Etheldreda the Queen

ON ST. ETHELDREDA THE QUEEN,

VIRGIN, ABBESS OF ELY IN ENGLAND.

IN THE YEAR 679.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

On her cult, acts, and miracles, from a lengthy Manuscript volume of the History of Ely.

Etheldreda the Queen, Virgin, Abbess of Ely in England (St.)

AUTHOR. D. P.

There flourished in the seventh century of Christ St.

Etheldreda, Queen, Virgin, and

Abbess of the monastery of Ely founded by

herself, on account of her remarkable sanctity,

wondrous chastity, and

also the admirable incorruption of her body after

death, very celebrated in the Church.

She is found called by some Etheldrida, by others

Ætheldritha, and Ediltrudis;

commonly named Audrey, from the latest alteration of the

Anglo-Saxon language, introduced by the Normans.

Her deeds were briefly described by the Venerable

Bede, in book 4 of the Ecclesiastical History of the English

people, chapter 19. More fully they were set out by Thomas

the words of Bede copied out, which we prefer to prefix to them

separately, that they may show some light upon

the larger Acts: because these were written,

more than four centuries having elapsed after Bede's death.

Those existed, and still exist, in the

Cottonian Library at London, rich in Manuscript

codices. Thence a transcript taken is possessed by

the College of the English Benedictines at Douai: it is given from the Douai Transcript,

whence a second copy R. D. Leander of St. John saw transcribed

for our Bollandus;

and sent both writings to Antwerp to be compared

with one another. Bollandus did this diligently:

but since the Douai Manuscript itself was not very happily

written out, he could not without the help

of the Cottonian original supply or correct the defects,

perhaps many, admitted by the carelessness of copyists.

No more could John Mabillon accomplish, who used the same

Douai transcript to publish the Life,

as he did among the Acts of the Benedictine Saints

of the 2nd century: whether Henry Wharton could accomplish something more,

having obtained another transcript from the same Cottonian library,

which he inserted into the first volume of his Anglia Sacra, as

I lately received it after all these things were prepared for the press, will appear

in the comparing during printing with ours.

[2] together with the hitherto unpublished history of the second Translation Meanwhile Henschenius, of blessed memory, finding the Life published at Paris,

from whose now failing memory had slipped

the transcript itself of the Douai transcript with which he had nevertheless

used at the 17th of March, for St. Withburga,

somehow having strayed from the place where he ought to have found it,

had prepared the Paris edition, to be again subjected to our press,

hoping by the kindness of the same

Mabillon to obtain the book which he had here omitted

to publish concerning the Translation of St. Etheldreda, and meanwhile,

after his manner, illustrated the Life, and the book of miracles, with a preliminary

Commentary. This I shall presently continue,

after I have said that, our Manuscript coming forth from its hiding-places,

not only was the opportunity given me of supplying

the Prologue which Mabillon had omitted;

and the book of the second Translation which Henschenius

had wished for; but also a book of Miracles

very lengthy, and the last of the other works of Thomas;

where the Author, no less often than in the

History, professing himself a monk of Ely; at number

103 reveals his own name, that it is Thomas; and

at number 123 alleges the first book of the History,

published on the virtues of the Virgin herself, so that we can

now no longer doubt that the same is the Author of all,

and the true title of the Codex, written thus.

The Priory of Ely in the County of Cambridge,

from the History of that Priory, written by

greater, as the matters themselves come nearer to his age;

since he wrote before the end of the 12th century. Although even of the earlier part,

namely the Life of the Saint herself, by the same author. Mabillon justly proclaims

that the Author, Although he was far removed from the age of St. Etheldreda,

is nevertheless altogether worthy of credit, as being grave and eloquent,

who sets forth the cause and arguments of his

work. For in chapter 33 he says: What in Bede

and in English or Latin writings about our glorious

Lady and Patroness Etheldreda was found written among

us, according to the measure of our understanding

we have woven together into one historically.

Of the miracles, which preceded her age,

he says in the book of the same, number 124, that some of them

seem to extend into great volumes:

which we lament have perished.

[3] The first book completed, the same Author wrote

another book of the History of Ely, which from the same

Douai codex we have, The same wrote also the rest of the history of the place down to 1163; and before it thus

prefaces: As certain of our brethren importunely compelled me

not to be idle from what I had begun,

but to carry through the deeds of our Island, as I had promised…

trusting in the comfort of my advocate Etheldreda…

I hasten to set forth in one collected volume…

those who restored the place;

and their testaments, which

I sought out scarcely and with the greatest labor, those I changed

from the vernacular into Latin, and collected each one scattered in

various places. These testaments

or instruments, among which several diplomas of Kings,

and Briefs of Pontiffs, are numbered, come to an end

in Pope Adrian IV and Henry

II. A book indeed worthy

to see the light among the monuments of English

antiquity, but not to be inserted into our work, unless perhaps some occasion

should advise it, to add to some volume by way of a Corollary,

so far as Wharton has not done it.

[4] The same I would say of the Chronicle of the Abbots and

Bishops of Ely. That Chronicle was written,

or begun to be written, in the year 1289;

and is continued down to the year 1434, so that

it is necessary that it was continued by several in succession.

It is, moreover, in two parts. To the first part, after certain

preliminaries, a beginning is made by a Booklet briefly

reckoned, in which is contained the Genealogy and Life

of Blessed Etheldreda and her sisters, and concerning the state

of the church of Ely, from the time of the first foundation

down to these our times. The other

concerning the Pastors and Prelates ruling that Church,

from the year of the Lord's Incarnation

1107 down to the present, says the Author,

intending, as he prefaces, to write their acts,

and also concerning certain miracles which through the merits

of the glorious Virgin Etheldreda in our times

were done by him from whom all good things

proceed; which we shall thence describe at the end

under the title of Analecta. from which, continued down to 1107 by the same Thomas

The Author of the Monasticon Anglicanum mentions this collection,

as to be found in the Cottonian Library;

whence the same in the year 1691 Henry Wharton brought to light

in volume I of the Anglia Sacra from page 593 to 686,

where to each part he assigns its different Author.

For the first indeed, beginning from the first

exordium of Christianity in Britain, while Lucius

reigned there in the year 156, and Augustine afterward preaching

about the year 596, and soon passing to

the times of the founding of Ely, and brought down

to the change of the Abbatial title into the Episcopal;

the first part, I say, of the History of Ely, and by three others down to 1544 the Analecta are given.

he ascribes to the aforenoted Thomas, as though this one had reduced his own

writings into a summary. But of the second

part, under the title of continuation, from

the year 1169, treating of the first two Bishops

Hervey and Nigel, he calls the writer Richard

Prior of Ely; of the third, proceeding down to

1388, he makes the author a

Monk, himself indeed also of Ely, but

Anonymous. To these a fourth continuation,

foreign to the Douai Manuscript, the same Wharton adds,

continued by Robert Steward the last Prior of Ely

down to the year 1544. These things premised,

I pass to the Commentary of Henschenius thus

set out.

G. H.

[5] On this 23rd of June is celebrated in the genuine

Martyrology of Bede the memory of St. Ediltruda,

Virgin and Queen in Britain: The memory of the Saint in the Martyrologies on the 23rd of June, whose body,

when it had been buried for eleven years, was found

incorrupt. The same exactly are read in the Martyrologies

of Usuard, Ado, Rabanus, Notker, and

other more recent ones, with the present-day Roman

Martyrology; in which these words are added: Who,

renowned for sanctity and miracles, passed to the Lord.

But those who in these Martyrologies are said to have lain

eleven years in burial, are asserted to have been sixteen

in the Acts in Bede and in Thomas

the monk; and in the History of the Church of Ely:

likewise in Florence of Worcester, at the year

695, John Brompton in the Chronicle, page 741

and 791; and Capgrave, in his Legend;

and finally in the Sarum Breviary printed at Paris in the year

1557: and the feast of this Translation

is celebrated on the 17th of October in the said Breviary,

as also in the older Sarum Breviary of the year

1499. and of the Translation on the 17th of October. And she is commemorated in the old Martyrology

of Utrecht of the Church of St. Mary, augmented in England

in the 12th century of Christ; and also in the Manuscript Florarium

and the Martyrology printed at Cologne and Lübeck about the year

1490, and others more recent.

[6] We were in the year 1662 in the monastery

of Jumièges in Normandy, and there we found

an ancient Missal received as a gift about the year 1050

from Robert, formerly Abbot there, then Bishop

of London, afterward Archbishop of Canterbury,

which seemed written out about the year one thousand,

for from that year the Paschal Table begins.

Now in the said Missal on this

23rd of June were prescribed two Prayers, of which

this was the first: Prayers from an old Missal, O God, ineffable founder

of all things, who hast granted to thy servants

the annual gladness of today's festivity in the venerable

commemoration of thy bountiful and illustrious Virgin Etheldreda;

we beseech thee, that, by her

intervention, we may be able to overcome the harmful

incitements of vices; and to thee the highest good,

who art true light, the way and piety, divinely

to attain. The other is of this kind. Almighty,

most illustrious God, author of virtue and

lover of virginity, who hast deigned to lead the blessed Etheldreda

on this day to the joys of heaven;

suppliantly we implore thy

clemency, that, of her whose sacred solemnity

we celebrate on the fields, we may rejoice in her patronage

among the stars. Other Prayers are had in

the cited Breviaries of the Churches of Sarum and Salisbury.

It pleases [me] to add from the said Missal, what

in the Preface of the Mass after the words "eternal God"

are thus interposed. Who didst wondrously reform The Preface.

the whole human race, seduced by the cunning of the ancient serpent,

and depraved by the consent of the first parent, and for that

expelled from the pleasantness of Paradise, through the Only-begotten;

who therefore deigned to be born of an undefiled Virgin, that

he might cleanse us from the contagion of all filth;

and therefore willed to undergo the peril of death,

that he might destroy the dominion of our slaughter:

for the love of whom the blessed Virgin Etheldreda

despised worldly joys, and gained

the heavenly kingdoms; who, the marriage-beds of two Kings spurned,

by the bond of perpetual chastity, and

by desire of perennial glory, merited to be joined to thy only-begotten Son

our Lord Jesus Christ: whose

mercy we humbly entreat, that by the same

Virgin's intercessions, the crimes of our frail life

being expelled, we may merit to take the inheritance of the heavenly country.

Through whom &c. In

the old Sarum Breviary is prescribed a supplication

directed to her, which it pleases [me] to set before the reader.

[7] Set amid the shipwreck of the present life

and of the fluctuating world, Other suffrages sought we flee to the harbor of thy protection,

most pious and most celebrated Virgin

Etheldreda, that we may feel toward us the bowels

of thy piety, who continually rejoice in thy

presence. Look therefore, pious Mother and

Lady, with pious regard upon the small but devout

obedience of our service: and those whom

the immensity of human frailty presses, may the venerable

sublimity of thy virginity, which pleased the Spouse of Virgins,

relieve and sustain. For we believe and trust

that thou canst obtain from that same Spouse of thine, who desired

thy beauty, whatever thou shalt ask: thou who, placed in the marriage-chamber

of the eternal King, with the choirs of Virgins,

it is certain dost exult over the palm of virginity. Succor, Lady; succor, mother

of mercy Etheldreda, our misery;

by the suffrages of thy prayers wipe away the stains of our crimes:

and make those who serve thee

such, that they may be able purely to serve thy integrity. May the guardianship

of thy solicitude and protection always be present to thy flock, that as

we continually rejoice in the incorruption of thy most sacred

body and its presence, so we may also rejoice in thy

constant assistance. Protect therefore,

Mother, thy sons, Lady, thy servants: that they who

profess themselves bound to thy memory and veneration

may rejoice to have obtained the benefits of thy bounty

and piety. Look, most benign

Virgin Etheldreda, upon our straits,

which by our merits we sustain; and

by the merits and intercessions of thy sanctity,

both appease the wrath of the Judge whom we have offended, and

obtain the pardon which we have not merited. By thy

prayers incline to mercy the justice of the strict

but just examination: because, wherever the Lamb, who

is the Spouse of Virgins, goes, thou, a Virgin, dost follow.

Present, we beseech thee, to the supernal clemency

our groans and sighs, that we may receive through thee the increase

of the divine mercy, by which we may merit to rejoice with thee

forever, thou asking, he bestowing,

who crowned thee with the glory of integrity, through all

ages of ages. Amen. These things there, with

as is had in the cited very ancient Missal,

mention is made in the Canon of the Mass, for it is read thus: … Cecilia,

Anastasia, Etheldreda, Gertrude,

with all thy Saints.

[8] The Virgin died in the year of Christ 679;

and so sixteen years earlier The error of the people of Trier about her dwelling among them, than St. Willibrord came

into the diocese of Trier: by whom

the monastery of Echternach, with the help of Saints Irmina

and Adela, daughters of Dagobert King of Austrasia,

was founded about the year 696, as Brower

holds. Wherefore here he rightly thinks the same: that the memory of St. Ediltrudis

among the people of Trier is to be ascribed

to the same St. Willibrord; who, after the whole

body of the Queen was found, in the presence of St. Wilfrid

the Bishop, can be believed to have received from him, through

friends coming from England, some part

of the burial linens, likewise incorrupt, by whose

touch great miracles were then done; and to have piously

raised some oratory in the place where

even now the fountain of St. Ediltrudis is named and celebrated,

drawn forth by St. Willibrord himself through a miracle.

For what the Trier Calendars hand down about her anchorite-life there,

numbering her among their own Saints,

is like that which the people of Antwerp say of St. Walburga,

in the place where the same St. Willibrord

dedicated an oratory to her, as was said

on the 25th of February.

[9] Therefore, the things which I noted to be wrongly handed down about

the aforesaid memory of the Saint being corrected or omitted; on account of the fountain drawn forth by St. Willibrord, and sacred to them. hear

what the Trier poet, in Brower at the year

977, number 24, sings about the fountain.

The watered ground above the Lesura and the silent crags

(thus I understand the rivulet then called, which a little

above Echternach mingles with the Sauer, different from the Our nearby it)

While its walls shall stand known to the green Forest;

namely in the German tongue the place is called Grünewald,

by the testimony of Brower, perhaps where the maps mark

Waldstorp above the aforesaid rivulet.

Among the matted brambles and the hooked waste-grounds.

In that place perhaps, when the more pleasant

use of better water was absent, Willibrord, the chief glory

of the land of Frisia, struck the weight of the

underlying earth with his staff thrust in, and led forth a kindly

fountain, and water fit for the Initiate flowed out.

Now the fountain is held in price: and the drinker has his rewards,

whether his belly ache, or he rejoice in a healthy breath of life.

To this day the Virgin (Ediltrudis) lives, nor has her fame perished with the age.

A COMPENDIUM OF THE LIFE

From book IV of the History of Bede, chapter XIX.

Etheldreda the Queen, Virgin, Abbess of Ely in England (St.)

BHL Number: 2632

FROM A MANUSCRIPT, FROM BEDE.

[1] Now King Egfrid took a wife

by the name of Edildrida, daughter of Anna king of the East

Angles, of whom we have often made mention; a man

well religious, and in all things excellent in mind

and work: whom also another man before him

had had as wife, namely a Prince

of the Southern Gyrwas, by the name of Tonbert:

but he, a little time after he had taken her, having died,

she was given to the aforesaid King.

When she had enjoyed his consort for twelve

years, Ediltrudis in marriage remains a Virgin: yet she remained glorious with the perpetual integrity of virginity,

as to me myself (when, this being a doubt that had arisen to some,

I was inquiring whether it were so)

Bishop Wilfrid of blessed memory reported,

saying that he was a most certain witness of her

virginity; so that Egfrid promised

that he would give her many lands and much money,

if he could persuade the Queen to use his marriage,

because he knew that she loved no man

more than him. Nor is it to be doubted

that even in our age that could have happened, which in

the preceding age was several times done, as faithful histories

relate, by the gift of one and the same Lord,

who promises to remain with us even to the end of the world. Matthew 18. For also the sign

of the divine miracle by which the buried flesh of that woman

could not be corrupted, is an indication that

it endured incorrupt from male contact. She,

long beseeching the King to permit her to leave the cares of the world,

and to serve the true King Christ in a monastery only;

where with difficulty at length she obtained it, she seeks a monastery: she entered the monastery

of the Abbess Ebba, who was the aunt of King Egfrid,

placed in the place which they call the city of Coludi,

the veil of the religious habit being received

from the aforesaid Prelate Wilfrid.

But after a year she herself was made Abbess

in the region which is called Elge: she becomes Abbess: where, a monastery being constructed,

she began to be the Virgin Mother of very many Virgins devoted to God,

both by the examples of the heavenly life,

and by her admonitions. Of whom they relate that,

from the time she sought the monastery, she would never

use linen, but only woolen garments, and rarely

wished to wash in warm baths, except

on the approach of the greater solemnities, for example,

of Easter, Pentecost, the Epiphany; and

then last of all, the others having first been washed by her own service and that of her ministers,

the rest of the handmaids of Christ who were there.

Rarely also, except at the greater solemnities or more pressing

necessity, she keeps an almost perpetual fast, did she ever eat more than once a

day, if a graver infirmity had not prevented otherwise; and at the time of the morning Synaxis

even to the rising of the day, she remained in the church intent on prayers.

There are also those who say

that by the spirit of prophecy she foretold both the pestilence

by which she herself was to die;

and also made known openly to all present the number of those

who from her monastery were to be

snatched from the world. she departs from life: She was snatched

to the Lord, in the midst of her own,

after seven years from the time she had taken the rank of Abbess:

and, as she herself had ordered, she was buried nowhere else

than in the midst of them according to the order

in which she had died, in a wooden coffin.

[3] To her succeeded in the office of Abbess

her sister Sexburga, whom Earconbert King of the men of Kent

had had as wife: and

when she had been buried sixteen years, it pleased the same

sister Abbess that her bones be raised, and, placed

in a new coffin, transferred into the church:

and she ordered certain of the Brothers to seek a stone,

of which they could make a coffin for this.

Who, having boarded a ship (for that region of Elge is on all sides

surrounded by waters and marshes, nor

has it larger stones), came to a certain desolate little city,

situated not far thence, which in the tongue of the Angles is called Grandacester;

and soon they found near the walls

of the city a coffin, most beautifully made of white marble,

with a cover too of like stone

most aptly fitted. After many years the body of the deceased is found incorrupt, Whence understanding

that their journey had been prospered by the Lord, giving

thanks, they carried it back to the monastery. And when

the body of the holy Virgin and Spouse of Christ,

the sepulchre opened, was brought forth into the light, it was found

so incorrupt as if on the same day

she had died, or been laid in the ground: as also

the aforesaid Prelate Wilfrid, and many others,

who knew, testify. But with more certain knowledge the physician

Cinfrid, who was present both at her dying, and at her raising

from the tomb, was wont to relate;

that she, fallen ill, had had a very great tumor

under her jaw: And they ordered me, he says,

to cut that tumor, so that the noxious humor

which was within might flow out. While I did this,

she seemed for two days to be somewhat better,

so that many thought that she could be healed

of the ailment. But on the third day, weighed down by the former

pains, and at once snatched from

the world, she changed all pain and death for perpetual

salvation and life.

[4] And when after so many years her bones

were to be raised from the sepulchre, and a tent being stretched

above, all the Congregation, on this side

of the Brothers, on that of the Sisters, stood around singing psalms,

while the Abbess herself within with

suddenly we heard the Abbess within with a clear voice

proclaim; Glory be to the name of the Lord.

And not long after they called me inside, and the wound made near death cured. the door of the tent being unbarred:

and I saw raised from the tomb

and placed on a little bed the body of the holy Virgin of God,

like one sleeping. But also,

the covering of the face being uncovered, they showed

me also the wound of the incision, which I had made,

cured; so that, in a wonderful manner, in place of the open

and gaping wound with which she had been buried,

there then appeared the very faint traces of a scar.

But also all the linens, in which

the body had been wrapped, appeared whole, and so new,

that on that very day they seemed to have been wrapped

about her chaste members. They relate, moreover, that

when she was pressed with the aforesaid tumor and pain of the jaw or

neck, she was much delighted with this

kind of infirmity, and was wont to say: I know

most certainly that I deservedly bear in my neck the weight of an ailment,

in which, as a young girl, I remember

I bore the superfluous weights of necklaces:

and I believe that therefore the supernal piety wished me

to be burdened with pain of the neck, that so it may absolve me from the guilt

of superfluous frivolity, while now for me

instead of gold and pearls, from the neck the redness of a tumor

and a burning protrudes.

[5] But it happened that by the touch of those same garments,

both demons were put to flight from possessed bodies,

and other infirmities were several times

cured: and the coffin in which she was first buried

was, they report, of benefit to the health of several whose eyes ached: a

who, applying their head to the same coffin and praying, b soon

removed the trouble of pain or dimness from their eyes.

They washed therefore the Virgin's body, and,

clothed in new garments, brought it into the church;

and placed it in the sarcophagus which had been brought, The Translation into a new coffin.

where to this day it is held in great veneration.

And in a wonderful manner the sarcophagus was found so

fitted to the Virgin's body, as if it had been specially prepared for her:

and the place too of the head, separately wrought,

appeared most aptly shaped to the measure of her head. Now Elge is in the province

of the East Angles, a region of about

six hundred families, in the likeness of an island,

either surrounded (as we have said) by marshes,

or by waters; (whence also from the abundance of eels

which are caught in those same marshes, it took its name)

where the aforesaid handmaid of Christ desired to have

as we have said before, drew the origin of her flesh.

c

ANNOTATIONS. D. P.

printed; as useful as he is faithful in the Annotations; as he is everywhere intent on enervating all and every passage from which Catholics may be confirmed in their religion, and may recognize the vanity of the new superstition, contrary to the faith preached to their forebears; here lays great stress on the word "they report," as though Bede wrote it not by his own judgment, but despising the credulity of the common folk. But so evident is Bede's sense, who several times affirms miracles wrought through the Relics of the Saints, that to wish to prove [it] by examples would be to speak to those who have never read Bede. The Hymn described below in the more prolix Acts at number 741 will suffice.

the malignant Scholiast rises with all his strength, accusing the King himself of the superstition which he could not dissemble. And in order to persuade that God alone, and always, and never the Saints, can be prayed to; he adduces a certain Homily on the Prayer of Moses, where Christians are admonished, in any difficulty always to invoke God; and What will it be, says the author, if we are unwilling to invoke Jesus? As though those who pray to the Saints The invocation of the Saints, do not through them always pray to God; and to wish to direct their prayers to them is to be unwilling to invoke Jesus. Otherwise we Catholics know and pray. To the same purpose he alleges a fragment of another Homily, among the Anglo-Saxons wont to be read on the feast of All Saints, because there he does not find their invocation expressed, either used or commended: nor does he notice what these words produced by him signify, "To all these aforesaid Saints, that is to the Angels and the men chosen of God, the honor of this day is celebrated in the faithful Church, to them in honor, to us a help, that we through their intercession may be assimilated to them." How does he wish a help to come to us from those whom he forbids to be invoked?

Thus ends chapter 19 of book 3, and there follows the 20th, wholly translated into the following Life, the Saint's virginity praised in verses by Bede as it can be read at number 74; brought into conformity with the edition of Peter Francis Chifflet, accurate beyond the rest, whence it was possible to correct some errors of our transcript. Alfred omitted to translate that Chapter, because he distrusted his ability to render the Hymn with equal elegance in the Anglo-Saxon meter, nor was it altogether necessary for the History. and commended by miracles. In that place the editor, a Cambridge Academic, presents in Saxon, and from the membranes of his Academy, the beginning of a certain panegyrical and anniversary oration; Which, he says, in place of a public Homily our common folk (he cannot, namely, speak except contemptuously of the venerators of the Saints) was wont to imbibe, and which today will demonstrate with how great honor the English nation anciently held St. Ethildritha. This is its Latin version.

We shall now write, however wonderful it exists, about St. Ethildritha, that English Virgin, who was with two husbands together, yet remained a virgin; as the miracles show which she more often works. Anna was her father called, King of the East Saxons; a man exceedingly Christian, as he attested by his very works; and his whole offspring was ennobled by God. Then Ethildritha was given in marriage to a certain Prince: yet he would not have her virginity destroyed by the marriage, but preserved her in purity. For God, since he is, can do all things that he will, and in many ways showed his power.

Then the Prince died, since God had so willed. But she was given to Egfrid the King, and twelve years she remained a Virgin in the marriage of this King; as many miracles often testify to her glory and her virginity. Jesus she loved, who kept her undefiled; and she honored the ministers of God, of whom one was Wilfrid the Bishop, &c. Let those who hate virginity and continence read these monuments of English antiquity and faith: and let them recognize even unwilling, the miracles divinely wrought for the proof of both, you pseudo-evangelical little ministers, and blush if they could: I, as the older account, wished to prefix these to the Life, written after the middle of the 11th century.

THE MORE PROLIX ACTS

Authored by Thomas a Monk of Ely.

From the Douai Manuscript, collated with the Paris and London editions.

Etheldreda the Queen, Virgin, Abbess of Ely in England (St.)

BHL Number: 2634, 2635, 2636, 2637, 2650

BY THOMAS OF ELY, FROM A MANUSCRIPT.

PROLOGUE.

To the whole History of the Monastery of Ely, concerning the division of the work; and the situation, nature, and fortune of the island of Ely. A

[1] When I considered the excellence of the island

of Ely, and turned over in my mind those things which,

on account of the merits of the holy Virgins resting in it,

have been conferred and recorded, the admirable

works; and the events of the island, and the deeds of the Great;

I turned my mind to those things which, less

through the series of years and times; About to write the entire History of Ely, and the renowned deeds of the Kings

and Lords of the island,

or which are inserted scatteredly or confusedly in the English style,

and the good deeds and miracles of the Saints,

men and women, there serving God as soldiers,

I have attempted to set forth according to order in this History:

for among us things of this kind, collected in order and at the same time

written historically, are as yet by no means had (except the Life and

Miracles of the Saints resting there) from

Histories, from Chronicles, from English and

Latin writings, from testaments, from the report collected

of the faithful. Whence I began to set down some things, lest

those which are worthily to be proclaimed should remain unwritten,

as if unknown or consumed by age

and abolished. or rather to prepare material for one about to write, For the long-awaited

Philosopher or good Historiographer, when

he shall have tried to turn his pen to it, in many things will not find

material. And if perhaps anyone should try to reproach

this little work; we pray that he apply

the hand of those distilling myrrh, and

take up the work of a poet, that it may be left in memory to posterity,

if he shall have set it forth.

[2] For the rest, let no one complain, I pray, of the badness of the writing,

and the prolixity of the treatment; knowing

that in brief, as if suddenly, the deeds of very many

and the times cannot be comprehended, unless the Reader

were rather to grow weary and weighed down. For

also the region of the Angles, though it be one land,

several ruled in it through provinces under various

fortune: he asks for an attentive reader, and it happened that for the profit of ruling first to Dukes,

then to Kings, one and the same Britain was subject. But

unless the Reader diligently attends to the flexible series,

treating now of one, now of another kingdom, and

the names of Kings variously, he will not easily perceive

the order. Therefore I have undertaken to divide the History into two

books distinctly through Chapters, and to narrate

each thing in its own place and in whose

times they happened. The first book

consists of the situation of the island, and of the glorious

Queen Etheldreda, and divides the work into two books; and of the holy Virgins succeeding her,

and by what misfortunes the island

was subjected even to the entrance of the Monks

into Ely. But the second of the times

of the Monks at Ely, and of the liberty of the place,

and how the church was renewed, and of

the siege of the Normans, even to the times

of the Bishops, which is now. And since

to such a narration the solicitude and grace of the Brothers

provoked me, I deem it necessary

to commend to one volume the memorable work of charity and what

we have experienced;

that the purity of charity, inserted into the work, may shine forth the more

readily, distinguished with a beautiful variety, and so

I will make a beginning, invoking God the cooperator of all things.

[3] All illustrious Nobles strive earnestly

to adorn and magnify their own town,

and some intend to commend to letters worthy of memory

the state of the province and the deeds of their ancestors;

which is rightly done. beginning from the name of the place, But we,

following the deeds of our forebears, before the History

proceeds further within, it seems of fitting

order to begin the narration with the name of the place:

because Ely, the greatest of stagnant Islands

it is called, which we begin to proclaim worthy of every title,

magnificent in wealth and towns,

equally praiseworthy in woods, vineyards, and waters,

most fertile in every fruit, offspring, and germ.

But we say that Ely b in English means…

that is, the Island of eels, from the abundance of those which

are caught in those same marshes, it took its name; named from eels:

as Bede, most eloquent of the Angles, teaches;

which, the name being changed for the better, is now called

Ely, namely the worthy c

house of God, to which its name befits it. Among

the cities and regions of England most comely and

most renowned, famous for miracles, glorious for Relics,

it seems to offer a useful and quiet

dwelling, and, that I may truly confess, fortified

with a strong and warlike band of men,

ready in spirit and arms to resist enemies …

[4] Of domestic animals, of the wild beasts of the woods,

of the birds, most of whose praises being passed over of the many and great fish

which round about are often caught in the waters

which are called seas, how great an abundance there is there we would say,

were it not that in the second book of this work,

according to the series, where it is read that the island

was subdued by the Normans, each thing were there recounted.

And what more? Within, the soil is exceedingly

rich and joyful, most pleasant in the loveliness of gardens and groves,

distinguished by the hunting of wild beasts,

not moderately fertile in pastures of cattle and beasts of burden,

and surrounded on all sides by very great fish-

bearing rivers. d For it is not

an island of the sea, but inaccessible by the overflowings of pools

and by marshes. he defines the situation and bounds, It could be reached by ship:

but since for those wishing to go there it was once

perilous for ships; now, a way being made through

the marshy reed-bed, e it is crossed on foot. The island

extends, in length, seven miles,

from Contingelade f even to Littleport

or to Abbotsdelf, but now called Bishopsdelf;

and in breadth four, that is

from Cherchewere g even to the sea of Straham,

with the adjacent islands round about, besides

Doddington, h which is also an island, in

which there are little villages, and groves with insular

appurtenances, with other inhabitants not without seed i.e. fertile,

with most rich pastures. There is named also

to the aforesaid island Chatteris, where there is an Abbey

of Nuns; and the district i of Whittlesey,

and the Abbey of Monks of Thorney. k

[5] But the island is now said to be in the County

of Cambridge, of two hundreds: l

but it is one with appendages The island now belonging to the County of Cambridge, which are outside:

And by these bounds it is contained, according to what

anciently it is reported and recognized to consist of within itself

(that is, from the middle of the bridge of Detro

even to Upwere, m and from Bishopsdelf) even

to the river near Burch which is called

Niën n in the Province of the Gyrwas (and the Gyrwas

are all the Southern Angles, dwelling in the great

marsh, in which is the island of Orlii)

but more truly, according to Bede's attestation,

it is of the Province of the East Angles, situated

at the entrance of that same Province. but once to the Province of the East Angles: But anciently

(as is reported) there was a village at Cratendune, that

is the valley of Crat, situated

utensils, and coins of the ancient

Kings, are often found: and that there was for a long time

indications. But after the God-beloved

Etheldreda, the island having been received by right of dowry from Tonbert

her first husband, chose there a dwelling,

near the channel of the flowing water o in a higher place

she set her dwellings; where formerly a church was raised by St. Augustine, there thereafter,

For in the primitive Church of the nascent

faith and Christianity, in honor of Mary ever

Virgin, a monastery had been built there

by Blessed Augustine, Apostle of the Angles:

of which work King Ethelbert was

the first founder: in which he established ministers,

fulfilling the office of God; whom

the army of King Penda, devastating the homeland and the neighborhood,

afterward put to flight thence, and changed the place

into a solitude. overthrown by King Penda, By such

founders, then, the monastery of Elge was first

founded, as we read in old writings.

[6] Although the blessed Etheldreda, after the long

desolation, here merits her primacy,

where, Christ preserving, even to the present

see, and to be the Metropolis of the province itself. For

the island is exceedingly free from the judgment and power

of all, in that neither a Bishop nor a minister of any

exaction, without the advocation of the Brothers,

may intrude himself, or presume to disturb the property of the Saint:

which through privileges and

charters in their proper places we shall more fully insert; deeming it

worthy first to treat the History of the famous

island, which flourished and flourishes, Christ being its patron,

by the presence, benefits, and

miracles of the holy women, namely Etheldreda,

Withburga, Sexburga, and Ermenilda:

by whose suffrages it happily rejoices.

There are contained there also the Relics of very many

Saints, men and women, who after them, serving Christ,

had succeeded in the church,

even to the times of the Danes, namely Inguar p

the pagan King and his companions: who,

the inhabitants partly slain, partly put to flight, and again overthrown by the Danes.

utterly overthrew the place. There are, moreover,

in the bosom of the island twelve churches,

with field villages and small insular settlements,

which from of old belong to the monastery, as chapels

to a mother church; nor

outside the monastery were cemeteries made at the churches except late.

But at Ely from the whole island the bodies

of the dead were buried. q

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

A This Prologue, torn from the rest of the body, Wharton presents in his Preface at number XLVIII, with which we compared it.

the express assertion of the Author here; but so it seemed to the copyist to be done, who was about to place between the two books the book of Miracles, although manifestly of a different Author.

I would not dare to vouch that all the proper names were correctly expressed by the copyists, since elsewhere too frequent errors appear, to be discreetly supplied or emended, that the weariness of Readers may be consulted. But in the names of places there is a peculiar difficulty, since they have either ceased to be in use, or are not expressed in the maps, as here Contingelade, the Western boundary of the island, in respect to Littleport the Eastern boundary, and 4 miles distant from Ely, to which it lies on the North.

sureties of the King's peace, or Judges, concerning whom see Spelman in his Glossary.

p To Saxo Grammaticus Ivarus, to others Inguar, son of Reiner, of him who first subdued England, his army slain in Ireland, he was captured, in punishment for the faith overthrown, newly introduced to the Danes, of which faith his son too was a bitter enemy.

The whole fortune of the island down to the year 1289 I find thus described at the front of the Chronicle: There were at Ely and lived Nuns, for 189 years; afterward secular Clerics, for 100 years; then Abbots, for 139 years: and in the year of the Lord 1289 from the change of the Abbey into a Bishopric there passes a space of 180 years.

Now since we are about to divide these Acts into fewer chapters, receive here the titles of the old division, with reference to our division.

THE OLD DIVISION

Here ends the first book of the history of the island of Ely

into the life of the most Blessed Virgin Etheldreda

and how she built a church there,

and by whom it was destroyed.

After this first book, as the Author Thomas calls it,

there follows in the Douai transcript,

and also in the Cottonian codex, a second Book,

which the general Prologue promises will be about the times

of the Monks at Ely, and about the liberty of the place;

and how the church was renewed; and

about the siege of the Normans, even to the times

of the Bishops, which is now. But there is interposed,

On the second Translation of St. Etheldreda

the Virgin, with the rest of the Virgins,

which was made by Richard the Abbot, the tenth and

last, after whom (as is in the Chronicle) in the Year

of the Lord 1108, in the 9th year of King Henry the First,

was made the transmutation of the Abbey into a Bishopric,

by Pope Paschal in the 10th year of his Pontificate.

There follows then a very lengthy Book

of miracles, and finally the second Book

of the History of the island of Ely, and how the church

was restored or by whom dedicated.

Chapter I. How the Church of Ely was restored

by St. Ethelwold, King Edgar commanding.

II. How King Edgar, certain men asking,

refused to give the same place.

III. How Blessed Ethelwold bought the whole island

of Ely from King Edgar.

IV. How King Edgar gave St. Etheldreda Hatfield.

V. How Blessed Ethelwold bought Hendon,

Hill, Nicham, and Wilburton.

VI. How Blessed Ethelwold bought seven

hides in Stretham.

And so on, without other title, it treats of the rest

of the possessions acquired for the place of Ely by the same Holy Bishop, or acquired by the Abbots, or

liberally donated by others. From here

indeed, the style changed, there follows a mere Chartulary,

before which is set the Charter of King Edward,

concerning all that the church of Ely possesses;

which the Privilege of Pope Victor confirms, concerning

all the liberty of the place. This is Victor II,

Roman Pontiff from the year 1054 to 1057. Thence

indeed one ascends upward to the charters of King

Edgar, and the series of them is drawn down even

to St. Thomas of Canterbury and the year about

1163.

After these things begin the Chronicles of the Abbots and

Bishops of Ely, to which is prefixed

Lucius, the illustrious King of the Britons, having heard the fame

of Christianity, sent Letters to Pope Eleutherius:

where, when it had been said that in the year of the Lord's Incarnation

870 the church of Ely was burned by the Pagans,

and in the year 970 Blessed

Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester … renewed it when destroyed,

expelled the Presbyters thence,

introduced Monks, and a religious man,

by name Brithnod, he ordained Abbot over them …

who in the tenth year of his rule was martyred by Queen

Elstritha. These things, I say, having been said, the Author adds, And holy

Religion flourished, under the rule of holy Abbots,

the change of the Abbey into a Bishopric being indicated, There begins

is contained the Genealogy and Life of Blessed Etheldreda

and her sisters, and concerning the state of the church of Ely

down to these our times; and it begins

in this manner: Anna King of the East

Angles, son of Eny, of royal stock

&c., as may be read in the Monasticon Anglicanum, volume

1, page 87 toward the end up to 93; and there follow

the deeds of the individual Abbots, and then of the Bishops:

but written by different Authors, as in the preliminary

Commentary I noted from Wharton. To me it seems fitting,

to the first Book of the History of Ely, or the Acts

of St. Etheldreda, to subjoin the beginning of the second Book;

and the acquisition of the individual estates being dismissed, with

the subsequent Chartulary, to continue the same Book

through the Deeds of the Abbots, although perhaps of a writer other

than Thomas; that so the second Translation may follow in order,

made in the time of the last Abbot Richard;

and then the Book of miracles.

The History of the second Translation, moreover, is found under these titles.

The Book of Miracles, moreover, runs under these titles,

to which our numbers here expressed correspond. The Prologue

to the miracles of St. Etheldreda.

THE FIRST BOOK. On the life & death of the Saint,

the raising of her incorrupt body and her miracles, and the fortune of the place even to the Monks introduced thither.

CHAPTER I. The royal lineage of the Saint, her pious adolescence, her marriage with Tonbert the Prince.

CHAPTER I.

[7] The Angles, according to a the old histories,

in the time of the Prince Martian, a hundred

fifty-six years before the coming of the blessed Augustine

and his companions into Britain

(which is now called England), were carried over; The Angles invade Britain:

who had come from three most valiant peoples of Germany,

that is, the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes.

Of the origin of the Jutes are the men of Kent; of

the Saxons, the East Saxons; b but of the Angles,

that is from that homeland which is called Angulus, c

the East Angles arose, and

obtained, the name allotted, the Eastern part of that island

(which to this day in the tongue of the Angles is called Eastangle),

and possess it by the cord of inheritance. From

whose stock the Royal lineage of many

provinces drew its origin: from the first Kings of the East Angles from whom the most exalted Virgin Etheldreda

was to be propagated in the flesh, who, as wonderful for exceptional sanctity

as notable for Royal dignity,

happily shone forth. Which appears more loftily,

when, proving each thing from Bede or the histories,

numbering the Kings of the province,

we undertake thus to weave the origin of the blessed Virgin.

Now there was a King of East Anglia, Redwald

by name, formerly in Kent imbued with the Sacraments

of the Faith, but in vain: for, led astray by his

wife, he had his latter state worse than his former.

But though ignoble in deed, yet by birth

he was noble, namely the son of Tytilus, whose

father was Wuffa, d from whom the Kings of the East

Angles are called Wuffings. To the aforesaid

Redwald succeeded Eorpwald his son: who,

at the persuasion of Edwin, King of the Northumbrians,

first received the Faith of Christ and the Sacraments

with the same province: but not after

Sigebert, a man in all things most Christian

and most learned, when he gained the kingdom,

led the province, having been engaged for three years in error,

to the right faith and the works of justice through e St. Felix

the Bishop. He, become familiar to him

while exiled in Gaul, came to England with him

after the death of Eorpwald, f and is made Bishop of the East

Angles, the See being received in

the City of Dummoc; which by his preaching, from

long iniquity and unhappiness, according to the sacrament

of his name, he freed.

[8] Meanwhile the same King, the affairs of the kingdom left,

and committed to his kinsman Egric, who

before too held a part of that same Kingdom;

entered the Monastery which he had made for himself

in Betricheswurde; g and, the tonsure received, he served

the eternal King devoutly for a long time. While

he did this, after the death of Sigebert and Egric, it happened that the nation of the Mercians,

led by a King Penda by name, went out to war

against the East Angles. Who,

when they saw themselves to be inferior in war,

asked Sigebert to come with them into the battle

to strengthen the soldiery. But he being unwilling

and refusing, plucking him unwilling from the monastery,

they led him into the contest; hoping

that the soldiers' spirits would tremble less; that less,

the once most strenuous Leader being present, they could

contemplate flight. But the holy man, not unmindful

of his profession, while he was surrounded by a rich

army, would have only a staff

in his hand; and was slain together with

King Egric, and their whole army, the Pagans pressing,

was slaughtered or scattered.

These things were done in the year from the Incarnation of the Word

of God six hundred thirty-seven. h But there was made successor

* of their kingdom Anna, Anna the father of Etheldreda succeeds:

son of Eni, i of royal stock, a most excellent man and

begetter of most excellent offspring, of the aforesaid Etheldreda

and her sisters, as the following

declares. Who, the Kingdom gained, adorned the monastery

which the man of the Lord Furseus (of whom

wonders are read) had received from the aforesaid King Sigebert

in the camp which in the tongue of the Angles

is called Cnobheresburch—King Anna of that

province adorned it with many

buildings and gifts.

CHAPTER II.

[9] King Anna therefore gloriously obtained a wife

worthy of so great a spouse, not unequal

in birth, and exceedingly excellent in manners,

many years before he gained the Kingdom.

Their life and manners God enriched with so abundant

to things above; assiduously expending the office

of serving the poor of Christ, they clung to their ministries;

and devoted to such exercises of works,

they are enriched with a noble succession of carnal offspring.

There were born to them children, whom a praiseworthy life

and a death no less precious commend;

two sons, his six children: Aldulf and holy Jurmin;

and four daughters; namely the firstborn

Sexburga, an incomparable woman; Ædelberga,

Etheldreda, and Withburga; who,

for the Lord's sake spurning the enticements of the flesh,

among the prudent virgins merited to have oil in their

vessels. But Aldulf, that he was the son

of King Anna, as in the present work is woven,

is shown by certain indications;

also according to Bede and the histories, if

we attend, it is proved. k But Jurmin,

whom the sanctity of his life and the merit of justice

commend as blessed, as in the Deeds of the Pontiffs

of England is read, is reported to have been the brother of the Virgin

Etheldreda.

[10] But now what were the beginnings of the aforesaid

women, what their progress, what their end, is to be diligently

examined. For this mother, from whom so great

an offspring came forth, was the daughter

of Hereric, nephew of King Edwin of the Northumbrians,

and her name was Hereswitha. l

For in the Life of the holy Virgin Milburga m

it is read: Sexburga, n the elder daughter of King Anna,

is given in marriage to Earconbert King of the men of Kent,

the sister of the holy Virgin

Etheldreda, whose mother was called Hereswitha.

Nor is any other at that time in the whole history of the Angles,

nor in the English or Latin Chronicles, found

who was reckoned by such a name, except this mother

of the holy women, (whom Bede without doubt

asserts to be the mother of King Aldulf) of whom in the Annals

we read written.

[11] The King of the East Angles Ædelwold being dead,

there succeeded Aldulf. Whose mother Hereswitha,

sister p of St. Hilda the Abbess, whose

father was Hereric, whose father was Ædfrid,

whose father was Edwin. q For she (as

Bede testifies) had by another man a daughter

by name Sederrida, r who remained a holy virgin. Book 3, chapter 8.

But Sexburga (as is premised)

married a man in the fifth year of her father's reign,

Earconbert King of the men of Kent: but another

daughter, Ædelberga, s beloved of God, kept the glory

of perpetual virginity in great continence [in

Francia]. For at that time, there being not yet many monasteries

constructed in the region of the Angles,

many from Britain, for the sake of the monastic life,

were wont to go to the monasteries of the Franks;

but also their daughters, to be instructed, and to be joined to the heavenly

Spouse, they sent to the same; chiefly

in Brie, and in Chelles, and in the monastery of Andelys: t

among whom was the aforesaid Sedrida,

daughter of the wife of Anna King of the East Angles,

begotten of another man; and a natural daughter

of the same King, Ædelburga, serving the Lord

in the place which is called Brie. But Withburga, v

the younger of the daughters, despising the children

of Kings and the honors of parents, after the killing

of her father, chose a humble place in her paternal province,

at Dereham, wishing to live solitarily.

These, as the series befits, though weaving them

briefly, the Reader will find sufficiently in proper

volumes about each. Ibid.

CHAPTER III.

[12] The blessed then and glorious Virgin Etheldreda,

among the East Angles, in a famous place x

called Exning, St. Etheldreda piously brought up: of most noble parents,

as the venerable Doctor and most truthful Historiographer

Bede testifies, was the daughter of Anna, King of the East

Angles, begotten of a mother

by the name of Hereswitha (as was said

above). And so, nobly exalted by the lineage of her stock,

she adorned her nobility with merits and the glory of sanctity.

For in her very infancy, living

well in the eyes of all, she always grew

for the better, foreshowing something in herself to come by the gift

of God. Etheldreda grew, fore-chosen by God,

of good disposition, grown up at home, as that age is wont,

with the abundance of her parents; troublesome to no one

ever, but gentle, sweet to all and mild.

But this is exceedingly wonderful and

praiseworthy, that from the very rudiments of infancy,

giving herself to sobriety and modesty, now accompanying her parents'

footsteps, now alone frequenting the thresholds of the church,

the idle pursuits of girls neglected,

she rejoiced assiduously to entreat God. The parents wonder

that their daughter delights in such studies,

understanding her rather to be endowed with the ampler grace of God

and the greater gift of virtues. For not

embracing the wantonness of the world, but rather to consummate

the course of the present life in virginity, she chose and strove

to live piously, holily, and religiously;

so that of her, in an age now weaker, the saying

of the Wise One might appear, A spotless life is

the age of old age. Wisdom 4:9.

CHAPTER IV.

[13] And when the blessed Virgin, by the progress of a praiseworthy life,

had passed the years of childhood; and herself

now grown up appeared marriageable, and, fame spreading it,

the sanctity of her mind and the beauty of her body

was far and wide celebrated;

very many approach, and admiring the excellence of the virgin's

form, follow the titles of virginal

purity with distinguished praise. For her beauty

pleased innumerable Princes,

and her comely face moved them to

maidenly embraces. She sighed for the marriage-chamber

of God alone, to whom her virginal chastity she had solemnly

sung as an epithalamium, and in continual song,

sweated before God in the perpetual holocaust of her flesh.

Meanwhile, the supernal Judge providing,

the Virgin Etheldreda is arranged for a festive marriage,

and brought to the marriage-chamber solemnly festive with various

instruments. Nor was this done that

her modesty might be harmed, but that, the greater the patience

proved in this contest, the more ample

and precious she might be crowned with the victory of Martyrdom.

married to the Prince Tonbert, At length she is asked in marriage by

Tonbert, Prince of the Southern Gyrwas: y

who set his mind to be shaped into love of the Virgin,

and asks that she be granted by her father the King to be joined

to him in his marriage. The faithful King assents

to the votive desire of the young man asking, and intends to satisfy

him. Hearing this, she greatly

shudders, long refuses, long denies,

as one who with every desire wished to fulfill her life

in virginity.

[14] But the authority of her parents conquers, nay,

the Divine providence changes the resolve of her mind,

which foreknew that she was to be crowned, by the burden of marriage,

with a more glorious laurel of chastity.

She is betrothed therefore most splendidly z two years

before the killing of her father, bound though

in the conjugal life to the bond: (as is written

found) she received the island of Elge from the same spouse of hers

as a dowry: which done, she remains perpetually

man wonders at, that any virgin betrothed

to a man should remain unspotted: but let it be ambiguous to no one

in the thought of men, that with God it is most easy

that whatever his regard chooses

is best done. Betrothed therefore, she merited to imitate the Mother

of the Lord, that she might be unconquered by the concupiscence

of the flesh, holy in body

and spirit. For when amid the dotal tablets

the incorrupt virgin was pressed by the straits

of corruptible life, by heavenly desires daily

she was crowned with an ineffable martyrdom. And although she was given

by her father as bride to a husband (if indeed he is to be

called a husband, who inflicted no damage on her chastity),

yet intent on frequent prayers and the fruits of alms

in all justice and

sanctification, not in unchastity or the pride

of life did they lead their days: for each

knew that, according to the sanctions of the laws, from an equal

vow marriages would be more holy.

[15] But he, a little time after (as

Bede testifies) he had received her, having died,

although for the merit of chastity he received the crown of life

from the Lord; yet in the fellowship of the virgin,

as is reported by truthful people, that just man,

elected and constituted always as a witness to the conjugal

virginity to abide, lived under the marital

yoke nearly three years: in whose union

not by the commixture of flesh was there one body, she remains a Virgin, but (as is believed) in Christ

there was one mind, while both held the Apostle's

counsel, nor yet did any dissension or

discord ever intervene. And although

the Virgin piously wept the loss of her companion, she rejoiced

rather that she was freed in the liberty of Christ

from the yoke of marriage, hoping thus to have escaped the impediments

of the world. Hence with prayers and alms

she offers herself to God as incense, smells of tears and aromas,

re-echoes Christ and the heavens: and

since scarcely or never can any woman be found

who is not subject to the enticements of concupiscence;

this one came beautifully to the nuptials, but

ignorant of the marital business, by tireless prayers

obtained with God that he might keep her

unspotted. But it is not to be doubted that, in our

age, that could have happened which in the preceding age

was several times done, as faithful histories relate.

CHAPTER X.

[16] Some ask in what page or

history is found, what Bede in testimony

of Tonbert and that spouse of his and Etheldreda asserted

several times was done, as faithful

histories relate; namely, what man and woman, living

in marriage, persevered unspotted from one another.

To whom, before all and above

all blessed women, we set down the Mother of our Lord with her husband

as having kept a chaste marriage (as

the sacred Gospels give us indications),

the singular Virgin Mary, by the example of the Mother of God, and others whose commemoration

the holy Church venerates. But some,

for the assertion of this matter, strenuously contend to hear

proof from elsewhere. Whence

diligently inquiring into the volumes of books, desiring

to perceive their example, but rather

in the customary way in the book which they call the Conferences of the Fathers, aa

applying their study, it happened that they found before their

hands the desired and long-sought example,

which we suitably adduce to the series of the narration.

Two certain of the Fathers asked

God to show them to what measure they had

attained. And there came to them a voice saying:

That in that village which is in Egypt, there

is a certain secular man Eucharistus by name, and

his wife is called Maria; you have not yet attained

to their measure. Rising up, those

two old men came into that village: and inquiring,

they found his cell. And the old man, seeing

them, prepared a table: and put

water in a basin to wash their feet.

And they said to him: We will taste

nothing unless thou tell us thy

manner of life.

[17] Then he with humility said to them:

I am a Shepherd of sheep, and this is my

wife. and of two married couples in Egypt, But when those elders persevered, asking

him to declare all things to them, and he himself

was unwilling to tell; they said to him: God sent us

to thee. Hearing this word he was afraid, and said:

Behold, we have these sheep from our parents:

and whatever God grants us from them,

we make of it three parts,

one part of the poor, another for the receiving

of strangers, but the third for our own

use. And from the time I took her as wife,

neither have I been defiled, nor she;

but she is a virgin: but each of us, separated from the other,

we sleep. And indeed by night we put on

sackcloth, but by day our garments; and

up to now no man has known these things.

And when those Fathers had heard these things, divinely indicated. they were

amazed, and departing glorified God.

But this example, from the authority of books, on account of its antiquity,

is not unprofitably set down,

so that those who read that Tonbert and his spouse

Etheldreda in marriage and after, Bede

teaching, kept the robe of chastity, may, in

these matters (as was said) not distrust that it was several times

done. And since God is not a respecter

of persons, but in every nation, in every

order, in every degree, in every dignity

the Lord knows who are his; and whom he predestined,

them he justified; so that neither poverty,

nor riches take away sanctity, nor obscurity

make perfect, nor charity make reprobate.

CHAPTER VI.

[18] For Felix, Bishop of the East Angles,

of whom it was premised, when he had presided over the same province

with Pontifical rule for eighteen years,

there at Dummoc ended his life in peace in the twelfth

year of the reign of King Anna. Now this place

is said to be at the entrance of the island of Ely, The passing & burial of St. Felix the Bishop, where there was

venerable man Diton-Lugting by name, observed

the order of the holy Rule under the Abbot

Wereferd. For in English it is read

that holy Felix first founded an old Monastery

at Soham and a Church at Reedham:

but a cruel and impious nation of Pagans, coming from Denmark, raging

against all the borders of England, the aforesaid place

and everything round about depopulating with sword and flame,

afterward changed into a solitude.

Whence when the place was for a long time emptied

of Divine worship, in the time of King Cnut

the Relics of the most holy Confessor Felix were

translated into the Monastery of Ramsey, and

laid up with worthy honor. bb But to write

of this Confessor of the Lord the very series

of the narration had demanded, who washed King Anna and

his whole house with the same province (as

the histories relate) with the wave of baptism,

and imparted salutary teachings.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

a In Bede, book 15 recte 1, chapter 1, in the Cambridge edition of the year 1643, the year is assigned as 449, and there agree the Anglo-Saxon Chronologer, the Calendars of Malmesbury, of Westminster; and elsewhere others, by one year only before the reign of Marcian, substituted for Theodosius the Younger, who died on July 29 in the year 450; so that before the coming of St. Augustine and his companions, who landed in the year 597, only 148 years are to be counted.

he did not find it named before. I would rather believe that, by a careless copyist, some words above fell out, at the sign *, where the particle "but" refers to certain preceding things there wanting, which could be thus supplied: His father was Anna, son of Eni. Now Eni had a brother, King of East Anglia, Redwald by name; the others having died without a successor, he held the right to his kingdom.

from Ireland through the Britons he was carried over into Saxony, where, honorably received by Sigebert, King of the East Saxons, he softened barbarous hearts with the word of the Lord. By the name of Saxons, therefore, the author comprehends also the Angles, others call them Anglo-Saxons. Furthermore I marked dots … where I expunged as superfluous the words, "the King of that province Anna."

and is said in Alford to have died with his father Anna, in the war with Penda King of the Mercians, in the year 654; yet nowhere is found a day of cult, which whether he ever had any, I strongly doubt, on account of this Author's silence, who would otherwise not have kept silent about it. The same in the book of miracles, number 62, is similarly called Blessed.

l Hereswith then Balthild Queen of France, sprung from Anglo-Saxony, and made then in it English Martyrology of Wilson of the first edition on the 23rd of September, whom Ferrarius, Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology, and Alford followed.

succeeded her, the second Abbess of Ely. Of her we treated on the 13th of February at the Life of St. Ermenilda her daughter: about to treat more fully at her Natal day, the 6th of July, then adding, both from here and from the Monasticon Anglicanum, page 88, certain things not to be despised.

p St. Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, is venerated on the 15th of December. Of her and the said monastery it was treated on the 8th of February, at the Life of St. Elfleda, who succeeded her.

q Edwin, created King of Northumbria in the year 617, slain and held a Martyr on the 12th of October of the year 633, inscribed in the English Martyrology on the 4th of October. He is known in the year 583, so that he could have been the great-grandfather of Hereswith.

r Sederrida, to others Setruda, Abbess of Brie in Gaul, now the monastery of St. Fara, some of whose Acts we gave on the 10th of January.

s Ædelberga or Edilburga, also Abbess of Brie, is venerated on the 7th of July.

t The monastery of Andelys on the Seine, at the fourth mile above Rouen, has long ago been extinct; yet in that place, even now called Andely, Mabillon asserts that another Benedictine convent has recently been built.

v The Acts of St. Withburga we gave on the 17th of March.

x Æreninge, in the History of Ely Erninge, is in the county of Suffolk, and the Hundred of Lackford, on the borders of the Cambridge territory.

y The Gyrwas, says Camden in the Iceni and the County of Cambridge, comprehend the marshy region in four Counties, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Northampton, and Lincoln; and the Gyrwas, as some interpret, are Marsh-dwellers. Hence the Southern Gyrwas occupied territories in the Huntingdon and Northampton lands, with the island of Ely.

z Therefore in the year 652.

aa In Cassian, namely, Conference 14, chapter 7: but there the following history is narrated a little differently, the names of both spouses being suppressed; and to John the Abbot alone the man is said to have confessed the truth of the matter. Other examples in this work the Reader will be able to find: at least there could be added here, as most known to all, Pulcheria and Marcian the Augusti.

bb Most things are explained at the Life of St. Felix on the 8th of March.

CHAPTER II. The Kings of the East Angles, and others. The marriage of St. Etheldreda with King Egfrid.

CHAPTER VII.

[19] But as time succeeded, the aforesaid King

Anna, The piety of King Anna in name indeed and dignity preeminent in

England, was yet not lifted up into human glory;

but more deeply recognizing the goodness of God in himself,

diligently meditated

not to be high-minded: and although he was King lofty on the throne,

he showed himself equal to his household,

humble to the Priests, pleasing to the people. Wonderful

was his devotion about the worship of God, wonderful his solicitude

in building churches. For he had been a father

of orphans, and a judge of widows, and a strong defender

of his homeland: to whose protection anyone,

not bearing the ambushes and incursions of enemies,

fled: which to show the magnificence of so great

that I may come to the broader history. Now it happened,

when Kenwalla, who succeeded his father Cynegils a

in the kingdom, refused to receive the faith and Sacraments

of the heavenly kingdom: also in conversion as of King Kenwalla, but

afterward also lost the power of his earthly

kingdom. The sister of Penda, King of the Mercians,

whom he had married, being repudiated, he took another

wife; and therefore, attacked by war, was deprived of his kingdom

by that one: and when he had found protection in no one,

he withdrew to the King of the East

Angles, whose name was Anna, with whom

exiled for three years, he came to know the faith, and received

the truth. For also he himself with whom he was exiled,

was a good King, and happy with good and holy

offspring, namely the father of the blessed women,

about whom chiefly this work treats.

King Kenwalla was baptized in that same province

by Felix the Bishop: whom from the sacred font

King Anna received, by whose aid afterward

he returned to Wessex, and powerfully obtained

his paternal kingdom from his enemies.

When this, by celebrated report, was made known throughout the whole

world of the Angles, some admiring King Anna's zeal

and affection toward God,

others praising his sanctity, struck a treaty

with him from everywhere.

[20] Mercia alone, still breathing and

panting after the seat of the East Angles, threatened destruction: and his death in the year 654.

and its King, supported by forces of warriors,

attacked them to subdue them. King Anna,

hastening to meet him, is slain by the same Penda King of the Mercians

in the nineteenth year of his reign,

and from the Incarnation of the Lord six hundred

fifty-four: whom his brother Ædelher

succeeded in the kingdom. He, made friend of Penda

the King, then received the rule under him to reign.

There is in that same province

in which the body of the venerable King Anna was buried,

and even to this day is venerated by the pious devotion

of the faithful. There too is buried

his son acceptable to God, Jurmin,

but he was afterward translated to Betrithesworde (which now

they call St. Edmund's), and honorably placed. Hereswith and Hilda retire to Chelles. These matters of East

Anglia being troubled, the Queen, after

the death of her King, despising the world,

withdrew as a pilgrim in Gaul into the monastery of Chelles,

and there subject to regular disciplines,

awaited the eternal crown. To whom, coming

afterward, Hilda her sister also, her homeland left,

emulated her example, in the same monastery

wishing to lead a pilgrim life for the Lord;

but recalled to her homeland after a year by

Bishop Aidan, d she led the monastic life

in great abstinence of life.

[21] After these things, in the following year, the perfidious King

of the Mercians Penda, the slayer of Sigebert, Egric, Oswiu overcomes Penda. Anna

Kings of the East Angles, and also of Edwin

and Oswald e Kings of the Northumbrians,

equipped with thirty legions and as many most noble

Dukes, went up into Bernicia to

subdue King Oswiu. f

Whom he, with Elfrid his son, having only one legion,

but trusting in Christ as leader,

met. For another son of his, Egfrid, at that time,

in the province of the Mercians with the Queen of that same King, Cyneswith, g

was held a hostage; who was to receive in marriage

the holy Virgin Etheldreda, of whose

life and Virtues this book is suitably

woven. But also the son of King Oswald, h

Odiwald, who ought then to have been an aid to them,

was on the side of the adversaries; and had been their leader to fight

against his homeland and his uncle,

though at the very time he had withdrawn himself, and

awaited the outcome of the peril in a safe place.

And the contest begun, i the Pagans were put to flight

and slain, the thirty Dukes of the King, and

those who had come to his aid almost all

killed; among whom Edelher, brother of Anna

King of the East Angles, who reigned after him,

the very author of the war, was slain.

Then King Oswiu, for the victory conferred upon him,

offered to God twelve possessions for the building of monasteries,

and his daughter Edelfled k to be consecrated

in perpetual virginity. This war King Oswiu in the thirteenth year of his reign

with great benefit to both peoples

completed: he founds a monastery & consecrates his daughter to God. for he freed his nation from the hostile

depopulation of the Pagans, and converted the very

nation of the Mercians and the neighboring provinces,

the perfidious head being cut off, to the grace of the Christian

faith.

[22] But four years after, the Dukes of that nation

rebelled against him, Ædelwald the brother of King Anna, Wulfhere, son of Penda, being raised to be King,

whom they had secretly kept:

and so with their King, they joyfully served Christ.

Who, taking a wife, the daughter

of King Earconbert and Sexburga, sister of the venerable

Virgin Etheldreda, by name Ermenilda, l

of whom he begot the holy virgin

Werburga, and reigned seventeen

years, as we read in Bede. But King Ædelher

of the East Angles being slain, as was premised,

the third brother by the name of Ædelwald

received the Kingdom; a good man and a true

worshiper of God, just as Anna his brother,

walking in faith and holy works. To whom

when the King of the East Saxons Swithelm m

frequently came up by reason of their fellowship,

he exhorted him with friendly and as it were brotherly

counsel, that, the vanity of idols left, he should believe

in the Lord Jesus Christ. Who, his friends

favoring, believed, and was baptized by

Cedd Bishop of the Mercians, n who then had come

into the province of the East Angles:

whom from the wave of baptism the same King

of that nation of the East Angles, brother of King Anna

of the same, received, and he reigned five years.

After whom Anna's son, namely the brother

of the Virgin Etheldreda, of whom we have already spoken,

received the Kingdom, Adulf; the son King Adulf; whose daughter

Redburga, Abbess at Repton, sent to the servant

of God Guthlac o a leaden coffin and a linen cloth,

in which the same man of God after

death might be placed and wrapped.

CHAPTER VIII.

[23] But the aforesaid Duke of the Gyrwas, Tonbert,

not after a long time, St. Etheldreda in the island of Ely, living piously from

the time he had taken Etheldreda as wife, departed from this

unstable life; and soon she, as after a shipwreck the shore

being regained, descended to her own home in

Ely; and in that island, removed from this world more by the

assemblies of those who frequented [her], strives to serve

Christ the Lord; for the rest fleeing the vain honors

of the world, always desiring silence

and an utterly ignoble life,

as afterward appeared. But that place, by the difficulty

of access, and surrounded here and there by trees,

having waters from the brow of the hill thin

but irrigating, as in a desert she began to dwell with herself;

and those whom she knew to be of special religion,

she joined to herself exceedingly in friendship.

For she weakened her body with vigils,

abstinence from foods, continual psalmody, and with her whole intention

panted after heavenly things. Exercised in such

offices, Etheldreda intends nothing

sweeter, nothing more delightful, than to exult in

the Lord, that she may please him to whom she had approved herself. Her venerable

devotion grew daily, and

more and more her holy desire was kindled

by the fire of the Holy Spirit. So in her

custom had instituted a nature, that with certain

restraints of frugality she held in check her carnal

desires. What more? Now by the judgment of God,

the first labor ended, again to the blessed

Virgin a contest heavier than the former is committed,

that the palm of her virginity might appear to the world more excellently.

[24] For at the same time Egfrid,

in the borders of the North among the Angles held the rule,

of which the city of York holds the chief place

of the kingdom. This King, illustrious and noble,

is inflamed into love of the Virgin, he confers innumerable

riches, and promises manifold dowries:

and while he was arranging to commend uncertain

honors, the more vehement petition of the Prince

became to her a burden rather than an honor: then

he assails her parents with persistent petitions.

For she who could not longer struggle against their will;

though unwilling, at last yielded to the wishes

of those asking. So (what she did not

hope) in the sixth year after the death of her father, p

by the unanimous will of her parents, in the time of Ædelwald

her uncle, who after the blessed Anna…

and his other brother by name Edelher

reigned, she is compelled to marry Egfrid King of the Bernicians, she is again given in marriage

to another man, namely King Egfrid, son

of Oswiu King of the Northumbrians, whose

father was Edelfrid, whose father Edelric. He

obtained the Kingdom after Aelle, who ruled the kingdom

of the Deira most strenuously for thirty years: to

whose name Blessed Gregory, when he found

English boys placed in the Roman forum,

alluding said: Alleluia, the praise of God the Creator

ought to be sung in those parts. Now the same

King Oswiu had a holy brother,

the Martyr of God Oswald, who before him

held the kingdom for nine years, and the others whom

the Chronicle enumerates; and one sister by name

Ebba, under whose tutelage the Queen

pleasing to God, Etheldreda, the diadem of the kingdom laid aside,

afterward put on the habit of sacred Religion, and

observed and learned the things which belong to monastic

institution. But the aforesaid King begot

sons and daughters, as the history of the Angles relates;

and appointed his son Elfrid

King over the province of the Deira; but Egfrid

the younger, whom he had loved with an inmost

affection, he took to himself as partner of the Kingdom over the province

of York, that is of the Bernicians,

since, depressed by the heaviness of body,

he with difficulty protected the rights of the kingdom.

[25] Now Egfrid was a young man of about

thirty years, pleasant in speech, civil in manners,

to the friendships of Wilfrid. And as in the fourth

* book of the histories of England it is read, King Egfrid

took a wife by name Etheldreda,

daughter of Anna King of the East Angles,

and work; whom also another man before

him had had as wife, namely a Prince

of the Southern Gyrwas, of whom we have made mention

above: she nevertheless would have resisted,

if she could have striven against it. So the Virgin,

daughter of Sion, was led to the citizens of Babylon, but by the burning

of its furnace was not at all scorched. A day

is appointed to be consecrated to nuptial solemnities,

on which the King betrothed to himself the daughter of a King. So Etheldreda marries,

with manifold splendor

and the various dancing of those rejoicing,

the venerable King, sighing rather for the nuptials

of the heavenly Spouse. with the resolve of Virginity, For heavenly love kept her holy resolve

from the desire of the flesh,

and if the Royal glory conferred anything on them not inglorious,

whereby as the daughter of a King she might appear more glorious,

it pleased her rather, for her condition, to be in fine linen

and purple, than in luxury and pride by which she might fall.

For in the court,

where the other virgins dwelling are wont to burn with carnal

desires, this one was kindled with the burning of him

on whom the Angels desire to look. And so for many years bound to a husband,

by divine overshadowing she always remained untouched.

[26] by the counsel of St. Wilfrid, At that time, King Egfrid being devoted

to holy works with his Queen Etheldreda,

at the same time Bishop Wilfrid being made obedient

in all things; peace and joy among the people,

and fruitful years and victories over enemies,

God helping, followed, as in

the Life of the same Confessor of the Lord is read.

But also the Queen's soul soon was bound

to the Saint of God in the love of Christ; and from those things

which by the bond of marriage belonged to her, with

him she took care to share. For having obtained Hexham,

the Queen herself, beloved of God, Etheldreda,

built a house to the Lord in honor of Blessed Andrew the Apostle,

supported by various columns and many porticoes,

which is more fully understood by sight

or hearing. But when about each thing we wander too widely,

we delay the purpose of the work too long;

yet, the cause of knowledge ascertained,

as the matter proves, we make it known.

[27] There had come with her several faithful men

and women, and of St. Oswin. from the province of the East Angles,

among whom a magnificent man of special authority

was Oswin by name, a monk of great merit,

and forsaking the world with pure intention of the heavenly

reward: worthy that the Lord should specially reveal his

secrets, worthy that ears be lent to his narration:

for he too had come with the same

Queen Etheldreda from the province of the East

Angles, and was the first of her ministers

and the prince of her household. It became such

and so great a Queen to have a custodian and

provider of her people, whose life among men

was of wonderful sanctity, and before the internal witness

of great merit: who knew how to be

even amid the wavering honors of the world, but

never to be absent in soul from the heavenly secrets.

For after the conversion of this his bountiful and distinguished

Queen, he so stripped himself of the things of the world,

after which he was thought to cling; that,

clothed only in the habit, with an axe and adze

in his hand, he came to the monastery of the most reverend Cedd

Bishop of the Mercians; and signified that he was entering the monastery

not for idleness, as some [do].

Where, for the reverence of his devotion,

he was held among the Brothers, and made a great friend

to the holy Bishop, heard heavenly

troops coming over him before his death.

I pass over very many things, lest I seem in the narration

of single matters to exceed my subject.

[28] She lives holily, This too I will say, returning to my subject,

that the King, so gladdened in marriage to the Queen,

soothes her with continual speeches, but

does not soften her with desires. Beholding her pious

conduct and devotion, he wonders

that, exalted to the throne of the Kingdom, she in no way changed

the gravity of manners which she had been wont to have.

For she often passed the night sleepless,

the day without nourishment of foods; and, as

I will now confess, she continued days and nights in

prayer: and when after the manner of married people she had lain in the Royal

bed, scarcely had she compressed sleep when to her

accustomed prayers she fled, nor was she wont to return

to the bed thereafter, as from Bede's

words is afterward taught. For the Holy Spirit,

whose habitation she had prepared her heart,

freed the dwelling of his inhabitation from all

corruption, whence the strong Virgin,

amid adversities and prosperities, stood fixed and undaunted;

so that neither did violence break her,

nor did the love of Princes restrain her from the services of the highest

King; for the love of whom the Queen

Etheldreda proposed in the vow of virginity

rather to pass this life, than to be violated by another's

lust. Yet she was joined to the King by the law

of marriage, not by carnal conjunction: but

the wicked plunderer grieves, and groans that in the former

contest he was laid low: whence against

her again he rises more sharply. Therefore he adds sharper

goads to Egfrid, and vehemently incites his fierce spirit

to prepare for union with the Virgin: and now with cunning

craft he tries to seduce her whom by the public

conversation of the marriage-chamber he could not violate:

and her who by common usage could not be bent to conjugal

union, he hoped to incline to carnal

enticements by the coverings of discipline. But God benignly

disposes to glory, what the ancient enemy

strives to turn to ruin: and as

the Virgin had obtained the first victory from him,

so he thinks to obtain also the second

from the virginal body.

CHAPTER IX.

[29] And lest anyone, doubting the Queen's continence,

detract from so great a virtue; let him know, in those times

this was published and believed through all England,

so that very many asserted it as certain of fact.

The King, I say, smitten (as it is right to believe) by some

heavenly virtue, terrified in himself was amazed;

he did not touch the most blessed Queen unchastely,

nor grieve her, nor inflict

any annoyance: since not as

in all things he venerated her. He becomes a husband,

in mind not in flesh, in name not in deed: she becomes

not in deed. Yet he desires the debt from

his wife, but neither by prayers nor by promises could he incline her mind

to his will. At last he approached St. Wilfrid both

himself and through friends, and often met with him, praying and beseeching, nor can she be moved from her resolve by prayers,

and often met with him, praying and beseeching,

and trying to allure him by the promise of the greatest gifts,

that he might persuade the Queen to

abandon her resolve of virginity and give him her assent,

which is also to be explained afterward in Bede's words.

He saw her constant familiarity with

the blessed Prelate, was formed by his exhortations,

emulated him in the charity of Christ: hence the King in vain

wearies the herald of God with rewards, for never did

he wish to persuade the Virgin to marriage, nor she to yield

to the King. When she had enjoyed his consort for twelve years

(as is written in the book of Sermons

of Bede the Presbyter) she yet remained glorious

with perpetual integrity of virginity. Book 4, chapter 19. A wonderful thing!

accessible by the secret of God alone. The knowledge of this wonderful matter,

how the Queen Etheldreda

made effeminate the manly strength of her former husband, and

by what art of the Holy Spirit she escaped the concupiscence of the other

that assailed her; truly the temple sanctified

to himself by God in the virginal body he did not permit to be violated by the nuptial

law, nor did innocence devoted

to justice, overcome, consent to the contagion.

And so the Royal Virgin of the Lord, Etheldreda, shines forth,

[30] For Wilfrid, being a favorer of the virginal vow,

with the sagacity of a vigilant mind took care

lest by any inconstancy of a womanly mind the Virgin

should change her vow from its intention, but takes counsel about obtaining a divorce with St. Wilfrid, and at some time, overcome,

submit her mind to earthly enticements.

But he dissembled providently and prudently,

as though favoring the King, and promising the efficacy

of his desire in persuading the Queen; fearing lest,

as happened, on account of a matter of this kind he should have

him offended. And while about such matters, as was thought,

the holy Pontiff intended to address the Queen,

he strove to treat of the sweetness of the heavenly

life: and so, endowed with the virtue of God, through

the counsel of the holy Prelate she gave assent to the King in no way:

and the blessed man by his industry brought it about,

that she rather sought a divorce, so that,

having obtained liberty, she might leave the world, and

might happily cling to the marriage-chambers of the eternal King.

Obeying his admonitions, and suggestions,

the Virgin most dear to Christ (since indeed,

by the merit of Religion, true charity had bound him to her)

soon appeared to satisfy his desire. But by divine

disposition she had come thither for the aid of many, familiar also with St. Cuthbert, and piously and

mercifully strove to bestow help on all:

where, while she stayed, she admitted into the bond of friendship

ministers of holy religion, men and

women, by whose counsel and fellowship she thought

to be advanced into all holiness,

and to be cherished by the protection of their merits:

especially that those suitable for such a business,

for the cleanness of life and honest

conduct, were to be gathered into familiarity

from the assembly and the monastic order, she asserted:

among whom the most holy Prelate Wilfrid,

of whom at present it is treated; but another,

distinguished with the beauty of holiness of life, the most blessed

Cuthbert the Anchorite, not yet

and devoutly ministered to him very much of the abundance

of her goods.

[31] Moreover, an excellent and distinguished gift,

namely a Stole and a Maniple of similar material, she gives him a Stole and a Maniple,

of gold and precious stones, with her own

(as is reported) hands, skilled in the art of gold-weaving,

she made; and destined it to be offered to him for a blessing,

out of regard for inward love, which

in token of the veneration of both are kept at the Church

of Durham, and to certain persons asking

are still shown as of great dignity,

as some of ours have several times beheld.

For justly and piously the Virgin honored the Virgin,

the beloved honored the beloved with such a service;

that he should use these only when standing in the sight of the King the Lord,

and might more easily present her memory

among the sacred rites of the Holy of Holies in the solemnities of the Mass,

and for her appease the Lord

of Majesty with pious entreaty. This

we do not at all find in Bede, but for the testimony of all

we thought it should be written.

Not only these, however, whom we have mentioned,

but innumerable far and wide, knowing the blessedness

of the holy Queen to be less than

fame had spread, desired to obtain her acquaintance

and conversation at once, and

adorned [her] with the liberality of various gifts. She was

amiable to all, sweet in speech, comely in aspect,

adorned with the virtue of exceptional modesty and the highest chastity;

loving the right, caring for no

sweet things except the heavenly. She frequently went to the Church of God,

continually gave herself to prayer: whence

her life became a discipline to very many,

because for this nature bore her, and her will

exercised her, and grace preserved her.

ANNOTATIONS. G. H.

he does not indicate that he is venerated there as a Saint, much less a day of cult: nor in any old or new Calendar of the Angles hitherto is he found.

we treated among the Passed-over at the day 15, on which in the English Martyrology of the second edition he is inscribed as a Saint, which Alford followed. The kingdom of the Northumbrians was, from the death of St. Oswald, divided, and the kingdom of the Bernicians Oswiu held: but Oswin, of the stock of St. Edwin, King of the Deira, slain by Oswiu in the year 651, is venerated as a Martyr on the 20th of August.

i In the year 655.

p In the year of Christ 660.

q We gave on the 24th of April the Life of St. Wilfrid by Eadmer, in which at number 30 is had the confirmation of Etheldreda in the resolve of virginity.

r Richard Prior of Hexham adds, "she gave it as a perpetual alms to St. Wilfrid."

s The Acts of St. Owin we gave on the 4th of March.

t On the day 20th of March we illustrated the Acts of St. Cuthbert.

* Chapter 19.

CHAPTER III. The monastic life in the monastery of Coldingham, and her departure thence.

CHAPTER X.

[32] For who could worthily recount, in how great

the marital yoke lived, Free from the yoke of matrimony, sufficiently exhausted by the temptations and

heats of the flesh, and yet not overcome?

She bore the bond of marriage as exceedingly heavy,

desiring to be dissolved and to be with Christ. She weighs,

therefore, all glory as slippery; knowing

the heavenly life alone, by the spirit of understanding, to be perennial, she desires most longingly to live

solitarily. For she knew that it could rarely be the case for anyone,

who amid the riches of the world seeks the liberty

of the mind: and that the mind with difficulty reaches

things above, which, not unburdened of the lower, does not advance. Whence with

innumerable sighs she tried to shake off

the yoke of the kingdom, ardent to fly to Christ and

to rest in Christ. And when for so many years

she was held by the law of marriage, unwilling to defer

longer what she had long conceived in mind;

but the day and hour carefully noted; not secretly

but openly, not rarely but frequently

she asks the King her husband, to be permitted to leave the cares

of the world, and to serve in a monastery the true

King Christ only. The Prince resists when he hears,

nor easily yields; and asserts that he must grievously

grieve, if it should ever

happen to bear a divorce from his beloved wife,

although he had never been joined to her after the manner of married people.

[33] The Queen asks again what she had asked;

with weepings and long-lasting entreaties she insists the more importunately,

the more difficult she believed it to obtain what

she asked. But she transferred all her desire to those above:

most ardent in the love of the heavenly Spouse, she opportunely

begged his protection; and the more grievously from

what she desired to be snatched, the more closely and fervently

she intends to entreat him by whom she knew she was to be snatched.

Neither the daily flattering services of her people,

nor the solemn pomps, nor the great opulence

of things, could recall her from her resolve. she departs to the monastery of Coldingham: But the King at last, overcome by her

importunate prayers, though unwilling, yet

dismissed her unconquered. She indeed,

rejoicing greatly at the King's concession and permission,

though with difficulty and late obtained, with many

provisions prepared with her, the noble Virgin

and powerful Queen, entered the monastery

of St. Ebba the Abbess (who was the aunt of King

Egfrid, and sister of St. Oswald the Martyr and Oswin

the Kings) placed in the place which

they call the city of Coludi; the veil

of the religious habit being received, from the aforesaid Prelate

Wilfrid: whom many men and women following from the kingdom

subjected themselves to churches for the Lord;

as Owin, the Steward of her household,

deservedly dear to God, hearer of the heavenly secrets,

following the footsteps of his Lady,

not forgetting what he had been, sought again

the monastic life, as we recalled above. But

also many, knowing from afar the conversion

of so great a Virgin and Queen, renounced the world,

or exercised themselves more abundantly in good works.

[34] So Etheldreda, having entered the monastery,

offered herself a living sacrifice to God; all

that are of the world she forsook, spurned, and

cast far from her heart. Moreover, instead of the Royal

diadem, she is overshadowed by a humble veil;

instead of fine linen and purple, she is clothed in black garment

and rough. and is clothed in the religious garment. Then indeed first the renowned Queen believed

herself to reign, when to the service

of Christ she went out free from the Kingdom; so that not

only laying aside the royal ornaments, did she confer her substance

on God; but for his love taking up the rule of monastic religion,

she subjected her own will and flesh to holy obedience;

where, as long as she lived, while

tempted, weak, she was found perfect. Deservedly

happy, deservedly glorious, proved, she is glorified by the passion

of obedience, established under holy

discipline. So much, exercising the worship of the Divinity,

for the sweetness of divine contemplation,

was she delighted to be separated from human assemblies;

that while she sat in the guise of Martha,

she gave herself supremely to the quiet of Mary. There grew

in her the fame of goodness, and there increased

in her the devotion of religion, above all

the companions of that congregation: where through the space

of a year she learned that the yoke of the Lord is sweet,

and his burden light. In which place also

she grasped such a summit of holy conversation,

showed such an example of perfect humility;

that in her life one might understand a teaching expressed,

if anyone should seek a document

of holy instruction. And truly, I say, now happy

the Virgin is adorned with twin triumphs. For betrothed

to two husbands, first namely to a Duke,

and again to a King, but by the virtue of God she was frustrated

of the marriage of both. And behold it happened, that,

because in the resolve of virginity she always bore

an unconquered mind, she could never be corrupted

by the violence of two husbands. He himself protected Etheldreda

from the flame of corruption, who

rescued the three children from the furnace of the fire of Babylon.

[35] But the Queen Etheldreda, as was determined,

now subjected to the monastic disciplines rejoiced;

but King Egfrid, who to her undefiled

union had long been devoted, not lightly

bearing the divorce of his beloved spouse, beyond measure

soon began to be saddened at her departure,

and to be sorrowful. Whence by the suggestion

and instigation of his people, he tried to snatch her from the monastery, To be brought back by force by King Egfrid, although

now covered with the veil of sanctity.

And without delay, to the monastery where

the holy Virgin dwelt, with fury and uproar

he hastily went up. This heard, the Mother

of the congregation Ebba suggests that from flight alone there would be

protection, and advised that the wilderness be

sought for the protection of flight. There, fortified by the virtue of God,

until the persecution ceased, she remained:

and roused by the divine spirit, she strove

henceforth to act so that the Virgin might delay; nor to rest,

until she should come to her own home

in Ely: there by the virtue of God she resolved that she could

avoid the Charybdis of incontinence. Furthermore she who had been

the Lady of the Kingdom a few days before, and despising

the earthly rule had entered the monastery;

is now made the handmaid of the handmaids of Christ,

occupying the last services of the ministries. For in such things

the God-devoted Virgin delighted,

having that always before her eyes:

The greater thou art, humble thyself in all things. Ecclesiasticus 3:20.

[36] But, the prosperity of the desired quiet being granted by the divine

gift, the ambushes of the enemy were not lacking:

whence is proved most truly in her the Apostle's

testimony, that, All who wish to live piously

in Christ will suffer persecution. 1 Timothy 3:12.

For the King presses on, desiring

to resume her in marriage; not omitting to pursue, if

perhaps he might be able to seize her. But the religious

woman, groaning and anxious now with a doubled

fear, compelled fled the sweet hiding-places, and went out,

and to the Lord more earnestly commended her chastity.

And departing secretly from the precinct of the place, with

two handmaids of God, Sewenna and Sewara, b

she went to and ascended an eminent hill nearby, Coldeburchhevet, she flees to a hill soon surrounded by waters:

which in Latin is called the Head of Coldeburg.

But God, who commands the winds and

the sea, and they obey him, does not forsake

those who hope in him. By his command, we believe,

it happened that the sea, going out of its channel,

now pouring out its waters manifoldly, surrounded the place

into which the sacred Virgins had ascended;

and, as we have received from the inhabitants of the place,

for seven continuous days, without food and drink,

standing in prayer, it hid them; and

(what is wonderful to say) forgetting its accustomed

returns, as long as the King was tarrying there or near

the place, the water so stood, to show

to all the Virgin's merit: and

the water was for help and for protection,

and as it were the water was not for harming or

destroying. The handmaid of Christ, fortified by such

protection, escaped the threats of the King, nor felt

any injury from him. For the Lord brought aid…

the Lord, the pitier of the needy; and

protected the unarmed Spouse with the shield of his clement

right hand. For in a moment the secret place,

and suddenly fortified, was made by the grace of God;

so that on one side of the mountain there was from the middle a high cut-off

rock, and the sea's waves, the bay being drawn back a little,

showed a level plain;

so that not even for escaping the enemy was the vast

solitude of the wilderness sought. The fame of this matter

and so great a miracle spread everywhere: and those feared

who saw or heard, knowing

God to be continually her

protector.

[37] And when they had long been on the topmost

point of the rock and surrounded on all sides by a multitude of

waters, whence, the King having departed, but the King had by no means found a part where he could

attack them; at length, no less marveling

at the deed, turned to stupor,

he withdrew from the place, returned to York; nor

thereafter did he hold the Confessor of the Lord Wilfrid

in his secrets, or honor [him] with affection as before,

but long bore wrath against him under a silent

breast; and, the hour awaited, for a cause of this kind,

expelled him from the See of his Bishopric:

at last, when he was deprived of all confidence of being able

to return to the union of the holy Queen,

he joined Ermenburga to himself in marriage.

But the Nuns, dwelling on the top of the rock,

when, exceedingly burning with the dryness of thirst,

they were oppressed; she obtains a fountain there by prayers. Ebba, the venerable Abbess,

admonishes Etheldreda to entreat the Lord

Christ, that he grant them a taste of water

in this necessity of thirst, who from a rock

gave drink to his people in the desert. And, prayer

being poured out more earnestly to the Lord, with the utmost

devotion of mind, a most clear fountain of water at once

burst forth beside her; and at her prayers what by nature

it did not have, by the grace

of God the dry rock poured out waters, which

sufficed for their use, nor failed in necessity:

and to this day it does not cease to flow,

whence those taking drink gave thanks to God; and

to the sick they still afford most healthful remedies.

[38] Moreover, a thing memorial, and beyond the rest

wonderful, is; that the prints of her feet, as she ascended

and descended, infused in the side of the mountain,

as in warm wax, She leaves the prints of her feet in the rock; are even now

shown, to the praise of our Lord Jesus

Christ. For in this deed, if diligently

we attend, we can weigh four marvels worthy enough of wonder:

one,

that mercifully God protected them from the oppression

of the King; another, that the sea poured out its waters

for their fortification, as for a wall:

the third, that the rough rock in their thirst

gave them waters; the fourth, that the hardness

of the stone, as if forgetful of its nature, its manner being changed,

could soften at the touch of her foot.

This we did not take from the writings of Bede, but whoever

knows the place of Coludi, with assertion

of this matter are witnesses: for the

blessed man could not have remembered

or heard or set in writing all things one by one,

which about all the Saints throughout England in his time

were done; but except those things which were long

and much published by religious and truthful persons,

he had not arranged to commend to letters.

These things thus done, we return to our subject. But

how much from there by labors or fatigues

the blessed Virgin was worn out, until she had come to Ely, whither

she was tending, is proved from the following.

CHAPTER XII.

[39] Of this woman dedicated to God,

Etheldreda, let no one distrust; let no one fear,

that, a Virgin kept after kingly husbands,

she remained undefiled. For betrothed indeed

she remains a Virgin, as was said long ago. From the Lord

was this done: but since in these days either

in no way or scarcely is it proved among married people,

hence we are astonished, and it is wonderful in our eyes.

By the assertion also of the most holy Wilfrid, Archbishop of York, a Virgin by the testimony of Saints Wilfrid & Bede, and of the renowned

Kinefrid, and of others truthful, but also

by the common attestation of the common people, as Bede the saint

had learned, he wrote, also giving an outstanding

testimony of her virginity, thus commending it,

saying: That when to some

it had come into doubt about this Spouse of Christ

and Virgin, the question presses one inquiring whether this was so;

the same Pontiff Wilfrid of blessed memory

reported, saying, that he was a most certain witness of her

integrity; so that Egfrid

had promised that he would give her lands and much money,

if he could persuade the Queen to

use his marriage, because he knew that she loved no

man more than him. Book 4, chapter 19. It is worthy to proclaim the chastity of that so sacred

Virgin, who was to him both a companion in adversities, and an inseparable comrade

in prosperities. As each may receive it as it pleases:

I, that she cured the lame in her life,

that she even enlightened the blind, and that

in the name of Jesus she healed innumerable, from the attestation

of pious persons I have ascertained, and by the witness

of scripture it happened to me to know. For she is the Virgin

most sacred and one of the number of the prudent,

who knew not the marriage-bed in fault; nor did she go out

with Dinah daughter of Jacob, to see the women

of a foreign region; nor, oppressed by Shechem

son of Hamor, did she ever yield to corruption,

because she was founded upon the firm rock.

[40] Nothing at all of an earthly thing's

appearance pleased her, worthy of the palm of Martyrdom: but the kingdom of the world and the adornment of the age

she despised, for the love of the Lord

Jesus Christ, whom in mind and with a pure heart above

all things she loved, by whom now is rendered to her

the crown of justice. And although she did not endure martyrdom

in the time of peace, yet she is adorned with the glory

of martyrdom; since fighting with vices and concupiscences,

she continually bore the cross of the Lord in

her flesh. I hope most certainly and

trust that she is most acceptable to those who

washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, and most sweetly sing

For if under Nero or Diocletian

it had then been permitted to fight; without doubt

she would of her own accord have mounted the rack, of her own will

thrown herself into the fires, never feared to have her members cut off

with irons or plates. But indeed against

all pains and torments, to which for the most part

human weakness has yielded, she would so, not departing

from the confession of the Lord, immovable, have stood firm;

that, glad in ulcers, rejoicing in torments,

she would have laughed at any of them amid the torments. But although

she did not bear these, she fulfilled without blood

did she not endure for the hope of eternity,

hunger, vigils, nakedness, care for the sick,

solicitude for those in peril?

because she had loved only the sweetness of the heavenly life on

earth, so that in comparison with it whatever

adverse and prosperous things of the world grew cheap.

CHAPTER XIII.

[41] It is a thing much spoken of, and handed down to us

by the report of our elders, which every

province in which it had happened is wont to recite and remembers

as though it were yesterday's. So the Spouse

of the Lord Etheldreda was compelled to change the place where for Christ

she had set herself, and to seek another dwelling,

by the harassment of King Egfrid her former spouse. And taking with her

the aforesaid handmaids of God, Sewenna and Seware, she withdrew

from the place and province; holding the Lord's

precept: If men shall persecute you in one city, she sets out into the territory of Lincoln, flee into another;

and coming to the river which is called Humber,

whose channel being crossed by the impulse of a light breeze, into

the harbor of Winteringham c she was prosperously carried. Matthew 10:15.

But thence about ten stadia, turning aside to a little village,

in the manner of an island, almost surrounded by marshes,

named Alftham, with the aforesaid

girls she sought and received lodging: and there

staying a few days, since on account of the marks of her merits

she could not be hidden, she built a Church to the Lord:

in which place through her suffrages frequent

benefits are afforded to the inhabitants.

Thence the blessed Virgin took up her journey, as

one of the pilgrims of Christ, in humble garb,

that not only in mind but also in habit

she might humble herself for the Lord. Not by the straight

path by which she was tending, but rather off the way she walked;

and lest, pursued, she might be seized by those lying in wait,

she went hiding, willing to reveal her

secret to none, or to expose to anyone

the cause of her departure.

And when she walked, the heat of the sun burning, and

exceedingly fatigued by unaccustomed labor, she scarcely

could stand: she diligently sought a place of shade

and pleasantness, where she could cool her bosom

flowing with sweat, and refresh her wasting members with new

strength; nor is she long frustrated

of her wish, but by swift efficacy she gained her desire.

And advancing with slow foot, by the disposing of

God's grace, near at hand a place fit for her necessities

showed itself, clothed with verdant beauty, suitable

for those passing by to rest, planted with a wonderful

plain; so that one would think it rather leveled by

industry, sprinkled on all sides

with flowers of various colors. She greatly aims for

the desired place, sees it delightful, judges it restful,

perceives wondrous breaths to breathe sweetly from the odors

of the herbs. Delighted with whose pleasantness, the holy

Mother desired to rest a little, to relieve herself

repaired, she might supply the rest of the journey. At last

she placed herself, and slept; and there only

rested, where weariness had compelled her to rest.

[42] And exceedingly wonderful is what I relate, of which

I desire to impart to you knowledge, which let no one

of the hearers doubt to be true. where her staff grew into a tree. And when,

awakened from sleep, after a little she had risen;

she found the staff of her journey, which she had before

fixed at her head, dry and long withered,

now clothed with green bark, had put forth leaves, and

leaves had come forth: which she, beholding, was amazed with wonder,

and for such a deed, from her inmost

heart, with her companions praising God, she blessed [him].

But by no means esteem this as fabricated:

all the provincials indeed know

and assert it as most true. This

we do not find in the histories, but compelled by such

necessity we do not leave it unrecorded:

and all the things which Jesus did, which are not

written in the books of the Gospels, if

afterward they are mentioned by anyone, can they not therefore be proved to be true? So that wood grew indeed,

and became an ash tree, the greatest

of all the trees of that province,

which several of ours have still seen. That place

was called, even to this present

day, Edeldredestone, which in Latin sounds

the Resting-place of Etheldreda. There was also there

made a Church in honor of the blessed Virgin, to the praise

of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is venerable

in his Saints.

CHAPTER XIV.

[43] Nor long after the venerable death

of Etheldreda, the monastery of Virgins which

was situated at Coludi, she having departed, the church about to be burned in which she received the habit of Religion,

was consumed by flames through the fault of carelessness.

Yet that it happened by the malice of those dwelling

in it, and especially of those who

seemed to be the greater, all who knew it could easily

perceive, which here we by no means pass over. But the admonition

of the Divine piety was not lacking to those to be punished, by which, corrected,

through fasts, weepings, and prayers, they might turn away

from themselves the wrath of the just Judge, after the manner of the Ninevites.

For there was in that same monastery

by name, leading a life, in continence and

prayers, much devoted to God. He, occupied

by night with vigils and psalms, suddenly saw

standing by him a certain one of unknown face;

by whose presence when he was terrified, he said…

to him not to fear, and addressing him as with a familiar

voice; Well dost thou, he said, in the time of nocturnal

quiet, not to indulge in sleep, but to be intent on vigils

and prayers, and assiduously to entreat God.

Surveying this whole monastery in order,

just now I inspected the beds of each;

and no one, except thee alone, occupied with

the health of his soul I found; but

all without exception, men and women, either are torpid

with idle sleep, it is revealed to St. Adamnan, or are awake for sins. Virgins

dedicated to God, the reverence of their profession despised,

adorn themselves in the manner of brides to the peril

of their state, or procure for themselves the friendship of external

men: whence deservedly for this place and its inhabitants

vengeance from heaven, with raging flames,

has been prepared.

[44] Which he soon took care to indicate to the Mother of the congregation, by name

Ebba, who (as we have said) had received the God-worthy

Etheldreda into Religion, and

had nurtured and taught her as an adoptive daughter.

But she, deservedly troubled by such a presage, said: Why didst thou not sooner

wish to reveal to me this which thou hadst ascertained?

He answered: I feared, out of reverence for thee,

lest perhaps thou be too disturbed: but

yet thou shalt have this consolation, that in

thy days this plague will not come upon [you]. as indeed it happened after the death of St. Ebba. This

vision being made known, the inhabitants of the place for a little while,

for a few days, began to fear, and to chastise themselves,

their crimes intermitted. But after

the death of that Abbess, they returned to their former

filth, nay, did more wicked things: and

when they said, Peace and security; suddenly

with the penalty of the aforesaid vengeance they were punished. Alas,

the grief! for the indication of that swift

overthrow had been, that they did not deserve to be aided

by the fellowship of the most gracious

Virgin; frustrated of whose presence, acting impiously and perversely,

they remained incorrigible, so that neither

converted by divine admonition, nor pricked by the devotion of

the venerable Etheldreda, on account of the enormity of their crimes,

they lost both themselves and the place,

as Bede records, we recognize: but remember,

you who read or hear, that not without

very great grief and fear have I written this: for always

the expectation of good things is the loss of the worst.

ANNOTATIONS G. H.

monastery then was under the Kings of the Northumbrians in the province of Mercia, now annexed to Scotland; six leagues distant from English Berwick: to which the neighboring promontory even now is commonly called Ebberhead, that is the Head of Ebba, well known enough to navigators.

CHAPTER IV.

The Acts of the Saint in the monastery of Ely, where, as Abbess, she shines with miracles.

CHAPTER XV.

[45] Meanwhile the Virgin of the Lord Etheldreda, after

through innumerable perils of journeys

and various labors, returns to her own in Ely, She comes into the island of Ely, into

her own possession, which from Tonbert her first

husband, by right of dowry, nay, divinely predestined

to her and to be possessed perpetually,

she had received; and with her the aforesaid

handmaids of God, continually clinging to her; who,

partakers of her toils, while she was in the kingdom,

and while she traversed various hiding-places, endured manifold

perils with her. And so

the habitation of that same place fell to Etheldreda, the handmaid

of Jesus Christ, by lot: and there, received

with due honor, she possessed the island,

and disposed of it freely as her own right; which

forever, under Christ as Prelate, with the gift

of graces she illustrates and holds. There followed

her a praiseworthy man a, Huna by name, a holy

Priest; who gave her admonitions of salvation,

and set forth the institutions and acts of the Saints, of

whom in what follows it is to be said. But now

to designate beforehand the dignity and name of the place

is opportune, that the reader may more easily perceive how or by whom

it was to be repaired. Nor indeed, according to the obstinacy of some, is Elge

of the province of Cambridge; b but in truth

(as Bede teaches) of the East Angles,

called by Royal dignity and greatness,

of about six hundred families, in the likeness of an island,

surrounded either by marshes,

or by waters which are called seas. Whence also from

the abundance of Eels c which are caught in those same marshes,

it took its name, which, the name changed for the better,

is called Ely, namely the worthy

house of God, to which its name befits it: or as

some explain from two Hebrew words, Elge: since

El is said to be God, Ge earth, which together

sounds the earth of God. For worthily is the island marked with such

in England soon began to believe and worship

the Lord Jesus: where the aforesaid handmaid of Christ

desired to have a monastery,

who from the province of those same East Angles

herself (as we have said before) drew the origin of her flesh:

there too by the spirit of prophecy and great

miracles, to all dwelling far and wide,

her life became renowned.

[46] And because the Sun of justice the Lord had illustrated her

with the splendor of his brightness, she receives various girls: and that she might shine to all

upon the mountain, had placed the perfection of her virtues,

her happy merits being shown forth,

several strove to live under her,

and also handed over their daughters to be formed by her.

To whom, while many proceed, by her example,

they began to be kindled with desire of eternal life;

and subjected themselves, under her tutelage, to the service

of almighty God: among

whom the Virgin of the Lord Werburga, daughter of Ermenilda,

the holy daughter of her own sister holy Sexburga,

came, and from her received and learned the rule

of religion. So, seeing

the blessed Mother the peoples running to her in rivalry,

she praised the Lord; and to the advancement of the soul

she exhorted each one, saying that the figure

of this world passes away, and that that is the true life

which is earned by the inconvenience of the present life.

For there was not yet in the island at that time

but one church, made by Blessed Augustine

Apostle of the Angles, she builds a church but afterward destroyed to the ground

by the army of the perfidious King Penda:

which the lover of God Etheldreda, after

and restore: and when it was rebuilt as

at first in honor of the holy Mother of God

Mary, it shone with innumerable signs

and virtues, God daily working.

At last she most comely adorned the site of the place with monastic

buildings: but the remains of the former

foundation being dissolved, all things are prepared anew.

But the place enjoys continually such great liberty and free

dignity, that by no King of England or of a neighboring nation

was it opposed, or, for any debt of right,

slandered, but was held and stood as a free

region. But Wilfrid the Pontiff alone,

whom the Virgin Queen had held beloved and chosen above all in the Kingdom,

she then employed as provider for her necessities, and he administered there

the Episcopal jurisdiction, by whom she (as in

Bede is read) was made Abbess.

[47] and she obtains immunity for it. It was therefore decreed, with fitting reason, by all

the chief men of England at that time, both secular

and ecclesiastical, that for the island of Elge

(which the same religious woman had possessed for a dowry,

but now had given over to divine

service) neither by the King, nor by the Bishop,

should the liberty of the place be diminished, or for the future

broken: which was confirmed by the Authority of many

Apostolic Pontiffs is proved from the

Privilege of Pope Victor, e as

we shall fully insert in their places, f first necessarily

attending to complete the history of the begun work.

For the most devout Etheldreda herself,

after a little, by the aids of her aforesaid brother King

Aldulf, a greater monastery being built there,

the Virgin Mother of very many Virgins devoted to God,

began to be a model by the examples of life

and by admonitions; for whose uses she first wholly constituted the island,

and through her beloved Wilfrid destined it to be corroborated

at Rome by the Apostolic nod,

that, without any want, those living in the Lord's service

might remain in due order, without the disquiet of any

exaction of ministry.

[48] How right are the dispositions of God the Creator!

A Virgin is set over Virgins, just as

on the Cross of Christ's passion the Virgin was

committed to the Virgin; that, living to the Virgin, they may reign together

with the Lord, heaped with hundredfold fruit.

Nor indeed think that there is less virtue in the multitude of those

conversing there, who conquered sex and

the world for God's sake; than you know to be

of those who anciently removed themselves from

human assemblies. For all there

is one and the same rule, She founds a monastery in the year 673 common to both sexes. their chief virtue and

first their obedience, the love of divine worship,

and to guard the comeliness of the house of God with all observance.

In the English and Latin Chronicles

it is had, that in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord

six hundred seventy-three, Etheldreda

began the buildings at Ely; and in

under the path of the regular life,

as Bede wrote: saying, in the translation of that same

Virgin dedicated to God, that the whole congregation,

on this side of the Brothers, on that of the Sisters, singing psalms,

stood around her sepulchre. Whence

it is understood that men and women in the same

monastery led a celibate life, and that it was

long preserved in the church, as she herself had established

(until the Danes overthrew the place and homeland)

we recognize: which also at Coludi and in

many churches of the Angles then was, the history of the Angles

testifies.

CHAPTER XVI.

[49] But the holy Wilfrid of the Lord, not unmindful of the blessed

Virgin, nor excluding himself from the reciprocity

of her love, when he had learned that she had descended

to Ely, hastily flies thither:

matters are treated of the soul's profit, of the state of mind, of

the quality of conduct: she is consecrated Abbess, then in

the office of Abbess he consecrated her and the flock there gathered,

constituted the place by his disposition,

and showed himself solicitous in all things:

where she led a life useful not only to herself, but also

to all existing there, for some

time: from whom she had very much counsel of ruling

and the solace of life. The blessed Virgin

was made drunk by the meditation of the heavens, putting forth

of prayers, exercising the frequency

of vigils: which from Bede's words

seems more fully set forth.

[50] From the time says he she sought the monastery,

she would never use linen, but only woolen garments;

and rarely wished to wash in warm baths, she ministers to all, except on the approach of the greater

solemnities, for example of Easter, Pentecost,

Epiphany, likewise last of all, the others having first been washed

by the service of her men and women ministers,

the rest of the handmaids of Christ who were there;

for she who was washed in heart, had no need to be washed in body. Book 4, chapter 19.

And the flock committed to her she both protected with assiduous

prayers, and by most healthful admonitions provoked

to heavenly things: and (what is more)

what she taught was to be done, she herself first showed by doing. And so the pious Mother nursed

the sweet offspring of Christ with sweetness, in

perpetual charity drawing all with her most ardently

to the crown of glory; to whom she exhibited

the greater solemnities or more pressing necessity,

did she eat more than once a day, fleeing

as an immense pestilence the intemperate

satiety of the belly. And if a graver infirmity

had not prevented, in the time of the synaxis, even

to the rising of the day, in the church after Matins,

she remained intent on prayers. How many

bendings of the knees then, how many contritions of the inmost heart

she sent forth, the receiver of her prayers knows,

the possessor and helper of her unblemished virginity.

CHAPTER XVII.

[51] But King Wulfhere of the Mercians, son of

Penda, had at that time departed this life, who first

in that kingdom received the faith and the laver of holy regeneration,

and in his whole nation destroyed the worship

of demons, and ordered the name of Christ

to be preached everywhere in his kingdom,

and built churches in many places:

moreover that famous monastery

of Medeshamstede, now called Burch, g

he much enriched with possessions and ornaments

through Sexulf, h who was the first Abbot and founder

of that same place, and afterward Bishop of the Mercians,

under the same King. Whose Queen

Ermenilda, daughter of Earconbert King of the men of Kent

and of Queen Sexburga, she receives St. Werburga her niece, bore him

who, her father being dead, renounced the world,

and, to take up the habit of holy conversation,

entered the monastery of her maternal aunt,

namely the blessed Etheldreda,

where, God working, she wrought many miracles.

Now the brothers of King Wulfhere were i Etheldred,

who after him governed the scepters of the Kingdom:

another, Penda, who held the kingdom of the Southern

Angles, but by the betrayal of his wife

at the very time of the Paschal feast was slain

very wickedly; the third, Merewald,

who in the Western quarter of the Mercians held the

Kingdom. To whom his holy Queen k

Ermenburga, daughter of King Ermenred, bore

three daughters, St. Milburga, St. Milgidra,

and St. Mildrida; and one son, Merewin

by name, a boy of exceptional sanctity.

CHAPTER XVIII.

[52] For in that same monastery, to the venerable

Abbess Etheldreda, of various

dignity and age very many had gathered, and many nobles of both sexes desiring to live under

her rule. And when certain magnificent men and noble matrons, or

any of younger age, the deeds of the world renounced,

asked to be received, although the more difficult constitutions of the church

were set before them, and they recognized the labors of monastic discipline

to be grave, since there especially the severer

discipline burned hottest; not moved by these terrors

did they ask to live by easier

laws, but rather there, men and women received,

forestall all obedience, so that they never refused

and fled any constitution however

arduous and difficult. Of whom holy Huna, her

Presbyter, a man of great humility, made his profession in the place;

and in a short time, by the exercise of virtues, shone forth

perfect, powerful in fastings,

conspicuous in humility, firm in faith,

he had easily equaled the old monks in zeal of religion: whence by several, even

by the Mother of the Congregation herself, he was held worthy of the greatest

honor and love.

[53] But also the mother of Saints, Sexburga,

sister of the same most blessed Mother Etheldreda,

considering the desolation to come in the kingdom, and St. Sexburga her sister.

as she had received the oracle from an Angel of God,

conceived to grasp a poorer life, and to bring herself

under the power of another: thinking it incongruous

to be set over others, when 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; moreover my daughter Ermenilda

I appoint to you as mother, that your hearts

may be animated by her admonitions, and by salutary

disciplines instructed for heavenly things. But I,

to visit East Anglia, on whose shores I was born,

intending to be formed by the tutelage of my glorious sister Etheldreda,

and to be guided by her regular

teachings, indeed to share

in her labors, to partake of her

rewards. Then, when she had providently and honestly provided

for them the necessities, she came even to Ely,

and at her coming the whole island

rejoices; the Queen receives the Queen, the sister

introduces the sister with dancing: they pour out

abundantly tears for joy, from true charity

between them gladness is doubled: for, delighted with heavenly

sweetness, by mutual consolation in turn

they profit. That rich woman came, from

prelacy to subjection, from magistracy to

discipleship, seeking from the blessed sister a model

of discipline and humility, as Paul

at the feet of Gamaliel. The blessed sisters, allied to one another

in the unity of faith, through all things diligently following the way

of God's commandments, intend to consummate a course pleasing

to God; and they advanced in holy

virtues, and grew even to the end of their life.

CHAPTER XIX.

[54] Hence the miracles increase, the signs

are multiplied; She shines with miracles; and to declare more loftily the merits

of the Virgin Etheldreda, the hand of the Almighty

is stretched out. Meanwhile, while she exercised herself

from day to day in greater advances of virtues,

endowed with an incredible power of putting demons to flight

from possessed bodies, she did unheard-of

signs each day; not

only present nor by word only, but absent

too sometimes, her name being invoked;

many were daily snatched from various deaths;

and in a wonderful manner she was frequented by

the peoples, venerated by all, loved

by all. By the spirit of prophecy, both

the pestilence by which she herself was to die she had foretold, and by the spirit of prophecy she predicts the death of her own.

and also the number of those who from her

monastery and from the world were to be snatched, openly

to all present she had made known, whose

minds she admonished more fervently to spurn earthly things and to seek heavenly.

Nor was the Virgin's prediction proved as vain,

since each, to whom in the monastery she had foretold her own

departure, after a small interval of time,

rested in the sleep of peace. But the most blessed

Etheldreda, who had sent before the virginal

sheaves to be laid up in the supernal

dwelling, and that she herself might follow,

to be crowned with an immortal diadem in heaven, last

of all a most grievous pain seized.

Now she established the monastery of Elge, in

which (as we have said) she ruled most honorably the virginal

choirs under regular discipline for seven continuous

years. So the bountiful Virgin, about to bring forth

to God an offspring of Virgins, taught by the Holy

Spirit, took up the monastery to be ruled,

which by her presence stands perpetually consecrated:

and as then in the body she illustrated [it] with sanctity

of life, so also now after death by divine virtue.

Of her indeed very many distinctions are reported,

nor could they be hidden: yet some

she hid while she avoided boasting, nor did she allow them

to come into the knowledge of men: as one

who, having surpassed human substance,

trampling the glory of the world by the conscience of virtue alone,

was cherished, heaven being witness. That this is

true, even from those things which were ascertained to us,

and could not lie hidden, we can estimate.

[55] At the same time Wilfrid the Archbishop,

who here three years before suffered exile,

as Bede wrote. For a dissension having arisen between

him and King Egfrid, l

driven by him from the See of his Bishopric, She cherishes St. Wilfrid the exile, thence setting out for Rome. at

Ely he stayed with the most blessed Etheldreda;

where then, and as often as necessity demanded,

as long as he lived, he administered the rights of the Episcopal office.

Thence, the aids of the journey being prepared, he went to Rome,

where by the judgment of Pope Benedict and very many

he was found worthy

to be in the Bishopric. He returned to Britain,

made the province of Sussex believe in Christ. He brought

moreover from Rome for the fortification of certain

monasteries privileges; which hitherto diligently

and with solicitude preserved, are known to confer great

firmness on the places. He received

also from the same a privilege over the monastery of Elge,

as the distinguished Mother Etheldreda had wished and had asked

of him, so that by the authority

of St. Peter against the incursions of the wicked

it might stand more securely. And it happened, while

he stayed there, in the same year (as in the Chronicles

is read) Etheldreda, who had long foretold her

end, is announced to have departed from the world:

for after a few days, a messenger coming,

he heard of her falling asleep.

ANNOTATIONS G. H.

for both the first derivation from the Greek and the last from the Hebrew, as they are aptly devised to the letter, so are they inept for the truth of onomatopoeia.

e There is extant sent to St. Edward the Confessor King, in whose time Victor sat, from the 13th of April of the year 1054 to the 28th of July in the year 1057.

CHAPTER V.

The illness, death, miracles, St. Sexburga the Abbess.

CHAPTER XX.

[56] So when the time pressed, in which the Lord

would lift up the Spouse beloved by him, A tumor & pain of the neck exempted from the bonds of this toilsome

life, to the ineffable joy of the heavenly homeland; she was pressed

by a certain tumor of the jaw and pain of the neck, so

that, fallen ill, she had a very great tumor

under the jaw. And the inconvenience of the ailment growing graver,

her body, to be relieved with softer nourishments,

is laid prostrate on the bed: for that tumor

added very much the incitements of a sharper

pain; but nonetheless, intent on her accustomed prayer,

she gives thanks to God, who scourges all whom

he loves, that he may correct them. The household grieves;

for the groaning people fears to lose

their Lady, the virginal company their excellent Mother,

the poor the bestower of alms,

the Clergy the fruitful worker of virtues. And

when she was pressed with the aforesaid tumor, she was much

delighted with this kind of infirmity, embracing it with all

eagerness, as the delights and ornaments

of glory, and was wont to say; I know most certainly,

that I deservedly bear in my neck the weight of an ailment,

in which, as a young girl, I remember I bore superfluous…

weights of necklaces. she recognizes it given for the necklaces worn: For

my youthful age put it upon me, that I was wont

to adorn my neck with necklaces: whence to the divine

piety I render praises and thanks, that

pain comes forth there where I was wont

to display a delightful brightness. And I believe that

therefore the supernal piety wished me to be burdened with pain of the neck,

that so I may be absolved from the guilt of superfluous frivolity;

while now for me, instead of gold and pearls,

from the neck the redness of a tumor and a burning protrudes.

CHAPTER XXI.

[57] So when the most precious Virgin, amid

the most splendid triumphs of a precious life, rendered

glory to God, it being cut, somewhat relieved, and burned to see the most serene

face of her Author; neither was her service defrauded of its reward,

nor her long expectation of its heavenly recompense. But, the inconvenience of her members

now more and more pressing,

they strive to seek the help of a physician;

or, if they could, by mitigating to take away the importunity of the pain.

A certain physician is summoned by the bystanders,

Kinefrid by name,

that through him the virginal distress might be tempered.

He orders that tumor to be cut, that

the noxious humor which was within might flow out: which while

he did, she seemed for two days to be somewhat

more lightly, so that many thought

that she could be healed of the ailment, and could now decline death

by such a remedy. For the humor

flowed out, the burning for two days somewhat

receded: all rejoice, but their

sudden joys, unforeseen, the providence of God

terminated. For since for the most part the third day

is wont to be graver for the wounded, and to generate a more

prolonged distress for the afflicted; the Lord, wishing

his Virgin to reign together with him in

the heavens, on the third day, weighed down by the former pains,

feeling temporal death imminent upon her,

ordered the whole Congregation to come to her;

now designating the time and hour of her calling,

as before she had foretold the certain day.

[58] But also, as much as the harshness of the sickness

permitted, then being worse she transfused the sweetness of heavenly doctrine in which

she abounded, and the words of eternal life; admonishing them never to put down their minds from the supernal,

and to taste, sighing, the sweet food of heavenly

joy in the love of Christ,

which, while still dwelling in the flesh, they could not perfectly

apprehend. For giving such

admonitions of salvation, after the Viaticum received she piously dies she no longer suffered to hear

or to speak, except what is the charity of Christ. For with her whole

soul and strength, anticipating the face of Christ her beloved

spouse, she begged with hymns

and psalms, that he order her spirit to be received by the holy

Angels: then with the Body and

Blood of the Lord she fortified her departure: him

also she entreated more attentively, to be propitious

continually over the inhabitants of the place, and a perpetual

guardian. While these things were done, she was straightway snatched

from the world, commending her spirit into the hands of the Creator;

and (as is written in

the book of histories of Bede the Presbyter) she changed all pain

and death for perpetual salvation and life.

It happened, while she departed from the world,

that the monastery of Ely was turned into a sadness

not small of desolation and grief. For a huge

grief and weeping of the Brothers and Sisters

arose, who could not undeservedly long bewail most bitterly

their Lady and Patroness: but the holy

and glorious Virgin, led out of the prison-house of the flesh, to

the embraces of the eternal King, into the heavenly chamber

was introduced, following the footsteps of the Lamb among

the throngs of Virgins. The fires of the flesh now conquered,

her blessed soul rejoices with his Angels,

to whom the heavens lay open, who merited to foreknow and foretell

the joys to be approached. For from the desert

of the present world, with the choirs of Angels accompanying on this side

and that, all beautiful, all immaculate she ascended: whom the daughters of Sion, seeing

her most blessed, proclaimed, and the Queens praised

her.

[59] The Virgin Etheldreda was snatched to the Lord,

in the midst of her own, on the 23rd of June in the year 679, on the ninth day before the Kalends of June recte July, after

seven years, from the time she had received the rank of Abbess:

and equally (as she herself had ordered) nowhere else

than in the midst of her own, according to the order in which

she had died, she was buried in a wooden coffin. But she passed

over in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord six hundred

seventy-nine, from the muddy abyss

of this world, to the joys of the heavenly kingdom,

under the Kings of the Angles, namely her brother

Aldulf of the East Angles, and Lothar son of Sexburga

of the men of Kent: and at the right hand

of Christ her spouse happily placed, for all

of us in the sight of the highest Father an assiduous

intercessor she stands. How happy art thou, blessed

Virgin, who living incorrupt, knowest not to be corrupted

even when buried! Now a certain glory of the life

of resurrection shines, transformed thou hast part

of Christ rising. For also a sign

of the divine miracle, At the incorrupt body various are healed: by which the buried flesh of that same woman

(as Bede testifies) could

not be corrupted, is an indication that from male

contact she endured incorrupt. At last, after her

death, while her bones rested in the tomb of the sepulchre,

she is not lacking of signs, but

soon shone everywhere celebrated by the frequency of miracles. For various persons laboring

with adverse health of body, when they faithfully demanded aid at her tomb;

health being restored to them,

they zealously praised the great works of Christ. Some,

held by a sharper disease, are admonished in sleep

to go quickly to her mausoleum:

whither the sooner they had come, the benefits of heavenly

healing they merited there to obtain. Hence are put to flight

various passions and demons, the suppliants are heard,

through our Lord Jesus

Christ: who with God the Father and the Holy

Spirit lives and reigns, unto ages of ages,

Amen.

CHAPTER XXII.

[60] About this time St. Huna the Priest existed,

she is buried by Huna the Presbyter who is reported to have been of the order of monks and presbyters

of the bountiful Etheldreda. He

(as is reported), with that venerable Congregation,

in tears and great groaning; but also

had gathered, which in her life had experienced very many benefits,

celebrated the obsequies of that same holy Mother;

and buried her not in carved stone

or in arches encircled with gold; but (as

he had received command from her) in the cemetery

of the church beside her own people. And after her venerable

death, he did not remain in the church, renowned for miracles after death:

but withdrew into the same marsh near Ely, to

is called Huneia, choosing a solitary

life, that, given only to quiet, he might serve the Lord

as a soldier; where, as long as he lived, he led a glorious

life, which shone far to all: to

whose tomb many, for the sake of recovering health,

coming, most testify to have recovered their health by his

merits. Which certain persons learning,

secretly transporting his Relics, the sarcophagus afterward broken,

laid them at Thorney, hoping from the Lord by his

patronage grace and mercy. b

CHAPTER XXIII.

[61] In the year in which the Lord advanced his venerable

Virgin Etheldreda, to the perennial

glory of the heavenly life, from this corruptible life;

concerning a certain minister of hers, which Bede understood was to be narrated

for the salvation of many. Book 4, chapter 22. So between Egfrid

King of the Northumbrians, formerly

the spouse of that same Virgin, The Saint's minister captive among enemies, and Etheldred King

of the Mercians, a grave battle being joined near the river

Trent, where Alwin brother of King Egfrid was slain,

whose sister Estrida the aforesaid

King Etheldred had had as wife; among others

of his soldiery, a young man by name Ymnia was slain,

who, the day and the following night, lay like one dead:

at last, his spirit recovered, he revived; as

he could, he bound his wounds; then he raised

himself, and began to go: but quickly seized by men

of the hostile army, and to his Lord,

namely a Count of King Etheldred, he was brought.

But he, receiving him, took care of his wounds;

and when he began to grow well, lest

he flee, ordered him to be bound, but he could not be bound:

but soon as those who had bound him began to go away,

his bonds were loosed. Meanwhile

the Count began to wonder and to ask why

he could not be bound. He answered: I have a brother

by name Tunna, a Presbyter and Abbot

of a Monastery, in the city which from his

name is called Tunnacester; c who, thinking me slain,

makes frequent Masses for me:

and if I were now in another life, there my soul

through his intercession would be loosed from

punishments. as often as his brother said Mass for him But while he could not be held by bonds,

he sold him at London to a certain Frisian: but

neither by him, when he was led thither, could he in any way

be bound; but at the hour when Masses were made,

he was loosed. And when he who had bought him

had seen that he could not be confined by bonds, he granted

him the faculty of redeeming himself if he could. But

he, by an oath that he would return, or send him money

for himself, came to Kent to Lothar

the King, who was the son of the sister of St. Etheldreda

the Queen (because he himself too had once been a minister of that same Queen,

that is a cup-bearer), and asked

and received from him the price of his redemption,

and sent it for himself to his Lord as he had promised.

Who afterward returning to his brother, all

the comforts which had come to him in adversities, he is loosed from bonds and therefore released, in

order he related. And he learned, from his report,

that especially at those times his bonds had been loosed,

at which the solemnities of Masses had been celebrated for him;

but also that other advantages came to him in his peril;

and prosperity, through his brother's intercession

and the offering of the saving Host,

had been granted to him from heaven, he understood.

CHAPTER XXIV.

[62] Many hearing these things from the aforesaid man

were kindled with faith and devotion of piety, and to

pray, or to do alms, or to

offer victims to God, for the deliverance of those

who in faith departed from the world: for he understood

that the saving Sacrifice availed for the everlasting redemption

of soul and body.

But by no means shall we think this to be wondered at,

whence the devotion of many is excited, which from Bede's little works to this work

we have thought should be inserted, if we attend to the grace of God

conferred manifoldly upon the holy Queen:

whose devotion this man exhibiting in a mystery,

having contemplated what is to be avoided or what

is to be done, that he might be more devoted to God

emulated [her]. And not only this man of whom the present

discourse is, but innumerable men and women,

dwelling in her fellowship, when

they were placed on the throne of the Kingdom or in Religion,

by her example and admonitions, the delights and enticements of the world

spurned, by the performance of their manners

pleased the Lord: to the imitation of the Saint, as from the preceding

Chapter her Presbyter and Monk St. Huna,

distinguished in life and sanctity; and another

certain man, Owin by name, a Monk, but

tutor and prince of her household, privy to her secrets,

and hearer of the heavenly secrets, as above

we related. But also a man deservedly of outstanding sanctity,

was the keeper of her fields (as lately

was shown by a divine vision) by the name of St.

Ælgot at Betrithesworde, which is the village

of the blessed Martyr Edmund, resting in body:

of whom in what follows nothing is to be kept silent.

For the prudent virgin of Christ Werburga,

at Ely under the rule of the Abbess Etheldreda, as also St. Werburga.

duly (as we have mentioned above) consecrated to the divine service…

duties, anticipated all the services of the monastery,

showed herself inferior to all,

toward the needs of all expended the bowels of a wounded

charity. Whose sanctity when

the aforesaid King Etheldred her uncle had learned,

he took her thence, and set her as Abbess by right

over certain monasteries of Virgins,

namely Hanbury and Tritingeham. e

CHAPTER XXV.

[63] Therefore after the glorious passing of the blessed and glorious

Etheldreda, by which from this wretched

life of mortals, desiring to be dissolved and to be with

Christ, she migrated to her immortal Spouse,

in whose sight always the death of his Saints

is precious; St. Sexburga elected Abbess of Ely, the divine providence

salubriously providing for the salvation of men,

there was substituted in the rule of souls, in the monastery of Ely,

under the observance of the regular life,

her sister devoted to God, Sexburga;

not so much sister by the kindred of flesh, as by the imitation

of good work, whom Earconbert King of the men of Kent

had had as wife. She,

by divine disposition, after her sister's death, by

the Sisters elected and beloved, merited to preside

in the office of Abbess, and along the path of justice she followed

her sister's examples. And when, to the Lord's flock,

by her own and her sister's example (who, dead in flesh,

lived with God by the attestation of good works),

she was busy and zealous rather to profit

than to preside; moved by divine zeal and solicitous, she resolves to translate the Saint's body to the church. with herself she long deliberates

and arranges to raise the bones of the glorious Virgin,

from the place where she had first been buried:

for her burial was held celebrated. Whence,

with her people, the frequency of miracles increasing

and in a manner demanding it, she appointed a day,

on which they might so revisit the treasure,

to place it more honorably and decently in the church of the blessed Mother of God

Mary, and to transfer it to be more gloriously laid

in a new coffin, when now she had been buried sixteen years.

The celibate women praise the word which

they hear, and standing nearby rejoice according to their wish.

ANNOTATIONS. G. H.

CHAPTER VI.

The incorrupt body of St. Etheldreda is translated.

CHAPTER XXVI.

[64] So it pleased the aforesaid Abbess, as

was said, For the raising of the body, reverently to collect from the earth the Relics

of her sister, whom Christ,

by the testimony of many signs, made known to the world

as to be proclaimed with glory and reverence:

and she ordered certain of the Brothers to seek a stone,

of which they could make a coffin: and she directs them

to seek outside a sepulchral stone,

suitable for the renewed burial of so great a Virgin:

because within, the island could by no means have one suitable

for such a need. For that region of Elge,

from the nature of the place, is on all sides

surrounded with waters and marshes, nor does it have larger stones

in itself unless they come from elsewhere.

Who, immediately a ship being boarded, putting in, a

came to a certain little city, a stone is sought, at that time

desolate, situated not far thence, which

in the tongue of the Angles is called Grantchester. And

while exceedingly solicitous they walked about, soon they found

near the walls of that city a coffin,

most beautifully cut of white marble, in a place

which to this day is called Ermenswurche, b that

is "the Work of the wretched." and not without a miracle the Sarcophagus is found, Each one wonders,

the neighbors deny that they had a stone of this kind in that

place, or had ever seen it: and approaching

nearer, they asserted that it had not been placed there by anyone,

but rather by God's command had been placed there from heaven for their use:

for no stone of such nature

or quantity was found there:

it could indeed be named, but not seen. Nevertheless,

the whole region of England in those times

seemed to have been either utterly devoid of marble stone

still: but in our days both

to have it, and that it can abundantly be found

in it, the buildings of notable works everywhere

demonstrate.

[65] A cover also of similar material,

color, and suitable quantity and quality

they find, and without any distance or dissonance of the congruent parts,

most like the sarcophagus,

in which also a comely whiteness of the aforesaid color

becomingly shone forth. But they,

rejoicing beyond measure at the find, with a cover fitting it: whence also they understand

their journey prospered by the Lord

and their business hastened, giving thanks

to God for all his benefits, as quickly as possible

with a favorable wind carried it back to the monastery.

But Sexburga, the more gladdened by the benefit of the divine

gift, blessed God, who alone does

great wonders. At last they unload the keels

of their welcome burden, and the desired mausoleum,

nor long sought, is conveyed to the place. The hour is noted,

celebrated in memory, and exultation

(as we believe) is made in the Heavens, when honor

is exhibited to the Saints on earth. and the miracles increase. The people of the country run together

from everywhere, a very great crowd of the sick flocked together:

wearied by fevers, and oppressed by whatever

inconvenience, at her tomb, caught in a light

sleep, by her aiding merits,

having obtained health, they rejoiced: to the various inconveniences of others

she gave aid, whose vows the purity of faith accompanied. This indeed greatly raised the spirits

of Blessed Sexburga, that she might draw her out

of the old burial, and place her in the church to be laid up;

whom, long shut in the earth, the goodness of Christ

saves and preserves against nature.

CHAPTER XXVII.

[66] And when, on the appointed day, after so many years,

the body of the holy Virgin and Spouse of Christ, the bones, were to be

raised from the tomb, and to be buried more decently in the basilica;

people had flocked together, to the holy solemnities of this Translation.

And since such a matter ought to be confirmed

by the testimony of very many, In the presence of St. Wilfrid the Bishop, the aforesaid

Prelate St. Wilfrid, who to Blessed Etheldreda

(as long as to Egfrid King of the Northumbrians,

only in name and not in conjugal work, though

by the Sacrament of marriage, she was betrothed) was most familiar

and a most truthful witness of her perpetual

virginity, and to her had imposed the consecrated veil of the religious

habit under the tutelage of the Abbess Ebba,

aunt of King Egfrid, at the city

of Coludi; and when she had been established in the rule of souls,

in the monastery of Ely, as Bede asserts, with assiduous familiarity

in all her need a diligent

and solicitous helper had stood by; both was present at this so

beautiful and rightly to-be-regarded spectacle,

and to this unwonted miracle by his presence

and authority conferred a great weight of credibility,

and innumerable who knew and were present

testified to that very thing: but also among the rest,

for the fuller certainty of the matter and the evidence of the truth,

the physician Kynefrid, and with Kynefrid the physician, who

as he was present at her dying, so also at her raising from the tomb

was personally present, that he might be a witness to this so wondrous

and, for its rarity, precious miracle;

mindful indeed of the incision, which he had once made

in her body; who was wont to relate,

that she, fallen ill, had had a very great tumor

under the jaw.

[67] So, the shade of a tent being fitted and decently arranged above,

when the whole Congregation,

on this side of the Brothers, on that of the Sisters, singing psalms,

stood around her sepulchre, the mound thrown down

the pit is dug out, and the case is raised from the dust.

But the Abbess herself, St. Sexburga,

the door of the burial opened, with a few, the incorrupt body is raised, as one

about to raise and carry the bones, enters:

and after a short interval, suddenly from within

we heard her with a great voice proclaim;

Glory be to the name of the Lord most high; and that

these things might be made manifest, under the proof and presence

of witnesses, even not long after they called

me in, c the door of the tent unbarred,

and I saw raised from the tomb, and placed on

and when her body, the sepulchre opened,

was brought forth into the light, it was found so incorrupt,

as if on the same day she had died

or been laid in the ground. A stupendous and unwonted

miracle, and to be proclaimed for all ages!

The most holy Virgin Etheldreda, making void,

God commanding, nature, because she had kept her flesh

while living free from lust,

was found after death free from corruption:

and although through the courses of sixteen years

she had lain hidden, covered in the earthly dust, as if sweetly sleeping in a bed,

as if from the resurrection she flourished again wholly alive,

and presents the appearance of one sweetly resting

in a bed, in nothing liable to the corruption

of human custom; nay, all

beautiful, all comely, all whole she was found.

[68] And the covering of the face being uncovered, they showed

also me the wound of the incision, which

I had made, cured: so that, in a wonderful manner,

in place of the open and gaping wound with which

she was buried, the very faint traces of a scar

then appeared. Who ever heard such a thing?

or who saw the like of this? The wound, which

had festered in the jaw while she lived, the long

burial rendered incorrupt and whole;

the flesh of other dead, buried, is dissolved,

this one's, living, dissolved by a tumor, after

burial is repaired: the bodies of others are destroyed,

this one's wound after death is restored: the wound also restored

the nature of others is consumed by rottenness,

to this one's wound gaping in the jaw a heavenly

healing is applied. But those present,

venerate the wonders of God, find no foulness

in the scar, but a portion allied to the new grace of glory. For

that glorious throat, which they had expected to have vanished

into ashes, the virtue and power of God had wholly

restored. But neither does it seem stupendous and

to be wondered at, if we consider the omnipotent

grace of the Lord, by which all things whatsoever

he willed, he did in heaven and on earth;

and mercifully bestowed the merit on the Virgin,

that she might not only decline from unlawful things for his love,

but also despise that which she could lawfully

use, namely the consort of an earthly and carnal

spouse. Distinguished, therefore, is the virtue

of God to be proclaimed, and his piety in all, who kept the bush

burning from combustion, who kept Daniel in

the lions' den unharmed from their bites;

beyond the manner of the human condition,

by a certain prerogative, glorified the corruptible flesh

in the Virgin, incorruption now conferred.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

[69] At last with much reverence

they raised it, and diligently clothed it in new

garments, it is placed in the sarcophagus: suitable for preserving so great a treasure,

brought it into the church, with great and manifold devout

exultation of those rejoicing, and

placed it in the sarcophagus which had been brought.

In which, resting, it awaits the return of the Lord

her spouse, that he may reform the body of her humility;

conformed to the body of his brightness.

And in a wonderful manner in this place by no means…

is it to be kept silent, as if made to her measure, but often solemnly and unceasingly

to be proclaimed, that such aptitude

and congruous equivalence to that same mausoleum

the divine grace conferred, and the sarcophagus was found so fitted

to the Virgin's body,

as if it had been specially prepared for her;

so that neither did the quantity of the stone in its capacity exceed the quantity

of the holy body, nor within itself,

as too little containing, uselessly confine it:

and the place too of the head, separately most aptly

shaped, appeared. For the measure,

God disposing, was provided, to which also its own cover joins itself the dimension no less

equalized: but the stone placed on top

shows how precious a pearl lies hidden within:

beyond or short of the measure it does not overhang, within

or above it does not differ, whence so great a gladness should waver.

You will find no joint, where stone

is connected to stone by cement. There appears nowhere

so was the cover united to its vessel,

that there is no likeness of division:

of two one stone is made, and so for a testimony

of virginal integrity it is reunited.

It is sometimes natural, from one stone to divide

two; but we have heard of no craftsman who

naturally joined two into one. And besides

truly that craftsman is wonderful, whose

command all nature serves, and from whose

will even unwonted things do not disagree.

[70] For he who in the desert brought forth waters

from the rock for the sons of Israel, himself ordered, for the service

of the Virgin, that one stone be made from two.

By no means can it be opened, nor can it by any

art be dissolved, which the heavenly hand of the Artificer polished,

and with an indissoluble cement, the material being witness,

solidified: since God prepared in it a pleasant and notable

marriage-chamber,

where in flesh florid, incorrupt, the Virgin awaits the day

of the heavenly nuptials. the miracle renewed which was once done for St. Clement. This is

that incomparable treasure of the wisdom of God,

which the creating omnipotence shut up undefiled and fortified

with its own seal, lest it be laid open further

to human sight. Nor undeservedly.

For what woman anywhere, bound to any spouse

by the marital law, so conquered the fire of bodily

pleasure, as the most blessed Virgin Etheldreda,

who, having obtained two Spouses, kept

the most entire modesty of chastity? These

and innumerable other benefits of piety his mercy

affords to his faithful, who once

for his Martyr Clement prepared a dwelling in the manner of a marble

temple, whose obsequies we read were celebrated

with Angelic service.

The form of the body becomes conformed to the form of the sepulchre.

By almost the same prerogative of the most blessed

Virgin Etheldreda, to whom a sepulchre, Christ

granting it, was prepared, by Angelic (as we trust)

patronage was unexpectedly found.

And since it is held unknown by what cutters

it was shaped, or by what craftsmen polished;

it is not an obstacle to opine, the faith being safe, that these too

are offices of the heavenly ministries.

CHAPTER XXIX.

CHAPTER XXX.

CHAPTER XXXI.

[71] So the excellent body of the most precious Virgin

and notable Queen Etheldreda was translated, In the year 679, on the 17th of October,

namely in the year from the Incarnation

of the Lord six hundred d seventy-nine,

on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of November,

and was placed in the church of the blessed ever-Virgin

Mary, which she herself had built from the foundations,

where to this day it is held in

the greatest veneration, to the praise of our Lord

Jesus Christ, who chose and fore-chose her

that she might be the temple and dwelling

of the Holy Spirit. Many distinctions of her deeds too were at that time

published, which, Scripture being witness, were gloriously done; nor is it incongruous

thence to add. But all the linens,

in which the venerable body was wrapped,

appeared so whole and so new,

that on that very day they seemed to have been wrapped

about her chaste members. not without new miracles at the linens, But it happened that by the touch of those

garments both demons were put to flight from possessed

bodies, and infirmities were several times

cured. The dropsical come and are healed,

and those afflicted with various passions through her merits

are freed. Nor undeservedly indeed does she who

triumphed over spiritual powers in her flesh,

rightly cure bodily infirmities in the sick.

* But also through the wooden coffin in

which the precious Virgin had been buried, with the former coffin, some

report that sight was restored to those whose eyes ached:

who, applying their head to the same coffin and praying,

soon removed the trouble of pain or dimness from their eyes. But of the place and the former burial-place. in which this Virgin's body

had been first buried, a most clear fountain of water arises,

and even forever does not cease to flow;

whence if any sick take it in drink,

or are sprinkled with it, they are recorded to recover

to their former vigor.

[72] Now therefore, since in extending the matter we have introduced

some delays, and the labor of study is

very grievous especially to the weak; the work demands a due end,

it is permitted to fix the pen, since by the help of God's

grace we have set out the promised work. But let the unpolished speech of the writer e

merit pardon, even if it merited not to hope for reward. Even though

the elegance of words has not sounded, yet we have fulfilled the votive

desires. But whoever shall read through the work dedicated to her, The prayer of the author concluding this part. or to the reader the glorious Virgin will

lend a sober ear. Have compassion on the wretched

lot of those whom thou shalt regard as devoted to thee,

blessed Mother, aid them with thy prayers,

and may the future immortality follow the good contest

of thy poor worshiper, whose

genius sweated for thy praise: let his labors be dedicated to Christ,

thou interceding: his tongue shall resound thee,

as long as it shall dwell a pilgrim in this body:

and do thou at least protect him in the last

examination, that he may enjoy the participation of heavenly glory.

Nay rather, extend thy merits to all

placed in affliction, and may thy faithful through thy holy

suffrages merit the joys of eternal

life, through him who assigned thee to himself

as spouse, Jesus Christ, the Son of the Virgin

and Spouse of Virgins, the Redeemer

of the world and Lord, who with the Father

and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God, through

all ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS G. H.

d Nay rather, the Translation was made in the year 695 (which Wharton too notes), namely since, from the death, or the year 679, in which it is here wrongly placed, the years elapsed are above indicated as Sixteen, as also Bede above has. Meanwhile in his and others' Martyrologies only eleven years are noted, and so the Translation would have happened in the year 690.

CHAPTER VII.

Bede praises the Saint in verse and prose: St. Sexburga dies: Saints Ermenilda and Werburga succeed.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

[73] So, diligently and solicitously giving our effort to the desire

of the Brothers, we have taken care to satisfy them:

what in Bede, inserted into the History of Bede and in the English

or Latin writings about our glorious Lady and Patroness

Etheldreda was found written

among us, according to the measure of our understanding

we have woven together into one historically: also what

in meter he himself recounted about her, now to add

is fitting. Book 4, chapter 20. For thus he wrote; It seems

opportune to insert into this history a Hymn of virginity,

which many years ago, in praise and proclamation

of that same Queen and spouse of Christ, in elegiac meter

we composed; and to imitate the custom of holy Scripture,

whose renowned poems of history,

these too it is established to have been composed in meter and verse.

Bountiful God the Trinity, who governest all the ages;

Now favor my beginnings, bountiful God the Trinity.

Let Maro resound wars, let us sing the gifts of peace; a hymn on virginity,

Let us sing the gifts of Christ; let Maro resound wars.

For me chaste songs, not the rape of foul Helen:

Wantonness shall be for the lustful, for me chaste songs.

I speak of supernal gifts, not the battles of wretched Troy:

Those in which earth rejoices, supernal gifts I speak.

Behold, the high God enters the womb of the venerable Virgin; in which they excelled,

That he may free men, behold, the high God enters.

A woman, a Virgin, brings forth the parent of the world, devoted:

Mary the gate of God, a woman, a virgin, brings forth. St. Mary the Mother of God

The friendly company rejoices over the Virgin mother of the Thunderer,

Shining in virginity, the friendly company rejoices.

Whose honor begot from the chaste Virgin many

Virginal flowers, whose honor begot.

The Virgin Agatha, burned with fires, smites, ceases not:

And Eulalia brings forth, burned with wild fires: and several others

The chaste Thecla overcomes the wild beasts for the height of her mind:

Euphemia overcomes the rushing wild beasts, chaste.

Glad, Agnes laughs at swords, stronger than iron:

Cecilia, glad, laughs at the hostile swords.

Great is the triumph that flourishes in the world through sober hearts,

The love of sobriety flourishes much in the world.

Etheldreda, exceedingly excellent, our times too:

Sprung from an excellent father, and renowned by royal lineage:

More noble in the Lord she is, sprung from an excellent father.

Thence she receives the glory of a Queen and scepters beneath the stars;

Remaining more above the stars, thence she receives glory.

Why dost thou, bountiful one, seek a husband, already given to the highest spouse?

The Spouse Christ is present, why, bountiful one, dost thou seek a husband?

Now I believe thou followest the Mother of the eternal King,

That thou too mayest be a mother of the ethereal King.

The spouse dedicated to God had reigned twice six years,

And in a monastery is the spouse dedicated to God.

Wholly consecrated to heaven, where she flourished in lofty deeds,

She rendered up her soul, wholly consecrated to heaven.

The bountiful flesh of the Virgin is buried twice eight Novembers, her body found incorrupt for 16 years.

Nor does the bountiful flesh of the Virgin rot in the chamber.

O Christ, it is of thy work that her very garment too in the sepulchre

Shines inviolate, O Christ, it is of thy work.

The dropsy and the black disease depart for the honor of the sacred garment,

The diseases flee, the dropsy and the black depart.

Zeal rages in the enemy who once had conquered Eve:

The Virgin triumphs exulting, zeal rages in the enemy.

Behold, O spouse of God, what glory is thine on earth:

What awaits in heaven, behold, O spouse of God.

Glad gifts thou takest, shining with festive torches:

Behold the Spouse comes, glad gifts thou takest:

And new songs thou playest with sweet-sounding plectrum,

A spouse, thou exultest in hymn, and new with sweet sound.

No one separates thee from the company of the high-throned Lamb;

Whom by affection he had borne, no one separates from the High-throned.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

[76] What in the book of the Kings of England the most learned Bede

published, in plain speech or in meter, about the most sacred

Queen Etheldreda, we have set in order:

now also what about her in

the book on the Times, which for the profit of many

he composed, though briefly, yet under

the same sense he recorded, it is not fitting to pass over. [But in the year of the Lord's Incarnation

six hundred seventy-eight…

(according to what Bede teaches) a universal Synod b

was celebrated at Constantinople, The same in the book on the Times praises her continence, in the times

of Pope Agatho, under the Prince Constantine,

the Legates of the Apostolic See and one hundred fifty

Bishops being present. In which

year, namely, the holy and perpetual Virgin of Christ

Etheldreda, daughter of Anna King of the Angles,

both given first to another most magnificent man as wife,

and after him to King Egfrid as wife,

who for twelve years kept the marital

bed incorrupt, after being a Queen, the sacred

veil being taken, becomes a Virgin religious:

and without delay, also a Mother of Virgins, and a pious nurse

of Saints, a place being received for building

whose various merits her dead flesh too testifies,

which after sixteen years of burial,

with the garment in which she was wrapped, is found incorrupt.

But the series of the histories, and elsewhere where he treats of the Synod of Constantinople, reckoning

with the greatest study, we have found even in Bede

that the aforeshown year of the death of the bountiful Virgin was the same in which Theodore

Archbishop of Canterbury, hearing that the faith

of the Church at Constantinople was much troubled by heresy (of

which we have now spoken),

desiring that the Churches of the Angles, over which he presided, should

remain immune from such a thing;

while there reigned in the Kingdoms of the Angles, Egfrid

of the Northumbrians, namely the former husband of holy

Etheldreda herself; Etheldred,

King of the Mercians; and Aldulf, King of the East Angles,

the brother of this woman dedicated to God;

and Lothar, King of the men of Kent, her nephew:

in whose presence c, a council of very many

Bishops and Doctors being collected,

as the aforesaid Pope Agatho had commanded,

that he should diligently inquire of each what faith they were of,

he found the unanimous consent of all in the Catholic

faith.

CHAPTER XXXV.

[77] So holy Etheldreda, when by a sudden

change she was snatched from this frail body; St. Sexburga the Abbess having died,

her sister Sexburga, a precious heroine, succeeded in

the rule of the monastery (as has already been said), and instructed the Lord's flock

there by the teaching and form of true religion. For this

advanced her greatly to the increase of virtue,

that she found the body of the aforesaid Virgin Etheldreda

so whole and undefiled,

as if it had been buried on the same day, which she had thought,

through the space of very many years, to be demolished and consumed. And when

through the turning courses of many years, untiring, she panted for

the heavenly kingdom, she began to be grievously ill,

and foresaw the day of her calling to be imminent.

She, placed in the midst of her own,

fortified her departure with the sacrosanct mysteries of Jesus Christ,

with purity of faith commended her spirit into the hands of the Creator,

and so in a good old age closed her last

day. She was buried in a fitting place after her most blessed

sister, where the merits of her virtues do not cease

to flourish: and her praises always take

increase, as is narrated in the book of her. d

CHAPTER XXXVI.

[78] But the monastery of Elge, of the comfort of a Mother

and aid, God providing, who disposes all things sweetly

for the salvation of men, Saints Ermenilda is not long

deprived. For by the unanimous vow and consent

of the whole Congregation, St. Ermenilda,

after the death of Blessed Sexburga, succeeded in her place.

She, the ambition of all dominion neglected,

the Virgins over whom she presided being commended to Christ,

following her most holy Mother, to the poverty

of Christ which she had desired, she herself, poor, came:

and while she shunned to be honored among men,

she received, among God and among men,

ampler honor: where, worthily received by all,

she was made Mother of the whole Congregation. In English indeed we read

that Sexburga in the Church of Sheppey, which e

she had built, received from Blessed Theodore the Archbishop

the veil of sanctity, and there her daughter

Ermenilda under her afterward took up the rule of Religion,

the height of the Kingdom spurned: who,

when she had prepared her journey to Ely, set up her daughter Werburga

in her own place in the office of Abbess, as

she had long desired. But she passed,

full of sanctity and justice, to the heavenly kingdoms,

and with her maternal aunt, namely holy Etheldreda,

rests buried beside her mother.

Her precious death testifies of how great sanctity

and piety she was, which the book of her life

more fully teaches.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

[79] So the Spouse of the Lord Werburga, when

she presided over certain churches, as was said above, and St. Werburga;

after the death of her beloved mother, by the right

of Prelacy received also the monastery of Elge.

Yet she chose, by Divine foreknowledge and will,

to rest in body in the monastery of Hanbury:

in which place the pearl of God, with due

reverence buried, by many indications of signs

proves herself to live in the heavenly glory.

Whence at length to Chester, f where she now rests,

she was translated. For her, after her

death, blessed women whose names

the knowledge of God alone knows, but to us unknown,

under the observance of the Regular life, kept the place

of Elge in honor and sanctification even

to the devastation wrought by the Danes.

But after the departure of Saints Etheldreda, Sexburga,

Ermenilda, and Werburga, the Church

of Elge was by no means idle from the work of God: under whom the regular vigor remained.

nay, the virtue of divine worship, under the rule of the blessed

women, not growing tepid, but more

and more in it growing fervent with the fervor of regular

discipline and the keeping of the monastic profession,

through many turning courses of years,

flourished. But also the churches and monasteries

which were anywhere in England, although

over the various provinces different Kings presided,

and frequent wars succeeded one another under various

fortune, the grace of the supernal mercy preserved

in peace and security and the increase of the Christian

law. But the wicked enemy of the human

race, not enduring the times of such great serenity

(since, lacking the appetite of a good

will, he ceases not to envy good men),

infected with his accustomed malice, stirred up wrath and a cloudy

storm in all the borders of England.

ANNOTATIONS G. H.

f Of this translation nothing is said in the Life on the 3rd of February, namely written before it; but we added some things from Capgrave: that one John Brompton in the Chronicle asserts, made in the year 875, when the people of Hanbury, loosed from fear of the Danes, transferred the body to Chester, as to a safe place.

CHAPTER VIII.

The incursions of the Danes. The island and monastery of Ely devastated. The Nuns and Clerics slain.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

[80] But in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord

eight hundred sixty-six, while there reigned

King Etheldred of the West Saxons, The Danes burst in in the year 866

Inguar, with his two Brothers Evulf

and Hasden, with his colleague Ubba by name,

three Kings accompanying them, in all things like him

in all deceit and malice,

Hosten, Bagseg and Guthrum, and with their

strength; with a very great retinue of Dukes

and Nobles (whom to enumerate is burdensome,

but in the Chronicle they are described) with an innumerable

multitude of brave warriors,

came from Denmark into Britain, and in

the kingdom of the East Angles, into East Anglia, which is called Eastangle,

wintered: where Edmund, acceptable to God,

All these were persecutors of the Christians,

so cruel by natural ferocity,

that they know not to be softened by the evils of men: without

any pity they feed on the torments of men;

and according to the prophecy of the Prophet, that

from the North comes all evil, the North-wind blowing,

from the icy seats of their birth that same

wicked nation leaped forth, blew sudden and death-bearing

whirlwinds into all the borders of Britain,

now by sea now by land going about, with flames

and iron depopulating everything: and unless it had been hindered

by divine mercy, it attempted to bring

the whole borders of Britain to extermination:

and because it knew them to be cultivators of the law of God,

it strove utterly to destroy them or to subject them to servitude. Jeremiah 1:14.

With the worshipers of Christ it would not have peace:

whence the monasteries, the Divine

judgment permitting, all from their very foundations razing,

with slaughters and burnings it devastated.

[81] and then Northumbria, These things were done in the first year of the reign of the aforesaid

King Etheldred, son of Edelwlf. Then

in the second year the aforesaid nation, savage and

impious, from the East Angles migrated to the city

of York: there for the most part all nearly the assemblies of the Northumbrians,

the two Kings Osbrith and Aelle being slain,

destroyed, fell: c but those who escaped,

made peace with the Pagans. But in the third year

after, the aforesaid army of the Pagans,

leaving the Northumbrians, came to Mercia; Mercia,

and went to Nottingham, d and there wintered.

To whom coming there, Burthred King of the Mercians made peace:

whom after seven years, the peace broken, they compelled

to desert his kingdom, and to go to Rome against his will,

and subjected the Kingdom of the Mercians to their Dominion.

The places of the Saints and the monasteries

of the handmaids and servants of God, everywhere

plundering, they burned. And again

in the fourth year it returned to York, and there for

it crossed to the East Angles, and in a place

which is called Thetford e wintered: in which

year too the glorious King Edmund of that same province (as in the Chronicle is read) by

the aforesaid Pagan King Inguar was martyred: f

and so, the King slain, and invading East Anglia, the Pagans, exceedingly

glorying, subjected that whole region to their dominion. In which (as the following insinuates)

year too the church of Ely was burned with fire,

all who were within being killed.

[82] These things thus done, the aforesaid King Ederedus,

supported by the help of God, they are cut down by King Ederedus of all who

then presided over England, alone could resist.

He, having gathered a not small army at

Æsemdum, attacked the enemy, where for a long time fiercely

was fought on both sides. In which place

the Pagans, by divine judgment not bearing the assault of the

Christians, one of the two Kings of the Pagans, Ubba,

and five Counts, were slain,

and many thousands of them fell slain.

So King Bagseg fell, Sidroc the elder Count, Sidroc the younger Count,

Osbert Count, Prene Count, Harald

Count, and their whole army was turned to flight:

but in the same year King Ederedus departed

from this life, whom his brother

Elwredus succeeded: who, sharp of wit, by Bald and

John most learned Monks was so instructed

that in a short time he had the knowledge of all books,

and translated the whole New and Old

Testament into the speech of the English

nation. These things, if anyone wish to know more fully,

he will find each in order in the Chronicle.

CHAPTER XL.

[83] So after, by divine permission, the aforesaid

nation of barbarians by hostile invasion all things…

plundered, The same having devastated all England devastated the goods of the Angles, consumed with fire,

defiled the precincts of the monasteries with diabolical

rage; at last it came to the notice

of the inhabitants of Ely. Every age everywhere,

every condition of both sexes,

led by the love of living, preferred to suffer here and

there by fleeing the loss of their substance,

than to engage with the bands of the enemy's ferocity.

For the island of Ely was by no means exempt from this common tribulation and

misery; having attacked Ely,

especially since the marshes and waters by which it is surrounded

extend into the sea, and from those very

waves of the seething sea the access of any ships

to that same island is not difficult.

Into this was once carried that same nation

with many ships, thinking to occupy a place emptied

of defenders. The outlet of the place

it presses by entreaties and also by ambushes, that

it might either conquer the inhabitants, or, wearied by the siege,

receive them in surrender, or compel them to leave

the place: against whom the fiercer

natives of the inhabitants strive to resist.

For it happened, when they were subjecting the neighboring region

to their dominion, they are routed by the inhabitants gathered for defense. that many of

the Angles of noble stock betook themselves to the island:

yet fearing lest perhaps to so great a multitude

any misfortune should occur, although

they bore a hand vigorous in war, and it was

believed sufficient for these affairs, and sometimes

they prevailed over other Barbarians: an embassy being sent everywhere

they call the neighbors to aid,

and joining to themselves a chosen band of armed men,

they more quickly lay the enemy low to destruction and utterly destroy them.

[84] But returning in greater number By this means, then, freed from oppression

for a while, they seemed to breathe again, but

they were not able to exult in this liberty so very long:

but the aforesaid assembly of the malignant, with stronger

force, an army being gathered, with their

King, a very great throng of soldiers rushing on,

raging with a spirit of frenzy, burst in upon them,

invades, and lays low. Very many of the inhabitants,

slain on the head with levers, whose corpses

were forbidden to be given to solemn burial,

were cast forth as food for beasts and birds.

But coming at length to the monastery of Virgins, they make an indiscriminate slaughter of all. which the glorious

Virgin and spouse of Christ Etheldreda had built, alas

for the grief! it invades, profanes the holy things, tramples and plunders:

the sword of the rabid is stretched out against the milky

and consecrated necks; the company of nuns is slaughtered

as an innocent victim; and whatever Brothers and Sisters

of holy desire it finds, without any consideration of humanity,

it slays in a headlong massacre. And so, the monastery

which the true cultivator of Christ Etheldreda

had built, with the Virgins, and ornaments,

and Relics of the Saints, men and women,

burned, the city too despoiled and burned,

enriched by the abundance of plunder, and taking away

all the movables and utensils of that same place,

the enemies of the Lord returned to their own.

CHAPTER XLI.

[85] There was among those bands of most ferocious enemies

breathing slaughter and blood,

goods. He, while he beheld the tomb of the God-beloved

Virgin Etheldreda, thinks a treasure

was laid up therein. He interposes no delay;

and soon with the battle-axe The one breaking open the Saint's tomb, in hope of finding a treasure in it, which he bore in his bloody

hands, the marble vessel,

in which the virginal body rested, with frequent blows

he strikes on the side; that, namely, it being broken open,

he might greedily seize the moneys which he falsely believed hidden

within; not knowing, unhappy man, how

speedy a time of divine animadversion was imminent,

in which, about to pay the penalty, he was miserably to be snatched

from the midst. O most wretched pirate,

ignorant of the worship of the Deity, desirous of earthly gain,

about to fall by an unhappy chance! Who,

while he burns fatally with the torches of corruptible money,

does not fear to disturb the virginal and incorruptible treasure.

With all the force of the striker the sepulchral stone is struck,

in which, as in a marriage-chamber, the perennial spouse of Christ rests.

The blows are multiplied, a hole is made, which

remaining is seen to this day. Which done,

there is no delay of the heavenly vengeance: his eyes torn out, he expires. but immediately,

his eyes divinely torn from his head,

he there ended his sacrilegious life. Seeing which,

the rest did not presume further to disturb the bountiful

clod body of the Virgin.

[86] At last with iron and flame they consume all things,

nor can anything be left over

which the impious hand of the barbarians does not destroy.

Almost the whole Clergy is slaughtered, Certain returning afterward restore the place as best they can, each one surviving

is led into captivity. And so the place miserably lay,

utterly desolate of the worship of the divine office

and of fear; no one who might fulfill

the ministry remained, the song of praise and gladness is taken away,

the voice of grief everywhere sounds

and of misery. From those Clerics, finally,

who begged for their life k, after

some years eight returned: of whom

some in decrepit age, the courses of many years passed,

reached even to the time

of King Edred. These, with unhappy effort. as they could,

in the time of so great a calamity repairing the porches

of the church, paid the divine service.

But others succeeding to them as Clerics,

after the manner of the perverse, given to pride and avarice,

not Canons, nay, leading an irreligious life,

fell into error and rashness, the reverence of honesty

despised. Whose insolence God, for the merit

of the holy Virgin, with wonderful indignation dissipated, and

by just examination condemned: of whom in its

place it is to be said. These things too were done

in the year of the Lord's Incarnation eight hundred

seventy; but the hundred ninety-

sixth from the time blessed Etheldreda was made Abbess at Ely.

CHAPTER XLII.

[87] l So the aforesaid King Alwred, after

his brother held the kingdom most strenuously twenty-

eight years and a half; but most laboriously assailed, Kings succeed, Alfred,

namely by that Pagan nation by which his brother had been assailed,

which he and his sons, aided from heaven,

ground down and destroyed. By this one truly

England, even to this day, under one

King was increased, and his son reigned in his stead,

Edward called the elder. m He much more widely

than his father extended the borders of the kingdom, Edward the elder, since

he obtained and possessed cities and towns and very great provinces,

which the Danes had for a long time possessed,

and received several Kings into surrender.

Moreover two Kings, namely the brothers

of King Inguar, Ewlf of Halsden,

after very many years he slew, n and with

them many thousands of Pagans fell slain.

After many things excellently done,

in the twenty-fourth year of his reign, passing from this life,

he left the helm of the Kingdom to his son Edelstan: Edelstan,

which he held most strenuously for sixteen years. o

After whom his brother Edmund

succeeded, to whom his Queen Edrida

bore two sons, Edwin and Edgar.

And when she had borne Edgar, St. Dunstan

heard on high the voices of those singing psalms and

saying: p Peace of the Angles, now that the boy has been born

in the time of our Dunstan. Edgar, This is the genealogy

of the most noble King Edgar, the King of the Angles,

founder of many monasteries and renowned restorer,

who restored the church of Ely more gloriously and enriched it

with possessions: which it is unworthy to pass over

hereafter. Edmund. King Edmund

the aforesaid too, when he had held the Kingdom magnificently

for seven and a half years, q is killed,

and carried to Glastonbury, is buried by Blessed Dunstan the Abbot:

and soon the next heir Edred, succeeding

his brother, held the Kingdom nine years

and six weeks.

ANNOTATIONS G. H.

a What the state of the Kings of Denmark was in this 9th century, especially in the earlier part of this century, we said on the 3rd of February at the Life of St. Anscar, Apostle of the Danes, §7 and following. From those these were begotten: whose Leaders, says Huntingdon book 5 page 148, were Hinguar and Ubba, men most strenuous, but most cruel. Sojourning therefore in winter in Eastangle, they received from them a truce and horses: and Westminster adds, who were foot, were made horsemen. Brompton says the said Hinguar and Hubba were born of a father Lothebroc, of royal stock, perhaps Inguar the elder, of whom we treated at the Life of St. Anscar. Brompton adds, that they landed at the village of Rodham in the province of Norfolk.

b "Danubia" too Hoveden wrote at this year 866, whom our author copied; and it seems the Angles of their age opined that the northern peoples proceeded from Pannonia, and from the Danube, by which they had dwelt, called their acquired kingdom Danubia, which then was contractedly called Dania Denmark. The contrary rather ought to have been believed; as it is established that the Goths, now Swedes, setting out from the North, established Gothia for themselves at the Danube in the 4th century.

p In the Life of St. Dunstan on the 19th of May these things are set forth.

q He is killed by a robber, in the year 946, on the day 26th of May, on the feast of St. Augustine the Apostle of the Angles, the 3rd day Tuesday, in the 4th Indiction. So Hoveden. All things agree with the Dominical letter D.

CHAPTER IX.

The punishment of the Canons rashly handling the sacred body and her incorrupt garments, in the time of King Edred.

CHAPTER XLIII.

[88] But in his time a wonderful thing, and to hearers

very stupendous, happened at Ely concerning

the Priests dwelling there, which one

of them, Alfelm by name, under the person

of another concerning himself, who had consented to their

error and crime, asserted, wrote, which here

under silence we do not pass over. * In times not far removed

from this age, among the English

nation, while Edred reigned, when, the zeal

of charity growing cold, and the yoke of iniquity

growing hot; the monasteries of the British world,

almost all from their very foundations, either by the vengeance

of almighty God lay throughout the whole province,

with half-ruined (alas the sin!) walls, desolate;

or, if any had remained whole in the old cities,

were occupied for a very long time by Canons of both sexes,

in name, not in dignity; it happened too

that the monastery of Elge,

which is situated in the island in which the holy

virgin Etheldreda rests, with her sister

by name Sexburga, and her venerable niece Ermenilda,

passed under their Dominion. Whose

Archpriest, Provost, and Master, The Archpriest proposed to open the Saint's sepulchre:

by the instigation of a demonic fraud, dared

to violate the sepulchre of the holy Virgin, though not

with impunity, yet in this manner. As a certain

approaching solemnity of that aforesaid most powerful saint's

day drew near, he called together

the rest of the Priests and Clerics over whom he presided,

with whom, having entered the basilica, to them

he said: I wish without doubt to know whether the venerable

Virgin Etheldreda even now remains whole

in flesh, as the sacred writings of the venerable

Bede relate in the history of the English nation;

or whether anything at all of her remains in the monument,

in which she was once buried—of her little body:

since to me it does not seem probable,

but rather I believe that there is nothing in the sarcophagus. the others dissuading him from attempting it,

Who, answering the ill-fated Master,

said: How hast thou dared to conceive in mind

of the undefiled Virgin?

Shall we not all hastily by a wicked death

have to end our life, unless thou quickly desist

from so unlawful a presumption? To whom he

immediately answered: I believe that if a Virgin

so holy, as of old, were lying in the present

basilica; through her God would have done very many

miracles here.

[89] Then one of the Priests said to him:

Therefore, Teacher, dost thou utter such speeches,

because, newly coming to this island from another

province, thou hast by no means seen the miracles of virtues,

which the Founder of things wrought, innumerable,

through the merits of this holy Virgin.

Of which, from many, I will relate to thee very few, one of whom relates miracles

which a little before thou camest here

were wrought. A certain matron dwelt in a certain

village near this one, who for about

six years was so contracted, by an intolerable disease

and paralysis, all the framework of her members loosed,

that she could in no way direct her hand to her mouth,

nor imprint the venerable saving sign of the Cross

on her own forehead, nor rise from her couch a

without the help of her handmaids.

She, after she had spent much money on physicians, in a paralytic of 6 years,

and had received from them no remedy of cure,

by the regard of the supernal clemency,

came to this hall, eight servants carrying her:

in which when she watched at night,

she merited to recover health,

and walking on her own feet returned

to her own, praising and glorifying the omnipotence of God.

[90] in a mute man of 7 years A certain youth too, through seven

courses of years, lived at that time

in a certain village which the inhabitants of that place

call Bradford: who likewise, as he was led by his parents

to this temple, immediately

the bonds of his tongue were loosed, and he spoke

with correct words; saying before all

the bystanders: Let us return, brothers, to our lodging;

since through the merit of the blessed Virgin Etheldreda,

God who creates all things bestowing it,

I am cured. A certain girl, finally,

blind from the beginning of her birth, after ten

years of space passed, in those days happily

was carried to the walls of this temple. She,

soon as she entered the basilica, received the healing

of her eyes; a blind girl of 10; and began to wonder at the bright

and shining machine of this world,

and the ruddy radiance of the sun which she had never before

seen; magnifying God the author of things,

who had created all the wonders which she beheld.

A certain young man too, having a withered hand, with a withered hand,

came to the most sacred tomb of this bountiful

Virgin; which immediately, the little sinews of his arm extended,

with me standing by, he was able to open, his strength recovered:

which seeing, the people who were present blessed

the Lord who created all things.

who compelled his own little maidservant to gather herbs in the garden, on the Lord's

day before Terce. She, when she had seized a huge

stake, in order to fulfill her Lord's command quickly;

her hand so firmly clung to the wood which she held greedily,

and with which she wished unlawfully to pluck out the herbs,

that no man by any effort

could separate the stake from the woman's hand. She,

while she was tormented with immense torment, the wretches being able to expend no other aid,

cut the stick on both sides

of her hand, and so it remained five years.

These years completed, the hinge of heaven turning, punished for the violation of the Lord's day it happened

that we, about to feast, on a certain day came together to the house

of the aforesaid Priest. Whom, when we had beheld

tormented beyond measure, grieving exceedingly that the work

of God should perish, with one accord we said to the feasting

Presbyter: Before we take food, let us together lead

this little woman to this temple;

suppliantly entreating the Author of all created things,

that he deign to have mercy on her,

through the glorious intervention of the holy Virgin Etheldreda. He, answering all, and cured at the tomb. rejoicing,

said to the Brothers: May almighty God for

such useful counsel place you in the heavenly kingdom,

where the Saints enjoy perpetual light.

They, having entered the basilica, soon as they asked

the Lord, from the extended hand of the maidservant leaped

the wood, which now, the flesh consumed,

clung to the frameworks of the bones: and so the woman

received the divine medicine, and the assembly

of Clerics returned to the feast, giving thanks

and praises to Christ the Savior.

CHAPTER XLIV.

[92] Wherefore I warn thee, Master, that

from bold and unlawful beginnings thou quickly

cease. He nonetheless tenacious of his purpose, But if thou wilt not believe my

words, first thou shalt die a fitting death,

and then, condemned to everlasting torments,

unhappily, thou shalt lie under perpetual torments,

and the worms of Tartarus and the infernal

fires. He, twice and thrice admonished by

the prudent old man, would not cease from the most wicked

attempt: but called together four young men

of the Clerical Order, whom he easily led into

ruin and condemnation, the crime being perpetrated.

* For there was in the chest in which rested

the holy Virgin, a certain little crack, he approaches the crack, once made by a sacrilegious Norman, which (as a certain

old man related to us, that he learned it from the very Priests

who saw these things) had been made by the Pagans

dissipating the worship of Christ.

For the Normans, cruel peoples, formerly,

just as they plundered very many provinces of the Angles

and of the Franks, plundered nonetheless the island

of Elge. Who, after they had depopulated all

the Clergy, the Nuns, and the people

with iron and fire, slaying boys and

old men by a cruel death, led the young captives

and youths to foreign

regions. Of whom one savage Norman

dared to approach the sepulchre of the excellent

Virgin, who, carrying a small battle-axe in his hand,

three and four times striking the marble chest in which she lay,

hoping to find immense money,

immediately as he made a small little window, lost his eyes and

his life. From those Clerics, finally, who from

the monastery of Elge b begged for their life, after some

years, eight returned to that same

place. Of whom some now advanced in decrepit age,

the courses of many years passed, related

to the aforesaid old man, at that time

[93] and through it palpates the body, and others after him: Why do I pursue with superfluous words?

To this the unhappy Presbyter with his accomplices in crime

came, who, taking little twigs c

of fennel with which the whole surface of the pavement

had been covered, and placing each of them in the hole of the

sarcophagus, after their d Master

all dared to feel the little body of the holy

Virgin. Then the Priest said: Now, the scruple

of ambiguity removed, I know without doubt, that

still in this tomb rests the holy Virgin,

so remaining whole in flesh. Then the old man,

who before forbade [it], said to him: Shortly

thou shouldest know more, that thou shalt lie struck

by the vengeance of God. Who again said, holding for a trifle

the predictions of the old man; Now I wish to see whether

her garments even now remain whole.

He sent through the hole of the chest a candle stuck to a twig, the candle burning above the unconsumed garments, he being nothing moved,

which contained the blessed members of the Saint:

but he could see no more within

than if he were blinded in both eyes.

But the burning candle (as they report)

fell upon the Saint, and so long burning over

the sacred garments remained, until it was wholly

consumed, the flame fearing to touch them.

Yet all who were present beheld the light of the candle,

which through the hole came forth from the sepulchre;

and fearing exceedingly lest whatever lay hidden within be burned,

they said to the Priest, the author of the whole crime; It would be

better for thee not to have been born, than to commit so great a crime.

Because not even for this did he cease from the evil of his cruel mind's

purpose: he violently seizes them, and from them cuts off a particle; for taking part of the twig,

he sharpened it at one end, which again splitting

with the point of a knife, he fixed in the garments of the most holy

Virgin, four times folding it round,

and with all the effort of all who were present,

drew it even to the hole: and because

they had no injury, he began to wonder.

Who immediately seized a huge sword,

and thence cut off a small particle, by the persuasion of the demons,

the rest of his accomplices, namely the four

aforesaid young men, drawing the very garment

upward and holding it with all their strength.

Which, after it was violated by the touch of the wicked,

so was withdrawn from their unclean hands

(as the Presbyter related, who was a partaker of this crime),

as if two most strong soldiers

drew it back within the tomb,

and as if the holy Virgin herself, still living,

said to them; Have neither God's

nor my grace, because you have dared to corrupt my

shroud.

[94] What more? Soon a great plague seized

the house of that Priest, which struck his wife

and all his children with a swift death, but soon he is punished by his own and his family's swift death, and utterly

uprooted his whole offspring. Him too,

migrating to another place, after

he did not purge by penance the crime committed.

But also of those four abettors

divine vengeance more quickly slew two; as also two companions, the third, though

he was instructed in literary, Ecclesiastical,

and Priestly offices, was immediately

so turned to madness, that whatever he knew he forgot,

as if he had learned nothing at all; and still living

paid the penalties of so great a crime, the third becomes mad: since

each month he loses his sense,

the vigor of his mind failing, the moon repeating the age

which it then had. e But the fourth

was the aforementioned Presbyter Alfelm, who

himself too, seized by a grave sickness, the fourth by paralysis

remained nearly eight months a paralytic; until his parents,

sad and grieving, to whom he was an only [son],

brought him with very many gifts

to the body of the most blessed Virgin. Who, while

there they watched that very night, promising

by the Sacraments satisfaction, the sick man merited

to recover their health, the Saint being invoked he is healed. through the intercession of the bountiful Virgin

Etheldreda; and in the morning glorifying

the Redeemer of the world, glad they returned

to their dwelling. Behold what the rash presumption

of one unfaithfully doubting generated;

behold what unjust action justly merited.

Let any unworthy handlers of sacred f

Relics have from this a lesson, that they ought not

to presume it except with cleanness of heart and humility.

CHAPTER XLV.

[95] But neither did the church thus cease

from the dominion of the wicked Presbyters, But the church remained under Canons but

under their shipwrecking governance, even

to the twelfth year of the reign of the glorious King Edgar,

it fluctuated. * The excellent King

of the Angles, the aforesaid Edred, in the tenth year…

of his reign fell ill and g died: whose

brother, I mean Edwin, namely the son of King Edmund

and of holy Edrigydra the Queen, h

received the kingdom; four years of his reign completed,

he died, and at Winchester in the new monastery

was buried. Whose kingdom his brother

Edgar, i elected by all the people of the Angles,

in the sixteenth year of his age received

(he too of the stock of Cynegils

the excellent King, who first of the Kings of the West Saxons

received the faith of Christ from St. Birinus) k

decently instructed by Blessed Dunstan, established just laws for the Kingdom

of the Angles, even to the 12th year of King Edgar, and enjoyed a most tranquil

kingdom at all times: he also renewed and enriched

the destroyed churches,

the dirges of the Clerics cast out from the monasteries, to

the praise of God gathered companies of monks and nuns,

as is taught also in the following

work. Now, putting an end to these things, I have avoided

excessive prolixity; for it is time

that the beginning of the following book be arranged, and

that meanwhile the strength of speaking be repaired by silence.

ANNOTATIONS G. H.

on the medicine for the face, a poem attributed to Ovid, thus mentioned, It was useful too to add fennel to the fragrant myrrhs; Five scruples of fennel are made ready, nine of myrrh.

THE SECOND BOOK.

On the restoration and state of the church of St. Etheldreda under the Abbots, and her second translation.

PROEM

Of the same Thomas, Monk of Ely.

[1] About to collect in this book the old charters, In the preceding work it was shown how

at Ely St. Etheldreda, and after her, those following [her] built,

or there, pleasing God, lived, or by whom that place

was to be desolated, since it appears. At last,

certain of our brethren importunely compelling me

not to be idle from what I had begun, but to carry through the deeds

of our Island, as I had promised.

And now in so great a business, though I be found less

sufficient, in strength and senses small,

yet trusting in the comfort of my advocate Etheldreda,

torpor at length shaken off, thus

I hasten to carry out what is asked; and to set forth in one

collected volume, whether greater

or lesser things, rendered from the vernacular into Latin, as the matter demands, especially

those who restored the place, and their testaments,

which I sought out scarcely and with the greatest labor,

and changed them from the vernacular into Latin:

but each one scattered in various places

at last I collected. Which, inserted with the testimony

of many; though they be by no means known even

to us, we offer summaries to others: for sweet

often and pleasing is knowledge, even to read again

known things, and the mind delights to have them repeated in its ear.

[2] And since we see the fictions of the Gentiles or the ravings

of the Stoics composed with the utmost study, and so about to supply what is wanting in the Life of St. Ethelwold,

and publicly celebrated; it is worth the trouble

to record the deeds of the Saints, by whose merit

sanctity shone: of whose

college the Confessor of the Lord Ethelwold,

stood out in doctrine and sanctity: who restored

our church destroyed by the Danes,

and there did great and worthily-to-be-recorded things;

which are not fully set out in the book of his Life: a

which, when the excellent and prudent man,

Hervey, he proposes to follow a work similar to that of Bishop Hervey. the first Bishop of Ely, as he had ascertained things

worthy of relation, caused to be translated from English into Latin;

and so, the work completed,

he named the book "Of the lands of St. Edelwold":

but that book consists of the time of the monks,

fully announcing their prosperities or adversities.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

Not only in the borders of the East Saxons, but also in the remote parts of Britain, the holy Prelate Adelwold took care to gather Monks to the service of almighty God. For there is a certain famous island, situated in the parts of the East Angles, surrounded by marshes and waters in the manner of an island, whence also from the abundance of eels, which are caught in those same marshes, it received the name Elige: in which region and Miracles of St. Etheldreda, Queen and perpetual Virgin, and of her sisters; but at that very time it was destitute and given over to the royal exchequer. This place, then, the servant of Christ, for the love of so great Virgins, began greatly to venerate: and a price of no small money being given, he bought it from King Eadgar, establishing in it a not small flock of Monks; over whom he ordained as Abbot Brithnod, his Provost; and he most decently renewed the site of that same place with monastic buildings; and most abundantly enriched it with possessions of lands, and confirmed by a Privilege of eternal liberty, commended it to the almighty Lord. In this brief summary almost the whole is contained which Thomas undertook to do in the present book, descending to all the particulars. Yet he is more restricted in this first chapter than he was afterward when writing the book of miracles, and taking his beginning from the restoration of Ely: wherefore I have rather from there given it here, with additions [ ] by which the amplifications may be distinguished from the more contracted text.

CHAPTER I.

The restoration of the monastery of Ely and its liberty, fortified by the privilege of King Edgar.

[3] It remains now to write about the repair

of the island of Ely [which I think was excellent and outstanding

among the innumerable benefits of signs

which the Lord deigned to work through his venerable

Virgin Etheldreda, the monastery of Ely. how Edgar, the most powerful

of the Kings of the Angles, admonished by a divine oracle,

restored the church of Ely, adorned it with gifts,

enriched it with possessions, gave it to eternal

liberty, in short commended the whole to God;

whose frequent overthrow, the Pagans formerly

bursting in, made the place without worship,

for a hundred years less one, the worshipers being slain.

Which place, watery, fish-bearing,

wooded and fertile, since it seems to offer a useful and quiet

dwelling;] merited to have

as its first teacher of monastic discipline, over which the first Abbess was St. Etheldreda,

the holy and venerable and glorious

Virgin and Queen Etheldreda:

[who, establishing a monastery of the Handmaids of God,

placed there another paradise; and bringing heaven

to earth and earth to heaven, so changed place

with place, that one distinguished the other,

while each possesses the citizens of the other. to whom succeeded her sister St. Sexburga, To whom succeeded

in spiritual teaching her spiritual Mother,

her sister St. Sexburga, wife of Earconbert

King of the men of Kent, and mother of the holy

Virgin Ercongota: and to her succeeded another

daughter of hers, Ermenilda, wife of Wulfhere King

of the Mercians, and mother of St. Werburga the Virgin. her niece St. Ermenilda,

But Ermenilda, taken from the flesh to Christ,

her daughter the aforesaid Werburga

received the monastery of Elge to be ruled, her grandniece St. Werburga, as

I remember to have gathered from old writings.

[4] After whose death the blessed Mothers and women,

whose names the knowledge of God alone knows,

but to us wholly unknown, under the observance of the regular

life, kept the place in honor and

sanctification, and others even to the times of the Danes. even to the times of the Danes:

who there, the inhabitants partly

slain, partly put to flight, overthrew the dwellings.]

The desolation of which place, presenting the extermination

of the ancient religion, from heavenly liberty into human servitude

had passed; and even to the times of King Edgar

served the royal exchequer. a [But God, who

at all times, and for every thing provides his own

congruity; suffered neither the place under contempt,

nor the Saint, longer to be without worship:

but publishing the glory of those resting there

through the fame of their virtues, raised up a King for the time

and a Bishop for the King, and each most apt

for his disposition. That Edgar, then, the peaceful King of England;

and that Ethelwold, the excellent Pontiff of Winchester,

in a different office indeed, but with an equal vow walking in the law

of God; subjugated the whole homeland no less

to Religion than to dominion:

the one by commanding, the other by preaching. In whom

most aptly corresponded to one another both the Kingdom and

the Priesthood: while what pleased the one, the other

would corroborate, and on every state of affairs, counsel being taken,

neither dissented, but each

consented. So by this grace of his King

the magnificent Bishop Edelwold, exalted,

girded all the strength of his spirit to the various operation of sanctity;

now beginning new things,

and completing them; now finishing things begun by others,

but not perfected; now reforming monasteries

destroyed in various places.]

In whose time the monastery of Ely, famous for miracles

and glorious for Relics, but as

lay open to every passerby.

[5] But two of the King's magnates, namely

Sigedwold a Bishop, denied to two who sought it for themselves: by nation a Greek;

and Thurstan by race a Dane, having seen the situation of the place,

sought it more by cupidity than by devotion:

and when with equal ambition

they contended, and twice among them about obtaining it

it was frequently treated; lest one should insult

over the contempt of the other, or envy at his obtaining it;

of the King's privy counsel, by name Wlstan of Dalham. And

he, instigated more by the divine nod than

led by human affection, lest to either of them should yield

the effect of his greedy petition, approached the King with this

speech: My Lord King, since to thy safety

and thy honor and kingdom we all

ought to provide, none of us advises

that the petition of these be acquiesced in: for the place

is holy, and celebrated, and unworthy of such

possessors: whose ancient dignity (lest

thou be forced to sin in ignorance) in few words

I will not delay to set forth to thee if thou command: and he set forth

to the King in order the dignity of the place,

and the sanctity of the Relics, and whatever

other things, either described by Bede, or by fame

published, had hitherto lain hidden from the King. b

[And with such weight the Holy Spirit pricked the King's

mind by the eloquence of the wise man; that

of the desired possession neither of the greedy ones should be held

possessor; but one and the same repulse

both envious avarice, and bitter

envy, would suffer.

[6] So the presumptuous confidence of obtaining being cut off,

immediately the glorious King Edgar, and he undertakes to restore it, summoning

Blessed Edelwold, conferred with him about preparing the monastery

of Ely; saying that he had a will

to gather Brothers there, by whose service

the highest Lord and the holy

Relics might be venerated with worthy veneration; promising

that he would enrich the same monastery with lands and gifts,

and with a privilege of eternal liberty;

he asked that that man of God might be a cooperator

of so great a purpose, and that, concerning the establishing of Monks there,

he would confer his effort with him. So the man of God understood

that the Holy Spirit was working in the King:

and giving thanks to God, in whose hand are the hearts of Kings,

he did not delay to hasten the good work, but

diligently renewed the aforesaid monastery: the Clerics

expelled, c he gathered Monks there,

and ordained Brithnod as Abbot over them;

and many lands, and enriches it with estates bought and received as gifts. both bought by himself from

the King, and given freely by the King himself,

with various gifts and ornaments, and confirmed by a privilege

of royal authority, he commended wholly

to God and St. Edeldreda: also very many other lands

bought from others he added to the church,

which to number one by one is a business of the idle. d He conferred also on the church

some ornaments, namely several copes,

but one of notable work. He gave also in gold

and silver many precious and great things, which

by the vicissitude of times and misfortunes, dragged from the church,

are utterly consumed.

[7] Not long after these things the Pontiff Blessed Ethelwold,

often to be named with reverence, He also redeems from King Edgar the jurisdiction of the whole island,

is filled with the Holy Spirit, providing and

guarding against future deceitful evils, which through

the vicissitudes of things and the changes of kingdoms

are wont to arise on earth; again he approached

the King Edgar; and an agreement being made with him,

he bought from him anew the whole adjacent

region of the aforesaid island; namely twenty

hides e of land, which the King had within the Island;

but also the dignity and soke f

of seven and a half hundreds; namely two

within the island, but five in the province

of the East Angles, and five

hides at Meldreth, and three and a half hides at Hernungeforde, and twelve

hides at Northwold; in exchange being given sixty

hides, which he himself by the gift of his Lord

King Edelstan had had at Hertingeham;

and a price equivalent to a hundred pounds being given,

with a golden Cross of wonderful work polished and filled

with Relics: which the glorious King, in

confirmation of his gifts and the liberty of the place,

with a wondrous Gospel-book g, gratefully offered upon the altar

of St. Etheldreda at Ely. These lands,

then, bought from the King, with all

the royal customs and corroborated with a privilege of eternal

liberty, St. Ethelwold offered to God

and St. Etheldreda, and he obtains its charter, as the subsequent privilege of the King

will declare, which therefore here

seems to be set down, that it may be clear to all with how great

firmness it rests on God its foundation. h

[8] By the governance of almighty God, who rules the scepters

of all Kings, nay, who equally governs the reins of the whole

age and of every creature by indissoluble rule,

supported by his nod and grace, I Edgar, King of the beloved island

of Albion, the scepters of the Scots,

the Welsh and the Britons and all

the regions round about being subject to us, enjoying quiet peace,

who is solicitous to preserve the worship of God; I am occupied more studiously and solicitously about adding to the praises

of the Creator of all; lest by our

inertia and in our days, his service should seem

to grow tepid more than is right; but flocks

of Monks and Nuns in this our time, by his help

who has deigned to promise to remain with us

even to the end of the world, we desire to rise up everywhere

in our kingdom, the deserted monasteries, the service of God anciently

failing, now reviving, living under

the rule of holy Benedict the Abbot:

that by their prayer and by flourishing

religion and the holy service of God we may be able to have God himself

as a peaceful Ruler.

Whence pondering by heart the frequent admonitions of the venerable

Bishop Edelwold, I desire

to honor with this privilege and copious goods the monastery,

he relates how the monastery was restored, which, situated in the region of Ely,

is recognized to have been anciently dedicated to the honor of St. Peter the Prince

of the Apostles, and adorned with the Relics and miracles of the bountiful

Virgin Etheldreda, whose venerable life is set forth in modern

ways in the history of the Angles; who also

with an incorruptible body, hitherto laid in

the service of God failing, in our age

was subject to the royal exchequer: but our privy counselor

Edelwold, and lover of God, holding the diocese

of the city of Winchester the Bishopric, having given

us sixty cassates i, in the village which by

the inhabitants is called Heartingas, by his counsel and aid, exchanged the aforesaid place

with its appendages. And augmenting

the exchange, three villages, which are called by these

names, Meldreth, Earnungaford,

Northwold; and he immediately placed there many Monks,

by my counsel and aid, faithfully serving God by the regular

rule: over whom he set a certain Brithnod,

[9] In which affection I, exceedingly rejoicing,

and gladdened for the love of Christ and St.

Peter, and increases its endowment from his own, whom under God I chose as my patron,

and of holy Etheldreda the Virgin beloved of God

and of her holy lineage resting there; and

for the souls of my Fathers the ancient Kings,

I will liberally to augment

that exchange with these gifts, my counselors being witnesses;

that is, ten thousand eels, which

every year in the village which is called Wellan,

are rendered for the dispensation to the Brothers for victuals,

now and henceforth I grant: and within

the marshes the secular causes of two hundreds

and outside the marshes of five hundreds

in Wicamlawan l in the province of the East

Saxons, benignly I bestow, sanctioning them for the Brothers' necessities:

nay also all the causes or corruptions of transgressions of the just

law in secular matters of all lands

or villages duly belonging to the aforesaid

monastery, and establishes its liberty, and which in the future

age the providence of God shall bestow on the aforesaid place,

whether by purchase or donation, or by any

acquisition, let the secular causes stand, to be amended

by so clement an examination of the Brothers, ministering

what is necessary for the victuals and clothing of the place and those remaining there. Moreover, besides, every

coin of the commonwealth, in the Province of Granteceaster Grantchester,

to be rendered to the Brothers by perpetual right I decree.

And let this Privilege be free as

our gift, devoutly offered to God, and

to his aforesaid saints for the remedy of our souls,

as we have said, that

no King nor Prince or any powerful person of any rank,

hereafter by obstinate

tyranny presume to infringe anything of these;

if he does not wish to have the curse of almighty God,

and of his Saints and mine

and of my fathers, for whom we wish all these things

to be held free with eternal liberty forever. Amen.

[10] This Privilege of this donation and

liberty we caused to be written, in the year 970; in the year of the Incarnation

of our Lord Jesus Christ nine hundred

seventy, in the thirteenth Indiction, in the thirteenth year

equally of my reign, in the royal village

which by a famous name is called by the inhabitants Wlfamere;

not secretly in a corner but

openly under the open sky; most evidently the chief men of all

my kingdom knowing it. o

Whose names indeed are here below ordered to be inserted

for testimony hereafter. subscribing, after the King indeed

I Edgar the King with a benign mind granted this to be bestowed

on God and corroborated it by royal sublimity.

I Dunstan p the Archbishop corroborated it. the Archbishops

I Oscitel q the Archbishop consolidated it.

I Ethelwold the Bishop confirmed it. and the Bishops;

Alfstan r the Bishop consigned it.

I Osulf the Bishop confirmed it.

I Wlfrick the Bishop acquiesced.

I Minsyge s the Bishop corroborated it.

I Alfunold the Bishop confirmed it.

I Alfunold the Bishop consolidated it.

I Oswold t the Bishop acquiesced.

I Byrsthelm u the Bishop confirmed it.

I Æadlin the Bishop consigned it.

I Alfric the Bishop consolidated it.

I Colfsige the Bishop corroborated it.

✠ Alfrid the queen.

Alfric x the Abbot. Astyis the Abbot. Osgar the Abbot.

Alfstan the Abbot. Æthelgar the Abbot. after the Queen indeed, the Abbots, Cynneward

the Abbot. Burceytell the Abbot. Æaldred

the Abbot. Ordbright the Abbot.

Siferd the Abbot. Martin the Abbot.

✠ Æthelstan the Duke. Alfhere the Duke. the Dukes Alfeag

the Duke. Ordgar the Duke. Athelwyne the Duke.

Ostar the Duke. Malcolm the Duke. Birhtnocht

the Duke. Eadulf the Duke. ✠ Birhtfed minister. Eanulf

Alfuneard minister. Alfune minister. Nulfgeat minister. Osulp

minister. Osweard minister. Leofa minister. Birhric minister. Allfige

minister. ✠ Wlff minister. Asulff minister. Heanric minister. Hringulf

minister. Leofran minister. Ffrana Sigerd minister. Leofric

minister. Eadric minister. Wulfold minister. Alffige minister.

Hroold minister. ✠ Durstan minister. Ofgod minister. Gota

minister. Ffrithegiste minister. Durferd minister. Durgod minister.

Offerth minister. Oskytell minister. Syserthe minister. Durkytell

minister.

[11] By these witnesses, therefore, and several others,

of all the Dignities and chief men

of my Kingdom, these things too are known to have been established and accomplished: The same are rendered in English,

which also in our customary speech we ordered to be described in this

same document, so that they might sound in the ears of the common people,

lest they seem to be mixed with any scrupulosity;

but by the royal authority or power

given to us by God may every contradiction be utterly

annulled. "Gode almig nam" &c., that is

"In the name of almighty God"; whence it appears from the very original,

where at length too the English version was written,

that these are transcribed.

In the chartulary there are two other charters of the same King; Two other charters of the same King.

one over the village of Lintune, or rather,

as in the text, Ætlintune, which begins: For all

the patrimonies of the ages are left to uncertain heirs of grandchildren;

and all the glory of the world, the term of life approaching,

reduced to nothing grows faint. Therefore, instead of earthly

possessions of perishable things, let us gain the ever-abiding

profits of the eternal homeland, the Lord being our patron. Wherefore

&c. The other is over the village of Stoche,

and begins, Tearfully and strongly detesting the sins

of the titillating age. Both charters, at the beginning

and end, and so also of the mark of time, lack all date, as also the other Instruments reported in the same

chartulary.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

the excellent Pontiff, as a lamp burning and shining, in the people of God shone: who, since he was endowed with the ornaments of all virtues and the examples of good works, and had undertaken to rule the church of God; was not only beginning from the foundations, others which were destroyed or deserted, he renewed by diligently restoring, and placed the household of the highest father of the family under the rule of holy conversation in all places. Among which also the Ely monastery &c.

which when the King heard, he was kindled with divine fervor; and to the aforesaid men, to give what they had asked, he not only denied; but also said he would magnify that same place. So more fully from the book of miracles receive the rest.

book 2, of which only the beginning, interpolated with these interjections, we now give to light, the publication of the rest of the charters and possessions we reserve to another…

reserving to its proper place and time. In the same book of miracles too, the following being omitted, there is a transition to the charter of King Edgar, that the King's magnificence may be made known to readers.

p St. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, is venerated on the 19th of May, where see his Acts. He died in the year 988.

q Oskitel, Archbishop of York, is said to have sat 16 years, and to have died in 971.

r Alfstan, Bishop of London from the year 966 to 996, according to Godwin.

s He seems to be the Bishop of Lichfield, the 26th to Godwin, and named by him Winsy, after the year 966, in which his predecessor Kinsy was still living.

t St. Oswald of Worcester, and after St. Dunstan of Canterbury, is venerated on the 29th of February, where we gave his Life:

u Brithelm, Bishop of Lincoln, passed over by Godwin, became known to us from the Life of St. Dunstan: others will become known from elsewhere, and perhaps from the Anglia Sacra or Ecclesiastica, of which we now have two Volumes published by Henry Wharton in the year 1691.

x Elfric, Abbot of St. Alban's of Canterbury, in the year 993 was made Archbishop. To seek the monasteries of the rest of the Abbots more laboriously there is no leisure.

y "Iñ." Seems to me to be put for "interfui" I was present, but that the Queen and several others have a ✠ prefixed to their name, I think happened because, being illiterate, they had to write their name with another's hand.

z The Monasticon, on account of the omitted subscriptions, thus continues: These things too established we ordered to be described also in our customary speech.

CHAPTER II.

On other estates acquired for the monastery by St. Ethelwold, and the acts of Brithnod the first Abbot.

[12] After Blessed Ethelwold had renewed the aforesaid

monastery, as was said; A wood given by the King for the uses of the monastery,

the glorious King Edgar, as he had promised,

began to venerate and enlarge the place, and desiring

to fulfill his vow, forty hides

of land, in the district which is called Hetfelde, which

his wife Balde, when they died, left to him,

he offered to God and St. Etheldreda with a charter:

so that, because it was a woodland region,

there the Brothers might be able to have material for the work of the church, and enough

wood thence for fulfilling their uses.

This land, therefore, as long as the King lived, the Brothers held

without dispute: but the King being dead, and the state

of the kingdom being disturbed, and the bond of the land being broken,

there arose powerful men, namely Egelwin,

who was surnamed Alderman, b

which is understood as Prince or Count, he being dead, the Monks about to lose,

and his brothers; and they laid claim to that land,

saying, that their father Edelstan

Alderman, for his patrimony which

was in the province which is called Cevene, had exchanged that

land: but King Edgar

by violence had deprived him of both lands.

So their claim being narrated and shown,

the claimants prevailed; and the reverence of the holy

church being set aside, invading the same

land they claimed it for themselves.

But the Brothers, seeing that they could in no way

have lacked that land without great detriment,

inasmuch as they had no other

wood whence they could fulfill their uses; they redeem the injury by an exchange made.

sought out the aforesaid Egelwin; and an agreement being made

with him, the oft-mentioned land, namely Hethfeld,

they bought from him, giving for it two lands

which Wlstan of Dalham, when he died, gave to St. Etheldreda, namely

thirty hides in Hemmugeford, and

six in Winmugetune; adding also at

Gilling five hides, which Wlwin the Cook

and his wife Ælfled in many ways,

the people being witness, lost by transgression.

These things were done in the place which is called Glohthere,

before Alfer Alderman and Adelwin and

Hluric Child, which is understood "boy," and

before the whole assembly which was with them. And

that this agreement might be firm and indissoluble,

Ægelmer Child, and Alwold, two

Optimates of England, were the sureties and witnesses of this

matter.

[13] Since, as Truth testifies; if anyone

wishing to build a tower, With the same St. Ethelwold bought Lundune with appendages, first sitting reckons

the costs which are necessary, whether he has enough to complete it;

lest, after he has laid the foundation,

and could not complete it, all who see

begin to mock him, saying; This

man began to build, and could not

finish: the venerable Prelate Ethelwold,

not in gold nor in silver, but

in the Lord Jesus Christ; the work which he began,

he strove more diligently to finish, and that he might enlarge

the aforesaid monastery, took care to acquire innumerable

lands. Luke 14:28. For he bought

from Leneric of Brandon, son of Ædelfert,

twelve hides; namely the manor which is called Lundune

with appendages, namely Hill

and Nicham and Wilburton, a hundred

gold pieces being given and a most excellent steed;

and he gave back to him the land of Bessingtune, which the wife of the same

Leneric, called Ælfled, had before

sold to him. This purchase and agreement, then,

was made in the territory which is called Cambridge,

before the better men of that same province.

But afterward, time having passed and King Edgar

being dead, and he vindicates the purchase from a claim, the King being dead. the same Leneric attempted,

by crafty cunning, to annul all the agreement

which he had made with the Bishop, if he could:

but lawful men, Ædric Bufus

and Leofric of Berle and Sinerch Vecors,

who were present at this matter and had been witnesses,

rendered him convicted.

[14] Thus the right was preserved, which by the subsequent

privilege, c as an incitement to virtue

and a testimony of his deed, the aforesaid King

had set forth to all posterity, lest any

power should dare anything against his constitution:

which he willed to be written not only in Latin but also in the common

tongue, and to be corroborated by an awesome

imprecation; Many other things acquired by the same, both of which it pleased [us] to insert in the present

volume, because there was neither leisure to show the royal charter itself to all,

nor was it fitting to be hidden from men:

but what through it concerning that land could not be done, through this concerning it ought to be made known. There follows: How Blessed Ethelwold

bought seven hides in Stretham.

Of more than thirty other possessions,

both acquired by the Bishop and Abbot himself,

and given by the King, long histories are subsequently woven,

less pertaining to St. Etheldreda: which

omitted, to the Chronicle of Ely I add for a conclusion,

that, all the lands being collected which he himself

within the waters and marshes and the marsh of

Ely acquired, and gave to God and St. Etheldreda, or given by the King.

there were found sixty hides. Likewise the aforesaid

King gave St. Etheldreda forty

hides of land, in the district which is called Ætfeld.

He himself also gave St. Etheldreda the manor

of Sudbourne, on this condition, that he himself should translate

the rule of St. Benedict from Latin into English,

which the same Bishop offered to St. Etheldreda.

The same King gave his cloak of notable

purple, woven all over with gold in the manner of a cuirass,

there: of which an infula chasuble-band

was afterward made. He gave also from his chapel

caskets e and phylacteries, with the Relics of some

Saints, The Abbot Brithnod also notable

vestments. From the same Chronicle, moreover, receive

the deeds of the Abbots of Ely, by the same Thomas,

if not written, at least promised in this second book.

[15] But the aforesaid Abbot Brithnod, given by

the aforesaid King, by blessed Dunstan

the Archbishop, and Ethelwold the Bishop of Winchester, consecrated to the church of Ely,

instituted the flock of the Lord discreetly and solicitously under regular

governance. He was of exceptional prudence

and the highest abstinence, and in carrying out

affairs skillfully intent; now laying new

foundations in the place, and adding not

small estates. he makes 4 silver images of the Saints He himself made images of the blessed Virgins,

and wove them with gold and silver and gems most preciously,

and beside the altar

set two on the right and two on the left: which,

both stripped at the Dedication f of King William,

and the better ornaments of the church

taken away, only bare wood one can still behold.

Likewise in the time of that Abbot, the Cross

of Christ g uttered words in the protection of the Monks

at Winchester, saying, Far be it

that this be done, far be it that this be done, namely that persons

introduced be expelled from the churches and the expelled

be restored.

[16] Meanwhile the aforesaid Abbot then so manfully pressed on with the church:

which with the utmost intention, he restores the church;

once overthrown by the Danes, he labored to raise to

perfection, for in part fallen, as new, not without great labor

he completed: and then the roofs being repaired

which had been consumed by fire, the temple again

built, no less excellent or eminent than

before appeared, at last by the entreaty

of the Brothers, both the Abbot and the Bishop

Ethelwold obtained a day of Dedication

from the most blessed Archbishop of Canterbury

Dunstan, the time being assigned the day after h

the Purification of holy Mary, with whom many

Pontiffs and Pastors of churches, to celebrate so

festive a solemnity, gathered.

[17] First they filled the workshops of the monastery

with blessings, and after the blessing of the monastery, and by their authority the place,

and what by the liberality of any of the faithful had been conferred there,

consigning in writing,

the privileges of the most excellent King Edgar being applied,

with which they confirmed all things.

After these things they began the Dedication in blessings

of sweetness, at the head of the church placing the title

of blessed Peter the Prince of the Apostles,

and in the Southern part the memorial of the holy

Mother of God ever Virgin Mary,

and solemnly celebrating the exultant day, he celebrates the Dedication on the 3rd of February.

according to the rite of the Dedication of a temple, in hymns

and blessings they blessed the Lord: and so

after the venerable offices of the holy Masses,

eating and drinking in the Lord, for seven continuous

days they kept the feast; and then in…

great gladness each one returned to his own.

The same Abbot translated the body of holy

Wythburga from Dereham to Ely. i But the aforesaid

Brithnod, because he alone did not suffice to attend to all things,

with the concord of the Brothers, an honest

man from among them, Leo

by name, he set as his fellow-soldier on the outside, he takes on Brother Leo as Provost.

and committed to him the provostship of the household affairs.

He by his industry began to measure the bounds of the region of Elge,

and showed by how great authority the place

rests. He also made a silver Cross,

which is called the Cross of Provost Leo,

in which the form of the body of Christ, by the skill

of the craftsman hollowed out, contained the Relics

of Saints Vedast k and Amand, which Nigel

the Bishop carried away from the church.

[18] The aforesaid Abbot was martyred in this manner.

In the year 981, the Queen seen by chance, engaged in her sorceries, In the year from the Incarnation of the Lord

nine hundred eighty-one, at a certain

time it happened that Abbot Brithnod was going to the court

of King Edelred, for the affairs of the church,

on this side of Goldesdane l through the wood by which the New Forest

went: where, as is reported, for the uses of nature

he sought more remote places, and while seen taking care

(as he was a simple man and of great modesty)

he looked around on every side, and by chance came upon the Queen

under a certain tree, named Aelfritha,

engaged in her sorceries. Who, seeing him, not without

grief and great fear, groaned that she was perceived in such acts,

for she was held most skilled in the mechanical art, m

as is reported. But the man of the Lord, troubled exceedingly

by such matters, withdrew thence as quickly as possible;

and coming to the King's court, magnificently received, he the more quickly fulfilled

the affairs of his church: and the munificence

of the King performed and cheered,

he set out to return to his own way: betrayed by the same, who feared. and lest he avoid the Queen,

though abhorring [her], he came down to her hall,

which though by chance he found utterly empty of all:

yet quickly his arrival became known to that Queen.

But she asked that with haste he come to her alone;

and sent word that she had some things to be treated secretly

with him concerning the salvation of her soul.

[19] To him, having entered, she spoke many enormities of wantonness

too favorably and shamelessly; he is solicited to fornication in vain;

trying with prayers and promises, like the shameless woman to holy Joseph,

to allure him, if she could, to herself by the knots of incontinence,

thinking by malignant fraud

to mingle the Saint of God with herself in crime:

since she had feared to be uncovered by him from the malice

which she found him to be exercising. He with strength and

words resists; denies and abhors. Whence, moved into

fury, summoning maidservants from her wicked

household, and because she conceived grief she bore

iniquity, she ordered the blessed man to be put to death,

unwilling that he be a survivor whom she doubted would be

sometime the betrayer of her crimes.

She devises how she might destroy him, the body

being kept free from a wound, and secretly killed, and no injury appearing.

She admonishes them to heat a pair of points n

in the fire, and to press them under the armpits of the holy

Abbot until they drive out his spirit.

This done, they cry out within, as

if terrified by such a misfortune. Whence the ministers of the Abbot,

and those who had come with him, run up:

the Monks hear from them that he was overtaken by a sudden death and groan.

But they, grieving exceedingly at the event, as if suddenly dead, he is carried to Ely to be buried. and emitting mournful voices,

placing the body of their Lord on a vehicle,

carried it to Ely to their church: and finding no

indication of a wound in him,

they gave it to burial.

[20] So the first Abbot of the holy church of Ely was martyred,

suffocated by the machinations of a little woman, preferring rather to fall

into the hands of man, The Queen, repenting of her crimes, reveals the deed, than to forsake the law of the Lord:

whose soul, with all the Saints

always to reign, merited eternal joys

in heaven. But of the Queen no one presumed even

to mutter anything sinister, or to bring up

an evil word. This word could

have lain hidden from all longer, except that the same Queen, of her own

crimes, of her benefits, and unspeakable works, pricked by the mercy

of God, and especially

of the death of the glorious King Edward o her firstborn

recte stepson, whom she confessed to have killed, and founds a monastery. openly

before all, circumvented by her ambushes, that her own

son Ethelred might be raised to be King

unjustly; for whom she made a monastery of nuns

at Wherwell from her wealth, where

all the days of her life she remained in grief and penance,

and by what death she killed Brithnod

the Abbot of Ely, as was foreshown, groaning

and anxious she showed: in which

place both in goods and in possessions she afterward conferred many

benefits.

ANNOTATIONS G. H.

975, on the 8th of July, when we shall treat of him more fully: but the kingdom was disturbed, the Optimates being divided into parties; while the better wished the firstborn of the deceased to reign by his testament, namely Edward II likewise a Saint; but his stepmother Elfdritha for her son Ethelred, though only seven years old, was busy to advance. Of which see, if you please, Alford in the Annals, and more briefly Baronius at the aforenoted year, number 11.

By Dedication I understand the coronation, made at the end of the year 1066. Below at number 29 it is more fully explained how the Monks scraped together all the gold and silver to redeem their liberty.

as you will find printed from here at her Natal day, the 17th of March in our collection, and also the fuller history of her translation taken from the book of Miracles, miracle 41: these we omit here. But this translation, made in the year 974, could have preceded the Dedication of the new church, nor ought this to seem absurd, since in the 4th year of the work begun, doubtless so great a part of it was completed as was necessary to the Monks for celebrating the divine Office decently.

in the alphabetical maps of Speed for his Topography of England.

art one is the "thaumaturgic," producer of wonders: and hence Magicians were perhaps called Mechanics by some: thus it becomes clear what at the 29th of April at the first Life of St. Hugh of Cluny, number 16, escaped us, how, when he had denied a kiss to a certain Monk, the latter confessed: that he was a Mechanic, and stained with the deceits of necromancy: which, that it suited Alfritha too, we here first learn.

978, on the 18th of May, where we gave his brief Acts, and at numbers 10 and 13 it is treated of the penance of the Stepmother, when he, in the year 1001 recognized a Martyr, with solemn pomp was translated to Shaftesbury.

p The day the Monks neglected to note, and although, the cause of his death revealed, they began to name him Saint and Martyr, they decreed no cult to him, nor were they solicitous about raising his bones; perhaps lacking the miracles which would advise it, whence nowhere yet is he found inscribed in the Calendars of the Saints.

CHAPTER III.

On the following four Abbots.

[21] So the first Abbot Brithnod being dead,

the Bishop Ethelwold, The 2nd Abbot Elsin brings the body of St. Wendrida the Virgin. by command of King

Ethelred, set in his place another by name Elsin

and blessed him. He

was very dear and honored to the said King:

but most of all assiduous about the utility of his church.

Whence, desiring to augment his place more loftily,

the Relics of the holy Virgin Wendreda,

he brought from the village of Marche into Ely, and

placed them in a shrine of gold and stones decently fitted.

And indeed over all these things he approached the King,

and at a fixed price bought from him

nineteen cassates in Cadenhostretele and

Lynton: for whose possession the same Abbot

conferred on the same King a weight of purest gold,

according to the great weight of the Romans. b

After these things, when the same King had closed his last

day, there succeeded him in the kingdom c Edmund

his son, surnamed Ironside: who,

relying on the help of God, boldly against the army

of the Danes met them at the mountain which is called

Assendun, d where he was fulfilling the office of a strenuous soldier and good Commander,

so as to trample all the enemies

at once, were it not for the ambushes of the perfidious Duke Edric:

and almost the whole body of the Nobility

of the Angles was there slain, who in no

war ever received a greater wound than there: which, brought into the battle-line against the Danes, is lost.

where Edwod the Bishop of Lincoln,

formerly Provost of Ramsey,

and Wulsi e the Abbot, who had gathered to entreat

the Lord for the soldier waging war,

were slain. And the Brothers of Ely,

as is the custom of the church, who had come thither with the Relics,

were laid low; and the Relics

of the bountiful Virgin Wendreda, which they had brought with them,

were taken away, nor even now have they been restored

to the church. For it is reported then, that

by Cnut himself they were taken away, and laid up at Canterbury.

[22] Nor long after these things, King Edmund,

returning to London, is slain by the guile of the aforesaid

Edric, transfixed with an iron spit in his secret natural parts, f

while he sat in a privy: and he was buried

with his grandfather Edgar at Glastonbury,

his sons g and brothers thinking that no portion of the kingdom

could they preserve by arms, h

but Cnut by all the people of the Angles

is raised into the kingdom. Within two years three

Kings presided over England, i so that what

holy Dunstan said to King Edelred

in the word of the Lord might be fulfilled, k

whose Queen Ælgiva, by another name Emma, Under the same Queen Emma bestows many things on the church of Ely.

the same King Cnut took as wife:

who, as in his time she adorned the church of Ely

with honors and gifts,

so also under this one she intended to augment it.

A notable purple too, encircled all over with gold-fringe,

she made; and in parts, with gold and precious gems

in wondrous work, as with panels,

adorned it: so that scarcely another anywhere of such work

and price is found: for that work

seems to surpass its material. And to the rest

of our Saints she gave a silk cloth to each one,

though of lesser price, interwoven with gold and gems,

which are found among us to this day.

She made also vestments of the altar, a great

pall of green color, notable with golden plates;

that on the face of the altar through a solemn day it might more loftily

appear: which, seen from above,

with a blood-red splendor, along the length of the altar

to its horns, reaching even to the ground,

with a gold-fringe having the height of a foot,

affords a spectacle of great beauty and price.

The aforesaid Abbot Elsin, after much

glory and many possessions acquired for the church,

died, when he had sat thirty-eight years,

and was buried beside his predecessor in the church

in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord

… l

[23] There succeeded Leofwin To him succeeded Leofwin, who, cast out by his own,

with Egelnod the Archbishop of Canterbury,

seeking the Pallium, went to Rome: m

where in the sight of Pope Benedict, n

he purged himself of the crimes objected against him,

and so merited to be received into the favor of his own. He,

when he had sat three years, o died, and there succeeded

him Leofric, the Provost of that place. These

two Abbots Alwin p the Bishop of Elmham blessed, Leofric, both King

Cnut commanding, and the whole Convent

asking it. He in the seventh q year of his rule died.

[24] Leoffin, To whom succeeded Leoffin: who, by command

of King Cnut, by Egelnod the Archbishop

of Canterbury at Walewyt was consecrated.

He conferred notable ornaments on his church,

namely a splendid Alb with an Amice,

and a Surplice r with a Stole and Maniple, of gold

and stones interwoven, who defines the fixed [rents to be received from the villages per year:] and a red Infula

of wondrous work, which below and above

with flowers extended behind, as with a certain

panel-work, is fortified with gems and gold. He also established,

by the nod and favor of the King, s consigning the fixed rents,

which through the year would suffice the church for food:

Shelford pays the farm of two

weeks, Stapleford of one, Little Bury

of two, Cirrippelawe of two, Hanteston

of one, and Newton of one, Meldreth

of two, Quantesdene of two, Costes of one,

and Cotenhan of one, and Winelyngham of one,

Gittone of two, and Hornygeseye of two,

Steterheworch of two, Balsham of two,

Cathenho of four days, Swaffham of three

days, Spaldewyt of two weeks,

Somersham of two, Bluntisham of one, Colne

of one, Hertherst of one, Drinlestond of one,

Ratelesdone of two, Barking of two, Nedinag

of one, Wederniagcsete of one, Brecham

of two, Quæulham of two, Thorp

and Deresam of two, Northwold of two,

Speteswelle of two, but Merham for conveying

the farm of the church from Northffolte, and for

receiving those entering from the monastery: and

these things, if some should contribute less in their times

than these statutes, the island deputed for this should supply the rest.

[25] In the time of King Cnut, Alwin Bishop

of Elmham, and he receives to himself the Bishop of Elmham, his See given up. but formerly a Monk of Ely,

by the command of that same King at Betrychesword

first introduced a band of Monks,

in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand twenty;

and according to the Chronicle of Marian, t some

from Holm, some from Ely he placed there;

and conferred on them aids abundantly,

Count Turchill v hindering the aid,

and set over them an Abbot by name Wino.

The Presbyters too who there lived disorderly,

either in the same place he raised to the summit

of religion, or, other things being given them, into other

places he changed them; and after many benefits conferred on sacred

places, at last his own Bishopric being left, x

returning to the contemplative quiet in the monastery of Ely,

there to the end of his life

he remained. The aforesaid Abbot Leoffin, when

he had done many advantages for his church, died

in the second year of King Edward, y and from the Incarnation

of the Lord one thousand forty-four,

z fifteen years he presided over the church: he was buried

in the church beside his predecessors.

ANNOTATIONS. D. P.

d Assendun in Essex: but of the battle there fought, and how Edric, falsely crying out that Edmund was dead, turned the now-victorious Angles to flight, read in Huntingdon, or from him in Alford.

h Thus the gaping sense seems somehow to be supplied: nor even so is it clear enough: since the boys, by their age, could decide nothing about the kingdom by themselves, and remained in the power of Cnut, who preferred to send them away than to kill them, at least in England under the eyes of their mother, whom he had taken as wife.

Since thou hast aspired to the kingdom through the death of thy brother, whom thy ignominious mother killed, the sword shall not depart from thy house, raging against thee all the days of thy life, killing of thy seed, until thy kingdom be transferred into a foreign kingdom, whose rite and language thy nation knows not: where it is supposed that Ethelred would have other sons, to die in the Danish war, of whom no notice is had among the historians.

m Therefore in the year 1020, in which Alford has Adelnoth subscribing at number 8, and says he set out for Rome, and brought the arm of St. Augustine into England.

12 years but wrongly, since below his successor is said to be ordained by Bishop Alwin; and so before this one left the Bishopric in the year 1028: it seems therefore that Leofwin died in the year 1024. Wharton notes that the same was called by another name Oskitel, and that this is established from the Register of Ely; but his death is noted in the Obituary on the 26th of November.

[p] Aldwin of Elmham, who, since he first began to sit in the year 1021, could not have consecrated Leofwin, unless on his return from Rome: but Elmham or North Elmham is a little town of Norfolk, whence the seventh from Aldwin, William Galsagus, transferred the See to Thetford, and his successor Herbert to Norwich, where it remains to this day.

q In the aforesaid brief Chronicle 11 years are noted; but it must be that he died in the year 1030, who in that year already had a successor.

r Superale, Superarium, and Superaneum, seem to Cangius to signify what we now call a Surplice, the uppermost Clerical garment of linen cloth. They call it the Bishop's Cotta, and have it, not with loose, but with closed sleeves.

s "Firma" is everywhere taken for an estate or village let, and the annual price of the letting itself. Here, according to the History of the Abbots of St. Alban, they call a Firma 40 shillings: and so the men of St. Alban say in Cangius: We have from our manors 53 firmae, as many as there are weeks in the year.

t Marian Scotus, born (as he himself says) in the year 1028, who died in 1086, wrote indeed a Chronicle, but as it is had published, it touches English affairs rarely: but at the year 1020 it has nothing similar. The Author, therefore, had it interpolated in England and alleges it as not genuine.

v Turkill the Dane came with a fleet into England in the year 1009, by the testimony of Simeon of Durham; and in the year 1013 defended London with King Egelred against Cnut: who in the year 1021 expelled him with his wife Edith from England.

x Alford teaches that this was done in the year 1028.

y This is St. Edward the Confessor, of whom above, crowned in the year 1043, on the very day of Easter, the 3rd of April.

z Therefore ordained (as I said above) in the year 1030 or the following: and so the numbers noted in the Brief Chronicle are convicted of error, which would defer this Abbot's death.

CHAPTER IV.

On three other Abbots of Ely.

[26] Wilfric the 6th Abbot So that Leoffin being dead, the same King

took his kinsman Wilfric as Abbot,

to the aforesaid monastery, anew from the monastery

at Winchester, and there caused him to be blessed by Stigand b

the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the second year of his reign,

but from the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand

forty-four. In the time of this Abbot, the village

of Æstre is granted to a certain man to hold for the time of his life.

The same Abbot bought the manor of

Bercham for twenty-five marks of gold. he bestows various estates against right on his brother,

He had a certain Brother by name Gudmund

whom he loved too carnally, to whom

without title and the testimony of subscription he handed over the subscribed

manors (and this not openly,

lest it become known to the Monks), namely a part

of Marham with the care of the village of Livermere,

Nachentum from Chalt, Bedensdene, Terboldesham.

He, when he had closed his last day,

the aforesaid brother Gudmund by no means relinquished the aforesaid

lands; but an agreement being made

with Abbot Turstan who had succeeded him, that

as long as he lived he should hold them. But quickly, the Normans

obtaining c the kingdom, a certain soldier of theirs,

Hugh of Mustord, invaded those same lands,

and to this day has detained them from the church.

[27] After the death of Abbot Wilfric, who

sat twenty-two years; Thurstan substituted for him, Stigand the Archbishop of

Canterbury took to himself the Abbacy of Ely and

very many Bishoprics and Abbacies,

and conferred them on what persons he wished.

By his suggestion King Harold d caused the aforesaid

Turstan to be blessed by the same Stigand in the year of the Lord one thousand sixty-

six. Stigand the Archbishop favoring, munificent toward the church of Ely, The aforesaid Stigand made one

chasuble of inestimable workmanship and price, which

he conferred on the church of Ely, than which no chasuble in the kingdom

was esteemed richer and more precious:

which afterward by King William was

taken away, and laid up in the treasuries of Winchester.

He also made a great cross silvered all over above,

with an image of our Lord Jesus Christ

to the magnitude of his form;

and an image of similar work of the holy Mother of God

and of St. John the Evangelist

made of bronze, which Nigel

the Bishop and many other things afterward took away

from the church.

[28] The aforesaid Abbot Turstan at Wychford…

was born, and in the church of Ely from

childhood, both in English and in Latin sufficiently

instructed; in whose time King Harold,

son of Duke Godwin, by the army of William

Duke of Normandy, cousin of King Edward,

is killed; and with him the Great men of England

on the feast of St. Calixtus e the Pope, in the year

of the Lord one thousand sixty-six. he receives this fugitive with much nobility, Then

the same William, Duke of the Normans, being

victor, on the day of the Lord's Nativity, namely

on the second day Monday, at Westminster

was consecrated King of England, by Aldred

the Archbishop of York, because Stigand

the Archbishop of Canterbury, by Pope Alexander

as a schismatic, f was suspended.

Whence the same Stigand, fleeing from the face of King

William, came to Ely: at

whose command Egfrid, whom he had formerly set up as Abbot

of St. Alban's, with the treasure

of that church and the relics of that same Saint, g

came into the island of Ely. Likewise,

through fear of the aforesaid King, nobles of England

fled to Ely, among whom was Hereward, h

they rebelled against the King. Whence the King,

moved with grave indignation, therefore the church's estates are confiscated by the Normans: ordered all the goods of the church

to be plundered, and by the counsel of William i

Bishop of Hereford and his other counselors,

whatever goods of the aforesaid church

which were outside, he divided among his Soldiers.

[29] So the Monks of Ely, knowing

the evils which were being done with their goods, until in the year 1074 the Monks redeemed their liberty at a great price. grievously grieved,

and counsel being taken approached the King

at Warwick, namely in the seventh year from the time when

they stirred up sedition against him; and,

that they might obtain his favor with the liberty of their place

and the restoration of their goods,

they gave the King a thousand marks; for which

all that was in the church of gold and silver,

namely Crosses, altars, shrines, gospel-books,

chalices, patens, basins, buckets, little baskets,

cups, gold and silver dishes,

moreover the image of holy Mary with her child

sitting on a throne wonderfully made,

which Abbot Elsin had made of gold and

silver; likewise the images of the holy Virgins

with much ornament of gold and silver, the Monks

despoiled, to pay the aforesaid

sum of money.

[30] These things happening in the time of the aforesaid Abbot Turstan,

Thurstan being dead the same Abbot completed his days,

and was placed with his fathers, in the year

of the Lord one thousand seventy-one, k and

in the fifth year of the rank he had taken; while the aforesaid

William reigned. Who, the death of the aforesaid Abbot known,

sent to Ely: and whatever

best in ornaments and various things he had learned to have been there,

he ordered to be carried to his treasury.

Likewise a great weight of gold and silver, again the treasury is plundered by the King.

which had been found at Wynteworth, whence

the Brothers thought to repair the demolished vessels of the altar and

the damages of the place; the notable chasuble too,

which Archbishop Stigand had conferred on them,

as was said, he took from St. Etheldreda

and placed in his treasuries at Winchester, whereof

the church to this day has lacked it.

[31] Then the same King William set Theodwin,

of Normandy, as Abbot of Ely, Theodwin the 8th Abbot restores many things,

who would not undertake the Abbacy,

unless first the King recalled to it whatever

he had taken thence. So the ecclesiastical spoils being restored,

he undertook the Abbacy of Ely: who

caused a cope of snowy whiteness very notable to be prepared,

and one panel before the altar of gold

and silver of admirable work: in whose middle

images of silver wholly gilded,

and here and there zones adorned with precious stones.

This, above the riches of the region of England, was esteemed outstanding,

which Nigel afterward as Bishop broke up, and took every

precious thing from the church. The aforesaid Abbot, after two

years and a half, but, not yet consecrated, he dies dies without the consecration of an Abbot,

in the year of the Lord one thousand

seventy-four: and leaving Godfrid a Monk,

who had clung to him as an inseparable companion,

as a kind of Vicar, in his place;

who for nearly seven years remained a faithful Procurator

of that same church, doing no less, than

if he had been Abbot, serving its utility. He himself

obtained from the King that he should have all the possessions

of the Abbacy renewed.

[32] So in the year one thousand eighty there was made

had been neglected for fourteen years by the defense of King

William. At which discussion were present

four Abbots, and very many Sheriffs and approved Soldiers,

Frenchmen and Angles too from four

Counties, namely Essex, Hertford,

Huntingdon, and Bedford. Now the venerable quittance

of this liberty is, by whose efforts the liberty is restored to the monastery, that the holy

Queen possess her own most entirely from the beginning,

as is proved by the privileges of Kings Edgar, Eadelred, Edward:

because these things of the Saints,

and especially of Ethelwold, restored, redeemed by abundant

bargaining, and against the malignantly resisting

written and proclaimed an imprecation of damnation. This most valid discussion

and most cautious institution, lest by any

calumny it could be disturbed, the provident and benevolent

industry of the King girded itself, corroborating it with precepts,

confirming it with edicts, augmenting it with benefits,

and fortifying it with his charters. m The aforesaid Procurator

Godfrid caused those things which he had found in the treasuries of his church

to be described. He himself by King

William was translated to the rule of the Church of Malmesbury,

without consecration, in the year

of the Lord one thousand eighty-one. o

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

the same who reformed the Ely one, St. Ethelwold, had transferred to Monks: the new one, before, Edward the Elder the King had founded, between the years 901 and 922 in which he reigned.

Edward the King, Bishop of Winchester, ordained by his command in the year 1043 (as Godwin holds), only in the year 1052 was translated to the Archbishopric; so that here one must recognize a prolepsis.

d Harold, Edgar the nephew of the deceased King by his brother being excluded, and William Duke of Normandy, to whom the kingdom had been promised, obtains it, supported by some right himself too, if he had as mother the sister of King Cnut, and if he descended from the daughter of King Ethelred in a continuous series of birth.

is venerated on the day 22nd, to whose Acts Henschenius added Analecta, in the 2nd chapter of which he refuted the fictions on which the pretension of the men of Ely rests, who claim his body or a notable part of it for themselves.

h This Hereward's strenuousness in the year 1070, together with the time of the besieged monastery of Ely, Brompton indicates, when he says that, shut up there, together with Markat (to others Margar) Count of Northumbria and Egelwin Bishop of Durham, when these surrendered to the King, he himself manfully led out his own: or, as Simeon of Durham writes, through the marshes with a few he escaped.

beginning of Henry the Conqueror recte William the Conqueror, down to the year 1186 recte 1086: whom, being by race imitator. Yet more than is had here the Author promises in the first Prologue of the whole work, number 2, as if about to treat fully of the siege of the Normans, which he ought to have done here.

k Nay rather, after the year 1070. For in this year, when King William led the Prelates and Magnates of the Angles captive: from which captivity Thurstan, having returned, subscribed to a synod at Windsor on the feast of Pentecost, as Wharton notes, who also observes that Thomas erred in the same way in noting the death of the successor, who is known to have subscribed in the year 1175 to the Council of London.

In the year from the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand eighty, in the eleventh Indiction, the Epact 26, on the fourth day before the Nones of April, was made the discussion of the liberty of the Abbacy of Ely, &c., in the same words as here.

There, after the first diploma of William, is read, What and how much the King's Exactors found in the church, although so greatly impoverished, and what accrued to them from the time Godfrid took the Abbacy into custody.

CHAPTER V.

The Acts of the last two Abbots.

[33] Simeon, Prior of Winchester, brother

of Walkelm a the Pontiff of that same church,

is delegated as Abbot of the church of Ely: Simeon the 9th Abbot who, against

the custom and dignity of the place and the King's

precept, the sons of the Church not knowing it, received the blessing

from Remigius the Bishop of Lincoln.

King Edward recte Edgar established, and

Pope Victor confirmed, that the Abbots of Ely,

without the obedience of subjection, by whatever

Bishop they preferred, should be ordained. he founds a new church: Which liberty

the preceding Abbots even to his

times used. Yet in his own Ordination he obtained this

condition, that he should not claim this right against the Bishops b

for the following Abbot. So having obtained the place of his office,

he enlarged his past efforts with new works: namely raising the church

of Ely on a new foundation,

and with all effort rebuilt the rest of the workshops.

d …

[34] In his time all Scotland rebelled against King

William: for which reason he himself

ordered a guard of forty soldiers to be had

in the island: he is compelled to maintain the King's soldiers: whence the Abbot hired retainers

too; and girded with arms many of the freeborn

who clung to him: and he had, by custom,

according to the King's command, the aforetaxed

number of soldiery, within the hall of the church,

taking food from the hand of the Cellarer

and stipends: which intolerably vexed

the place. Nor long after the King hastened into France;

where he burned the town of Mantes, f and

all the churches in it and two Recluses:

but on the very return g he died,

and was buried at Caen. [William the First being succeeded, the second of the same name doubles the burden.] He presided over the nation

of the Angles twenty years and six months:

whom his son William Rufus succeeded:

who violently exacted from the churches the due service

which his father had imposed: but from the Abbacy

of Ely, without diminution,

four times twenty Soldiers; namely forty

of those whom his father had ordered to be kept in the Island for guard,

this one now from debt

compels to be prepared by him for an expedition. For

which the Abbot, groaning, and invoking God

as judge for those things which they had done to him,

when he had completed seven years in the Abbacy,

was made incapable of himself; and could intend nothing because

of his languor for seven continuous years: but the servants

of the Abbot himself, and the rest in whom he trusted, the head being weakened,

withdrew to their own place; and he was left

alone languishing and wasting away. Hence the Abbot tries to restore the relaxed discipline, But one

of them, whom the Abbot raised from the depths,

seeing his Lord to be a burden to all

and despised, usurped a certain part of the land for his food

from the right of the church. Many

others too plundered many things, whose descendants

even to this day testify that they hold [it]

from the gift of Abbot Symeon.

[35] At last the Abbot devises with himself

to blunt the pride of his own people: he called to

himself the Judges of the kingdom, that they in his place might protect the goods of the church

against the enemies. And soon

entering they inquire into the treasuries, afflict many with insults, by the aid of secular judges: and appoint for the Monks a provision, though

scanty; namely that each year there be

given for the work of the Brothers, for their clothing,

seventy pounds, for their kitchen

sixty pounds, and for fat two hundred pigs,

which are fed in the court, and all the cheese

and butter; with this exception, what is in

the farm of the provosts; and each week

seven measures h of grain, and ten measures

with the burial of the village; to whose discretion the economy was committed, and all whatever

pertains to St. Bothulf with the festivity;

and if there be so much of wine, they will always

have in the twelve-Lesson feasts k a charity-portion

and on the Sabbath; but if not, they will have half

Abbot, dispose all things of the monastery, within

and without, at their pleasure. So constrained by straits, Abbot Symeon, with great burden to the Monks. passing the hundredth

year of his age, and in the thirteenth year of

his rule, from the Incarnation

of the Lord one thousand ninety-three, m on the day

of St. Edmund migrated to the Lord; and the monastery

he left after his death his office,

widowed of his and the other Abbots'

presence for seven years, and saddened [it even

to] the year of the Lord 1100.

[36] Then the Abbacy of Ely is given to Richard

brother of the aforesaid King William Rufus, Richard the 10th Abbot is ordained in the year 1100,

succeeding him in the kingdom; for he in the year of the Lord

one thousand one hundred, on the Nones of August, on the

Lord's Day, at Westminster, by Maurice

Bishop of London, was consecrated King,

and by Thomas of York was crowned: and

on the same day of his consecration he gave the Abbacy of St.

Edmund to Robert, son of Hugh Count

of Chester; and the Abbacy of Ely to Richard

son of Gilbert the Count; each of whose

parents, descending from royal stock,

dedicated illustrious offspring under the Monastic garb in the monastery of Bec.

after some contention with the Bishop of Lincoln, So when, in the course

of time, the aforesaid Richard, by the aforesaid King,

had been promoted to the rule of the church of Ely,

him first assails Robert

Bishop of Lincoln; saying that it was of his right,

that he should bless him as Abbot; to which right

he alleged that his predecessor Symeon obeyed his predecessor

Remigius. But Richard,

protesting that there had been violence against Symeon and an undue

blessing of him, by the right of his church and by very great authority defended himself

from his blessing; fearing lest he incur a curse for a blessing, if

against his right he should suffer himself to be blessed. o

[37] he is accused before the King by rivals; After the Episcopal conflict, Royal

wrath assailed him, by the instigation of rivals,

accusing him as to three things; namely

that he came too pompously to the King's Court;

that he would not in all things obey the King's precepts;

that a certain jester of his, reviling him, he basely

cast out of his house. For these things the King

expelled him from his Abbacy, and ordered his Staff to be rendered to himself,

who, appealing to Rome, the Staff at the church

of Ely, by the leave of the brethren, about to withdraw,

set down: and so, oppressed by the King, the Abbot

goes to Rome, and in the presence of Pope Paschal

set forth the cause of his necessity.

By whom received into favor, and held in

great veneration, obtaining what he had asked, by the Apostolic

authority to the church of Ely he was p restored:

where he built his church, begun by

his predecessor. and ordered to give up his office he flees to Rome, Into which

church he translated the body of St. Etheldreda into view,

from the old church and the place

in which holy Sexburga had placed it; where,

built by St. Ethelwold, and thence, the cause won, returning he completes the work of the new church, but afterward destroyed,

renewing the church, he left it undefiled,

unmoved and not in view, and not

lying hidden under the earth, but eminent above,

as he found it, he left q… He translated

likewise also the body of St. Witburga, whom from that

day he began with singular devotion to venerate, and would have made a silver

case if he had lived long.

[38] he treats of changing the Abbacy into a Bishopric, For other occupations in various ways

retarded [him] from this work; and especially

that he strove to quash the calumnies of the Bishops of Lincoln,

about changing the monastery of Ely into a Bishopric.

He indeed was the first to treat this matter secretly with the King:

whose favor having obtained, he directed messengers to the Apostolic [See] in the same year on this

matter. The same Abbot, from Bishop Ranulph

of Durham, the village of Hadeham, which

he had violently taken away through the Clerics of the Church of London,

according to the determination before the King removed,

as the King's Charter s shows. He himself in the seventh year of his rule, t falling into his bed,

and seeing holy Withburga nearby standing before him,

but he dies in the midst of the business. died; and on the morrow in

the monastery was buried: but the messengers who went to Rome,

hearing of their Lord's death, abandoned the business.

[39] Now it is clear what beginning the church of Ely

had, There were therefore Ely [people under Abbots for 139 years] from the first foundation even

to the times of the Bishops. For from the time

in which it first began to have Monks, that

is from the tenth time of the reign of King Edgar

even to the ninth year of the reign of King Henry the First,

that is for a hundred thirty-nine years,

it had these Abbots succeeding one another in turn:

Brithnod, Elsin, Leoswin,

Leoffric, Leaffin, Wlfric,

Turstan, Theodwin, Simeon, and Richard;

who, not bearing the oppression of his house,

refuted the calumnies of rivals by just

pleading, and, supported by the authority of Kings and Apostolic Pontiffs,

manfully removed his own from the enemies;

showing openly that his church, from the time

that the monastery was there built, first

by holy Augustine the Apostle of the Angles, namely through

the blessed King Ethelbert; then

under the most blessed Etheldreda and the holy women succeeding her,

and now also in the time of the Abbots, stood

free, endowed with no yoke of subjection; always free from the subjection of the Bishop of Lincoln.

but whomever they wished or chose,

an Archbishop or Bishop, they called for the consecration of their things:

but that the Bishop of Lincoln had no right thence

or ought to exact any, became known,

by the many testimonies of privileges which are adduced.

But because Ely is seen to be on the border of his parish,

thinking it, but falsely, [due] to himself,

he strives by assiduous actions to subject it: whence

also after many things contumeliously inflicted, the leader

of the Lord's Flock, Abbot Richard, prudently

deliberated with himself, to advance the place itself

into greater dignity, and utterly to blunt the cunning

of the malignant men, and obtained secretly from the King

that he change it into a Bishopric; yet not he himself, but he who had

succeeded him, accomplished the business.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

being deprived, who, even after he had occupied the Metropolis of Canterbury, continued to hold the Cathedra of Winchester, and ordained Bishop in the year 1070, according to Godwin, sat until 1097.

b Below at number 36 he is excused as not of his own accord, but by violence induced to receive his ordination from him: and this is in which the Author complains that liberty was violated.

c The expenses necessary for so great an undertaking, after the treasure spent for the liberty to be redeemed, the providence of the secular economists could supply, of whom below.

d There followed certain miracles of St. Etheldreda, done in this Abbot's time, which in the order of miracles in the following book are 11, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, in almost the same words preserved in summary, wherefore it seemed good to omit them here.

e The same he had done before under Abbot Turstan, the rebels being subdued who had kept themselves in the island for seven years; but these first forty so modestly lived in the sacred place, using the same dining-room and equally running together to the Offices in the church; that, the liberty granted to the island, as they departed thence, the Monks, following them with tears as their brothers, caused their emblems and names, with the name of one Monk, to be painted in their refectory, there where they had been wont to sit, as we found written and painted at the end of the Chartulary.

Mantes on the Seine between Paris and Rouen, nearer to those than to the latter: the cause of the wrath against the French was the aid rendered by them to Robert rebelling against his father: but two recluses, others also call holy Anchorites: wherefore I correct what was here written, "Recluses" feminine.

read elsewhere.

k That is, on the feasts of twelve Lessons (for so many the Monastic Office numbers, while the Roman Order consists of only nine) a double measure of wine will be given.

o There are extant in the Chartulary several Royal charters, by which Henry orders the cause to be examined, Richard to be consecrated by St. Lanfranc, and the liberty of St. Etheldreda to be preserved.

p Wharton notes that he was easily received into favor by the King when he, by rumor running ahead, had learned how Richard, whom he believed would support him, the Archbishop acting for the King, had refuted all his calumnies (so the King's men spoke) as Ralph de Diceto writes: but he had been deposed by Anselm, as Wharton notes, in the year 1102 in the Council of London, held about the feast of St. Michael.

q Here in summary was narrated the Translation of Saints Etheldreda and Witburga, of which presently I subjoin a whole chapter.

r The cause of the new institution was alleged, because the Bishopric of Lincoln was of such magnitude, that for accomplishing those things which are of the Episcopal office one Bishop could in no way suffice.

s It pleases [me] to transcribe this as a specimen of the others: Henry King of the Angles, to Maurice Bishop of London, and to Hugh of Bothel Sheriff of Hereford-shire, and to all his faithful, both clerics and laymen, greeting. Know that Richard Abbot of Ely has won his suit against Ranulph, Bishop of Durham, concerning the manor of Haddam, in my court of Rumesy, before me and my Barons, to the Lordship of St. Peter, and of the Blessed Virgin of God Edeldreda of Ely, and of the Monk Brothers there serving God. I will therefore and command, that the Abbacy of Ely itself hold and have in lordship that aforesaid manor of Haddam, quietly and without calumny, henceforth…

and forever: the subscribed witnesses being Ralph the Bishop of Lincoln, and William Giffard Bishop of Winchester, and John Bishop of Bath, and Ralph Bishop of Chichester.

t Of Christ 1107.

v Hence it is clearly established that the Author, if he himself was not Thomas, yet still lived in the time of the Abbots, and is different from him who continued the History of the Bishops, from which we shall give the Analecta of miracles. Now receive the History of the aforesaid translation, from book 1 of the History of Ely, less aptly subjoined in the Manuscript.

CHAPTER VI.

The translation of the holy women Etheldreda, Sexburga, Ermenilda.

[40] Under William the First, the church flourishing again, While the glorious and illustrious King of the Angles

William the first, of the race and

nation of the Normans, reigned, and held singularly the monarchy of the whole

kingdom, the Tetrarchs being long ago destroyed;

after many perils of wars, peace of the Church being restored

in the borders of the Angles, as after

began from day to day to advance, and

the devotion of the faithful in the worship of religion always

to grow from good to better. Meanwhile the monastery

of Ely, once the habitation of Nuns,

but, the barbarians invading, almost wholly overthrown; the monastery of Ely, which King Edgar & Bishop Ædelwold restore, which, God willing and mercifully

providing, is now distinguished with glory and honor,

dignity, liberty, and very many goods,

through Blessed Ædelwold, the venerable Bishop of Winchester,

and through the counsel and aid of the notable King Edgar,

the royal munificence going before,

and the Pontifical prudence being busy, had long ago been made

it received a certain Winchester Monk, Symeon

by name, for the merit of his life

the Prior of the Church, a religious man indeed

and intent on divine studies, as Father of the Monastery. it received Simeon as Abbot, Who, loving the beauty of the house of God,

and striving to augment rather than diminish the monastic and interior affairs,

and to expend all things in ecclesiastical uses;

touched by the spirit of counsel and fortitude, to the honor of God

devoutly disposed to build a temple to the Lord and to Blessed Ætheldreda, as

another Solomon, in the time of peace: since indeed

the old oratory, who began to build a larger church: both for the frequency and number of the Brothers there serving God,

and of the peoples coming, seemed small,

as too little capacious and inconvenient.

So the religiously solicitous man, and

prudently provident, the necessary expenses being prepared,

what he had piously conceived in thought,

more effectively (as appeared in the effect)

began as it were to bring to birth in operation.

[41] So the aforesaid venerable man, the first founder

of that same church, having entered the way of all

flesh (who, as though living in the same

body, even dead, left to posterity his image as an example of himself), there succeeded

to him departing in the burden of Pastoral care, that

he might spiritually raise up the seed of his brother, the venerable

Father Richard; noble by race, whom his successor Richard but

nobler by the nobility of his manners, from the very time of his childhood

bound to regular discipline in the religious monastery

of Bec. He, of his predecessor,

the first founder of the church, both holding the place and the office, and

imagining in himself the example of good operation,

as though he aspired to a mirror set before his face to contemplate;

began to sweat over the construction of the begun work,

applied his zeal, and that the most laborious work

might more quickly be consummated, gave all the effort he could and

as much as was permitted. striving to complete it, But through the envy of the ancient

enemy, who over-sows tares

and disturbs concord, a controversy having arisen between him

and Henry the King of the Angles,

the work was for a while intermitted, not

abandoned. For because he was unwilling to render undue things in unjust exactions and burdens to Caesar,

except what are Caesar's; that what are God's, he might render

to God; it behooved the same venerable man,

oppressed by the King, to go to Rome,

and in the presence of the venerable Pope Paschal,

who at that time presided over the Roman

Church, to make known the cause of his necessity.

By whom received into favor,

and held in great veneration,

obtaining what he had asked: fortified with the privileges of Apostolic authority,

against the envy and malice of the assailants,

and received into the favor and benevolence of the King, to the monastery of Ely,

with great gladness both of those receiving and of the one received,

he was restored. He, having experienced Blessed Etheldreda most merciful

in his necessities, of his work, made it the most beautiful in the whole kingdom, begun by his

predecessor, was by no means forgetful; but that he might more studiously press on

to complete that work,

and give himself only to this work, he applied all his zeal

spiritually: and with such fitting form

and size, as much as he could while he lived,

he built the church begun by his predecessor:

and how the Abbot was aided by God's help in his vows, so that, if fame envy not,

and (as being lying) by the just title of truth not detract from the truth, in that same kingdom,

among all churches, whether anciently built, or

renewed in our time, by a certain composed order,

and by the privilege and grace of subtle artifice, by beholders deservedly

it may seem to be preferred.

[42] Here let it be permitted me to interpose and explain

how also under such a Bishop no small increase accrued: Its various increases, for Hugh of Northwold,

ordained in the year 1229, built a new work

of the church toward the East from the foundations,

which is called the Presbytery: which work

indeed he completed in 17 years: about which work

he spent five thousand pounds and 350 pounds,

18 shillings, 8 pence, besides robes.

He also established anew a wooden tower

toward the Galilee, that is the porch, (commonly Galerie Gallery)

of which see Cangius. Godwin reduces the aforenoted expenses

to the value of French gold pieces 16950. together with a new tower Then in the year 1321 there fell the tower

above the choir, of which fall it is treated below in

the Analecta to the miracles, number 172: for which, when a new

and ampler one was built from the foundations,

and led up to the upper story over six years—

[I have pleased to reproduce both here, together with an indication

of the monastery adjacent to that same side; on whose

Northern part Simon de Langham, in the year 1361

consecrated Bishop, dedicated a new parish church

of the holy Trinity; that hence you may

understand the monastery stood between the greater Cathedral,

and the lesser Parish church. These things interjected,

I return to the old history, which thus proceeds.]—

led up; there was begun, upon the aforesaid stone work,

that artificial wooden structure of the new

bell-tower, imagined with the highest and wonderful genius of mind,

on which over twenty years are said to have been spent 2046 pounds, 6 shillings, 11 pence.

But whether it burned by fire, or by some other chance

fell away, I do not ascertain; now certainly with the stone tower alone

it stands, supported by eight columns of greatest mass,

at which the church spreads itself into a cross. Likewise above

another greater tower which rises after the propylaeum forecourt of the church

before the gate, it seems to have been erected on high of far greater mass

but of wood, in whose place, after the fire of the year [13]4, and another ampler one. of which among the Miracles

number 32, was placed that spire which is now seen.

There was then, when the former tower fell, the Bishop

Simon de Montacute, and in that very year he had laid

the first stone of the new chapel of St. Mary in

the Northern part of that church: which work, with how much

labor, expense, and elegance, over 28 years

and 13 weeks, a certain simple

Monk continued, is fully described in the History; and

is represented in the Schematic drawing of the Northern side, An iconography of the whole work.

which the Monasticon Anglicanum exhibits to us, together

with the Southern side, lest the piety toward the church

of Ely (says the Author published in 1655) and

the magnificent structure of the same, now soon

to be buried in its own ruins, should not become known to posterity.

[43] So Abbot Richard, desiring with the utmost desire,

and deliberating in his time to translate the most sacred

body of the most sacred Virgin, from the old church into the new,

from a small into a greater and more beautiful one;

remembering that Joseph too had translated his father's body,

for greater reverence, from Egypt into the land of Canaan;

lest so illustrious a lamp and lantern

should lie hidden under a bushel, but, as though placed upon a candlestick,

under the presence of witnesses and the frequency of peoples,

should become known to all and shine; he appointed a day,

namely the sixteenth b day before the Kalends of October, on which her first translation

also, he chooses the 16th of September as together with the new one, might be celebrated.

So the man of great and liberal spirit,

to corroborate this solemnity with solemn and most pontifical

authority, first

the venerable and most religious man, Anselm

the Metropolitan of Canterbury, with the reverence

which was due and became him, invited; St. Anselm and many Prelates being invited to it,

that, for the debt of his office, joining

to himself from his suffragans those whom he judged more religious,

as many as he wished, he himself would deign to exhibit his presence,

very many men of Pontifical dignity and Order

being also invited, and Abbots, and religious Monks

and other ecclesiastics, to the highest Pontiffs,

if not in dignity, in merits not undeservedly

to be equaled, not to say preferred. There were invited

by him both the Nobles of the kingdom and the Optimates, and the Nobles.

that they might come to so joyful a festivity,

and with those rejoicing might themselves also rejoice.

But some being occupied with either private or

public business or necessities, some destined by the divine providence,

and apt and very

necessary for accomplishing such and so great a matter, most devoutly flocked together;

among whom the praiseworthy man Herbert Bishop of Norwich,

Adelwin of Ramsey,

Richard Abbot of St. Alban's, Gunther of Thorney,

Wydo Abbot of Pershore, Nicholas

Archdeacon of Lincoln, Geoffrey Treasurer of Winchester,

and innumerable other men of great honesty

and authority. These, approaching the tomb So a procession being orderly arranged,

to the tomb of the holy and reverend Virgin they reverently approach,

most white of Parian marble, as

became virginal whiteness. In this, once

prepared for her by Angelic services, and

by divine grace offered to those seeking, her most blessed

sister Queen Sexburga, in which for 16 years from death her body had been laid incorrupt, after sixteen

years of burial, having found her most solid

clod body, in whole body and garments

milky and undefiled, with clamorous wonder

and praise-resounding blessing to heaven,

laid [her] up: whence now this accrued to her for greater

glory, that no one presumed to open her tomb, no one to inspect [it].

For once, the Pagans bursting into this

place, one made a hole, who soon was deprived of his eyes

and his life; afterward a rash Presbyter

as it were Provost of the monastery, and which no one had touched with impunity; into that

hole thrusting a split twig by twisting it into a fold,

drew out part of the garment, and with greater

madness cut it off, which suddenly the hand of her lying within

with vigilant indignation drew back to herself.

The tempter still added to send in a candle fixed to the twig,

but the candle, falling

upon the sacred body, wholly burned up, and

injured nothing; but the presumer with his house

perished. These things too, since in the miracles

of that same Virgin they are more fully set out, let us return to the narration.

[44] At last with immense devotion they take up the sacrosanct

body of the Virgin, they translate her from the former place carrying it out of the old

church from the place to which she had been translated…

and where the most blessed Sexburga had placed [her];

where also the Venerable Father Ædelwold, afterward,

restoring and renewing the destroyed church,

left it most certainly untouched, unmoved,

and unbeheld, not lying hidden under the earth

but eminent above, as he found it;

whence now also into the church

with praises and songs they bear it. So the Spouse of the Lord

Ætheldreda was translated into the new temple, untouched and unbeheld; and

with the worthy praise of one singing psalms, to another [tomb prepared for her behind the altar,] behind the authentic

altar, a chamber being prepared, placed. At last, as was fitting,

and in so great a solemnity, and the venerable

Bishop Herbert, a most eloquent man,

about the life and death and miracles of the blessed Virgin,

and the admirable incorruption of her sacred body,

exhorting the people to a sign of the highest joy

and gladness for the things which were done in the tabernacles of the just;

there was no one in so great a multitude who, suffused with heavenly grace,

would or could restrain himself from tears.

But this only, of the many things which

happened in the translation, to the eternal memory of the most sacred

Virgin Queen Ætheldreda we shall report,

which innumerable of the faithful still surviving,

and our Fathers who saw and were present, narrated to us, whose

report and authority of life and honesty

of manners has instructed us, that of the fact no one may distrust. not without miracles,

For then are renewed the ancient miracles,

which are read to have happened by the intervention

of the blessed body of Stephen the Martyr. For there were made

thunders of a tempest, and such lightnings,

that almost all the windows of the church were broken by the horrid strokes,

and frequent fires fell upon the pavement

before the holy bodies: and it was wonderful

that fire fell without the effect of its nature;

and changed its quality, among wood and straw

and the other dry materials,

so that whatever of this kind fell into the church

remained harmless. This indeed

so happened; that, according to the opinion of some,

by a heavenly terror she showed that it displeased her to be so

publicly handled; and yet in this her indignation,

that no one might be injured, at her nod the signs of heaven

served.

[45] Rare therefore was anyone there, whose thought

did not bid him stretch forth something great by these things,

whose horror on one side he feared to see,

on the other rejoiced to escape. Anselm too,

the Archbishop, far placed in Kent,

seeing heaven shaken with so great a crash; I know,

he said, that our Brother Richard, because it displeased the Virgin for her face to be beheld. Abbot

of Ely, today has translated his Saints,

and irreverently handled them; nor do I doubt

that this intemperance is a token of a sorrowful omen.

Nor did his judgment deceive him; for rare

of those who were then present and had beheld holy Etheldreda

face to face, passed a whole year. Wherefore, dearest

Brothers, by you, who not momentarily

but continually recall the memory of so great a Virgin, in

the sight of the presence of the sacred body, justly and

holily; both we must pray and more attentively

entreat, that he deign to suffuse us and you

with the dew of his supernal grace, who, for the thirsting people,

made water flow from the rock in abundance, Moses striking [it],

to whom be praise, honor, and glory through all the ages of ages.

[46] So Ætheldreda the Virgin being decently placed,

as a chief one, opposite the greater altar;

the leader of so great a flock, Richard, with

the elders communicated to the Church, that on the same

day now a second time, c on which first the translation of the blessed Virgin

Ætheldreda had been made, Sexburga's translation preceding; on the 17th of October are translated the bones

resting there. And opening the sepulchres of the mother and daughter,

which St. Æthelwold had sealed with lead

on either part, namely of Sexburga the holy

Queen, and of the praiseworthy and celebrated

Ermenilda, by the prerogatives of so many proclamations,

they find their clods bodies, after the manner of the human

condition, of Saints Sexburga & Ermenilda. to have decayed, and to their mother

earth to have paid their tributes. So finding

in a clean shroud the body of Blessed Sexburga,

separately the bones, and separately the dust, both alike in single shrines made of wood,

in a stone monument, as the blessed

Æthelwold had left it, toward the East at the feet of St.

Ætheldreda they solemnly laid them; but the Relics

of the most holy Ermenilda, on the bare pavement of the sepulchre,

without covering, the Abbot found

so laid by Blessed Æthelwold:

which also collecting in a most clean cloth, and

the dust by itself wrapping, he placed in her former

mausoleum; and to the South, at the right of St.

Ætheldreda, with no dissimilar diligence he placed [it];

and again sealed each mausoleum with lead… d But the Saints were translated

in the year of the incarnate Word one thousand one hundred

six, on the day on which once Blessed Ætheldreda

was translated, namely with most decent

ordering; that of all there might be one solemnity,

of whom there was one faith, one Christ, and

one charity. f

Here the pious Virgin Ætheldreda asks her wedded Duke

That he would now permit her to be called the Spouse of Christ.

Here the King promises the Pontiff gifts for his consort,

If he can join her to himself in sacred marriage.

The Prelate brings the King's commands to the blessed Etheldreda;

She says: Let him yield me to serve Christ.

This the Queen with the Prelate asks of her lordly Duke:

Who, though unwilling, consents, and sorrowful even at these things.

When the Virgin perceived the King's desired edict,

She seeks this temple, accompanied by virginal troops.

Here the Queen is consecrated to the supernal God as Spouse,

Despising the vain pomps of the kingdom with her husband. expressed in paintings in the old church.

The blessed Virgin comes to the peoples accompanying [her] at Elge,

After these things to be consecrated Abbess to the blessed flock.

The bountiful one, powerful in sacred merits and perennial honor,

The comely Ætheldreda had built this citadel of the temple.

The undefiled flesh of the bountiful Virgin is now beheld,

Though buried for four times four years.

The Physician wonders at the wound healed in the throat.

The venerable body is borne to the temple of the Virgin,

These walls of the sacred temple retain the mausoleum

Of the untouched Virgin, over whom she presided seven years,

And this people, beholding the miracles, glorifies God.

May praise and honor remain to the Lord Christ through the ages.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

a The Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy was reduced to a Tetrarchy and at last converted into a Monarchy in the time of Alfred, King of both Saxons and Angles, both Eastern and Western, the Kings of the Mercians being extinguished in the year 875, and in the following year those of the Northumbrians.

to have been subscribed to paintings representing her Life in parts, before the renovation of the Church; as making no mention of the second translation: nay, because they are not rhythmic, I would dare to opine that they were made before the Danish incursions, and perhaps not long after the first translation.

THE MIRACLES OF ST. ETHELDREDA

Authored by the same Thomas, Monk of Ely.

From the same Douai copy.

Etheldreda the Queen, Virgin, Abbess of Ely in England (St.)

BHL Number: 2638

BY THOMAS, FROM A MANUSCRIPT.

PROLOGUE.

[1] Since the royal and prophetic mouth, the organ

of the Holy Spirit sounding, says; Praise

the Lord in his Saints, for wonderful

and glorious he works wonders in them; great

need we have of constancy and necessity of mind,

that we may most ardently love their manners and life, Because it befits us to imitate the Saints,

by loving most devoutly venerate, by venerating

most studiously imitate; for then

in them we shall be able worthily to praise the omnipotence of the divine Majesty,

now aided by the mercy of brotherly sweetness, we shall

merit to respond to their just acts by the betterment

of our conversation. Psalm 150; Ecclesiasticus 15:9. For since, as Scripture says,

praise is not comely in the mouth of a sinner; how

can we proclaim worthy praises to God,

we who, the narrow path of rectitude forsaken, through

the snared and wide spaces of the tortuous ways,

leading to the deep pit of precipitation, by the true correction of manners,

still daily run about? we who to the dire wounds

of sins apply no fruitful medicine

of penance; but, the gore already flowing,

delightfully in them almost rot away? Accordingly from the spacious and death-bearing

paths of this field, to the narrow track,

by which the end is reached to its proper goal,

let us irreversibly pass over; and the wounds of our crimes,

salutary medicines diligently applied,

let us strive perfectly to cure, and, holding in our hands burning

lamps, as we said above,

through all the footsteps of the Saints let us labor to follow;

that both we may be able to become fit to render the due praises

to almighty God; and to their society in the heavens,

whom we imitate on earth, after the course of mortal

life, we may merit to attain.

Whose virtues and signs, and therefore it helps to read their miracles; which for the most part

are wont to lift up the minds of hearers from the lowest to the highest,

most diligently, if they are not in our keeping,

we ought to inquire into; and, found, lest they slip

from memory, most sagaciously to insert in books,

and them, by the zeal of frequent reading, vigilantly to lay up

in the cabinet of our breast; nor yet

to confine them within domestic walls, but to the praise

and glory of the deity and to the edification

of posterity to publish far and wide:

that, while anyone shall have learned that, by so many rays of signs,

the merits of the preceding Just ones shone,

from their imitation the prosperities of the world,

which are full of bitterness, with all the solicitude of the heart

they may reject and trample, and

to the sweetness of eternal life with thirsting

breasts unfailingly pant.

[2] Wherefore, although we are slow in genius,

unlearned in eloquence, the Author proposes to collect the deeds as if compelled by the command

of brotherly charity, nay, by the help of the holy Breath,

who blows and abundantly the waters flow from the

dry, having great confidence, the illustrious

and stupendous distinctions of miracles, which

through the venerable and glorious and perpetual

Virgin Etheldreda, most noble and most powerful

Queen of the Angles, after her most holy

passage from the valley of Jericho to

Mount Sion, at the tomb of St. Etheldreda: at her saving

tomb, the divine power cooperating, were wrought,

are read in the old documents;

pages; lest with age at length

they too perish in oblivion. But we believe

that there were many more than are found, which

either by the negligence of the torpid writers of that age,

were by no means committed to letters;

or, described, perished among the rest, the rage of the Pagans depopulating

the churches and monasteries. But because not only from the excellence

of a more abundant and more approvable life

are the merits of any Saints to be weighed (for the virtue

of merits precedes, which and how holily she lived, the heavenly operation

of signs follows, the faith of those asking aiding:

which if they be not, yet there will not therefore be no merits,

which merits without doubt can be

without miracles; but miracles by no means without

merits) how justly and holily, how piously

and humbly this notable Queen and most devout…

Handmaid of Christ lived, how, wonderful,

nay, of virginal modesty not only

of the flesh, which is of many; but also of the mind, which

is of few, with integrity, not without the strong persecution of a hidden

martyrdom, under the wings of the Lord protected,

she perpetually flourished, is clear from the writings of Bede, from the words of the venerable

Bede the Presbyter, a man on all sides

most learned, anyone, even ignorant, will be able evidently to recognize:

who briefly the sum of her life,

which no darkness of vices could interpolate,

and the splendor of the divine light irradiated,

in prose speech most clearly described;

and subjoined a hymn of virginity composed in elegiac

meter, by which her, sprung from chaste

seed and royal lineage, with great

and sweet-sounding praises, for the unfading flower

of continence both spiritual and corporal,

he loftily extols.

[3] For what, in the sanctity of life, is more pleasing and

more delightful to the grace of the Creator of all mortals, witnesses of her exceptional virginity, what to the Angelic and all the choirs of the heavenly

Court more familiar and delightful, what among

all the degrees of virtues more excellent or perfect

than the twin purity of virginity? If

yet it be supported by the aids of the other virtues, for

nobility is kin to dignity,

and glory to holy virginity; itself, fortified by spiritual

protection, the flame-vomiting and

death-bearing fiery arms of raging lust powerfully

shatters and grinds; and itself, prevented by the love of the immortal

King, with the muddy

and truculent princes of general uncleanness

warlikely fighting, in sweat carries back the victorious

signs to its Author. Virginity, as

the trumpet of one of the Apostolic [men] most clearly sounds,

is the queen of all virtues, the possession

of all good things, the trophy of faith,

the victory over enemies, and the security of eternal

life. Blessed therefore will he be who, reaching its citadel,

the other virtues supplying [aid],

can be cast down by no machinations. This,

the renowned aforesaid offspring of King Anna, from the very

rudiments of infancy, kindled with the fire of divine fervor,

and betrothed with the ring of the heavenly Spouse,

embracing it with all her desires; even amid

the very fellowships of nuptial unions (which

is wonderful to say) with inflexible firmness of mind, kept with a double spouse.

to the end and humbly adorned with the rest of the

virtues, preserved [it]: nay, the King, God,

the Son of God the Father, desiring her beauty,

introduced her into his ineffable marriage-chamber;

where with a hundred forty-four thousand virgins,

in most sweet harmonies of consonant melody, she ever

modulates a new song.

[4] Nor let it seem incredible to anyone that through

so many courses of revolving years, bound by the lawful

bonds of matrimony, she remained an undefiled virgin:

because indeed the virtue of the omnipotence,

which protected three boys of the Jewish race unharmed from the flame-vomiting

and horrible fires of the furnace,

kept this one too untouched from the heats of carnal

ardor. Her flesh, afterward incorruptible, testifies that she is truly

body, which thus

to this day remain new and whole, as at that

hour in which they were wrapped about the Virgin's members.

Whence it is plainly given to be understood, that with

the incomprehensible grace of the Redeemer of the world,

who deigned to be born of a virginal womb,

no virtue is more pleasing and more excellent than virginity;

which, by the gift of heavenly clemency,

after death keeps the flesh free from every

stain of corruption. So, beholding diligently and admiring

the illustrious height of the manners and life of such and so great

and by venerating, if by the flower of virginal chastity

we are not able, at least by the continual mortification of vices

let us imitate [her]; that in

her, who prepared herself a pleasant dwelling for the Holy Spirit,

we may be able to proclaim with worthy praises the greatness

of eternal piety, and

to ascend to the blessedness of the heavenly kingdom;

for which, the summit of earthly rule

with corruptible riches as refuse

despising, she sought a monastery; and there, casting off

white or purple or many-colored

silken garments, woven with shining gems,

with a dark and cheap garment, consecrated

to God she covered herself: whence now, joined

to the fellowships of the Saints, she enjoys a robe of inestimable

brightness, crowned with the unfading laurel of beauty. O how happy, how

joyful are those exchanges, by which, for things perishing,

things ever abiding, for earthly things, heavenly things are heaped up!

[5] But now, because too great an utterance of words

is wont to bring weariness to hearers, The conclusion of the Prologue. let us close

our preamble, such as it is; committing this little work of our

mediocrity to teachers and upright

intellects, and suppliantly entreating, that, attentively examining it,

whatever they find superfluous or gaping,

they cut away and supply, approve

and defend; lest from our sweat the tooth

of ever-barking envy have matter whence,

gnashing and cackling, it may be able to mock our simple

understanding. But certain things being premised, we have placed that

at the very front of the narration of the first miracle,

how, the Pagans invading and desolating the monastery,

which in the famous island of Ely, in the year of the Lord's

Incarnation six hundred three, this clear

lamp of the Angles, and most bright gem of the Virgins of paradise,

had built, a certain one

of them, for the unspeakable rashness of his contumacy,

struck by heavenly wrath, perished. a So,

an end being given to such a preface of ours lacking the charm of words,

let us begin with the beginning of those things which follow.

a The punishment of the Barbarian violating the sepulchre, prolixly narrated in book 1, number 85, here seems to be promised, and perhaps was written, but omitted by the transcriber.

* Is it the trumpet of St. Gregory?

CHAPTER I.

A Monk cured of a fever: injuries inflicted on the church several times avenged.

[6] Manifold is the necessity of sinning, a

which no one placed in this frail life

will be able fully to avoid. For from

the time the transgression of our first parent introduced the stain of corruption

into our pristine incorruption; To human proclivity to sin,

the very necessity of sinning is somehow turned for us

into a nature, the grace of not being able to sin reserved to him alone

who received the fullness of the spirit beyond measure,

and of whose fullness we all

rejoice to have received, to whom, and to him alone, befits that

Prophetic saying; Who did no sin,

and guile was not found in his mouth. 1 Peter 2:22. It is necessary,

therefore, that man, either from his frail

condition, or from the manifold snare of the ancient serpent,

sometimes by sinning succumb,

and it is necessary [and] inevitable. For we feel

(as the Apostle says) in our members a law,

resisting the law of our mind, and the Angel

of Satan does not cease to buffet us. Romans 7:21. But

that amid so many perils of suspected death,

the whirlwind of despair may not involve us, to the defect of our

weakness no small consolation

the divine mercy conferred. For if from

the pit of perpetrated crime, rising again through penance, we stand,

we ought in no way to despair of mercy in our

misery; the remedy of penance comes to the rescue:

but rather to raise the edge of our mind confidently

in hope of the desired salvation. Which two,

namely the fear and reverence of God, how acceptable

to the divine piety, and how effective of our

salvation they were, was shown from heaven

to a certain man.

[7] For it happened that a certain monk of the monastery of Ely,

Azo by name, was grievously ill: to whom, a sick Monk wishing that time for doing it be given him,

who, the matter of the disease growing strong, is led to the cell

of the infirm, and become incapable of himself,

began to lie down. At length the heat of the infirmity

so by degrees boiled in him, that the strength

of his pristine vigor the force of the pain utterly destroying,

left him no hope of recovering health.

He held it therefore in doubt, lest perhaps

his day of death should be at hand, by which from

this dwelling he should be transferred to his homeland: for he knew

the necessity of death, which was lacking to no

mortal, to be imposed as much on himself as on all.

Of which hour, however uncertain, now as if

certain of the effect, he referred it to the opinions of his

mind by frequent meditation. But because he distrusted his own

merits, he suppliantly implored for himself the suffrage of the blessed

Virgin Ætheldreda, he invokes the Saint; that for his life a space of milder

penance, which by his own impotence

he had not merited to obtain of himself, by the intercession of so great

he might obtain. So placed in great anxiety both of mind

and of body, while on this side by the goads of thoughts,

and on that of pains, he was miserably driven;

the slumber of a little rest crept upon him.

And behold a certain matron, praiseworthy with sober

beauty, standing by him, thus addressed the languishing one.

Dost thou, she said, son, know me?

To whom he, partly trembling at the novelty of the unwonted vision,

By no means, he said, Lady. and is ordered by her appearing,

To whom she: I, she said, am Ætheldreda,

whom a little before, in the trial of so great a tribulation, thou didst invoke

for thy protection; who, according

to what thou hadst asked, went to God for thee as a mediatrix:

through whom to thy body, the heat of the fevers being gradually

extinguished, thy pristine health in a short time

will be restored. Certain admonitions, therefore, to my dearest

sons I will transmit by thy service,

in which I grieve with maternal piety that their accustomed devotion

toward me and the Lord has gradually grown torpid.

Whence, therefore, also with this persuasion in my stead address them,

that at least to the service of God henceforth with fear and reverence,

devoted, they may apply themselves; and so over those things

which they shall know to be expedient for them, let them not, I say, beseech me as those about to ask,

but, with a certain authority of one commanding, with firm hope

of obtaining, confidently command. to admonish others to place their confidence in her, and he recovers. These things heard, then, from the sleep

by which he was held, he immediately awakes: to whom, recovering more

and more day by day, his pristine health,

according to the oracle of the divine voice, is restored

entirely. So putting away all the obstinacy

of a stubborn mind, and to the vital admonitions of so great

and of her, the sacrifice of our devotion

let us season with fear and reverence, without torpor.

For truly, without the cooperating grace of God,

in no good of the soul can the human mind profit:

and therefore it is worth the trouble to invoke the suffrage of the divine

piety and of our aforesaid patroness;

that what by our own virtue we do not attain, by the aiding

merit of so great a Virgin and the divine grace bestowing it, we may merit

to obtain. b …

[8] When long the nation of barbarians, coming from Denmark,

devastated England everywhere with arms and

burnings; at last, the divine clemency providing,

it failed in strength, and to its native soil

was at some time compelled to return, King Edgar being dead, who had expelled the Danes, and to leave the occupied places, especially in the days of the venerable

King Edgar; to such a degree that, if any

residue were found, either it was cut down by swords,

or oppressed by various torments.

By the precept and authority of this King

the holy Pontiff Æthelwold brought back and reformed

the monastery of Ely into its ancient religion,

and enriched the place with possessions obtained

both by purchase and by acquisition. and had had Ely restored,

He also procured the village of Dunham,

which is a most fertile village and very near the monastery.

First he agreed for two hides

with Leofric and his wife Siffleda for fifteen

pounds at Cambridge; and through Leoffwin

before several witnesses. Meanwhile

King Edgar put off the man i.e. died; he being dead, the aforesaid

Leofric, an enemy of God and deceiver

of men, and his wife, made void all the pact made

with the Bishop, and

sometimes offered to the Bishop and Abbot

Brithnod part of the money, he who had sold Dunham, which they affirmed to have received

from him, but sometimes denied that they owed him anything at all,

and so they thought to recover by guile the land…

which they had sold: but the church in all things

with its witnesses always convicted them.

[9] So when, in that season in which the King,

as we said, had died, they long put us off and

wearied [us]; and by unjustly reclaiming it hindered it from being cultivated, no one within a very long

space of time either plowed that land, nor

sowed in it, nor in any way cultivated it: and so all

cultivation went to ruin. So God, seeing

with how great injuries and how great tribulations that

seducer afflicted his servants; had mercy on their

labor, by whose mercy the holy Church

of Ely recovered what it unjustly lost:

for as in the psalm it is written:

The just cried out, and the Lord heard them,

and delivered them from all their tribulations.

While these things were done, and that wretched man trusted to retain

more freely and more securely the holy Church's property taken away, and the right of holy Ætheldreda, and

ceased not to afflict the servants of God; by divine vengeance

blazing up, basely and miserably he perished

in revenge of the Virgin of Christ: he basely perishes. and is fulfilled

in him that which is read in Solomon;

The just shall rejoice, but the impious shall fall into

evil. Psalm 33:18; Proverbs 24:16 These things from the book of lands, which book

they call the book of St. Ædelwold, c we have received,

that those who shall read or hear this, may dread

to alienate or diminish the goods of the holy Virgin

Ætheldreda, for judgment had

whoever did such things.

[10] Another miracle follows, which, though of similar circumstance, The same dared by another at Brandon, yet of dissimilar outcome

is proved to have happened. But our Brothers were present

and most certainly knew the matter, and

composed it in English in the said book of holy Ædelwold,

but now, changed into Latin, we desire to bring it

to the knowledge of all; and for the caution of many,

if it be attentively heard, we believe it should be narrated.

But at a certain time, when

the coroners d of England had gathered at London;

not moderately enriched,

offered to Bishop Æthelwold for sale five hides at

Brandon and Hivermere.

Which when the Bishop and Abbot had heard,

they gave him for the land twenty pounds; fifteen

then before the testimony of many venerable [men],

but a hundred shillings they sent him afterward through the aforesaid

Leofwin Provost of the Church,

and Wine of Wincheford a most approved man:

who gave him the same money at Brandon,

before the testimony of the whole Hundred in which

that land lies. But in that season, in which King Edgar

departed from this life, a certain Ingulf by name, by force

and unjustly took Brandon from God and holy Ætheldreda.

O wretched and unhappy man, not long,

as thou thinkest, wilt thou be able to retain what thou plunderest;

and thence the more quickly art thou to pay most grievous penalties:

for it is written, There is no wisdom, there

is no prudence, there is no counsel against

God. Proverbs 21:30 he is similarly punished: For that the virtue of God

and the merit of the blessed Virgin might be made manifest, from that day on which

he thus invaded the church's property, he tasted

nothing of food or drink: for his heart was breaking

without delay: and so it came about that he who,

living, had unjustly seized what was God's, dying

could not retain it; but lost

himself and it together with his life.

[11] But his wife and his sons, he being dead,

invaded the same land likewise; but

just as they gave no honor to God

nor to blessed Ætheldreda, likewise his wife and children, nor spared their own souls;

so divine vengeance blazed up against them,

and within one year all miserably perished.

Then Siward, Brother of Ingulf,

groaning exceedingly at their destruction and

guarding against [it] for himself, began to dread the judgment of the Lord,

and although against the will of very many,

and especially against the will of Egelwin,

surnamed Alderman, that very land he offered to holy

Ætheldreda and freely relinquished;

and concerning these things is well fulfilled what in Proverbs

is read: The house of the impious shall be destroyed, the tabernacles

of the just shall flourish: but the Lord destroyed

the house of this impious man, so that his seed

shall not remain forever in his sight,

because he had hated the holy Church and the most blessed

Ætheldreda without cause. Proverbs 14:11 But

God the inspector and judge of all, who reckons the injuries

of his own and his benefits, and many others injurious to the Saint.

showed that the evil received losses thence,

whence they thought advantages would come to them,

as in this one it became openly known. But not only

this one, but (to say more truly, and as is widely

clear to all) whoever of the region, whether prince

or powerful, diminished or alienated that same place

in dignity or in goods, from the time

the Virgin Ætheldreda was taken from the prison of the flesh,

were most direly tormented in body,

and are proved always to have ended their life with a

wretched end. These things are stupendous and

exceedingly to be feared: for let no one doubt

or mock what we narrate, so as to intend to perpetrate the like;

but rather, punished by the pressures

of others, taught, let him learn not to offend the Virgin of God

by injuries, but to please [her] by services.

ANNOTATIONS G. H.

there followed two Chapters, on the restoration of the monastery and the privilege of King Edgar, which I have transferred hence to book 2 of the history of Ely, for the sake of more convenient order.

c Of this book the Prologue to book 2 of the History treats, where also consequently we read the ample history of this controversy; and how the widow of Leoflu Leoflin when dead, was compelled to compensate the injuries inflicted, the Bishop mercifully remitting part.

CHAPTER II.

A possessed man freed; the mute given speech; the vexers of the Monks punished.

[12] To these things, Brothers, Christ the Lord

works so often the distinctions of his works through his Saints,

that the faith of hearers may

profit from hearing, and ardent affection may loose devout

mouths into divine praises. Under Abbot Simeon Whence

upon us, whose life and tongue Christ has delegated to his

ministry, it is incumbent in the present either by our zeal to transfer

his deeds into the knowledge of many,

or vehemently to accuse our sloth before him.

That, therefore, we may commend our memory before God, let us report

what among us, who dwell in the church of Ely,

he deigned to work. For while there presided

over us the Abbot of holy memory

Symeon, our company and place in manners and

in walls profited not a little: discipline notably restored

for, by reason of the following change of persons and the royal

burdens, the place was grievously disturbed; and if

anything of regular strictness, by reason of secular violence

and the Ruler's absence, had grown tepid; that holy man,

having obtained the office of Pastor, by devout

solicitude reformed: and found among us

it hastened to hear, its quiet restored to it. And when

toward its pastor the affection of the most humble flock breathed again,

and the sacred Order flourished again in its cultivators;

to so great alacrity the hand of the Lord was not lacking,

but met the most glad workers with applauses of wondrous

deeds. For when the place within and without profited by a double

building, and now the intention of the father and sons

sweated under the office of Martha and Mary;

wonders began to be done before the citizens of heaven,

Church, a part he had found at Ely.

[13] So the ancient enemy, seeing the concord of the Brothers

conspired against him, the demon envying; and the bulwarks of virtues

daily growing up against him,

began to assail the walls of their manners with manifold

cunning: and not easily finding by what he might enter,

at last exercised this malice against the soldiery of Christ,

so as to persuade a certain youth, Edwin

by name, at first standing with silent thought

at Compline, the youth led away from the choir before the Abbot

and the rest, to go out of the choir,

before the Office of that Hour was completed.

Whom, going out while all were amazed, he immediately

cruelly seized, turning his whole mind into fury, to such

him, with a seized board, he assails: unless the provident strenuousness

of the man had opposed greater strength to him.

Now there was one there of the Winchester Monks, a

Godric by name, a man of great sanctity, and

for his veneration brought to the Monks of Ely

by the Abbot as an example of Religion.

To him God frequently opened spiritual

eyes, and by many revelations had made him

illustrious, nor was it necessary, for any of his

words, to seek another witness

than his life; all knowing him to have

as it were an enemy, a lying tongue.

[14] He therefore, as he afterward related, saw a certain

mouse, like a boy, strongly holding the cowl of the youth

with its hand, whom, by the Abbot's command and violently dragging him after

itself: which the outcome of the matter proved to be a damned

spirit. And without delay, the synaxis finished,

the Abbot and Convent going out to the first entrance of the cloister, see

the demoniac youth raging against all,

threatening savage things, insulting with reproaches,

and amid the arms of those restraining him, trying to injure some

with blows of his feet and bites of his teeth. led to the Saint's tomb, But the Abbot, calling aside by his nod some of the elder

and saner Brothers, briefly broke the nocturnal

silence with a colloquy:

We know not, he said, who can better aid him,

than that Lady whose servant he is: to whom

presented, he will, as we believe, quickly recover

health. Go therefore, and under strict

custody leading him, before the tomb of our

Lady diligently watching, demand her suffrage.

So the Brothers with the Brother,

as fleeing to a mother, almost the whole night

in expectation of the divine mercy

kept vigil.

[15] But the youth, nay the demon in the youth, not bearing the presence

of the sacred body, with greater

horror for a while behaved himself, now crying out,

now tearing his tunic with his teeth, he is freed by an evacuation, and not

from his malignant acts. And so vexed, he

passed the night, until, by the merits of that holy Virgin,

he slept a little, recovered his senses,

and after a little cast out his vexer through a foul

evacuation: for after sleep the youth,

come to himself, announced to his keepers,

that he now was sound in mind and was for the rest wholly recovered,

except that a loosening of the bowels tormented his intestines,

and he needed a secret

exit. Led therefore to the necessary place,

he immediately suffered so great an effusion,

as if all his entrails were pouring out: and after the fury of mind

was cast out, with a horrible stench: so great a stench of the belly is cast out,

that through all the nearest workshops scarcely

was the air tolerable, the corrupted breath spreading through all

corners, its smoke scarcely escaping

anywhere: nor was that uncleanness less

than the madness had been before; but each

assault became equal in violence, the one in the excess of mind horrible,

the other in the flux of the belly wonderful: as if that most wicked

spirit either were wholly turned into dung, or

carried the very latrines with itself, being cast out.

[16] But the servant of the Lord, freed by the hand of the Lady, to others as an example. such things about himself being narrated to him…

was astonished, as if not knowing what he had done; teaching

by his example, how great is the reverence of the sacred convent:

whose presence the crafty tempter feared, for assailing the Brother;

finding outside it the sheep, so the wolf assailed [it].

These things, that Brother bidding [us], we would [not] have written,

unless it were feared that the occasion of tempting him be given to the malignant insidiator,

and he should think it referred to his reproach,

what is to be referred to the heavenly praise. Hence, therefore, the series of this narration measures its end,

that among sound memories the power of holy Etheldreda

may be honored, and the common prayer most devoutly

frequented; and no Monk in the lawful

hours stray outside the Convent; whose soldiery is so terrible

to him, as a battle-line of camps set in order, for the adversary readily

meets one everywhere; and if

he find any little sheep wandering beyond the due limits,

he violently assails it, exceedingly

rejoicing.

[17] To this miracle succeeded another, which,

heard, ought graciously to infuse divine gifts into benign minds, Two mutes, the Saint being invoked, this celebrated in a different manner,

but with equal glory. Two from birth

the human speech condemned to be mute: of whom

one is called Ulf, the other Ælred; their conceived

understanding they could not demonstrate by the office of the tongue,

having an obstructed harmony of voice,

and possessing their rationality not in the efficacy of voice,

but in nature alone.

Which also Dialectic defines of such persons: there was in them

only the aptitude of reason, by which it

says any man to be born apt for speaking,

even if the faculty of speaking has never been present to him.

And so, that to the aptitude the faculty might accrue,

each of these, at a different time

indeed, but with equal mind, came to the body of St.

Etheldreda, with affections more

than with voices, supplicating for the gift of voice.

[18] Nor was the Spouse of the Lord lacking to the holy devotion;

but to the praise of Christ and her own,

to Ulf she restored full eloquence; but to Ælred

she willed human instruction to profit;

and as boys are instructed by syllables to full speech, they are aided in different ways.

so that man, gradually taught human

words, then expressed full reasonings.

In both, therefore, it was shown what

our Saint could do, and what she willed, while

in the one she signified how much she loved her servants,

whose works she would choose as cooperating to complete the miracle.

For she could with the utmost ease have restored the same in the same way to each,

unless she had delegated this chief

way of consulting to one of them: in which she also followed the Lord

Savior himself, who,

able to cure the eyes of the blind by speech alone, by a mystical

dispensation preferred to reform them to the light with clay and spittle.

Many other things too are of this kind,

which attribute to this our Lady, in the quality of this deed,

not power, but a similar dispensation.

[19] She acts to salutarily terrify others, Narrating the praises of the Lord, and his virtues,

and the wonders which he did in holy Etheldreda,

we have become a wonder to ourselves,

who dare to invade so great matter, most worthy of rhetorical declamation

or an angelic voice, with insipid elocution: but us

in this matter consoles the simplicity of the Apostles,

who, the Orators and Philosophers despised,

were instituted to preach the faith of Christ and the salvation of the world;

to whose teaching all discipline is subjected, lest in the wisdom of word

the Cross of Christ be made void. Whence rather here let the faithful

hearer attend to things than to words; and the sublime deed,

which will be simply narrated, with his whole mind both venerate

and revere. And though there be many documents

which could repress those rashly invading the lands of the Saints

and the minds of any powerful persons: yet

especially in the unexpected and unheard-of death of Picot the Sheriff,

it is plainly learned how salutarily to each his own be rendered;

and, content with his own, let no one transgress

the ancient bounds which his fathers set.

[20] To this Picot, then, by race a Norman,

in mind a Getulian, c the County of Cambridge by chance had fallen. He obtained at last, a famished lion, which Picot the Sheriff of Cambridge

desired; and as though the whole County

were one corpse, he claims the whole for himself, occupies the whole;

and as though, an insatiable beast, about to transmit the whole into his

belly, he admits no consort in his portion; not God,

not an Angel, not any of the Saints,

nor finally that most holy and most renowned

Etheldreda, who had hitherto possessed very many lands

or villages, by the donation and concession of former

Princes, in that very County. He is approached several times by some,

saying that it was not expedient for him to mutilate the portion of the Virgin,

to diminish her liberty, to put his sickle

into another's harvest; that he ought to be content with his own,

mindful of the dog and the common proverb, lest while he wills the whole, he lose

the whole. To whom he answered: Who is that

Etheldreda, of whom you say that I have occupied her lands?

I know not Etheldreda, and

the lands I will not give up.

[21] pertinaciously detaining the Saint's lands, Dost thou hear this, Lord, and art silent? How

long, O God, shall the enemy reproach? Not

to us, Lord, not to us; but the enemy

has reproached thee, Lord, and the foolish man

has provoked thy name. Look upon thy testament,

and forget not the voices of thy enemies,

who said to possess the sanctuary of God by inheritance:

for he said in his heart,

God has forgotten: he has turned away his face, that

he may not see to the end. Dost thou hear this, Lord, and

art silent? Rise up therefore, Lord, and crush

the arm of the sinner and the malign one: His sin

is sought and is not found. Hear, O islands,

and attend, O peoples from afar, what

for the Lady of the Island of Ely her Spouse,

the Lord of the whole earth, did. His sin is sought, he suddenly disappeared,

and is not found.

By whom sought? By him from whom nothing

lies hidden. By whom is he not to be found? By no

man at all, since today it is unknown whither he came,

why he fled, or how it happened:

whether with Dathan and Abiron he descended alive into hell,

or with Nebuchadnezzar, made a beast, into destruction wholly

departed, or in any other way, to be damned,

perished without end. But one thing for certain we know,

that in our borders he no more appeared,

but for perpetuity wholly disappeared: to him be

glory, who gave victory over the enemy.

[22] But that man, most wicked among the people,

thinking to destroy the inheritance of the Lord, a minister of the same Picot, Gervase, as

dust which the wind casts from the face

of the earth, as we have prefaced, was taken from the midst.

He alone imitated him who with all his

unspeakable college fell from heaven into Tartarus:

for he had followers of the mind of his heart.

Among whom one filled with malice, ignorant of good,

Gervase by name, an artificer of wrath, an inventor of crime,

confounded right and wrong: to whom his Lord,

the aforesaid Picot, as to one more faithful than the rest,

for his depravity had committed the business of the whole Sheriffdom.

He was very hostile to the men of St. Etheldreda; and

as though he had undertaken a special war against her,

he assailed all her possession with whatever burden

he could. Whoever therefore, by any cause

burdened by him, had set before him the name of the Saint,

that he might press [him] more sparingly;

him he bound, him he condemned, him he frequently

called to a suit, him he cruelly handled.

[23] But the Abbot, bearing ill the daily complaints

of his men, by the Saint invoked against him, ordered the Convent to sing seven

psalms before the tomb of the holy Virgin,

to obtain mercy from her. And without delay: the Abbot himself

is called to a suit, and a day and place for holding

the disputation are appointed. So while the Brothers were

solicitous in prayer, the Abbot undertakes

his journey. And now set on the way,

he hears that the rebel pleader has ended his life by a wretched

death. The series of which matter was thus,

that on that night, on whose following day

the Abbot was to come thither, St. Etheldreda,

with her two sisters, in the manner of an Abbess,

with a Pastoral staff, stood by him, most like one angry,

and with a terrible voice in this manner rebuked him:

Art thou that one who, my men, of whom

I am patroness, me being despised, hast so often vexed,

nor yet from the disquieting of my Church

dost desist? Have therefore this for a reward,

that others through thee may learn not to vex the household of Christ.

and struck by her sisters in a vision, And she took the staff which she bore,

and grievously its point in the place of his heart, as though

about to pierce him through, inserted. Then her sisters

St. Withburga and St. Sexburga with the hard goads of their staves

pricked him.

[24] But he, with a terrible groan and a horrible cry,

disturbed the whole surrounding

household; all hearing him saying; Lady,

have mercy. This heard, the servants run up,

inquire the cause of the pain: there is an uproar

around the one lying there: and he to them: Do you not see,

he said, St. Etheldreda departing, how

she has transfixed my breast with the point of her staff,

her holy sisters doing the like? Behold,

again to pierce me, he wretchedly expires. she returns; and now I shall die,

when she has pierced me anew. And these things said, he expired.

This being so completed, the household goes to meet the Abbot,

the matter is narrated, the Abbot returns, and through

the whole country the rumor is spread. There arises a fear

of the Saint among all the neighbors, and for a long time

no one of the Nobles, judges, Ministers, and

of men of whatever power dared anything

against the Ely possession, the holy Virgin manfully protecting

her things everywhere. In

which it appears how wonderful is God in his Saints,

who lives and reigns through all ages

of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

CHAPTER III.

The men of Ely experiencing the efficacious patronage of the Saint, a mortality calmed and a tower preserved from fire.

[25] To sing the mercies of the Lord forever,

we are admonished by Prophetic words. Psalm 88:2

Whence, lest we be proved ungrateful for God's benefits, Of the Brothers brought from Winchester by Simeon,

it befits us perpetually to praise and glorify

him who mortifies and gives life, humbles

and raises up; and in this matter, which though

less learnedly we touch, his indignation and

grace, his judgment and truth incessantly

let us extol: for that what we narrate was done in the time of the aforesaid Symeon,

the pious report of the faithful commends. He, contumeliously

reproached by the Monks, because he unduly received the blessing

from the Bishop of Lincoln, against

the custom of the place (as we mentioned above);

his wrath dissembled, not laid to sleep, when

there he found a flock pious and good, and given

to divine studies; thought he had done nothing

unless he should commit the offices of the place to outsiders brought from elsewhere.

And when this could in no way reasonably

be done, he obtained from the King,

that, corroborated by his authority, he should bring ten

Monks from Winchester; to whom, as he thought, both exterior

and interior ministries he subjected. Whence the church, having suffered

inconveniences hitherto grievously, mourning,

grieves, as is taught from what follows.

[26] But one of these, by name Godric…

endowed with religion and piety, one excellent man, Godric, like

for his veneration; and alone, in all things studying the divine

will, not ferocity or domination,

as is the manner of outsiders,

savored the things of Christ, and continually served with vigils through the nights, with psalms and meditation

through the days, wholly. But at the hour of a certain

night, after the accustomed vigils of the Brothers,

amid the very sighs of his heart and the frequent devout

entreaties of prayers, when his aged limbs,

dragging them too far from the due rest of the flesh, he wearied, his strength failed, and rather sitting

than lying he slept, and to him, whether waking or

in his sleep, such a vision was shown. Put into an excess

of mind, he suddenly sees himself snatched into heaven.

That what we narrate is true, as that

Brother who had seen it, now surviving,

declared, let it be doubtful to no one of the faithful. He saw,

then, the venerable man, things very pleasant and worthy

of memory, full of all joy; namely the mercies

which the Lord did and showed to us. snatched into ecstasy,

But it is wont to happen that many great things,

among men as it were not grave, are esteemed

less cautiously and not to be corrected;

meanwhile before the eyes of the judge, with how great subtlety of animadversion

they are examined, that they were by no means

light (as is gathered from this matter), but utterly

displeased, by certain indications of things even

from heaven sometimes is revealed. But the equity of the judge,

while by our fault he is provoked

to vengeance, the same one's goodness turns the strictness of severity

into the mildness of gentleness:

which Pope Gregory of holy memory insinuates,

saying; The severity of the King the mercy

of the Redeemer changed into mildness.

Now let us hear how the matter was done.

[27] That man, on the highest throne of heaven,

before the tribunal of the glory and majesty of God, he sees the Saint entreating against a plague threatened upon her monastery; as it seemed to him,

is set: by whom stood the Queen,

with starry brightness but groaning and anxious for

her servants and sons, wholly poured out in prayers,

suppliantly entreated the mercy of the Thunderer.

Then at a distance he beholds a certain person,

having a bow in hand with an arrow drawn,

sent by the Lord toward the Church

to strike: but moved by the prayer of his beloved Virgin,

the merciful Lord, whom he had before directed to take vengeance,

now ordered to be recalled.

And immediately … recalled, he laid down the weapon from the

slaughter. a These things seen, vehemently

disturbed through sleep, he awoke; and pondering the order

of the vision, with himself with a groan he turned it over;

and understood it to have been sent for nothing but to disperse this one

whom he beheld: about this too he believed

he must supplicate God with tears, but many being seized by death or disease, that he who mercifully spared Nineveh,

might not deny us pardon for our sin.

At the same time several from the Monastery were snatched into the sleep

of death, some grievously sickened;

in the house of the infirm, now near to death through the languor

of the body. Whence there arises a great

fear in all, when they beheld a colleague

either dead or dying before them;

and, if anyone was pressed by the same plague,

by mutual confession he hastened to wipe away the rust

of his sin.

[28] And it happened, while thus expeditiously all

vigilantly intended toward their salvation; while he also presses on with his own prayers, that,

according to custom, the said Brother with grief and tears,

for the salvation of the Brothers, and for the help of the place,

utterly afflicted himself before God,

until he obtained grace from God and the suffrage of Blessed Etheldreda.

And while on the following night, ever-watchful in praying,

untiring he stood by, such things in

his sleep again he merited to behold. So the Lord

added again to reveal to him his great works, and

he saw, and behold, around the greater altar, where the bodies

of the blessed Virgins lie hidden, lifting up

his eyes, there as it were forms of human beings, in

the appearance of women, rose from their tombs,

clothed in the religious habit, bearing staves

in their hands: which indeed he judged

to be our holy Ladies, Etheldreda,

Wythburga, Sexburga, and

Ermenilda. he sees the same with her sisters comforting the sick, Thence proceeding through the choir

into the Cloister, they thus came even to the house of the infirm.

Following them with slow foot,

he conceived to stay there for three or four hours.

But that Lady and Advocate

of ours, after God and his Mother

the comfort and sole hope, like a Mother

always bearing pious bowels toward her sons, around

through the house went to the bed of each, the head

with her hand to the pillow most sweetly touched, and with the edges

of her cloak and the sleeve wiped away whatever of dust

or squalor there was.

[29] who declared herself their Patroness, To these, returning by the same [way], he prepared to stand

in their way, though timid: but, disturbed by the brightness

of their faces, scarcely at last

did he dare to proceed; and what they were, or

what they then went round through the workshops, all in

the peril of death laboring, that they might declare, suppliantly

he asks. Of whom one, known well enough by yesterday's

vision, preceding the others, as

though dissembling, drew near to him, and with these

words began to address him: I, whom thou beholdest,

am Etheldreda, the mistress of this place: for your

excesses before God an assiduous intercessor,

whom amid the Choirs of the Blessed entreating the Majesty

of God in the middle of the past night thou

didst merit to contemplate: and now to the house

of the infirm I have proceeded, with

my beloved Sisters, in this plague of death

together to bring them the aids of health. Which

said, he himself leaped from sleep, all are found to have recovered together: and the heavenly vision

disappeared. And behold it happened that all

who languished from various infirmities, suddenly

recovered; and those whose languor was

like unto death, the merit of holy Etheldreda

recalled all together to life. But in the morning the Abbot and

scarcely a few escaping that peril, rising

at dawn, hasten to the infirmary, where

by the lot of death the sick were in peril: but now,

by the grace of God, walking through the hall, glorifying

God, for their safety and health, he beheld:

and of whom late there was no confidence of breathing again, now wholly a remedy without diminution of strength

is applied, better than before. Then they remembered the word

which was said to them, of the Brother who had narrated the vision,

wondering over all that had happened.

[30] Still something else happened, and this [no

less] wonderful as a miracle. For the Abbot

and the Brothers exceedingly desired the event of the matter, for a monument of chastisement,

that it might become known to posterity, to be described.

There was present then a certain Monk, Gocelin b

by name, most eloquent; throughout England the lives, and the same night, ignorant of the matter, Gocelin, miracles,

and deeds of the Saints, men and women, in Histories,

in Prose, he set out by composing. But when

that other one, by the will of God, the eye of his heart enlarged,

penetrated the heavenly secrets;

then this one, not indulging in the sleep of sloth,

at the same moment and hour, about a Prose of Etheldreda,

whose beginning is, "To Christ the King be

glory," c by chance was intent; in which also is brought in

inspiring will, still ignorant of the deed,

he so figuratively received the miracle to be composed: and when

he brought it forth in public, he writes a Prose about the Saint which is thereafter taken up to be sung, all gave

thanks to God and holy Etheldreda;

and thereafter, for the memory of her veneration, decreed the prose

to be sung. In this whole matter three things to be remembered

are seen; first, lest God and our Lord, provoked

sometime by our evils, be compelled to punish: second,

that, hoping in his mercy, we may not

fail, neither in prosperities nor in adversities.

Third, that we may glorify him, who breathes as he wills,

and on whom he wills, and as much as he wills. To him

be glory through the ages of ages. Amen.

[31] But in these days William the Earl of Warenne, d

The Abbot sees the soul of the robber dragged to punishment. violently detained certain villages and lands of Etheldreda

from the Brothers of Ely: whence, often rebuked by the Abbot,

and not corrected, he closed his day by a wretched death.

And when this happened very far from the island of Ely,

and the Abbot at night in the dormitory, meditating heavenly things,

lay quiet, he heard suddenly

the soul of the Earl, carried by demons, with a distinct

and recognizable voice cry out: Lord,

have mercy; Lord, have mercy. And immediately on the morrow in

the Chapter, to all the Brothers he narrated what

he had heard, and that that Earl was dead.

He had certainly heard no others than rumors yet:

but after the third or fourth day

his wife, sending a hundred shillings for his soul

to the Church of Ely, declared that to have been the very hour of his

death, which the Abbot had indicated.

But his hundred shillings, neither

the Abbot nor any of the Brothers deigned or dared

to receive, not thinking it safe

to possess a damned man's money. But of his [kin]

no one afterward existed, fearing or guarding against the fault of the damned

kinsman: but on his plunders the more freely they think to cling,

because the same evildoer robber possesses the goods of the Church

and the Sanctuary of God in inheritance, so that

with his wicked father he may mourn in eternal punishments,

who claims the right of God and St. Etheldreda temporally

and detains it for himself.

[32] So in the year of the Lord's incarnation

one thousand one hundred eleven, from the passing

of the bountiful Virgin Etheldreda four hundred

thirty-second, The tower burning by lightning but from the beginning of the Bishopric

the fourth, the night of the second day Monday now beginning,

there were made great thunders and horrid lightnings even to the middle

of the night; and the tower of St. Peter, which

is situated at the gate of the Church of Ely, from its topmost

summit, was kindled by the fire of lightning: but, the mercy of God

coming to aid, and the merits of the Saints supporting,

it was wonderfully snatched from the fire:

wonderfully snatched, I say: because

it is an unusual thing, that fire kindled from lightning

was at any time also extinguished. For also

the men who, to rescue the tower, in the midst

of the flame had ascended by ladders, the beams and men are saved neither the seething fire,

nor the glowing iron which they handled with bare hands,

nor the lead dripping over their heads

and backs, injured anything: some

even held burning coals in their hands,

nor were they burned. Let this fire be compared

with the Babylonian fire, which, the frail materials being kindled,

naturally produced harmful forces from the subjected fuels.

This fire, fallen from the very

firmament, a greater miracle than that of the Babylonian furnace. with a horrible crash and a powerful conflagration burned the forces of its nature,

with a lightning-stroke vehemently flashing flame,

consuming wood and metals, nor injuring men:

but that one the Babylonian of so much inferior power,

as heavenly things differ from earthly, which, through

long intervals and dry materials, scarcely consumed,

spared only three men,

attesting its power indeed by a great miracle, but

shown in a small number. But this fire,

the beams rushing in, was made tractable, since it spared

neither iron nor the very stones; nor

now was the burning fanciful, but most true,

which in solid materials and in firm bodies

wrought opposite effects, in the one withdrawing

what would harm. Let it please, therefore, in both cases

the divine miracle and the virtue of God…

let the whole succession of the age celebrate together, by which

almost the like losses both the beams in the tower escaped,

and the three men in the furnace.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

did this after the year 1180, and so was one century younger than the one here treated of: yet it is to be seen whether many Lives ought not to be ascribed to this elder one, which otherwise would be ascribed to the younger.

CHAPTER IV.

A captive loosed from his chains by Saints Benedict and Etheldreda.

[33] Still, in praise of the most blessed Virgin

Etheldreda, recording a matter newly

done, worthy of relation, In the year 1116 not undeservedly

sweet to hearers, useful to those retaining it,

perhaps profitable to those still not knowing it, we wish to make known.

In the time of Henry King of the Angles,

Duke of the Normans, in the sixteenth year of his reign in England,

the tenth of his County in Normandy, the tenth in the Province of the Church of Ely,

there was a certain man in the village

which is called Catarich, by name Brithstan.

He, in the whirlwinds of the world, as is the manner

of men, born to adversities also, and in

the same from childhood nourishment even to perfect

age customarily brought up, by the shameful nets of the world

then began more and more to be ensnared, a penitent usurer, to such a degree that from unhappy usuries

was acquired, nor at all from elsewhere did nourishments

for his sustenance come. In which shameful deeds

when his life had very long been engaged, he fell

into so great a sickness of his body, that at last

he seemed near to death. And when

he was held by so intolerable an infirmity for some time,

inspired by divine grace (as the outcome of the matter proved), wishing by a vow to become a monk, he faithfully promised

that he would consign himself, under the Monastic habit,

to the holy Virgin Etheldreda in her monastery, as much as

remained to him of surviving life. And without

delay: all that he had collected into one and taken with him,

desiring to fulfill his promise,

he most devoutly went to the monastery of the Virgin, the Lord Hervey

the Bishop of that place at that time governing the pastoral

care; he asked mercy of the Monks,

handing himself and his goods to their power.

[34] But, alas the grief! that wicked one, by

whose envy Adam fell from paradise, will by no means

cease to envy his posterity even to the last who

is to come. But God, but hindered by a Royal minister, who mercifully and sweetly disposes

all things, always, as it were, makes good

out of evils and better out of goods. So a rumor

being heard by many of the aforesaid man, desiring to take the habit

of Religion; a certain minister of King Henry,

but especially a servant of the devil, Robert

by name, and surnamed Malanteis,

following the teaching of his master, who

always lies and deceives, came,

and lest that man should put on the habit of Religion,

by the Royal nod forbade [it]; saying, that he was a thief,

that he had the King's money in robbery and was hiding it;

and that, to escape the judgment and penalty of this crime,

not for the cause of eternal salvation,

he sought to become a Monk. he is accused by a calumny of embezzlement, What more?

Sent at last under sureties, he is led to

judgment, Ralph Basset sitting at the tribunal,

all the provincials too being gathered

at Huntingdon, as is the custom in

England; there was present too the aforenamed Lord

Hervey Bishop of Ely, with the Abbots

Reynald of Ramsey, and Robert of Thorney,

and also many Monks and Clerics.

[35] Not to protract it longer; that accused man

is presented, the crimes falsely imposed on him are renewed:

he did not deny the deeds done, what he had not done

he could not confess. and he is condemned; On the contrary, of lying

he is charged, derided, afflicted with reproaches.

After very many insults inflicted on him without merit,

as Susanna they prejudged him:

he with all his possession is decreed to be handed

to the power of the King. Then,

bound under custody and led to London,

he is thrust into a dark prison, and there

bound strongly and contumeliously with iron chains heavy enough,

he is constrained for no small time

by the torments of hunger and cold for a long while.

But placed in such misery, who, shut up in prison, according to his power and knowledge,

so grave a necessity compelling,

he asked the divine help to be present to him. But because his merits

he believed to be very small, or, to say it better, none;

he distrusted to obtain this of himself: St. Benedict,

to whose precepts (as was said)

he had vowed to subject himself; and St. Etheldreda

the Virgin, in whose monastery he had foreseen

he would do this same thing, with weeping heart

and the voice he could, he incessantly called upon.

So hence loaded and bound with iron, he invokes Saints Benedict and Etheldreda,

hence tormented with cold, thence wearied with fasting,

to die than to live unhappily—for five whole months mourning in darkness he sustained;

and seeing that no human help at all was present to him,

St. Benedict and St. Etheldreda with continual groans, sighs,

sobs, and sometimes tears, ruminating with heart or

mouth, he ceased not to call upon.

[36] What more? On a certain night, when the bells

through the city were rung for the nocturnal praises,

and he in the prison, when amid the other straits

he had for three continuous days abstained from all food; now almost failing

with fastings, and utterly despairing of the body's

restoration, repeated with a tearful voice the names of the aforesaid

Saints. But God, clement and merciful, and by the same, appearing in a great light, who, the maker of all goodness,

remains unfailing, who spurns no one placed

in necessity, chooses no one for power or riches;

at last to the groaning one showed his mercy, offered

abundantly, and, for the augmentation of desire

and that, obtained, it might be more loved, delayed.

For there are present to him crying out St. Benedict and St. Etheldreda,

with her sister Sexburga. He

indeed, fearing that the unusual prevenient light, which preceded

the Saints, was present; with his own hand opened his eyes:

but the Saints coming with that light, St. Etheldreda

thus spoke to him: Why, she said, Brithstan,

dost thou so often beat upon us with tears? why dost thou move us with such

great cries?

[37] He indeed, now weakened by fasting,

when he had heard himself called by name, as if

restored in an excess of mind, and filled with joy

for so great a miracle, could answer nothing at all.

Then the Saint, subjoining, says:

I am Etheldreda whom thou hast so often invoked:

here with me is present St. Benedict, under

whose habit thou didst vow to serve God,

and from whom thou hast many times sought help. Dost thou wish

to be freed? Hearing this voice, his spirit revived,

and as if waking from sleep, he said: My Lady,

if in any way I can live,

I would wish to go out from this execrable prison. But

now I see myself so afflicted with various straits,

that, all the strength of my body lost,

I have no further hope of escaping. his fetters broken, he is freed, To whom

the Saint; Not so, she said, as thou sayest, does the order of reason

demand, but rather thee, granted life, in my

church, as thou didst propose, I wish, thy whole surviving

life, consigned to me. Then the holy

Virgin, turning to Blessed Benedict; Come, she said,

Lord Benedict, do what is commanded

by the Lord. At these words the venerable man

Benedict, approaching the man bound with fetters,

put his finger into the iron ring, in

the middle between the two fetters; and as if

with a light effort drawing the fetters, them now broken by God's

nod, from the feet of the bound man, he himself feeling nothing,

drew off.

[38] But when he had removed them from him, from

his hand, as if indignant, he cast them; the keepers roused by their sound, and a very

great beam of the loft so strongly he struck, that

by the sound of so great a stroke the keepers, who

lay upon the loft, terrified, were awakened.

Who, fearing that the bound had escaped, with lights kindled,

came hastily to the prison: but finding

the doors wholly whole and made fast,

with keys applied they entered. But seeing

the one whom they had left bound, loosed;

the more they wondered: and to those asking about so great

and who had loosed the fettered one;

answered: I know not, he said, what persons

with a very great light entered the prison,

and with this my companion spoke many things,

what they said or did to him, [him] they did;

but ask him who knows better. And turning to

him they said: Tell us, what didst thou hear.

And he: St. Benedict, he said, with

St. Etheldreda and her Sister Sexburga,

were present here; the fetters from my feet they took away:

but if you do not believe me, at least

believe your eyes.

[39] and they announce it to the Queen: But they, the miracle seen, nor doubting of it,

in the morning announced [it] to Queen Matilda, who

then by chance was in the same city.

She immediately one of the Chaplains of the Court,

Ralph by name, that he might inquire whether the things heard

were true or not, sent to

the prison. Coming, and seeing how

those fetters had been broken, hearing also

through his companion of the three persons, who with

they had spoken, of the sound which they had made;

and perceiving that these things had undoubtedly happened divinely, the Chaplain sent by her leads out the captive: he began abundantly to weep: and

turning to Brithstan he said, Brother, I am a servant

of St. Benedict and St. Etheldreda, in their

fear speak with me: but he answered:

If thou art a servant of the aforesaid Saints, good

is thy coming. But these things which thou seest or

hearest wrought about me, know to be true, not

magic. But Ralph, taking him,

to the presence of the Queen and the many of the Nobles of the land who were present,

rejoicing and weeping,

led [him].

[40] Meanwhile that rumor, swifter than any bird,

flying through the whole city of London…

reached the ears of almost all the citizens. who, going round through the city's churches, Then

the citizens everywhere raise cries to heaven;

every sex and age in common bless the Lord;

and to the Court, where they had heard him led,

they run: very many pour out tears of joy,

the rest wonder at what they see or hear. But the Queen,

filled with joy for the novelty of so great a miracle, orders, through

all the monasteries of the city, the bells to be rung and by

every Convent of the ecclesiastical Order praises to be sung

to God. And when he visited very many

devout churches of the city, giving thanks to God,

from the abundant joy of his liberation;

preceded him, and as a new man

each one desired to see [him]. But when

he had come to the Basilica of Blessed Peter which is called Westminster, b

the Abbot of that place

Gilbert, he is honorably received at Westminster, a man learned in liberal letters and divine,

with all the flock of monks led a procession out of the monastery

to meet him: for he said, If

the Relics of any dead man ought to be festively received in a church;

much more let us honorably receive living Relics, namely this

man, for of a dead man, where his spirit is,

we, still placed in this frail life, doubt:

but of this one, that by God, who does nothing

unjustly, in our presence he was visited and

freed, we are not ignorant.

[41] then led to Ely by the Bishop, These things completed, the Queen hoped to have the fetters

in her own discretion: but from them he

would by no means be separated, until to the monastery

of St. Etheldreda Virgin and Queen

he might carry them, by whose intervention he knew himself redeemed

from the chains. So the Queen, the reason heard, brought

no violence upon him; but ordered him to be honorably conveyed to the aforesaid place.

Whom, going out of the city, young men

were astonished and old men, Virgins wondered and widows,

innumerable peoples of both sexes beheld,

giving thanks to almighty God.

Nor less, when he came to the aforesaid

monastery, there he hangs up his fetters. the Bishop and all the Brothers

to meet him, praising God and St.

Etheldreda their intercessor, with a procession

proceeded. And there he fulfilled his

purpose, receiving the habit of a Monk:

but the fetters with which he had been bound, hung in

the same church before the altar, as

they placed, to the praise of our Lord

Jesus Christ, to whom be honor and glory through

the ages of ages.

[42] Another miracle too, which through

the merits of the same glorious Virgin who pleased the Spouse of Virgins

by the integrity of mind and body,

in the aforesaid church was done, Tormented with an intolerable toothache,

for its greatness is not to be passed over in silence.

So it happened that a certain man, the carnal brother of the Provost

of that same place, was so tormented

by a grievous and intolerable pain of the teeth,

that neither the refreshment of food, nor any perception of sleep,

could profit him. Beset by the straits of this torment,

the wretched man almost was at the point of death, and his head c, for excessive

burning, toward the jaw whence the pain had come,

he frequently put into water, that

even thus the savagery of that fury might be mitigated, and for a moment

some little rest might be possessed. the iron breaking with which the tooth was to be extracted, But although

by this industry he bore that disquiet less

troublesomely; yet no remedy could thence come to him.

These at last and other things, to obtain health, in vain

labored at, he directed his way to the church of Ely;

and from a smith who dwelt there,

and was skilled in the experience of this kind of art, the tooth,

the matter of the pain, he uncovered: but the same instrument,

broken, sprang back. So in anger, for

the broken instrument, and the zeal of all aid frustrated,

vehemently kindled, the iron from his hands to the ground

he cast, ordered the sick man

to go out, until he himself should fit an iron

which might radically extirpate the matter of his languor.

Who, having gone out, what to do, whither

to turn, anxious he hesitated.

[43] At last touched by a salutary counsel, to the divine

medicine of mercy he betook himself;

knowing and faithfully believing that through this, if

it deigned to be present, he could be saved from all

trouble of sickness. So recalling to memory

how Blessed Etheldreda a little before

had freed a certain captive from his fetters, fleeing to the Saint's church

how the same fetters, through her glorious merits, the divine virtue

had broken, how

pious and how powerful in this business she had been,

to her church with quick step he hastened,

full of devotion; the fetters, before the altar

hanging in reverence to her, not once

but often he kisses; and entreated exceedingly that the piety

and also the power of the holy Virgin be declared to him,

in the straits and necessity of so great a pain. John 16:24 There was fulfilled

and shown, what the true and highest truth,

for confirming the minds of the faithful, had foretold,

Ask and you shall receive, knock and it shall be opened

to you: for to this knocker the gate of the divine mercy

was opened, as the outcome of the matter in the sequel

declared. by the touch of the aforesaid fetters he is healed. At last with immense devotion

the fetters being often kissed, in

which the divine virtue and the merit of the glorious

Virgin appeared; the ring which was between the fetters

he moved to his jaw, the tooth thence

touched; and, what is wonderful to say, after

the touch so great an abundance of sweat from his body

flowed, that you would by no means doubt that he was most copiously suffused

with water. What from this deed is to be perceived,

except that with the sweat also the trouble

of the pain, through the merits and intercessions of Blessed Etheldreda,

at once departed? But he, giving thanks to God and the glorious

Virgin, to God working, and the Virgin imploring;

with health and gladness returned to his own,

publishing all around the benefits of the divine piety

toward him.

ANNOTATIONS. D. P.

CHAPTER V.

A letter of Ralph to the men of Ely concerning his cure, when in peril from a deadly quinsy and limping.

[44] To his benign Lords and Brothers, the daily

ministers of the virtuous Virgin and

most powerful Lady St. Etheldreda, Master Ralph writes to the men of Ely, Ralph,

school called a Monitor of true salvation,

eternal joy. Since for his many

benefits, to the Virgin of Christ, the son of the Virgin

Mother, and to the holy Virgin also Etheldreda,

I owe very many acts of thanks;

behold what is to me more wonderful to see, more joyful,

and more recent; but also to obey your command humbly I have deemed it chief, and

according to the capacity of my memory, attesting that I wander

in nothing from the truth, by all that is sacred.

That powerful one, who needs no informer of crimes, an avenger, with all sincerity, whose gaze surveys all dark, remote,

and secret things, singularly even penetrating most evidently

the hiding-places of our hearts, with me, about me, as my guilt against him

was in brief speech, yet in sense he might amplify all

the habituation of evil, and all

the disuse of good. For what does the simulation

of good or the dissimulation of evil avail, when

from neither does good fruit proceed? What too

avail good works done for earthly gain, or

for earthly glory; when the Prophet declares

that Virgins, defiled in mind, trust in words

of lying, while they often boast that to be

the temple of the Lord, which is the brothel of Tartarus.

[45] So he who is believed by the Argives, as it is narrated…

the beholder of all from us, seized by the disease of the felon, my

littleness's rebellion despising and casting down,

from the support of his right hand (so that I manifestly

felt it) suddenly deprived me, as if

immediately handed over to a tyrannical power. For I who

just now was sound in all my members, just now

threateningly betrayed my strength to my Brothers, just now

proudly walked, just now

contumaciously breathed against my neighbors (but

this change is of the right hand of the Most High), immediately in all

my members sickened, and sickening felt the excessive

weakness of myself, and weakened to the ground I fell,

and falling scarcely did not breathe out my soul. The disease,

which they commonly call the felon, c with its venomous

gall grievously seized me wretched,

and seized blew through [me]; so that that lethal tumor

extended on all sides, on the right and on the left

shoulder, on the back and breast like a wineskin protruded;

and from my human chin as it were ox-

dewlaps hung. The internal force of the poison

was sufficiently noted by the external lividness of the skin: and useless in my whole body.

and while outside that pestilence too horribly

swelled, within too dangerously swelling

(alas! how great a heap of misery!)

it constricted the fistulas, arteries of the throat, and the ways of the neck;

and left passage neither for voice nor for food.

A matter of tearful recollection, that

poison of the worst kind crept into my tongue,

swelled my tongue, so that it filled my palate,

and miserably distended my gaping jaws; mouth,

ears, eyes, nostrils, hands, feet, deserted by their

offices, lay as if buried: shins,

thighs, kidneys, sides, belly, the several entrails

were grievously tormented by their anxieties: the pain of the intestines

was betrayed by urine of bloody

color and fiery heat. My nocturnal

vision, yet not of one closing his eyes,

not of one sleeping, was this; that a long rope

was bound to this most wretched tongue, and thence drawn

high.

[46] This dice I played for four days. There visited me,

summoned and most longed-for of my brothers,

Nicholas; others too visited me: in possession of my mind but finding me

without voice, without sight, without hearing, without

every sense, without motion of the members, unknown to me

they withdrew, as I afterward learned from those same

reporting it; and while my flesh as if dead

was pressed by the evils; my mind, yet somehow living,

itself felt the troubles of the body, itself

was distressed, by its conscience was fiercely

accused, promised God repentance and satisfaction,

if only so great a scourge could be of pious

chastisement, and not yet of just

damnation. So lamenting within, both for the offense

of God, and for the affliction of myself;

although mute and tongueless, yet with panting, and

I besought the Lord for my salvation, the chief Saints being severally invoked, who,

victor of death, on the third day rose from the dead,

whose voice the dead hear. I besought also

the most powerful Mother of the Lord, by the compassion

of the Lord's death, through whose soul a sword passed,

who from the very claws of the devil snatched Theophilus d

the Archdeacon, the bond restored;

the Archangel e too with the rest of the Angels, who, the prince of the heavenly

army, the provost of paradise, and victor of the dragon,

will come to the aid of the people of God. I besought too

for myself that Baptist, who plucks up

and disperses, and builds and plants, by preparing

the way of the Lord; and the Prince of the Apostles

with the rest of the Apostles, against whom the gates of hell

do not prevail. But also with the Protomartyr,

and our precious Lord Edmund

the King, and the rest of the Martyrs, the blessed

Martyr and Bishop of the city of Sebaste, Blaise,

to whom by the Lord was conferred the power of curing

any diseases of the throat. f Called upon too was…

by my groans the virtue of the Father of Tours, g with

the rest of the Confessors, who is equal to the Apostolics,

and the excellent raiser of three dead.

Nor was she passed over with the rest of the

Virgins, to whom were forgiven many sins,

because she loved much, h by whose tearful

prayers another four-days-dead man revived.

[47] Thus and thus I sought consolers, and

there were no deliverers. And behold the tribulation growing heavy: St. Etheldreda's memory at last coming to mind,

namely because, the Lord being offended, I had likewise offended all.

Meanwhile, destitute of all hope,

and disturbed by very great pain,

I had no refuge: when there came to the aid

of my mind, though stupid, the most elegant piety

of St. Etheldreda, who now by a recent

miracle illumined the nocturnal darkness of a prison,

mercifully and powerfully freed a fettered man, the iron fetters with that ease

with which she would waxen ones broke up; loosed, free, and giving

thanks, with joy and honor to her holy

sepulchre she sent [him]. his wife joining her vows, Whose pious,

quick, and prodigious help when I ardently

and confidently desired; likewise also my companion wife,

to whom me he joined through a Priest, who joined

Tobias to Sarah through the Archangel, vowed my service

to the pious savioress St. Etheldreda, to whom she had already

pre-vowed herself, snatched by her holy merits from the confine of death

itself. I by the office of mind alone,

she of mind and mouth, both vowed the same.

[48] Let God be praised through all, and the virtuous

friend of God St. Etheldreda, by whose merits

the Lord had mercy on me. For after prayers

and vows, in the front part almost on the right side

my wretched tongue began to be ruptured, he believed himself healed, the tumor broken and the tongue purged; there flowed down

venomous gore, and now through that ruin of the tongue,

as through the opening of a fountain,

that poison flowing everywhere was derived, which

had blown through the tongue itself, the jaws, the throat, and the neck

(as you remember was already aforesaid), abundantly flowed forth,

through the languid lips,

that most foul of all salivas. I shudder to confess,

and you perhaps to hear, that serpentine corruption,

than which none is fouler, collected over the whole palate,

since the jaws could not spit it out with the gall,

how others' fingers cast it out, pressed out the extracted tongue,

scraped and washed [it], not

otherwise than the chins of cattle are handled by butchers.

But these too, but grieving that he limped, the number of days passing, the pitch at last

expressed, and the senses recovered, the body gradually

confirmed, the heart by degrees confirmed,

when now there was a sure hope of rising and of walking

(behold a double evil) it was made void.

For, all the veins being utterly stiff or "forgotten", my shin to the thigh

was miserably bent back. My limping

very many days continued.

[49] I, wretched, ungrateful, and unfaithful,

noted the quality of my heart in the limping of my body:

new vows, new prayers I repeated. O

Lady of greatest power, St. Etheldreda,

who didst show mercy to the four-days-dead Lazarus, do [so]

also to the lame: grant that I may be able to approach the sacred light

of thy oratory to render thanks, he renewed his vows, and tending toward the Saint and the other

thresholds of the Saints, both beyond the sea and on this side,

for accomplishing which may their sanctity

aid me: which by the reiterated benefits of the most holy

Lady would be turned to praises. Rejoicing,

therefore, that health was repaid to me, I set out for Ely as

was fitting. But near the village of Kenteford, l

when now the lofty building of the sacred

House presented itself to be beheld, lest it lie hidden from the nocturnal

darkness of my ignorance, by whose virtue health had returned

to me, behold above in the clouds,

to the Companions of my journey a splendid appearance of a full

moon appeared; it was a miraculous appearance of a full moon which the companions saw, and here and there scattered

lamps, and not imitating the form of its size,

yet its splendor. There shone

so clear this apparition, above where

is the holy sepulchre of our blessed Lady,

and her holy Companions, about the first

hour of the day on the 12th day before the Kalends of August, when

now it was not the term of the full-moon, but m

of the conjunction, the sun leaving among the Nabathaeans n in their parts the third

moon, regulated by no Epacts.

But last, as from the East,

and pointing it out, yet not so great

to me as to them: he himself too refreshed, for neither did St. Benedict's

vision wholly shine, if from the whole world to

certain heavenly lamps, from the Saints of the Lord

to criminous servants, a proportion may be adapted.

[50] But I, vehemently wondering, as a man is wont about

unwonted things, and that to the unworthy heavenly things

shone, for the sign of so great a benefit gave ampler thanks,

though wearied by the unaccustomed labor of the journey,

my feet blistered as they were, now

creeping, now sustained by the hands of companions or by a staff:

yet on the same day even to Ely

I came, but as soon as I touched the sacred island, and at the entrance of the church wholly made firm.

which namely the presence of the holy Virgins

consecrates, my soles made firm, all my limbs

refreshed, as if having suffered no weariness, no

injury, and as if another or

differentiated from myself, without the support either of

companions or of a staff, my companions wondering and myself

wondering I went before; I went to the monastery,

the sacred threshold with tears less than I ought, prostrate on the ground,

I wetted; to my most precious Savioress

St. Etheldreda I presented myself as her eternal

servant, giving thanks. But because

to give thanks is to render grateful service;

it remains, O dearest Brothers, who, seeing me

make a surrender of myself to your Lady, have

adopted me as a Brother; it remains that you bestow

on me brotherly care, that you aid me with your prayers,

that she, about to receive those perfect thanks,

who restored to me sound members,

may restore also a sound mind: which would that he might deign to grant,

to whom with his Saints is salvation, honor, and dominion, unto ages of ages.

Amen.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

b There is need of an Oedipus here to find some sense: but also the whole letter, no less than the throat, which is described as cured while swelling, compels one rather to divine than to understand.

believed the sister of Lazarus, and confused with the sinner of the Gospel. Her name is placed in the Litanies at the head of the holy Virgins.

i It seems hence to be understood, and from the lunation noted below to be confirmed, that the matter happened in the same year 1116, in which that miracle had been done.

the conjunction of sun and moon, or the time of the new moon. But by the reckoning of the Arabs, which the Christians too followed even to the Gregorian reform of the Calendar, in the year 1116 it was reckoned and called New Moon on the 21st of July, according to the cycle of Epacts: but in truth the third moon ought to have been numbered, nay the fourth to be reckoned begun: and this is what he says, that the sun had left the third moon, regulated by no Epacts, that is, abstracting from the Rule of Epacts which then failed by three days.

CHAPTER VI.

Two dying men suddenly recover, an apparition of the Saint going before.

[51] That too it is unworthy to cover with silence,

that a certain soldier the ineffable mercy of God,

through Blessed Etheldreda, Destitute of all his members, a sick man, restored to health.

He, dwelling not far from the monastery of St.

Edmund in his own possession in the village

which is called Berningeham, by certain occasions,

perhaps unknown to him, fell

into a sickness, and the trouble gradually growing strong, came to his bed.

Who, when by the physicians, unable to cure him, nay

at last despairing of him, he was left

(to be silent about the other troubles of the members)

he utterly lost sight and hearing, and also the faculty

of speaking. Whom when his wife

and his children and the household of servants had seen

afflicted with so unwonted and to many unheard-of

of joy, then from over-abounding sadness,

I do not say gladness, but execrating its very memory,

assumed a more mournful habit (so to say),

not so much in body as in mind. And when in such suffering,

or, to say it better, in such death, fifteen

days and as many nights, without any sign

of betterment, he was held; all that time

anyone who saw it would think it to be one of the houses of the Egyptians,

when they lost their firstborn;

except that here there was more wailing

and grief; for by all his neighbors (for they loved him) he was bewailed.

[52] But when all his household now had greater

solicitude about his burial, than hope

about his restoration; some wondering at the magnitude of the sickness, while he is mourned as one about to die, others

asking for the health of the sick man, and all

compassionating the laborer and grieving his departure;

the Lord, who wisely provides all things,

piously disposes about his mercy.

For on a certain night the most holy Virgin Etheldreda

in the village of St. Edmund to a certain matron,

neither well awake, nor wholly asleep,

appeared: whom, whether she was sleeping,

while she inquired; she said that she, just now

roused from sleep, was awake. To whom the Virgin:

Tomorrow, she said, after the sun is presented to the earth, the Saint appears to a matron ignorant of all things;

and through the market of things for sale, perhaps for some

business calling, thou shalt walk; thou shalt hear some

complaining to one another about a man, Leminer

by name, who in the village which is called Berningeham

is held by a grave sickness: whose

complaint when thou hast heard, an inquiry being made

who he is, or by what sickness

he is burdened, thou shalt say to them: Go, make a wick, a

and with the same gird about the bed in which he lies

in a circuit, namely from the head through the right

part to the feet, through the left

to the feet, then from the feet through the left

to the head; and afterward putting wax

upon the wick, make a candle: and what she wishes done for his health he indeed,

if he so far recovers, let him carry the same candle

into the island of Ely, to the church of the Virgin

Etheldreda, or send it by some faithful

messenger, that through her prayers

he may recover from this infirmity.

[53] But the matron thinking, who he was

who spoke with her by night of a matter unknown to her,

unwilling to leave her in doubt, the Virgin

answered her thoughts, saying: I

am Etheldreda, who rest in Ely; and

doubting nothing of these things which I say, confidently

do what I command thee. Saying these things she disappeared.

But in the morning, the woman mindful of the secrets

which had been divinely revealed to her, she bids her tell those who will meet her in the market.

quickly rose: and wishing to prove whether the things were true…

which she had heard, to the market, perhaps

for other business but for that especially,

she went. And when through the market, a little while inspecting the things for sale,

she walked, attending with her ears spread for the voices of various people,

whether she might hear anything of the aforesaid;

certain men, not well enough known to her, thus speaking to one another

she heard. Alas! alas! Leminer, our friend,

is dying. Whom approaching, by inquiring

she said to them; What are the words which

you confer to one another? or whence do you show forth such great sadness

in your faces? Who, diligently to the woman all in order,

what had happened to the often-mentioned man,

as if compassionately narrating the manner,

and the time of the infirmity showed;

asking, if she knew any useful counsel in such a business,

to indicate it.

[54] These, the things heard, being believing, But she, as if taught by a good Master,

said; Late, she said, when after the day's

labor, as is the manner of laborers, I had given my limbs

to rest; the noble Virgin Etheldreda

appeared to me, not perfectly sleeping, and

those things which you say she narrated in order; adding,

what now has been proved, that when to the market today

I came, you conferring about this matter I would find.

And the woman added: Go as quickly as possible

to the house of the sick man, make a wick, his bed

with it gird; making a candle, by

the same or by another, to the Church of the aforesaid

Virgin send [it], that through her prayers

he may, God being propitious, be better. These things to you

I pronounce not on my part, but by the blessed

Virgin's command. But they, on this side knowing the excessive

anxiety of the sick man, on that hearing the vision

of the Virgin divinely brought through the woman,

the command which they had received …

… to fulfill, to the house of the one lying sick without

delay return. What more? The man, of whom

we speak, the liberty of all his members lost;

deprived of the office of his eyes, or tongue, and also of his ears,

lay. But the aforesaid men coming, desiring to fulfill what they were ordered,

hasten to make a wick, and the little bed

by encircling bind.

[55] Wonderful to say! A thing stupendous and incredible

to hear, while they accomplish what was bidden, unless from the relation of these who personally

saw it I had learned it, I am about to say.

Not yet wholly, though they hastened enough,

desiring the sick man's health, had they girded the bed;

and behold, he who lacked light,

opening his eyes looked upon them; he who before could not speak,

asked what they were doing by encircling the bed.

But they, astonished with wonder

and as if raised from death with joy,

as standing in ecstasy, long, as if from

him they had borrowed the privation of speech, were silent.

But come to themselves, for they had gone out of themselves,

how much of wonder, speech is restored to the sick man: who, understanding the matter, with more

joy they had, their tongue, much less mine,

could in no way explain. For they, when

they wished to begin to bring forth words, the sick man, hearing them

not speaking, but jubilant, understood that they wished, but could not, to speak.

But another who I know not whence had come urging,

and asking what they were doing;

at last the apparition of the Virgin Etheldreda,

and the command, and also the revelation made to the woman to whom she had appeared,

that, to fulfill that same command, they were now girding the bed;

in the same girding about to make a candle to

the honor of holy Etheldreda, they indicated in order.

[56] But he, hearing these things, and to God according to his power,

and soon healed, and to his holy Virgin helper, with a devout

mind giving thanks, said: God, who

to King Hezekiah, by augmenting his life, that he might grant him a time

of penance, took away the infirmity;

he himself, by his piety and the prayers of his handmaid,

restored me to health. Wherefore make the candle

hastily: because to the church of the Virgin

Etheldreda I desire to run quickly. The candle

made, the man, the health of all his members recovered,

rose from the bed; and to the church

of the holy Virgin, carrying the candle with him,

glad and cheerful he went. When he had come thither,

upon the altar he placed the candle: and a prayer not small being made, the votive candle he himself carries.

tears meanwhile abundantly flowing,

breathing a little, the servant of the blessed Virgin Etheldreda

from a pure heart he vowed himself; reporting to all who wished to hear

all that had happened to him.

[57] Wonderful is the glory of St. Etheldreda, which

flowed from the highest fountain of sanctity, many

times into many Provinces flowed forth, Another in the Province of Arundel, and the whole

England by her island illustrated. For this

island of Ely, affording hospitality to the holy Body,

brought, by reason of its assiduous virtues, its fame most well-known

to all the parts of England, which, translated even into foreign

regions, daily brought many from the most remote places

to her veneration. Among these

things suitably enriched, and for the knowledge

of his probity in the province of Arundel b held great, sick to death, in this manner proved the power of our Saint,

that by a grave disease he was struck by the divine

judgment. And when his whole bed was so turned in his infirmity,

that by the long duration of languishing he was turned into weariness and contempt

to all his own; rare was he who endured his trouble.

So, his memory alone surviving, he wholly lay

only the consummation of death which remained. At last

to our place; narrating to him

of the virtues of the Saint, that easily health

through her mercy he could obtain.

[58] So after the departure of the woman, three

days having passed, he began grievously to complain with himself, by the Saint invoked

both because he neither died nor recovered,

and because his household so despised him.

Then, dissolved into tears: O,

he said, most holy Virgin Etheldreda, if the things

which are narrated of thee are true, make me feel thy

suffrage: and I henceforth the state of my life

will order for the better, and thy thresholds

with thy honor devoutly will seek. Now there was a house in which he lay all of stone, and

having windows far distant from the ground.

And when that man, thinking of his health,

weary with laboring lay; suddenly a certain person,

bearing a maidenly appearance, through

the window enters, lit up with the whiteness of garments like snow. and the same appearing, he is ordered to go to Ely: Whose sudden entrance and

unwonted beauty had made the man's senses not a little

solicitous, bringing to him silent and doubtful

thoughts, how without a ladder and

noise she had come to him from outside. Nor

does the Virgin delay to address the man, suspended

by many estimations; I am, she said, that

Etheldreda, whose aid thou thinkest will profit thee:

nor in this thy cause will thy judgment be deceived,

but quickly thou shalt obtain what thou hast desired.

Cease therefore further to hold various opinions of me:

but knowing it true what is told thee,

correct thy life as thou hast proposed, and first

seek my church of Ely with a light.

Then to St. James of Galicia Compostela

hasten to go; whence returning, henceforth

what thou doest wisely attend.

[59] These things said, the Virgin disappeared; and he, immediately

feeling himself cured of every disease, and suddenly recovering, with a vehement

cry and most entire voice his servants

he calls together, asks for his shoes,

and indicates that he wishes to go to the church.

They, thinking he was delirious,

Sign, they say, Lord, sign thy breast with the sign

of the cross of Christ, by which the more quickly from

this madness thou mayest be freed: for what hast thou and

shoes to do, who so long hast languished?

behold thy shoes have been given elsewhere, because

we despaired they would serve thee. Yet

if we knew this mercy done to thee,

that thou couldst use shoes, quickly thou wouldst have what

thou askest. For thy sudden recovery makes thy speech seem

insane: the household astonished, he asks for shoes, except

that thy sober gesture seems to promise a certain incredible hope,

under some fear.

To whom he: Do not, he said, esteem the mercy of God

what I ask, wait, until from the Church

I return and narrate to you what I have seen.

[60] So the shoes are prepared, he goes to pray,

reports the vision to the Priest, confesses

his sins, and with wonderful speed accomplishes the journey. takes penance, returns

home, narrates the promise; the hearers rejoice,

friends run up, all praise God and St. Etheldreda.

Then an honest setting-out is prepared;

and with such alacrity he took up the journey to this church of Ely,

that the swiftness of the one going scarcely could any of his servants

equal: and at last coming hither,

after his prayer, the order of the matter, led into

the chapter, before all of us he narrated,

received fraternity, and about to proceed to the rest,

rejoicing departed. These things too that man, most well-known

in his province, made elsewhere most well-known,

to the praise and glory of almighty God,

with whom St. Etheldreda lives in the palace of heaven:

may she in the space of this life cherish us with her holy

solace, until our conversation be in the heavens,

through all ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

of measuring the sick, it has often been treated in the lives of the Saints, especially the British ones: nay, even towns in peril from an enemy or pestilence we read measured thus.

with the eponymous town in Sussex, took its name from the Arun river flowing through it, not far from the Ocean on the southern side of England near Chichester, situated.

CHAPTER VII.

The Saint seen in her church, and honored with Angelic song; a captive loosed; a treasure not carried off with impunity.

[61] To the most excellent Senate of the Church of Ely,

the noble Fathers, of the township of Clare, a the unworthy

conservator of their Capitol, b Osbert. The splendor of the blessed and glorious

Virgin Etheldreda, The Procurator of Clare writes to the men of Ely who through the various

parts of the world flashes with various virtues and signs,

presents to you a new gladness of spiritual exultation,

and magnifies her glorious solemnity declared

to the world. The matter is open, worthy of relation and precious; which

reported to me, prior of the Church of Daventry, c

whose excellent life and form of manliness is preeminent

in the house of the Lord, to have heard from the Prior of Daventry, and whose religious conversation

is an exemplar to the faithful of sighing for heavenly things.

For he is a Monk of Cluny from days

of old; and first as a Canon shone

in the church of the field of Bromfield, in d

whose neighborhood happened the sublimity of the history

to be retained in memory for your convents. For a long

time, moreover, dividing alms,

from the sober congregation of St. Virgin Milburga, e

the elder was wont to refresh a multitude of Clerics from the fragments:

of whom a certain Religious woman is a witness of this relation.

But their companions on the way became those

to whom the glory of the blessed Virgin the Lord deigned to reveal from on high.

[62] In the province of the Imbri a church of wood

was anciently built, which by blessed Anna, which in a certain old church of that Saint, King of the East

Angles, is said once to have been

constructed. He was the carnal father of Etheldreda

the glorious Virgin, and founded the aforesaid

basilica in passing. For he had gone beyond the bounds of his

kingdom at the desire of certain friends,

that with the sweet affection of kinship more familiarly

he might visit them, and with his presence the Western

parts for some time might satisfy. On his return…

he built this church, afterward overflowing

with heavenly miracles; which, placed on the border of the Britons

and the Angles, took its name

from the blessed Virgin Etheldreda: for it is

even today called her church, and in

the same, to the honor of God, she herself is invoked by the faithful.

[63] But when the household of a certain memorable

soldier, namely Herbert de Furcis of the Forks, a pious woman about to pray in passing thither,

turned aside through the open country of this place,

so that from one lodging to another the soldiers

should tend; a certain matron,

who had been wont to educate his children, for the sake of praying

wished to enter: but she could not persuade

her companions, that any one should wish to proceed with her to the house of prayer, and

on the altar of the mind immolate to the Lord the calves of holy devotion.

She, however, touched by the grace of the Holy

Spirit, and eager to fulfill her own

desire, enters, that she may wholly slaughter herself

in a holocaust.

[63] The woman, having slipped in within the door, quickly checked

her step: for here a wonderful terror struck her,

and there a heavenly vision comforted her.

For she considers before the Altar a preeminent Virgin

bent upon prayer, she saw her praying before the altar whose

so comely was the appearance and so beautiful

the beauty, that it could not be explained by human

speech, who in her hand … with the other

held forth a psalter, and in the other bore a lighted

taper. So with such instruments the Virgin

inserted herself into the sacred prayers, when the woman

draws nearer to her, and about the knowledge of her name

diligently inquires: Who art thou, she said, glorious

Lady? what art thou? and whence so conspicuous

with such splendor? with a psalter and taper in her hands; Declare to me for Christ's sake

thy celebrated name, thou whose so comely and

distinguished face I behold. To whom the splendid Virgin

returned an answer, and did not delay to soothe her

with affable sweetness. Since

thou art busy to recall to me the love of God,

and through it seekest all knowledge of me,

Etheldreda the sacred Virgin is my name,

whose integrity of virginity is joined to the heavenly

Spouse: but what God has deigned to show thee,

strive to reveal to no one.

These things said, the noble Heroine was silent, and the woman

as long as she wished prayed. The Virgin prayed,

watching before the altar in the sanctuary, the woman prayed prostrate

outside the Choir on the pavement,

whether it be pavement, or floor, the secret of devout

prayer ministered to her. As long as the woman was in the church,

she saw the heavenly Person: but when she went out

she left her within.

And returning to her companions, who awaited

her on the way, she exhorts them to hasten

what was left of the journey.

[64] But, the horses mounted and they nimbly made ready,

they suddenly hear from the church heavenly

harmonies resounding in the air, and thence returning to her companions of life, and a supernal melody

solemnly sounding with Angelic voices.

What is this, they say, which we hear? what is so great

Some sweetness of supernal harmony is mingled,

which God perhaps has deigned to reveal to our

minds. Then the woman, nurse of the soldier's

offspring, O, she said, wretched

and unhappy ones! O infants and slothful! you, through

your carelessness and inertia, would not behold

the wonders of the Lord, which by his grace

it happened to me in the church a little before

to behold. when with them she had heard the heavenly melody: For I saw in it Blessed Etheldreda,

of a heavenly ray; whose psalter

and burning taper I beheld, with the glory of so great a contemplation

I rejoice to be marked: but there

the pipes of heavenly organs sound forth, where

They, made sad and mournful beyond measure,

deliberate to return to the aforesaid Etheldreda,