ON ST. MILBURGA, VIRGIN, AT WENLOCK IN ENGLAND
ABOUT THE YEAR OF CHRIST 722
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Milburga, Virgin, at Wenlock in England (St.)
BHL Number: 5959
By G. H.
Section I: The royal family of St. Milburga: her mother was not St. Ermenburga, but Domneua.
[1] In that part of Shropshire, a county of modern England, where among the western Mercians the river Severn separates the Cornovii and Ordovices, ancient peoples of Britain -- there, in the region beyond the Severn, which formerly belonged to the Ordovices, at Wenlock in Shropshire is seen the town of Wenlock, called by others Winlocium and Ventolochium, in Saxon Wimnicas, in English Wenloche, now known, as Camden says in his description of Shropshire, for a limestone and iron mine under Richard II: but far better known in the Saxon period for a most ancient habitation of nuns, where Milburga, a most holy Virgin, spent her life and received her tomb. St. Milburga lived there, Concerning her, Leland in book 2 of his Collectanea, published in the Monasticon Anglicanum, page 613, has the following: "Milburga, Abbess of Wenlock, in a place anciently called Wimnicas, is happily made illustrious by her heavenly manner of life, glorified by her blessed repose and perpetual abode, where, having built a venerable monastery, she presided as its Angelic Mother." William of Malmesbury, in his work On the Deeds of the Bishops of England, book 4, under the title on the monasteries of the diocese of Hereford, explains it thus: "In the diocese of the bishopric there are two monasteries, at Shrewsbury and Wenlock. The Shrewsbury one is recent, established by Earl Roger of Montgomery... At Wenlock there was a most ancient habitation of nuns: and there the most blessed Milburga, sister of St. Mildred, granddaughter of Penda, King of the Mercians, through his son, descended from the Kings of the Mercians, spent her life and is buried."
[2] We traced the family of King Penda on February 13, section 1, in the Life of St. Ermenilda, Queen of the Mercians, who was married to Wulfhere, son of Penda, brother of Peada, Ethelred, and Merwald: from Merwald St. Milburga was descended. The Kings of the Mercians were Wulfhere, daughter of Merwald, and after his death, St. Ethelred succeeded him. But Peada was King of the Middle Angles, or Mediterranean English, and by the favor of King Oswiu, of the Southern Mercians: Merwald, however, or Merewald, or Merwale, is called King of the Weston-hecani in the Genealogy of the Kings of Mercia at the end of the Worcester Chronicle -- that is, one who held a kingdom in the western region of the Mercians, as the Worcester chronicler reports at the year 675, and the Westminster chronicler at the following year. Yet Simeon of Durham in his History of the Kings of the English, column 89, King of the Western Mercians, Ralph de Diceto in his Abbreviations of the Chronicles at the year 679, and others, together with the Life of St. Milburga, call the same Merwald King of the Mercians, in which Life the following is read in Capgrave, folio 23: "Merwald was a King of the Mercians devoted to paganism, when the holy priest Edfrid, renowned for learning, came from Northumbria, forewarned as if by a heavenly oracle, to convert him. converted to the faith of Christ by Edfrid, For he had received a divine oracle to go to the land of the Mercians, to a place called Redeswode, and to convert their King." And Merwald, King of the Mercians, as is said in the same Life, "received baptism and the grace of faith from the holy priest Edfrid in the year of grace 660. A church founded in honor of St. Peter was richly endowed with properties and possessions, in the year 660, and the Blessed Edfrid was placed in charge of it." Goscelin, on February 3, in the Life of St. Werburga, number 2, says that Merwald, propagator of the faith: as well as his brothers, were not only worshippers of the Christian religion, but also its first and most zealous propagators. Indeed, the title of Saint is repeatedly attributed to him in the cited Genealogy of the Kings of Mercia, published together with the Worcester chronicler. It appears that the episcopal see of Hereford also owes its origin to him.
[3] St. Milburga is likewise illustrious in her maternal lineage, descended from the Kings of Kent. For she had as great-great-grandfather St. Ethelbert the King, who was the first of the Kings of the English to profess the faith of Christ, and on her mother's side descended from the Kings of Kent, as will be said in his Life on February 24: her great-grandfather was Eadbald, likewise King of Kent; her grandfather Ermenred, or Eormred, brother of King Earconbert, concerning whose progeny Goscelin the monk in the Life of St. Werburga the Virgin, February 3, number 1, relates the following: "To Eormred, from his illustrious wife Oslava, were born Aethelred and Aethelbriht, whom, innocently slain, a splendid column of light from heaven revealed as Martyrs of Christ: and four holy daughters -- Domneua, Aermenberga, Aermenburga, and Aermengida -- shone forth like the fourfold streams of a paradisiac fountain." In the manuscript Life of Saints Aethelred and Aethelbriht, October 17, the four sisters of these are called Domneua, Ermenburga, Etheldritha, and Ermengitha. Whether Domneua or Ermenburga was the wife of Merwald not by the mother St. Ermenburga, and the mother of St. Milburga is debated among authors. William of Malmesbury, in book 4 of On the Deeds of the Kings of the English, chapter 4, pronounces in favor of Ermenburga (which however we shall presently show is less approved by us): "Merewald had Ermenburga, daughter of Ermenred, brother of the same Earconbert, as his wife: and from her he begot three daughters -- Milburga, who rests at Wenlock, and Mildred, who rests in Kent in the monastery of St. Augustine, and Milgitha." In the same manner, according to the Worcester chronicler, "Merewald's queen, St. Ermenburga, daughter of King Ermenred, bore him three daughters -- namely, the holy Milburga, St. Mildred, and St. Milgitha -- and one son, Merefin, a boy of extraordinary holiness." These same things are repeated in the Westminster chronicler and other more recent writers. But Goscelin, in the aforementioned Life of St. Werburga, assigns Domneua as the mother of these Virgins, number 2: "The blessed and royal Domneua," he says, "married to Merwald, the royal brother of Wulfhere, brought forth to the grace of the most high Trinity a threefold laurel of Virginity -- namely, the most holy sisters Milburga, but Domneua, Mildred, and Milgitha, who illuminate their homeland with the distinct gems of their monasteries." The manuscript Life of Saints Aethelred and Aethelbriht agrees with Goscelin in these words: "Domneua was given in marriage to Merwald, son of Penda, King of the Mercians, who begot from her the holy Virgins Mildred, Milburga, and Milgitha." And the Acts of St. Milburga themselves in Capgrave assert that Merwald begot from Domneua the Virgin Milburga, Mildred, and Milgitha. Henry of Huntingdon, in his manuscript treatise On the Saints of England, writes the following: "You will see the virginal life of Milburga at Wenlock, who was the daughter of Merwald, son of King Penda, and of Domneua, daughter of Ermenred, son of King Eadbald of Canterbury. Her sister Milgitha rests in the borders of the Northumbrians. The celibate life of Mildred, the third sister, you will find on the Isle of Thanet." The same things are printed in the Prologue of Robert de Monte, after the works of Guibert, Abbot of B. Mary of Nogent, page 741. Harpsfield likewise, in his History of England, century 7, chapter 23, writes from the Life of St. Milburga that Domneua was the mother of these Virgins. That Life begins "The blessed Virgin therefore" and ends "be seen to be warded off," which we have not yet seen: perhaps it was written by Goscelin the monk, to whom some Life of hers is attributed by Wion, Molanus, Valerius Andreas, and others.
[4] William Thorne, in the Life of St. Mildred, published in the Chronicle of the same, chapter 24, says: "Domneua, who according to some is called Ermenburga, was given in marriage to a son of Penda, King of the Mercians, named Merwald, who bore him a son named Merefin, and three daughters -- St. Milburga, St. Mildred, and St. Milgitha. After their procreation, the King and Queen, for the sake of earning eternal life, vowed chastity to God." who vowed chastity with her husband. In the Life of St. Milburga in Capgrave, these last words are confirmed thus: "At length Merwald and Domneua, by mutual consent, ended their life in chastity. Domneua, moreover, having founded a monastery in honor of the Blessed Mary on the Isle of Thanet, and built a monastery on the Isle of Thanet, gathered Virgins together and, providing them an example of all holiness, presided over them: to whom her daughter Mildred with seventy Virgins happily succeeded in the maternal office." The history of the founding of the monastery on the Isle of Thanet in the territory of Kent is described by the said Thorne in the Life of St. Mildred, to be treated on July 13, and it exists reprinted in the Monasticon Anglicanum, with an ancient geographical tablet of the churches and monasteries of the same Isle of Thanet, in which the following words are found inscribed: "This monastery of St. Mary was founded by Domneua," who in the same History of the foundation is said to have built the convent for virgins with the help of Egbert, King of Kent, and to have recalled her daughter Mildred, aided by the King of Kent, daughter of Merwald, King of the Mercians, from overseas regions -- namely, from the monastery of Chelles near Paris -- and to have consecrated her Abbess of the same convent through St. Theodore, with her daughter St. Mildred as Abbess, buried there likewise where she presided over seventy virgins whom her mother had gathered together. "She lived with her sisters to the end of her life. When she died and was buried with her mother Domneua in the same monastery, Eadburga succeeded." Edward III, King of England, in a certain diploma granted to the monks of St. Augustine in the year 1362 and printed by the same Thorne in chapter 40 of his Chronicle, section 9, writes that Domneua was the mother of St. Mildred: "I also," he says, "sprung from the stock of the same King, and by God's help having obtained his kingdom, grant the Isle of Thanet, which King Egbert by hereditary right conceded to the venerable Queen Domneua, the mother of St. Mildred -- as much as a doe had traversed in her course -- for the slaying of her two brothers Aethelred and Aethelbriht," etc. From these things it is established that the mother of St. Mildred and of her sisters Saints Milburga and Mildwida built the monastery of St. Mary on the Isle of Thanet, but St. Ermenburga was Abbess at Eastry. and that she is called Domneua, who was also buried there. But St. Ermenburga lived and rested not on the Isle of Thanet, but at Eastry (which in eastern Kent, not far from the town of Sandwich, gave its name to the neighboring jurisdiction, or Hundred), as Abbess of the monastery built by the King in honor of Saints Aethelred and Aethelbriht, the brother Martyrs -- as the Westminster chronicler relates at the year 654, Maihew on January 21, Wilson in the English Martyrology on November 19, when these things will need to be examined, especially if in the meantime any Acts of hers are found, since these authors attribute to her the same things that pertain to her sister Domneua.
Section II: The monastic life, miracles, and death of St. Milburga.
[5] So much for the parents and royal stock of St. Milburga, whose pious youth and monastic life the author of her Life in Capgrave thus describes: "The blessed Milburga, just as she was the firstborn light to her pious progenitors Merwald and Domneua, rulers of the Mercians, St. Milburga becomes a nun, so she shone as the first leader of the heavenly life among the Virgins and widows consecrated to God in the kingdom of her parents. For, having built a monastery in the place anciently called Wimnicas, now called Wenlock, and having gathered Virgins together, she presided as Mother and Mistress of the regular life. and Abbess, For from her earliest age she took every care to serve God, from childhood a lover of virtue and chastity: and she cared nothing for outward adornment beyond what was within. She repelled suitors of her virginal chastity, admitting the love of none but Christ alone, to whom alone she clung with ardent vow. The worldly life was worthless to her, a mortal spouse, carnal offspring: and she became a disciple of the cloister, subject for the sake of Christ." Thus far that source. According to Harpsfield, perhaps from the Life cited above, she is said to have been consecrated by Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the monastery to have been adorned with ample possessions, many precious relics of Saints, and great privileges and prerogatives by her father Merwald and her uncle Wulfhere, Kings of the Mercians.
[6] The favor of heaven did not fail the pious will of St. Milburga, so that the virginity offered to Christ her Spouse might be preserved. For, as is read in Capgrave, when on a certain occasion she was staying outside the monastery in a certain estate called Stokes, the son of a certain king desired to seize her by force she flees the despoiler of her chastity, and join her to himself in marriage. And having gathered a band of soldiers, when he was contriving to make the Virgin his prey, the wickedness of the young man was revealed from heaven to the handmaid of Christ, and flight was immediately prepared with her household. Meanwhile, that reckless man, coming to the place and not finding the Virgin, more rapacious than a wolf, pursued the fleeing lamb of Christ. There was a certain stream there called the Corve, fordable by its shallows and of moderate depth, which the Virgin crossed easily in her flight with her companions, and is saved by the stream suddenly swelling: but the wicked pursuer could not cross. For the water, suddenly swelling, denied all passage to those trying to cross. The young man, therefore, confounded and astonished, did not presume to inflict such things upon the Virgin again. Thus far that source. The Corve, or Corue, a stream rising in the territory or Hundred of Wenlock, mingles with the river Teme near the town of Ludlow, and below the famous city of Worcester flows into the Severn. But not only the stream, but also wild geese -- which Goscelin also calls "aucas" in chapter 3 of the Life of St. Werburga -- served the will of the Virgin: this and other miracles are related in the same Life as follows.
[7] "When wild geese at the same place of Stokes, occupying and devouring the fields of the holy Virgin and laying waste everywhere, she commands the wild geese not to harm her fields: and damage was reported to the holy Virgin, she was not disturbed. For, powerful in merits and virtues, she commanded those birds that none of them should remain in her fields, and that henceforth none of their kind should presume to inflict any damage upon her fields. By the Virgin's command, therefore, the birds were restrained by this law: that they should no longer harm her crops, but should obey her commands and bid farewell to her fields. Each year this miracle is renewed, as they, mindful as it were of the command, fear to transgress the precept, and avoiding the fields, abstain from the crops: for either they descend hungry to their pastures beside the fields, or, wearied in flight, they alight upon them only so briefly, as if to rest, that they depart from them unfed more quickly."
[8] "When on a certain night she had devoted herself to prayers and contemplation longer than usual, being weary she gave her limbs to sleep, and when the sun had risen and she was struck by a ray of the sun, she recovers her sacred veil, which hung from a ray of the sun she suddenly awoke from sleep and was astonished. And as she proceeded earlier than usual, astonished, she cast the sacred veil from her head as if unknowingly. Without delay, a ray of the sun, by divine command, caught it before it touched the ground, and it hung suspended in the air before her until she came to her senses; and recognizing the heavenly miracle, she understood that she had been visited from heaven: she offered thanks to God, blessed and magnified Him."
[9] "A widow came with her dead son to the holy Virgin, and finding her alone in the oratory, fell at her feet with groaning the dead son of a widow and ceaselessly implored that her son be restored to life through her intercession. The Virgin said to her: 'You are not of sound mind; what do you ask to be done by me? Go and bury your dead, and prepare yourself, who are also to die, after your son. For every man is born to this end, that he may die.' 'I shall not depart from you,' said the widow, 'unless you restore my child to me alive.' The holy Virgin, seeing the woman's faith, when she prostrated herself in prayer beside the body of the deceased, after pouring forth prayers and being surrounded by heavenly fire, immediately so great a fire came upon her from heaven that she seemed to be entirely covered and consumed by it. When a certain Sister saw this, she cried out saying: 'My Lady, rise quickly and hasten to escape the fire: I see you entirely covered with a great fire.' At these words, the entire fiery apparition vanished from her eyes, and as the Virgin arose from prayer, she raises him from the dead: the widow's son was raised from death and restored to his mother."
[10] "Having passed twelve lustra in all holiness and purity, as bodily illness grew worse and she was wearied by fevers, she called her Sisters together and said: 'You, dearest Sisters, on her deathbed she exhorts the nuns: I have loved as the very heart of my soul until now, and I have presided over you like a mother with loving solicitude for her children. But now, as divine mercy brings the course of my pilgrimage to its end, and the grace of the heavenly calling mercifully summons me to the prize, I enter the way of all flesh. I leave you to God and the Blessed Mary.' And instructing them with many salutary counsels and exhortations, she migrated to Christ on the seventh day before the Kalends of July, she dies on the seventh before the Kalends, not of July, and was buried with honor in her monastery." Thus far the Life published by Capgrave, in which there is perhaps a typographical error, since she is said to have migrated to Christ on the seventh day before the Kalends of July, on which day we read her name inscribed in no Martyrologies to date. Harpsfield says she happily departed on the seventh day before the Kalends of March, but of March: and that not only was life restored to a dead man, but sight was also restored to a blind man through her merits.
[11] The age of St. Milburga can be reckoned by the following calculation. Her father Merwald received the Christian faith and holy baptism in the year of Christ 660, after which Domneua was given to him in marriage -- nor would it have been otherwise permitted to give a Christian Virgin in marriage to a pagan, born after her father embraced the faith of Christ before his marriage, lest the faith and sacraments of the heavenly King be profaned by the partnership of a king who was ignorant of the worship of the true God, as Bede writes in book 2, chapter 9, of his History of the English, that Eadbald, King of Kent, had replied to St. Edwin, King of Northumbria, when the latter, not yet a Christian, had sought his daughter St. Edelburga in marriage through envoys. In the same manner we said on February 13, page 687, section 3, that St. Ermenilda was not betrothed by Earconbert, King of Kent, son of Eadbald, to Wulfhere unless he was eminently and constantly a Christian. The same must be said of Ermenred, or Eormred, brother of Earconbert and another son of Eadbald, whose daughter Domneua is known to have been. Therefore let her have been married to Merwald in the year of his conversion, or the following year, 661. Since St. Milburga is said to have been the firstborn, she was perhaps born in the year 662, and having passed twelve lustra -- that is, sixty years -- she is said above to have migrated to Christ; she died about the year of Christ 722. that year would be 722.
Section III: The discovery of the body of St. Milburga, miracles, and veneration.
[12] From the above-mentioned Leland, the following is cited concerning the death of St. Milburga, page 613 of the Monasticon Anglicanum: "The earth of her virginal body was laid to rest with distinguished honor before the high altar in the church of the Holy Trinity." The sepulchre of St. Milburga But, as William of Malmesbury relates in book 2, chapter 13, of On the Deeds of the Kings of the English, "Milburga, who rests at Wenlock, unknown: formerly known to the inhabitants, after the coming of the Normans, while the place of her sepulchre was unknown, was for some time consigned to oblivion." But he writes that the place was entirely deserted, the same Malmesbury, the deserted monastery given to the Cluniacs: in book 4 of On the Deeds of the Bishops, when Earl Roger of Montgomery filled it with Cluniac monks. Camden in his description of Montgomery asserts that Roger of Montgomery was Earl of Shropshire, whose patrimony was Montgomery, and he was called Montgomery: who, as is recorded in the Domesday Book of England, built a castle. "But the sepulchre of the Virgin Milburga," says William of Malmesbury, "was hidden from the new arrivals, the Cluniac monks, since all the monuments of antiquity had been destroyed by the violence of enemies and of time."
[13] Edward Maihew, at February 23, asserts that it is handed down by some that St. Odo of Beauvais published a book concerning the discovery of the body of St. Milburga. But Harpsfield notes in the margin that Atto, Bishop and Cardinal of Ostia, recorded the miracles after its discovery. Perhaps it is one and the same Otto, or Odo of Chatillon, nephew of Pope Urban II, elevated from the rank of Cluniac monk to Bishop Cardinal of Ostia in the year 1088, who inaugurated Paschal II in the year 1099: and perhaps he was sent by him to England as Legate a latere. He is called a very great orator in the poem of Abbot Baldric of Bourgueil in Francois Duchesne, volume 4, History of France. "Then," says Harpsfield from this writer, The body of St. Milburga found in the year 1101, "God Himself exhibited to our England no obscure testimonies of His love toward His spouse Milburga, and brought the body itself of the Virgin, though after many centuries, into the open to the knowledge and veneration of men, in the year of salvation 1101 and the reign of Henry, in the place called Wenlock. A certain Raimund, while he happened to be working in the monastery of the Holy Trinity, found a small chest, or old box, and in it a document written by a certain priest named Alstan, which testified that the body of the Virgin was buried near the altar there. But since the altar was not visible, there was as yet no certainty. However, God soon removed all this uncertainty. For while two small boys were playing, as happens, in that church, the earth suddenly opened so that it swallowed first one, then the other boy up to his knees. This occurrence gave the monks great wonder and occasion to have the earth dug up. When they had done so, they came upon certain human bones, and on the following day upon the foundation of the very altar of which we made mention."
[14] Thus far that source, which William of Malmesbury narrates somewhat differently in book 2, chapter 13, of On the Deeds of the Kings of the English. "Recently, however," he says, "when a community of Cluniac monks had been assembled there, while the structure of a new temple was being begun, a certain boy was running rather swiftly across the pavement and, having broken through the cavity of the mausoleum, openly revealed the body of the Virgin. Then, it exhales a most sweet fragrance: as a breeze of balsamic fragrance breathed through the church, the body was raised higher and produced so many miracles that waves of peoples flocked thither in crowds. The open fields scarcely contained the columns of travelers, as rich and poor alike pressed forward with equal zeal, their common faith urging all onward. at it the sick are healed: Nor did the matter have an empty outcome, so much so that no one departed from there without his ailment being either extinguished or mitigated, and the king's evil, a disease truly incurable by physicians, left not a few through the merits of the Virgin." William of Malmesbury repeats the same in book 4 of On the Deeds of the Bishops of England, and the Continuator of Bede in book 2, chapter 33.
[15] Harpsfield sets forth some of the miracles performed there in these words: "Now there concurred, to confirm the truth of the matter and to manifest the glory of God and of His spouse, other and striking testimonies as well. lepers, For at those relics so recently discovered, a dreadful leprosy was driven away from two women: the light of her eyes was restored to a woman who had lost it: a boy was given sight the blind: who had never before perceived anything with his eyes. There was also another woman in a neighboring village called Patton, a sick woman, having drunk water made sacred by the washing of the relics, shaken by a grave illness for five years, who, as soon as she drank the water with which the sacred relics had been washed, shook off all her disease and at the same time vomited up a worm horrible to behold, vomits up a worm: which had two horns on its head, two on its tail, and six feet. For proof of the matter, that worm was enclosed in a piece of hollowed-out wood and preserved in the monastery." Thus Harpsfield, and the same things were published in the English language by Jerome Porter in his Flowers of the Saints of England; and he translates the village of Patton as a hamlet, or vicus, and it is perhaps what is seen as Peton on chorographical maps on the left bank of the river Corve.
[16] Moreover, the miracles of the glorious Virgin Milburga flourish in Wales, in a place which is called Landmylien in Welsh after her name, because it had once been in her possession, miracles are performed in Wales: which is translated into Latin as "the land of Milburga." So says Leland, published in the Monasticon Anglicanum, page 613.
[17] The name of St. Milburga is inscribed in our ancient manuscript Martyrology which bears the name of Bede, in which the following is found her anniversary celebration on February 23 at February 23: "In Britain, of the Blessed Milburga, Virgin, who was illustrious for her virtues and miracles." Her name is also inscribed in the manuscript Florarium, in the Martyrology published at Cologne in the year 1490, in the supplements of Greven and Molanus to Usuard, in the Martyrologies of Galesini, Canisius, and the Roman, in which the following is read: "In England, St. Milburga, Virgin, daughter of the King of the Mercians." Wion and Menard in the Monastic Martyrology say: "In England, in the monastery of Wenlock (Menard: Wenloch), the burial of St. Milburga, Virgin, daughter of Merwald, Prince of the Mercians, whose body was found incorrupt after many years." These things Dorgani expressed somewhat more briefly in the Benedictine Calendar: but Bucelin, Maihew, Porter, and Wilson in the English Martyrology celebrate her with a longer encomium, whose words in Latin read thus: "At Wenlock in Shropshire, the burial of St. Milburga, Virgin and Abbess, daughter of Merwald, King of the Mercians, whose great sanctity and innocence of life God deigned to confirm by various miracles performed through her both in life and after death. She died about the year of Christ 674 and was buried in her own monastery of Wenlock. Her sacred body, in the time of King William the Conqueror, was raised whole and incorrupt upon a revelation made to a pious man, and placed in precious caskets, was preserved with great honor and veneration in the said monastery of Wenlock, which she herself had built -- even until the times of King Henry VIII and the ruin of so splendid a monument."
[18] Thus far that source. We have deduced the dates both of the age and death of St. Milburga, and of the discovery of her relics, differently from the ancient monuments. William the Conqueror died in the year 1087, and William Rufus his son in the year 1100, whom another son Henry I succeeded: to whose reign the same Wilson in the second edition of the English Martyrology more correctly refers the discovery of the body, on May 26, in these words: and May 26. "On the same day, at Wenlock in Shropshire, the Translation of St. Milburga, Virgin and Abbess, daughter of Merwald, Prince of the Mercians, whose sacred body in the year of Christ 1101, by heavenly favor, was discovered by the monks of Wenlock and translated to a more prominent place in the same monastery. Where it was preserved with great veneration, and was illustrious for many miracles, until the times of Henry VIII, when that monument was destroyed."