ON ST. EDELBURGA, VIRGIN, ENGLISHWOMAN, ABBESS
OF ÉBORIAC OR FAREMOUTIERS IN GAUL.
ABOUT THE YEAR 695.
A HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Edelburga, virgin and abbess, at Faremoutiers in Gaul (S.)
J. B. S.
Of the monastery of St. Fara, still today famous (in French Farmoutier or Farmonstier), Henschenius long since treated on the twenty-third of February, volume 3, on the life of St. Earcongota, and more recently Mabillon on St. Burgundofara, in the second century of the Benedictines page 438, so that concerning that place nothing here remains to be observed. Sister of several holy women, The aforesaid St. Earcongota was the niece, through her sister St. Sexburga, of the present-day St. Edelburga, Edilburga, or Ethelburga (in French Aubierge). Further, our Saint we have numbered among the virgin sisters of St. Sexburga, all Saints, in that order, as if she had been a full sister of the others, which I judged should here first be noticed: for whatever some have thought her the uterine sister of the others, that the authority of Bede so manifestly refutes, that it cannot be doubted they erred. Bede plainly calls St. Edelburga a natural daughter of Anna, and so born of another mother; whether before the marriage of the parent King, of whom also we spoke the day before, or during it, he did not express. He narrates, book 3, chapter 8, that, not many monasteries being yet built in the region of the English, many from Britain, for the sake of the monastic conversation, were wont to go to the monasteries of the Franks or of Gaul, and to send their daughters to be instructed in the same and joined to the heavenly spouse; especially at Brie, and at Chelles, and at the monastery of Andelys.
[2] Then he adds: Among whom was Sethryth, daughter of the wife of Anna, King of the East Angles, whom we mentioned above, abbess of a famous convent, and the natural daughter of the same King, Edelburga: each, since she was a stranger, for the merit of her virtues was appointed abbess of the same monastery of Brie. Of the present-day saint Henschenius too can be seen, on the cited day and place. That she flourished with St. Sexburga and her other holy sisters in the seventh century is certain; whether she died before them or survived, no one has handed down. There is one who thinks she prolonged her life to about the year 695, which as probable enough we willingly admit. For since Mabillon prolongs the age of St. Burgundofara to the year 655, and to her those two virgin strangers succeeded, appointed abbesses of Brie, most probably St. Fara was immediately followed by her who is named in the first place by Bede, Sethryth, who, after some years of the prefecture being taken from the midst, was at last succeeded by St. Edelburga, who probably enough toward the end of the century could fly away with her holy sister Sexburga to the heavenly recompense of merits. Hence gather that that Sethryth is not to be confounded with Sisetrudis, of whom in Mabillon in the cited second century of the Benedictines page 439: for if the narration of Jonas there is true, Sisetrudis was carried by angels into heaven, St. Fara still surviving; but how Mabillon makes that Sisetrudis a sister of Earcongota, I altogether do not understand. But let us return to our Saint.
[3] That public veneration is paid to St. Edelburga on this day, Henschenius rightly noted in the place cited more than once. She is marked in the Roman Martyrology itself; Among the additions of Usuard she is mentioned only by Greven: Of Edilburga, virgin and abbess, of whom Bede mentions in book 3. Him Molanus followed word for word, as also Canisius. The more recent I do not consult. In the monastic writers Wion, Dorgan, and Menard, she is celebrated in words not much more numerous, but with a longer phrase by Bucelin and Arturus, whose panegyrics there is no leisure to report, nor indeed is it worthwhile, since those things alone stand which from the said place of Bede we shall shortly subjoin. Saussay in the elogium of St. Fara on the seventh of December connected many holy women, as having come to be instructed by her. Of these, he says, Edelburga shone with special virtue, etc. But what need is there to name several Martyrologists; let the text of the present-day Roman of this kind suffice: In the same place, namely in England, St. Edelburga the virgin, daughter of the King of the English. Whence Baronius could take the place of the position, or deposition, I have not yet grasped; such an announcement is true in no other sense than that the Saint was English by origin; for it is undoubted that the convent of St. Fara in the diocese of Meaux glories in her life, virtues, examples, burial, and sacred remains. Here now we shall hand down a few things, which are to be admitted by all, as taken from Bede himself; for the things which besides are circulated in the elogia of Harpsfeld and others are piously imagined rather than historically true.
[4] Thus therefore has the father of English history, in the book and chapter indicated above. praised by Bede for the incorruption of her body. But also her aunt (of St. Earcongota) of whom we spoke, Edelburga, herself too, beloved of God, preserved the glory of perpetual virginity in great continence of body, of what virtue she was, shone more clearly after death. For when she was abbess, she began to build in her monastery a church in honor of all the Apostles, in which she desired to bury her body. But when that same work was carried nearly to the middle, she, that she might not complete it, was snatched away by death, and buried in that very place of the church where she desired. After her death, the brethren caring more for other things, this building was interrupted for seven years; which being completed, they resolved, on account of the excess of labor, to leave the structure of it wholly, but to elevate the bones of the abbess from that place, and transfer them into the church which was finished and dedicated. And opening her sepulcher, they found her body so untouched, that it was immune from the corruption of carnal concupiscence, and so, washed again and clothed in other garments, they transferred it into the church of the blessed Stephen the Martyr: whose birthday, namely, is wont to be celebrated there in great glory on the day of the Nones of July. How the last things were wrongly transferred to St. Earcongota by Trithemius and others, see in Henschenius. And these are the only things which we find handed down to memory concerning St. Edelburga in Bede.