigebert, Edric, and Anna of the East Angles, being slain in battle on various occasions, and Cenwalch, King of the West Saxons, driven from his kingdom: concerning which matters Bede should be read, book 2, chapter 20, and book 3, chapters 7, 9, and 18.

[5] The elder son of Penda, Peada, ruled the Middle Angles, or Mediterranean Angles, while his father lived. then the Christians Peada, with the Middle Angles converted, Wulfhere himself in a charter below, and Bede throughout, distinguish these Middle Angles from the Mercians: Bede, book 3, chapter 21, asserts that these Middle Angles, under Prince Peada the brother of Wulfhere, received the faith and sacraments of truth: "for he could not otherwise have obtained as his wife Alhfleda, the daughter of Oswiu, King of the Northumbrians, whom he sought." Peada was therefore baptized by Finan the Bishop, together with all the companions, soldiers, and all the servants who had come with him... "And having received four Priests who seemed suitable by their learning and life for teaching and baptizing that nation, he returned with great joy." In the year 653, therefore, it is read in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that these subjects of Prince Peada received the true faith. "Nor did King Penda forbid," says Bede, "the word to be preached even in his own nation, that is, of the Mercians, if any wished to hear it... These things were begun two years before the death of King Penda," who perished in the year 655, and St. Oswiu, with the Mercians embracing the faith, when the Anglo-Saxon Chronicler adds that the Mercians became Christians. "Then," says Bede, "with the King slain, Oswiu received his kingdom and converted the nation itself of the Mercians and of the neighboring provinces to the grace of the Christian faith, and by Finan the Bishop Diuma was ordained Bishop of the Mediterranean Angles and of the Mercians simultaneously. For the scarcity of priests compelled one Bishop to be set over two peoples." But when Diuma died, a second Bishop, Cellach, was substituted. "Moreover the same King Oswiu after the slaying of King Penda ruled for three years the nation of the Mercians as well as the other peoples of the southern provinces: who also... bestowed upon Peada, son of King Penda, the kingdom of the Southern Mercians, who are separated from the Northern Mercians by the river Trent; but the same Peada was most wickedly slain the following spring."

[6] and Wulfhere in the year 657, "Then the chieftains of the Mercian nation rebelled against King Oswiu, having raised to the kingship Wulfhere, son of the same Penda, a young man whom they had kept in hiding. And so the Mercians with their King were free, and rejoiced to serve Christ the true King for an everlasting kingdom in the heavens. Moreover the same King ruled the Mercian nation for seventeen years, and had as his first Bishop Trumhere, his second Jaruman, with Bishops appointed. his third Ceadda, his fourth Winfrith. All these, succeeding each other in order under King Wulfhere, discharged the episcopate of the Mercian nation." So Bede, book 3, chapter 24. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicler indicates the time of the transfer of the kingdom to Wulfhere. "In the year 657," he says, "Peada died, and Wulfhere, son of Penda, took up the kingship of the Mercians" -- indeed a threefold kingdom. For Wulfhere in a charter below calls himself King of the Mercians, of the Mediterranean Angles, and of the southern kingdoms. Bede calls these kingdoms the southern provinces. Concerning the boundaries of each kingdom, there will be occasion to speak elsewhere.

Section II. The deeds of King Wulfhere. His and St. Ermenilda's daughter St. Werburga. Was Coenred the King also their son?

[7] The noble deeds performed by Wulfhere in propagating the faith were very greatly promoted by St. Ermenilda through her exceptional prudence, piety, and zeal. For, as John Bromton says in his Chronicle of the Mercian kingdom, through the efforts of St. Ermenilda "with her sweetness, her persuasive exhortations, her character, and her benefactions, she soothed untamed hearts and roused them to the sweet yoke of Christ and the rewards of perpetual blessedness: the perverse and excessively rebellious she restrained by her authority. Nor did she rest, unconquered, until she had rooted out idols and demonic rites and filled the kingdom of Mercia with churches and priests. King Wulfhere her husband, willingly yielding to the holy desires, petitions, and admonitions of his wife Ermenilda, Wulfhere champions the faith of Christ: eradicated the abominable idols from his borders." So far Bromton, and the deeds of the King are read more fully in the ancient authors.

[8] First, in the ancient Saxon Chronicle the following is found under the year 661: "Cenwalch at the time of Easter fought at Possentesburh, and Wulfhere, son of Penda, laid waste as far as Ashdown, [through him the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight were converted to the faith in the year 661,] and moreover laid waste the Isle of Wight: and also gave the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight to Ethelwald, King of the South Saxons: because Wulfhere had received him at the baptismal font. And the priest Eoppa, by order of Wulfhere, and King Wulfhere himself, first brought baptism to the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight." So far the Chronicle, which the Chronicler of Worcester largely transcribes, but the Chronicler of Westminster explains somewhat more fully: "In the year of grace 661, Ciniwalc, King of the West Saxons, rebelled against Wulfhere, King of the Mercians. But he, employing his father's valor and fortune, prevailed: and having put the King of the West Saxons to flight, he despoiled his land. At length, arriving at the Isle of Wight, King Ethelwald baptized: he obtained it by war. Also at this time Ethelwald, King of the South Saxons, in the thirteenth year of his reign, being subdued by the aforesaid Wulfhere, received the faith of Christ and was received from the sacred font by the same King." The baptism of this King Bede thus relates, book 4, chapter 13: "King Ethelwalch had not long before been baptized in the province of the Mercians, in the presence and at the suggestion of King Wulfhere: by whom also, coming forth from the font, he was received in the place of a son: as a sign of which adoption he gave him two provinces, namely the Isle of Wight and the province of the Meonware in the nation of the West Saxons." These facts demonstrate that King Wulfhere was a sincere Christian in the year 661.

[9] Besides these West and South Saxons, moreover, as Bede attests in book 3, chapter 30, there were subject to Wulfhere, King of the Mercians, Sighere and Sebbi, Kings of the East Saxons. When, however, the province was oppressed by the plague of mortality (which he had narrated in chapter 27 as having raged far and wide in the year 664), Sighere with his part of the people, [King Sighere with his subjects recalled from apostasy in the year 664 or following,] having abandoned the sacraments of the Christian faith, turned to apostasy. For both the King himself and very many of the common people and of the nobles began to restore heathen temples and to worship idols: as if by these means they could be defended from the mortality. When King Wulfhere learned of this, he sent Bishop Jaruman, who was the successor of Trumhere, to correct the error and recall the province to the faith of truth: who, acting with great diligence and traversing all regions far and wide, brought both the people and the aforesaid King back to the way of justice; to such a degree that, having abandoned or destroyed the temples and altars they had made, they opened the churches and rejoiced to confess the name of Christ which they had denied; desiring rather to die with the faith of the resurrection in him than to live in the filth of unbelief among idols. With these things accomplished, both the Bishop and their teachers returned home. But St. Sebbi, the co-heir of the kingdom, preserved with great devotion the faith he had received together with all his people, and completed a faithful life with great felicity, and was buried in London in the church of St. Paul; the sacred calendars celebrate him on August 29. These facts demonstrate that Wulfhere was a most ardent champion of the Christian religion in the year 664 and the years following.

[10] At the same time, as Richard of Hexham writes concerning the state and Bishops of the Church of Hexham, St. Wilfrid, Bishop of York, having been ordained but with his See pre-occupied by Ceadda, was serving God in his monastery at Ripon, except that from time to time he was invited with great prayers by Wulfhere, St. Wilfrid, Bishop of York, invited to help the Mercians: or Wulfhere, King of the Mercians, and Egbert, King of the Kentish, to exercise episcopal functions in their regions, which at that time lacked Bishops. The See of Canterbury was vacant from the month of June of the year 664, when St. Deusdedit had died, to the year 668, when St. Theodore, ordained at Rome and sent thence to Britain on the 27th of May, governed the Church of Canterbury. The Mercians also were without any Bishop, Jaruman being either hindered among the East Saxons while the Kings were being brought back from apostasy to the Christian faith, or having afterward died. For then, as Bede relates in book 4, chapter 3, "when King Wulfhere requested of Archbishop Theodore that a Bishop be given to himself and his people, Bishop St. Ceadda given to the Mercians, in the year 669 he did not wish to ordain a new one for them, but asked King Oswiu that Bishop Ceadda (who had hitherto administered St. Wilfrid's See of York) then leading a quiet life in the monastery of Lastingham, be given to them." Having therefore received the episcopate of the nation of the Mercians and also of the Lindsey people, Ceadda took care to administer it with great perfection of life. To him also Wulfhere gave land of fifty households for the construction of a monastery in a place called Adbarve, that is, "At the Grove," in the province of Lindsey. He had his episcopal See, moreover, in the place called Lichfield, where he died on the second day of the Nones of March, on which we shall illuminate his Life. The Chronicler of Worcester assigns the year of his death as 672.

[11] In his place (so Bede continues) Theodore ordained Winfrith, a good and modest man, who, Winfrith in the year 672. like his predecessors, should preside by the office of the episcopate over the provinces of the Mercians, the Mediterranean Angles, and the Lindsey people. Over all of which Wulfhere held the scepter of the kingdom. This same man, as Bede relates in chapter 5, was present at the Synod of Hertford held in the year 673, Indiction I, on September 24. Nor much afterward, as is read in chapter 6, Archbishop Theodore, offended by a certain act of disobedience, deposed Winfrith from the episcopate and in his place ordained as Bishop Sexwulf, Sexwulf in the year 674. who was the founder and Abbot of the monastery of Medeshamstede in the region of the Gyrwas. These events the Chronicler of Westminster refers to the year 674.

[12] In the same year 674, Escwine obtained the kingdom of the West Saxons, and we read in the Saxon Chronicle and in the Chronicler of Worcester that in the following year he fought with Wulfhere at the place called Bedanheafod, with whom the epitome of Bede reports the death of Wulfhere in these words: "In the year six hundred and seventy-five, Wulfhere, King of the Mercians, after he had reigned seventeen years, died, leaving the sovereignty to Ethelred." The Chronicler of Worcester adds: Wulfhere dies in the year 675, "In the same year Wulfhere himself, who was the first of the Mercian Kings to receive the faith and the washing of holy regeneration, and who destroyed and utterly rooted out the worship of demons in his entire nation, and commanded the name of Christ to be preached in every place of his kingdom, an outstanding propagator of the faith, and built churches in many places, departed to the heavenly kingdoms in the seventeenth year from which he had reigned. His Queen, St. Ermenilda, bore him St. Werburga, a maiden of great virtues." In her Life, given on February 3, the author Goscelin calls Wulfhere "the builder of many churches, the supreme lover and spreader of the Christian faith: who even drew subject Kings to the worship of Christ by giving them provinces as a reward, and just as St. Ethelbert first spread Christianity at Canterbury, so he spread it first in Mercia." For his brother Peada had ruled only the Mediterranean Angles, and for only a very brief time the Southern Mercians. Yet, according to Goscelin, both Peada and the other two brothers Ethelred and Merwahl, together with his brothers, who were also Kings, are said, along with Wulfhere, to have been not only practitioners of the Christian religion but also its first and most ardent propagators. That Wulfhere zealously aided with his patronage the Christianity barely flickering in his kingdom and initiated through his brother Peada is shown by William of Malmesbury in book 1, On the Kings of England, chapter 4. Concerning the kingdom of his brother Merwahl over the Westan-hecans in the western region of Mercia beyond the River Severn, where afterward the diocese was assigned to the episcopal See of Hereford, and the monastery of Wenlock was built for his daughter St. Milburga, we shall speak at her Life on February 23. Concerning his other daughter St. Milwida we have treated on January 17, and concerning his third daughter St. Mildred we shall treat on July 13. The Chronicler of Worcester at the end of his Chronicle, in his treatise on the Genealogy of the Kings of Mercia, calls the three brothers of Wulfhere Saints: St. Ethelred, the heir of the kingdom (whose feast day is May 4), St. Merewald, of whom we have treated, and St. Mercelm, the successor of Merewald: but of these last two we have not yet read their names in the sacred records. Two sisters of the same, SS. Kinesburga and Kineswitha, are venerated on March 6.

[13] The Acts of St. Werburga, given below, establish her as the only child of St. Ermenilda. Others believe Kenred, or Coenred, was Coenred the King a son of Wulfhere and St. Ermenilda? was their son, who succeeded St. Ethelred the King in the year of Christ 704 when the latter became a monk. Bede and the author of the Saxon Chronicle are silent about his parentage. The Chronicler of Worcester writes that Ethelred gave the kingdom to his nephew; Huntingdon, book 4, calls him a kinsman of Ethelred; Ingulf, William of Malmesbury, the Chester historian, and later writers generally record him as the son of Wulfhere: the Chester historian adds in book 5 of the Polychronicon, chapter 19, that Coenred, son of Wulfhere, was unable to reign after the latter's death because of his immature age, and therefore St. Ethelred succeeded. This Coenred, according to Bede, book 5, chapter 20, "most nobly presided over the kingdom of the Mercians for some time, but far more nobly relinquished the scepter of the kingdom" in the year of Christ 709. "For he came to Rome, and there, having been tonsured and made a monk at the thresholds of the Apostles, he remained in prayers, fasts, and alms until his last day," with Ceolred, son of St. Ethelred, succeeding to the kingdom: in whom the descendants of King Penda came to an end. This Penda had three brothers known in history: the first of these, Eoppa, begot Alweo, the father of King Ethelbald, who, substituted for Ceolred when the latter died in 716, reigned until 755, when he was slain by the tyrant Beornred: who was soon removed, and Offa reigned, whose great-great-grandfather Eawa was another brother of Penda: the genealogy of whom the Saxon Chronicle sets forth. When Offa died in 794, his son Egfrith succeeded, who was carried off by a premature death. In his place the kingdom of Mercia was obtained by Kenwulf, in the fifth generation, as Malmesbury relates in book 1, On the Kings of England, chapter 4, descended from Kenwalch, the third brother of Penda. With the killing of his son St. Kenelm and the expulsion of Ceolwulf in the year 821, all the glory and power of the kingdom of Mercia gradually collapsed. St. Kenelm is venerated on July 17.

Section III. The martyrdom of SS. Wulfhad and Ruffin falsely attributed to Wulfhere. Were they sons of him and St. Ermenilda?

[14] These matters have been set forth more fully in the hope that some light might be shed upon the martyrdom of SS. Wulfhad and Ruffin, who are erroneously believed to have been the sons of King Wulfhere and St. Ermenilda, [Wulfhad and Ruffin are erroneously recorded by Camden as their sons, slain by Wulfhere,] and to have been killed by their father Wulfhere in hatred of the Christian faith. Concerning them Camden has the following in his section on the Coritani, treating of the beginnings and foundations of the monastery of Medeshamstede, or Peterborough, situated in Northamptonshire. "Peada," he says, "son of Penda, who was the first Christian King of the Mercians, in the year of salvation 656, to propagate the Christian religion, laid the foundations of a monastery at Medeshamstede in the region of the Gyrwas, which, being removed by the wicked arts of his wife, he could not complete. Peada was succeeded by his brother Wolpher, who, being most averse to the Christian religion, slaughtered his sons Wolphald and Rufinus with barbarous savagery because they had given themselves to Christ. He himself, however, having embraced the Christian religion a few years later, to wash away this impiety of his with some pious work, put his hand to the monastery begun by his brother, which, with the aid of his brother Ethelred, and his sisters Kineburga and Kineswitha, having been completed, he consecrated to St. Peter in the year 631 (one should read 673) -- whence the place began to be called Peterborough -- and enriched it with the most ample revenues, and appointed Sexwulf, a most pious man who was the chief advisor of the work, as its first Abbot." So Camden, drawing from Robert of Swapham, of whom more below. and others: The same history was published in a tragic style under the name of "Mercia" by Joseph Simons, an Englishman of our Society, eminently learned in theological as well as humanistic sciences, citing after Camden the Annals of Stone and the History of Peterborough, which the author of the English Martyrology also follows under the Kalends of June in the first edition, but July 24 in the second edition, on which day the History of the Passion says they were killed. From a manuscript codex of the monastery of Peterborough we have obtained that fable of the Passion with this opening: "Nature, by bringing forth, produced the blessed youths Wulfhad and Ruffin as brothers; but the grace of regeneration in faith and the shedding of their blood rendered them brothers by a more felicitous birth." They are said to have been sons of Wulfhere, King of the Mercians, and of the holy Queen Ermenilda.

[15] Behold, by the word "they are said" it is suggested that it was spread by popular report that they were their sons. In that history, Wulfhere, previously baptized by St. Finan, Bishop of Lindisfarne, like his brother Peada, is said, after marrying St. Ermenilda, the manuscript history of the Passion is fabulous, at the instigation of Werbold (who, being his secretary, had not obtained their daughter St. Werburga as his wife, the mother preventing it), to have apostatized and abjured the faith of Christ: St. Germanus, Bishop of the East Angles, having set out into Mercia with Queen St. Ermenilda, is said to have preached the word of God there, and from this their sons Wulfhad and Ruffin are said to have drawn some slight acquaintance with the faith of the Christian name: of whom the former, while indulging in fowling and hunting, pursuing a stag, arrived at the cell of St. Ceadda the Bishop, and was instructed by him in the faith of Christ, baptized, and fortified with the holy Eucharist, and on his return from the woods brought his brother Ruffin to St. Ceadda: and when, after the latter was baptized, both frequently visited St. Ceadda's cell -- which had been moved closer to the royal dwelling -- while hunting, King Wulfhere, instigated by the furies of the impious Werbold, cut off Wulfhad's head before the altar, and inflicted a mortal wound upon Ruffin as he fled: their mother St. Ermenilda buried the bodies in a stone sarcophagus. Then King Wulfhere was brought back to the Christian faith by the same Ceadda, and under the key of penance caused the destruction of heathen temples throughout his entire kingdom, the uprooting of idolatry, the building of churches, the founding of monasteries, and the ordaining of clergy: and that the noble monastery at Medeshamstede, afterward called Peterborough, was built at that time: also that a college of Regular Canons was erected at the place of burial of SS. Wulfhad and Ruffin, called Stone, where, by miracles shining forth, many benefits are bestowed upon those seeking salvation, to the praise of our Lord Jesus Christ, through the merits of the Saints -- as that history concludes with these words -- a narrative much at variance with the above account of Camden, because the latter would have Wulfhere to have begun his reign utterly averse to the Christian religion: whereas this author records that the faith was repudiated by him after St. Werburga, his daughter, already of marriageable age, had spurned marriage to Werbold: which would have had to occur near the end of Wulfhere's life, since he became King as a young man and reigned only seventeen years. But how then could Wulfhad and Ruffin, his sons, not have been baptized, the story is rejected and instructed from infancy in Christian morals together with St. Werburga by those parents, through whose holy industry -- as we have related above from Bede -- both King Ethelwald with his South Saxons and the inhabitants of the distant Isle of Wight received baptism, and King Sighere with the East Saxons was recalled from apostasy? Moreover, St. Germanus as Bishop of the East Angles at that time is otherwise unknown. Perhaps Jaruman is meant, who in the Saxon translation of Bede, book 3, chapter 30, is called Germanus. But this man was sent by Wulfhere to the East Saxons and brought back the King and people to the Christian faith; and the author failed to distinguish them from the East Angles. Furthermore, the same Jaruman, or Germanus, died before Ceadda was given as Bishop to the Mercians, according to Bede, book 4, chapter 3: yet he is imagined to have survived Wulfhad and Ruffin when they suffered martyrdom.

[16] John Speed in his Theatre of Great Britain, chapter 28, adds the martyrdom of Wulfhere himself: "Pious and religious among the Kings of the Saxons," he says, "he renders more celebrated Peterborough, the same story differently fabricated in Speed. formerly called Medeswell: where Wolpher, King of the Mercians, began a most ample and most magnificent monastery sacred to St. Peter, namely to expiate the slaughter of his two sons, whom he had killed on account of Christianity: but when he himself was put to death for the same reason, because he embraced the Christian religion, by his own mother, his brother Penda put his hand to the work begun, which, with the aid of his brother Ethelred, and likewise of his sisters Kineburga and Kineswitha, he completed." The year of the monastery's foundation is there written in the margin as 546, an enormous error. Peada also reigned before Wulfhere, wickedly slain, by the treachery, as they say, of his wife, according to Bede, book 3, chapter 24, which is another error of Speed.

[17] Moreover, that the monastery of Medeshamstede, or Peterborough, was begun by King Peada before the time of Wulfhere's reign is shown by Robert of Swapham, a monk of this monastery, in his manuscript History of its foundation, which begins thus: "There is a noble monastery in the region of the Gyrwas, which was once called Medeshamstede, the monastery of Medeshamstede but now is commonly called Burgh: of what authority and dignity it has been, and who were its founders and builders and restorers, we shall relate." And after describing the site of the place, he continues: "When Mediterranean Anglia received the faith of the Lord under Prince and King Peada, two years before the death of Penda, the same most valiant King Peada, beloved of God and men, begun by Peada and Oswiu, is built up began to build the said monastery from the foundations with the greatest zeal, together with King Oswiu and with the most devout people who had been imbued with the sacrament of the faith, through Sexwulf, a most powerful man." Etc. "But when he was slain, as soon as his brother Wulfhere had obtained the kingdom, the good work which his brother had begun he himself began to cherish, to honor, to enrich with lands and other things, and through the same Saxwulf, a most valiant and most religious man, most learned in both secular and ecclesiastical affairs, completed by Wulfhere, St. Ethelred, and their sisters: he began most urgently to build, with the help of his brother Ethelred and his holy sisters Kineburga and Kineswitha. When the monastery had been most nobly established and gloriously built, they consecrated it to him who holds the primacy of all Churches and the keys of the kingdom of heaven, namely to Blessed Peter, as the first-fruits of the Church... King Wulfhere moreover honored the house of the heavenly Key-bearer at Medeshamstede as an authentic church, as if it were the Roman church: he advanced it with royal generosity, with which he also illuminated the neighboring churches: he bestowed eternal liberty, that the royal bride might serve no one... he confirmed it with privileges and his own authority, as also did his successors."

[18] The charter of Wulfhere itself, given to this monastery, is presented in the manuscript codex and confirmed by the charter of Wulfhere, with this opening: "Wulfhere, by the benefit of God King of the Mercians, and of the Mediterranean Angles, and also of the southern kingdoms, to all present and future who worship Christ and his holy Church, perpetual salvation. May my soul bless the Lord Jesus, my Savior... Wherefore I desire to be reconciled in a more special manner to that Prince of the divine faith and of the Churches, and Key-bearer of the kingdom of God, through whom I may be admitted to the Paradise of the Lord, through the privilege of his house, which at Medeshamstede has been gloriously established by the zeal of the venerable Abbot Saxwulf, and a divine community of monks well arranged. To which whatever my predecessor and brother Peada, or Oswiu, our co-brother and co-ruler in the Christian faith, have granted, I desire not only to confirm by my authority but also to add some things from my own resources. To God and to Blessed Peter and to his monastery of Medeshamstede and to the Abbot, and to the community of the same place, I confer and confirm as a pure and perpetual alms all the holdings written below... This privilege was enacted in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 664, in the 7th year of his reign, the year of Christ 664, the 7th of King Wulfhere, the 9th of Deusdedit." So far this document. With these agree the Decretal letter of Pope Agatho and the Synod of Hatfield, in Spelman's British Councils, page 163 and following; where St. Ethelred the King says the following: "All things that my brother Peada and my brother Wulfhere, and also my sisters Kineburgh and Kineswithe gave and bequeathed to St. Peter and to the Abbot, I wish to be ratified and unalterable. And I wish that on their anniversaries they may have them for the sake of their souls and mine. I myself also on this day give and cede to St. Peter and to his Church of Medeshamstede these lands written below, with all their appurtenances." and of St. Ethelred in the year 680. This is recorded as having been done in the year of the Lord 680, the 6th of King Ethelred. To both charters royal, episcopal, and other subscriptions are added. Robert of Swapham, after relating these matters, adds: "Similarly the succeeding Kings also entirely strove to honor it with lands and liberty, to strengthen it with privileges, and to strike and terrify with anathema anyone who might attempt to defraud it of anything or to take anything away." This writer Robert of Swapham lived under Henry II, who administered the kingdom of England from the year of Christ 1154 to 1190; and his fuller history is cited by Clement Reyner in the Appendix to the Apostolate of the Benedictines in England, Document 64. We suspect that the history of the martyrdom of Wulfhad and Ruffin related above is falsely attributed to him, which Camden and Speed described as cited under his name but in a different form.

[19] Ingulf, Abbot of the neighboring monastery of Crowland, at the beginning of his history confirms what has been said: Ingulf writes the same: "Peada," he says, "had planned to found the monastery of Medeshamstede, but being prevented by a premature death, he left his fervor to his brother Wulfhere, who was succeeding to the kingdom, and to Saxwulf, a very powerful man. That this monastery was afterward founded by them is beyond doubt, in the year of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 664." The charter of Wulfhere was issued in the 7th year of his reign, and since he had entered upon it as a young man in the year of Christ 657, he could not have previously fathered both Werburga, already of marriageable age, and Wulfhad and Ruffin, who had already for some time, after they had grown up and been exercised in hunting and fowling, been killed by him in hatred of the Christian faith. what should be said about the Martyrs. They rather suffered martyrdom either formerly in an ancient persecution raised under the Romans, or certainly were killed in hatred of the faith by the elder Penda, that most bitter enemy of Christians, and were his kinsmen of the royal blood of the Mercians, descended from the three above-mentioned brothers of Penda. From mere conjecture we resolve to assert nothing. It suffices to have removed the charge of apostasy and parricide from Wulfhere, the husband of St. Ermenilda, and to have vindicated the praise of propagating the faith attributed to him by Bede and the other above-mentioned more ancient writers of English affairs.

Section IV. The monastic life of St. Ermenilda. Veneration.

[20] Scarcely any of the Anglo-Saxon Kings accepted the faith of Christ without immediately adorning their kingdoms with monasteries they had built -- not only for men but also for women, in which very many daughters of Kings led the monastic life, nuns from the royal family of Kent, either as subject nuns or as Abbesses placed over them. Among these, first may be counted SS. Ethelburga and Eadburga, sisters, daughters of St. Ethelbert, King of Kent, great-aunts of St. Ermenilda, who both flourished in the monastery of Lyminge among the Kentish, near the town of Elham, a few miles from the sea and the port of Dover, the great-aunts of St. Ermenilda, SS. Ethelburga and Eadburga: built by their brother King Eadbald, the grandfather of St. Ermenilda: and St. Ethelburga presided over the rest, having previously been married to St. Edwin, King of the Northumbrians: she is venerated on September 8. Eadburga is listed on December 13, but we have shown elsewhere that she is held by many to be one and the same as the younger Eadburga, Abbess of St. Mildred's monastery on the Isle of Thanet. Another celebrated monastery in Kent was by the sea, over which the first Abbess was St. Eanswida, an aunt of St. Ermenilda and sister of King Ercombert, her aunt St. Eanswida: of which we shall treat on September 12. Concerning St. Earcongota, the other daughter of Ercombert and sister of St. Ermenilda, her sister St. Earcongota: and the maternal aunt of both, St. Ethelburga, who lived among the Franks in the monastery of St. Fara, we have treated above. Another maternal aunt was St. Withburga, who, having built a monastery at Dereham in the County of Norfolk, from the Kings of the East Angles, the maternal aunts: St. Ethelburga, led a holy monastic life; her feast day is July 8. Their sister was the most celebrated Virgin St. Etheldreda, the third maternal aunt of Ermenilda. She, twice married -- first to Tonbert, Prince of the Gyrwas, then to Ecgfrith, afterward King of the Northumbrians -- nevertheless preserved her virginity. Having then obtained permission from her husband, St. Withburga, she began the monastic life at the city of Coldingham on the borders of present-day Scotland; St. Etheldreda, whence after a stay of one year she returned to the East Angles, and began to build the monastery of Ely in the year 673, and having presided there as Abbess over very many nuns, she died in the year 679 on June 23. Her virtues and miracles are related by Bede, book 4, chapters 19 and 20. The sister of these three holy virgins was St. Sexburga, the mother of SS. Earcongota and Ermenilda, her mother St. Sexburga: who built a monastery of nuns on the island of Sheppey in eastern Kent; from which a village is still called Minster. She is read in the manuscript Ely History to have lived there as Abbess for some time after the death of her husband (Ercombert had died in the year 664), having received the veil of sanctity from Archbishop St. Theodore, who had assumed that dignity in the year 668. She then set out to join her sister St. Etheldreda, lived with her, and upon her death succeeded her as second Abbess in the governance of the monastery.

[21] But St. Ermenilda, after the death of her husband Wulfhere in the year 675, according to the same Ely History, where St. Ermenilda became a nun. is said to have taken the religious habit in Kent under her mother St. Sexburga, in the monastery of Sheppey, and then, when Sexburga departed to the monastery of Ely, to have been left there as Abbess; though others record that she entered the monastery of Ely under her mother St. Sexburga: where, upon the death of her mother, she was substituted as third Abbess by canonical election, in the same history, and having been worthily received by all, became the Mother of all. Ely is moreover, according to Bede, book 4, chapter 19, Elige, in the province of the East Saxons, named from the abundance of eels which are caught in the neighboring marshes; Abbess of Ely in the County of Cambridge on the river Granta, where this river, having left Cambridge, flows toward the sea. In what year she began to preside over the others as Abbess there, or in what year she died and left that dignity and life, the silence of the ancients does not make clear. Wion in his Notes to the Monastic Martyrology on this February 13 states that she was made Abbess of Ely in the year 703: she dies on February 13. and we have said on February 3 that she died around that time or even earlier, and that she was made Abbess not long after the year 680. That she died on the Ides of February is related in the epitome of her Life and in the manuscript Ely History. "How great in sanctity and piety she was" (these are the words of the history) "her life and her precious death more fully attest. She rests in the monastery of Ely, buried together with her blessed mother and her virgin maternal aunt Etheldreda." In the manuscript Life of this Etheldreda the following is related: "The monastery of Ely was not long, by the provision of God's help, deprived of the comfort of a Mother: for by the unanimous wish eulogy from the manuscript Life of St. Etheldreda. and consent of the whole Congregation, after the death of Blessed Sexburga, St. Ermenilda succeeded in her place; who, having disregarded all ambition of dominion, commended to Christ the Virgins over whom she presided, and following her most holy mother, came poor herself to the poverty of Christ, which she had desired: and while she shunned being honored among men, she received greater honor with God and with men, where, having been worthily received by all, she became the Mother of the whole Congregation. She passed, full of sanctity and justice, to the heavenly kingdoms, and rests interred beside her maternal aunt, namely the holy Etheldreda, next to her mother. Her precious death bears witness to how great was her sanctity and piety, which the book of her Life more fully teaches." the book of her Life hitherto unknown: This book of her Life we have hitherto been unable to obtain: we suspect it was composed by the monk Goscelin, who wrote the Life of her daughter Werburga, as we said on February 3. The epitome of both Lives is given by Capgrave in his Legend of the Saints of England, its epitome. and by a manuscript codex of the monastery of Rouge-Cloitre near Brussels, from which we give it. In the Appendix to the manuscript Chronicle of Peterborough it is recorded that at Ely rest St. Etheldreda, St. Withburga, St. Ermenilda, and St. Sexburga. And the Ely Chronicle reports that an elevation of some of their relics was made on October 17.

[22] Her memory is celebrated in very many Martyrologies on this February 13: she is called Virgin, that is, a nun. in some of which she is called Virgin; that is, as Molanus attests, a widowed nun. So Baldric, book 2 of his Chronicle of Cambrai, chapter 26, calls St. Rictrude, the parent of four holy children, "a glorious Virgin of God," and Walter the Abbot, in his Life of St. Vindicianus, in Colvenerius's Notes on Baldric, calls "Rictrude magnificent in virginity": in which place Colvenerius says that "Virgin" is used for a nun, or one devoted to God: so too "Mother" is customarily used for her who presides over nuns, even if she is a virgin. Concerning St. Rictrude and her children we have treated on February 2 at the Life of St. Adalbald her husband; name in the sacred records: we shall treat more fully on May 12, her feast day. The manuscript Utrecht Martyrology: "In Britain, of St. Ermohilda, Virgin." The manuscript Florarium: "Of Ermenhilla, Virgin." And on the preceding day: "Of Ermenilda, Virgin." Richard Whitford: "In Britain, the feast of St. Ermenilda, Virgin, of noble blood." The manuscript Cologne Martyrology of the Carmelite monastery, the Doctrinale Clericorum printed at Lubeck in 1490, and the ancient Cologne Martyrology: "On the same day, of Blessed Ermenilda, Virgin." Maurolycus: "Of Ormenilda, Virgin." The Carthusians of Cologne in the supplement to Usuard: "In Britain, at the monastery of Ely, of Blessed Ermenilda, Queen." Nearly the same is found in Ferrari and Canisius in the German Martyrology. Dorgany in the Benedictine Calendar: "Of St. Ermenilda, Queen, a nun." Wion: "In Britain, of St. Ermenilda, a widowed nun," to which Menard adds: "who was the wife of Wulfhere, King of the Mercians, and the daughter of Ercombert, King of Kent." Peter de Natalibus treats of the same in book 2, chapter 67, Vincent of Beauvais in book 25 of his Mirror of History, chapter 32, and everywhere all the historians of English affairs of that century. an antiphon to her, In the manuscript Breviary of the Church of Salisbury the following is related concerning her: Antiphon: "Your name is as ointment poured forth, therefore the maidens have loved you exceedingly." Versicle: "Pray for us, Blessed Ermenilda." Response: "That we may be worthy," etc. prayer. Prayer: "Grant us, we beseech you, almighty God, that we who keep the commemoration of Blessed Ermenilda may, through her merits interceding with you, deserve to be absolved from all sins. Through our Lord."

EPITOME OF THE LIFE,

From John Capgrave and the manuscript of Rouge-Cloitre.

Ermenilda, Queen of the Mercians in England (Saint)

BHL Number: 2612

[23] For holy Ermenilda, daughter of Ercombert, King of Kent, and of the holy Sexburga, above all put on maternal affections for every piety, compassion, and relief of all necessities. The same benevolence was in all things, the same charity in Christ; the same constant ardor for the heavenly kingdoms and desires. She was given by her parents in marriage to Wulfhere, King of the Mercians; and through her mediation, the kingdom of the Mercians and of the Kentish became as one. When the pagan King Penda with his thirty chieftains was slain by King Oswiu, the brother of St. Oswald, his son Wulfhere, having received baptism, began to reign. His wife Ermenilda, instructed by her parents, with her sweetness, her persuasive exhortations, her character, and her benefactions, soothing untamed hearts, roused rude and unlearned peoples to the sweet yoke of Christ; and the perverse and rebellious she powerfully restrained. she promotes the worship of religion among the Mercians: Nor did she rest, unconquered, until she had rooted out idols and demonic rites, filled the kingdom with churches and priests, and accustomed the people to sacred oratories, to divine offices, and to all works of piety. The King indeed, obeying with a willing spirit her holy desires and petitions, yielded himself willingly to her admonitions. For not only did he strive to assist her vows with royal power, but also, provoked by her examples, he did many things: execrating the abominable idols, he banished them from his borders. He admired this handmaid of Christ with veneration, and emulated her intention, fixed upon heaven amid the rivers of the world. A sole child was born to St. Ermenilda, St. Werburga. And after seventeen years of his reign, when King Wulfhere died, she leads a monastic life: she herself with her beloved daughter of God entered the monastery of Ely under her mother Sexburga: and taking the religious habit, she abandoned all hope and love of the world for Christ's sake: by vigils, abstinences, prayers, and lamentations, chastising her body, she showed herself inferior to all, and at length, with good works, on the Ides of February she ended her life.

[24] A certain Saxon man, bound in iron, was praying at her tomb during the solemnities of Mass, an iron chain is broken at the tomb, and when the Gospel was read, the very iron was divinely struck from his arm with such force that it flew far off over the altar in the sight of all. When a certain teacher, having rebuked his pupils with words, tried to punish them with blows, and the boys, fleeing the discipline, ran crying to the sepulcher of the holy Ermenilda, praying for their deliverance, the teacher pursued and seized them and beat them to the satisfaction of his spirit, rebuking the weeping boys with this taunt: "Do you think St. Ermenilda will always be the patroness of your faults?" On the following night the Saint appeared to him and bound his feet and hands more tightly than with fetters; and he was suddenly contracted so that he could in no way move. another is punished, then healed. In the morning, however, having called the boys to him, he humbly begged their pardon and tearfully implored them to intercede for him. Being afterward carried to the tomb of the Saint, he was restored to his former health.

That Peada reigned between Penda and Wulfhere was proved above from Bede.

Capgrave has "tumbam" tomb.