ON ST. SEXBURGA, QUEEN, ABBESS OF ELY IN ENGLAND.
699.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Sexburga, Queen and Abbess of Ely, in England (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
The glorious offspring of St. Sexburga and her sacred cult.
The isle of Ely, which would better be called a region beset with marshes and intersected by various divergings of waters, in the present-day county of Cambridge, was long since and at length described in our Acts, volume IV of June from page 493, Of St. Sexburga's holy family there is treatment more than once, besides that mention has been made of the same in other places too, to be recorded as often as, since it was fertile in Saints, from these some one occurs to be illustrated, such as on this day is celebrated in our sacred tables, illustrious among few and glorious, the daughter, as some will have it, certainly the sister, mother, and grandmother of Saints, St. Sexburga, queen, nun, and, after her sister St. Etheldreda—Etheldreta, Ediltrudis (commonly St. Audry)—abbess of the most renowned monastery of Ely. Of the most holy offspring our Elders wrote long since on 17 March in volume II, page 605, where, treating of St. Witburga the virgin, in these words: In the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy there flourished in the seventh century of Christ Anna, King of the Angles, happier by this title alone, that he begot four daughters, ascribed to the sacred fasti and honored with ecclesiastical cult: of these have their natal days St. Etheldreda on 23 June, St. Ethelburga on 7 July, Sexburga on 6 July, and Witburga on 17 March.
[2] Behold the sisters of our holy Sexburga, all virgins, all resplendent with the honors of the heavenly ones. both of whose parents too some ascribe to the Saints: Two daughters Henschenius once illustrated, St. Ermenilda the queen on the 13th, [and] St. Earcongota the virgin of Faremoutiers, on 23 February; a granddaughter too, herself holy, Wereburga the daughter of St. Ermenilda, on the third day of the same month. But if we believe the history of Ely, Anna, parent of the four saints, as I already intimated, and will afterward appear, did not lack sacred veneration: but their mother Hereswitha, after her husband's slaying, a nun of Chelles in France, Saussay did not hesitate to place among the Saints of Gaul on 23 September, inscribed also in Wilson's Anglican Martyrology of the first edition, whom probably Ferrarius and Alford followed, Castellanus attributing to her only the appellation of venerable. But if ecclesiastical veneration truly belongs to both parents, then that moment of glory will accede to our Saint, that she can be called not only the sister, mother, and grandmother, but also the daughter of Saints, a rare prerogative indeed, besides that she had also a holy maternal aunt, by name Hilda, and a holy brother Furminus, as Thomas the monk, to be cited more than once below, calls him.
[3] On 3 February Henschenius had observed, that St. Wereburga was born of a father Wulfhere … and his most pious wife Ermenilda the queen, she herself certainly was the sister, mother, and grandmother of holy [women;] to whom the sacred day is 13 February: but here concerning the most noble and equally most holy offspring, he studiously inquires and deduces many things, among which this makes most closely hither, that the wife of King Erconbert and mother of St. Ermenilda was our holy Sexburga, who also bore that other holy offspring, the virgin Earcongota, praised by Bede as offspring worthy of her parents and of great virtues. The rest, pertaining to the parents of St. Sexburga being Kings, [her] husband and son-in-law being Kings, and the whole family, are in the places already cited explained at more length, [for] we here seek the glory of our Saint not from her illustrious and royal stock and affinity, but from so many most illustrious arguments of sanctity in her nearest consanguinity, which we have already abundantly gathered, in speech however brief, from parents, sisters, brother, daughters, granddaughter, and maternal aunt, and are about to repeat some on the following day. Finally I note from Henschenius, volume II of February page 690, that St. Sexburga built in the island of Sheppey of eastern Kent a monastery of nuns, from which a village even now is called Minster. That she, from the death of her husband (Erconbert had died in the year 664), a veil of sanctity being received from St. Theodore the Archbishop (who in the year 668 had received that dignity), lived some time abbess, etc.; which will be elucidated at more length in the paragraph next following.
[4] if not by the classical Martyrologies, The most received veneration of the three illustrious virgin sisters of St. Sexburga we have already sufficiently intimated; moreover, that she herself too was soon venerated with the title of sanctity and due honors, the author of the life of St. Etheldreda, the praised Thomas the monk, shows, when in the Acts, volume IV of June page 517, he calls her Blessed and Saint, thus speaking: But after the departure of the holy women Etheldreda, Sexburga, Ermenilda, and Werburga. In the classical Martyrologies there is indeed no memory of her, but in the augmented Usuardine codices she is announced more than once, and especially in the greater Antwerp codex, a very ancient codex, and once used in England, of which there is treatment in our preface n. 217; she is thus praised: On the same day in Britain, the deposition of St. Sexburga. Another codex, older than the former, but not so pure, the Rosweydian or Utrecht codex of St. Mary, likewise augmented with the Saints of England, added the title of virgin, which in what way it can somehow be fitted to widow nuns, we have said elsewhere, and before us Henschenius explained, volume II of February page 691 letter c.
[5] but at least inscribed in several others. Longer is the elogium of the Altemps codex, conceived in this manner: In Britain, of holy Sexburga,
sister of the holy and perpetual virgin queen Etheldreda, who had been joined in marriage to king Ovotibricht Erconbert, who was the younger brother of Ermenred, namely the father of the holy ones Aelthred and Ethelbert; of which Sexburga the aforesaid king begot two daughters, and, [as] his heir in the kingdom, Ethbricht, under which Ethbricht the aforesaid Martyrs (is it Aelthred and Ethelbert?) were slain. The Lübeck-Cologne edition reads: On the same day, of blessed Sexburga the virgin, sister of holy Etheldreda the queen. More briefly Greven: Of Sexburga the queen. Then the later editions of Molanus: In Britain, the deposition of St. Sexburga the widow. The manuscript Florarium of the Saints joined disparate things: Likewise of the holy virgins Godolena and Sexburga. There accede Galesinius, Canisius, Ferrarius, and others more recent: add the monastic writers Wion, Dorganius, Menard, and Bucelin with a prolix elogium, which I have preferred to describe from safer sources. Nor does the announcement of Wilson in the Anglican Martyrology on this day please, where he mixes in some things after his manner, which agree well enough neither with right chronology nor with historical truth.
[6] Her ancient Acts have not yet been found. It is greatly to be lamented, that the history of the deeds of our Saint has perished, or at least has hitherto not been found, which the author of the life of St. Etheldreda expressly names, in the cited volume IV of June page 517, in these words: She (St. Sexburga) was buried in a decent place after her most blessed sister, where the merits of her virtues cease not to flourish, and her praises always seize increments, AS IN HER BOOK IS NARRATED. The history of Ely, here and there a little more contracted, in some places more augmented, inserted in the English Monasticon and also in the Anglia Sacra, asserts the same, in those very words of Thomas the monk. For the rest, although we lack that book, more certain notices of St. Sexburga are supplied by that same writer of the life of St. Etheldreda, as Papebroch published him in the oft-cited place, from which, and the aforesaid Ely history, the history of the Monasticon and of Wharton, a historical-chronological narration can somehow be woven, to be compared with those things which our Alford handed down. To these finally will accede the elogia rather than Acts of John Capgrave and Nicholas Harpsfeld, which, for the greater part plundered by Mahew and others, thou wilt easily perceive. And these meanwhile ought to suffice the reader, until some happier person dig up somewhere that book cited by Thomas.
§ II. The chief heads of the life chronologically ordered.
[7] The parents of St. Sexburga joined probably in the year 620, After the death of Sigebert and Ægeric, which our author fixes in the year 637 from the Incarnation of the Word of God, there was made successor of the kingdom (of the eastern Angles, commonly Estangle) Anna, son of Eni, of royal race, an excellent man and begetter of excellent offspring. He indeed had obtained a wife worthy of so great a spouse, several years before he had attained the kingdom. Probably from about the year 620. The virtues of each spouse the same Thomas the monk proclaims, subjoining these: There were born to them children, whom a laudable life and a no less precious death commend; two sons Aldulf and holy Jurmin, and four daughters; namely the firstborn Sexburga, an incomparable woman, Ædelburga, Etheldreda, and Wirthburga. We seek the age of the elder daughter, and perhaps the firstborn of all, to be gathered somehow from those things which are subjoined in n. 11 of our edition: But Sexburga married a Man, in the fifth year of the reign of her father, Erconbert King of the Kentish. Since therefore the parent of our Saint, Anna, is said to have obtained the kingdom in the year 637, it would follow that St. Sexburga was joined to her husband in the year 642.
[8] This reckoning is opposed by the History of Ely in Wharton's Anglia Sacra volume I page 595, where at the very beginning it is thus read: she herself, the firstborn, married Erconbert in the year 640. The aforesaid Anna is slain by Penda King of the Mercians in the 19th year of his reign, but from the Incarnation of the Lord 654, and in the place which is called Blythburgh his body is buried, where up to the present day it is venerated with the pious devotion of the faithful. It is opposed, I say, in that the year 654 is there the 19th of Anna's reign, and he entered upon the kingdom first in the year 637. These facts compel us to refer his beginnings to the year 635, in which way the chronological series of the life of St. Sexburga will flow rightly, which other arguments will presently establish. That will confirm it especially the Venerable Bede, book 3 of his history, chapter 8, speaking thus: In the six hundred and fortieth year of the Lord's Incarnation Eadbald King of the Kentish, passing from this life, left the helm of the kingdom to his son Earconbert: which he, having received, held most nobly twenty-four years and some months.
[9] Hence quite congruously Alford and others infer that from that very year 640 King Erconbert was joined to St. Sexburga, After 24 years of marriage holily passed, and so lived with her in marriage all of 24 years, namely up to the year 664, which was the last for Erconbert. The aforesaid history of Ely is consistent enough with itself, when a little below it subjoins: Sexburga married Erconbert King of Kent in the fifth year of the reign of her father, to whom were born two Kings, Egbert and Lothair, and two daughters, Ermenilda and Erkengota. But Sexburga, after the death of her husband, who ruled the empire 24 years, some time manfully was over the kingdom, until she had reformed the immature years of her son Egbert into the strength of manly age. So St. Sexburga lived in marriage as many years as her husband reigned: but since we believe she was born about eighteen years before, before she came to her husband, it is probable enough that her nativity is to be referred to the year 622; but if she was twenty at marriage, we shall say she was born about the year 620, so that she numbered a little less than forty-four years, when manfully by her own authority she was over the kingdom, until she had reformed the immature years of her son Egbert into the strength of manly age.
[10] The history proceeds: The empire being at last committed to him, she gathered virgins in the island of Sheppey, she laid aside the garment of joy, and took the habit of mourning: at last at Sheppey … in Kent she directs her vow; where she built a new dwelling for the sacred virgins whom she had associated to herself; who also added to the church possessions redeemed for a price from her son Egbert, in which she joined to herself a college of 77 disciples nuns. But on a certain night, when St. Sexburga had given herself to sleep; an angel of the Lord appeared to her through a vision, saying: Know, that not after many days hence, many years being rolled by, the deserters of God will invade this kingdom to plunder [it], invaded they will oppress and afflict [it]. Which then, fulfilled in itself, nearly all England experienced; when from the north rushed a tempest upon the inhabitants of the land, Inguar and Ubba entering the kingdom by a naval contest with triumph, and, the sword raging, intending a general slaughter of the Church of God. Thus far the history; the rest we shall take from Thomas himself. Nothing is clearly enough expressed in either place, whence anyone might easily discern how many years St. Sexburga the widow administered the kingdom for her son, how many she stayed at Sheppey, [and] when at last she betook herself into the isle of Ely to her sister the abbess St. Etheldreda.
[11] whence about the year 673 she betook herself into Ely; Let us therefore give something to a most probable conjecture. It is established from Thomas as well as from the history that for seven years or thereabout St. Etheldreda was over the monastery of Ely, deceased by a blessed death on 23 June in the year 679, chosen therefore in the year 672, or as others in Alford 673, doubtless toward the beginning. This Saint was already then abbess, when our Sexburga came to her, and so she did not desert her former dwelling at Sheppey before the year 672, nay more probably she was not joined to her sister except in the next following year 673, so therefore I think that intermediate ninefold period, from the year 664 to 673, is to be divided conveniently enough, so that a little more than three years she was present to her son in the government of the kingdom, inasmuch as she received the veil of sanctity from St. Theodore, as Henschenius observed above, not before the year 668. Moreover the other five or six years she may have spent in establishing the foundation of Sheppey, which, at the angel's admonition being left, the widow queen willed to be subject to her virgin sister—herself now president of her own convent—as a humble nun, the elder to the younger. Thus Thomas the monk explains the whole matter quite clearly, in the cited volume IV of June, page 510, n. 53.
[12] so profiting under the discipline of her sister St. Etheldreda, But the mother of Saints too, Sexburga, sister of the same most blessed mother Etheldreda, considering the future desolation in the kingdom, as she had received the oracle from the angel of God, conceived to seize a poorer life and to reduce herself under the power of another: judging it incongruous to be over others, since she herself had not first learned to be subject. The mother therefore summons her daughters, the abbess the nuns, her consorts in Christ, and discloses to them her will and vow, saying: To you, O daughters, I leave Jesus as guardian and his holy angels as groomsmen; besides, I constitute my daughter Ermenilda a mother to you, that your hearts may be animated by her admonitions, [and] be instructed by salutary disciplines toward the heavenly things. But I desire to visit eastern Anglia, on whose shores I was born, to be formed by the mastership of my glorious sister Etheldreda, and to be guided by the regular doctrines of the same; intending indeed to share her labors, to partake of her rewards. Then, when she had usefully and honestly provided for them the necessaries, she came as far as Ely, and to meet her the whole island rejoices; queen receives queen, sister with dancing introduces sister: they pour out abundantly tears for joy, out of true charity gladness is doubled between them: for, delighted with a heavenly sweetness, they profit by mutual consolation. That rich woman came from prelacy to subjection, from magistracy to discipleship, seeking from her blessed sister the form of discipline and humility, like Paul at the feet of Gamaliel. The blessed sisters, allied to each other in unity of faith, through all solicitously following the way of the commands of God, intend to consummate the course pleasing to God, and profited and grew in holy virtues up to the end of their life.
[13] [so that to her, deceased in the year 679, she succeeded in the dignity of abbess,] Lest anyone might be able to doubt of the time of St. Etheldreda's death and prefecture, Thomas thus expressly defines both in n. 59: The virgin Etheldreda was snatched to the Lord in the midst of her nuns on the 9th of the Kalends of June 24 May, after seven years from the time she had received the grade of abbess … in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord six hundred and seventy-nine. Hear now n. 63: Therefore after the glorious passing of blessed and glorious Etheldreda … the divine providence salubriously providing for the salvation of men, there was substituted in the government of souls, in the monastery of Ely, under the observance of the regular life, the sister of the same, devoted to God, Sexburga; not so much sister by the kinship of flesh as by the imitation of good work, whom Erconbert, King of the Kentish, had had as wife. Who by divine disposition, after the death of her sister, chosen and beloved by the sisters, deserved to be over them in the office of abbess, [who] under the path of justice followed the examples of her sister. And when to the Lord's flock, by her own and her sister's example (who, dead in the flesh, with God
lived by the attestation of good works) and busied and studied more to profit than to preside; moved and solicitous by divine zeal, she deliberates and disposes with herself a long time to lift the bones of the glorious virgin from the place where before they had been buried; for her burial was held celebrated. Whence with her nuns, the frequency of miracles increasing, and in a way requiring [it], she appointed a day on which they might revisit so great a treasure, place [it] more honorably and decently in the church of the blessed Mother of God Mary, and translate [it], to be laid up more gloriously in a new coffin, when she had now been buried sixteen years.
[14] From these premised things I try thus to digest the order of the life. It has already been said that St. Sexburga had reached about the forty-fourth year of her age, whose incorrupt body being lifted from the earth [in 695,] when her husband King Erconbert was snatched from her. I interposed a ninefold period before she passed into the monastery of Ely, in the year 673, where for six years she so profited by the examples of her most holy sister Etheldreda, that, chosen and beloved by the sisters, she deserved to be over them in the office of abbess, substituted to her deceased sister in the year 679. There intervened therefore from the death of her husband to the received dignity of abbess fifteen years, which if thou add to the age defined before, it will appear that our Saint was nearly sixty, when she was declared prelate of the assembly of the nuns and monks of Ely. It is established moreover, that she herself lifted from the earth the sacred body of her holy sister Etheldreda, plainly incorrupt, not eight or eleven, as some wrongly narrate, but all sixteen years after the happy passing, on the testimony of Bede book 4 chapter 19, and the monk Thomas most lately cited, namely in the year 695, so that it is by no means doubtful, that at that time the holy abbess was still among the living, certainly not deceased in the year 689, as among other things Wilson erred: but how long she survived that celebrated elevation, I nowhere find handed down. The opinion of our Alford pleases enough, of protracting her age to the year 699, which Thomas seems to indicate, many circuits of years being rolled by, so that it is most certain, that she was called by her heavenly spouse in a good old age, when she was not far from her eightieth year.
[15] From n. 77 I subjoin the colophon of the most holily passed life: she herself holily died about the year 699. Holy Etheldreda finally, when by a sudden change she was snatched from this frail body; her sister Sexburga, a precious heroine, succeeded in the government of the monastery (as has already been said), and instructed there the Lord's flock by the doctrine and form of true religion. For this greatly advanced her to the increase of virtue, that she found the body of the already-mentioned virgin Etheldreda so entire and unimpaired, as if it had been buried on the same day, which she had esteemed demolished and consumed through the space of very many years. And when, many circuits of years being rolled by, she panted untiring toward the heavenly kingdom, she began to grow gravely sick and foresaw the day of her calling to be at hand. Who, placed in the midst of her nuns, fortified her exit by the sacrosanct mysteries of Jesus Christ, [and] with purity of faith commended her spirit into the hands of her creator, and thus in a good old age closed her last day. She was buried in a decent place after her most blessed sister, where the merits of her virtues cease not to flourish, and her praises always seize increments, as in her book is narrated.
[16] Here is given the elogium of Capgrave I have already above intimated, that we have made a deplorable loss, in that that book without doubt has perished; for the rest, the things hitherto said both put before the eyes the series of the life somewhat ordered and the chief Acts of the Saint, sincerely and faithfully, from Thomas the monk and the history of Ely. The things which Alford superadds on the year 699 are encomia somewhat adorned; as also those which we shall presently give from Capgrave: for neither is it worth the while to subjoin the other oration of Harpsfeld, which is a mere paraphrase of Capgrave's, interwoven with some places of sacred Scripture. The aforesaid Alford praises the childhood of St. Sexburga in n. 19: likewise her piety, that she induced her husband to take away idols from the whole kingdom and to overthrow their shrines, that, the province being purged, she introduced chaste morals, a solemn fast of forty days being sanctioned by a broad law; which and other things, he says, our annals put in the praises of the Queen, which there he would not inopportunely have cited, the places being indicated, if he had esteemed them older than Capgrave. He adds the adornment of temples, the cult of altars, the erection of monasteries; which were commanded by the royal mouth, the queen suggesting. See there more things, which, however much the illustrious virtues of our Saint persuade them to be true, must nonetheless be supported by greater authority, that they may be admitted as true. Have now the above-promised
ELOGIUM
From Capgrave folio 278.
Sexburga, Queen, Abbess of Ely, in England (S.)
BHL Number: 7695
Holy Sexburga, a true Empress, commanded riches, nor could she be held It is a compendium of those things by those which she held. No one more continent than she amid delights; no one humbler in royal pride, nor poorer in spirit. For this Blessed woman was the daughter of Anna, King of the East Angles, of noble morals and lovable and gracious to all. For when she had grown up, she is delivered by her parents in marriage to Erconbert, King of Kent, and there were born to him sons, the Kings Egbert and Lothair, [and] daughters too, most holy, Ermenilda and Erkengoda, of whom the former was joined to Wlfer, King of the Mercians, who bore holy Werburga; the other went to monasteries beyond the sea, where, resting as a pilgrim, she showed by clear miracles that she was received by Christ. But who could worthily record, in what manner most holy Sexburga led her life under the very yoke of matrimony. Dukes knew her as Lady, the poor [as] foster-mother: those frequented her as princess, these [as] mother; those venerated [her] majesty, these cultivated [her] humility, to the superiors she seemed imperial, to the inferiors equal: to the highest she gave commands, to the lowest she ministered; as the mother of all, she was both lovable to all and venerable to all: rare in the crowd, frequent in church, she more attentively kindled the King to divine obedience. The King therefore, frequently at her instigation, first utterly exterminated from his whole kingdom all idols which under the former Kings still remained, with all paganism, and not so much enlarged the kingdom of Christ, as made [it] to be wholly Christ's.
[2] At the instigation of the queen, beloved of God, the King enlarged monasteries, which have already been explained. built churches: he first also so enjoined on all the observance of Lenten abstinence, that he decreed a punishment for the violator. But the most holy parent instructed her children in all fear and reverence of God and the keeping of his commandments. At last Erconbert died in the twenty-fourth year of his reign, and blessed Sexburga casts away the royal ornaments with the pomp and luxury of the world and puts on the nun's habit at the monastery of Ely, under her sister St. Etheldreda. She raised herself too to every virtue, [and] began to afflict her body with vigils, fasts, and various labors, to boil away the stains of pleasures by the fire of the love of God, to wash them away with rivers of tears, and with all continence and humility to emulate the holiness of her blessed sister. After her sister's death she succeeded her sister in the government, by the unanimous election of all. The Blessed woman then understood herself burdened with greater diligence, since she had also to watch for the guardianship of all committed to her. She therefore busied herself to minister to all devoutly and humbly. But among the innumerable graces of Christ this too kindled her more highly to the rewards of virtues, that the clod body of her aforesaid sister, after sixteen years of burial, was found wholly incorrupt. The course of her life being at last accomplished in good works, on the day before the Nones of July she ascended to the eternal joys, and, next to her sister, deserved burial. She flourished about the year of the Lord 640. See the preceding §.