CONCERNING THE HOLY VIRGINS KINEBURGA AND KINESWITHA, DAUGHTERS OF PENDA, KING OF THE MERCIANS, AND TIBBA OR TILBA, THEIR KINSWOMAN, AT PETERBOROUGH IN ENGLAND.
AT THE END OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Kineburga, daughter of Penda, King of the Mercians, Virgin at Peterborough in England (Saint)
Kineswitha, daughter of Penda, King of the Mercians, Virgin at Peterborough in England (Saint)
Tibba, or Tilba, their kinswoman, Virgin at Peterborough in England (Saint)
Section I. The controversy set forth. The lineage of the holy Virgins. The monastery of Peterborough founded. Their burial there.
[1] The deeds of these holy Virgins would be sufficiently evident and clear, were they not surrounded by various darknesses into which posterity was led by the weight of the authority of William of Somerset, commonly called William of Malmesbury, who was a monk, precentor, and librarian at the monastery of Malmesbury in the County of Wiltshire among the Western Saxons. He brought down the deeds of the Kings and Bishops of England to the year 1142, in which he lived -- that is, about five hundred years after Penda, King of the Mercians, and likewise Oswiu, King of the Northumbrians, of whom more below, Errors of the writers. had reigned. Various authors have copied Malmesbury everywhere, added new errors to his mistakes, and most recently Michael Alford, alias Griffith, a theologian of our Society, a man of outstanding learning and connected to us by friendship while he lived, brought up the rear. He, snatched from this mortal life in the year 1653, left behind his Annals of the English Church, recently printed at Liege in four volumes. In these Annals, the daughters of King Penda and the sons of King Oswiu are brought forward with many conflated into the same person, in great confusion of events, and it is established that Saint Kineburga, of whom we treat here, was married to two sons of King Oswiu, although only one is invented; and that she finally bore Osred, King and heir of the Northumbrians, born in the year 697, when it is certainly established that Saint Kineburga had passed to immortal life before the year 680. Therefore, in order to proceed clearly and lucidly in this controversy, we briefly set before the reader what we intend to prove concerning these royal families.
[2] We establish therefore four sons of King Oswiu: the first and eldest, born in lawful marriage, named Alcfrid, The four sons of King Oswiu: who was married before the year 653, having taken as his wife Cymburga, also called Kineburga by others, daughter of Penda, King of the Mercians, who, having received part of the kingdom from his father, was established as king, perhaps of the region of the South Humbrians. We judge that he departed this life before the year 666, that is, before the return of Saint Wilfrid from Gaul, when he had been consecrated bishop. But afterward, when King Oswiu died in the year 670, he was succeeded by Egbert, who was then the firstborn surviving. Between Egbert and Ethelbert, King of the Mercians, when war had arisen in the year 679, Elfwin, his brother, a youth of eighteen years and, as Bede testifies, very dear to both provinces, was killed in a fierce battle. When Egbert was slain among the Picts in the year 685,
Alfrid the illegitimate was assumed as king -- the only one remaining, a youth of about eighteen or twenty years -- who, leaving as heir of the kingdom Osred, a son of eight years, died. [Cymburga, married to the elder Alfrid, was the sister of Saints Kineburga and Kineswitha;] The wives of these three kings were as follows: the elder Alcfrid married the aforementioned Cymburga, or Kineburga, who probably died before her husband while still in the marriage, perhaps the mother of the child Rumwold, whom the people of Buckingham proclaim as illustrious for miracles and as a saint. But this controversy will have to be examined elsewhere. This Cymburga was the sister of Saints Kineburga and Kineswitha, Virgins who had been dedicated to God from their earliest age. Indeed, Saint Kineburga, while her sister was still living, was perhaps called Kinefreda, for that name is given to her by many. Egbert married Saint Etheldreda, To Egbert was married Saint Etheldreda, daughter of Anna, King of the East Angles; but since she had vowed her virginity to God, she was dismissed, and another woman succeeded her in the marriage. Then another; Although this woman's name has not been expressed by the ancients, nevertheless celebrated mention of her is made in Bede's Life of Saint Cuthbert on March 20, where it is said that after the death of her husband she received the habit of holy living from this holy bishop at the monastery of Lugubalia. Finally, what pertains more to the controversy, to the illegitimate Alfrid, Saint Ina, King of the West Saxons, gave in marriage his sister Saint Cuthburga. Alfrid married Saint Cuthburga. There exists an Anglo-Saxon Chronology printed with the History of Bede, by an anonymous but very ancient author, written about the year one thousand, in which it is said that Cuthburga was married to Alfrid, King of the Northumbrians, but was separated from him while he was still living, out of zeal for the monastic life, about the year 700. She first lived for some time in the monastery of Barking in the County of Essex under Abbess Saint Hildelitha, then was made the first abbess of the monastery of Wimborne in Dorset, built by King Saint Ina. Saint Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne, testifies in a letter then written at that monastery, which Alford unearthed and inserted in his Annals at that year, that she presided there in the year 705. But forgetful of his own writing, because he did not distinguish the illegitimate Alfrid from the elder Alcfrid, and wished Saint Kineburga to have been married to him and as a sexagenarian to have borne Osred, he asserts that Saint Cuthburga was married to Osred, King, son of Alfrid and his own son, rejecting the authority of the Life of Saint Cuthburga, likewise of the writers of Worcester and Malmesbury, compelled without any prior authority to contradict himself. Alford has these things at the year 713, as if Saint Cuthburga had then made a divorce from Osred, a youth of sixteen years. Saint Cuthburga is venerated on August 31; we treated of her on February 6 in the Life of King Saint Ina, her brother, and we shall treat of her again on March 24 in the Life of Abbess Saint Hildelitha, under whom we said she lived.
[3] About the year 1100 there flourished Goscelin, a monk of the monastery of Saint Bertin at Saint-Omer, thence summoned to England on account of his learning and piety by Saint Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, and others. They are praised by Goscelin, As William of Malmesbury testifies in book 4 of the Deeds of the Kings of England, chapter 1, he elevated countless Lives of Saints by his pen, or more elegantly corrected those that had been published in rude form, second after Bede in narrating the praises of the saints. The Life of Saint Werburga the Virgin, written by his pen, we gave on February 3, in which there exists a distinguished testimony concerning these saints, who were sisters of Wulfhere her father, at number 2, in these words: "The most holy aunts of the sweetly generous Werburga also closely adorn her nobility and holiness, Saints Kineburga and Kineswitha, namely Kineburga and Kineswitha, daughters of King Penda, who together with their most blessed kinswoman Tibba illuminate the church of the heavenly gatekeeper Peter at Peterborough. Moreover, their aforesaid father Wulfhere and their uncles, the Kings Peada, Ethelred, and Merwala, brothers of the aforesaid sisters, were not only cultivators but indeed the first and most zealous propagators of Christian instruction, and just as Ethelbert at Canterbury, so Wulfhere first extended Christianity in Mercia." So much from Goscelin, a trustworthy author.
[4] Penda, the father of all these, reigned from the year 626 to the year 655. Daughters of Penda, King of the Mercians, Although, as Bede testifies in book 3 of the Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, chapter 21, he did not prohibit the preaching of the word of God even in his own, that is, the Mercian nation, but rather hated and despised those whom he found imbued with the faith of Christ but lacking the works of faith, nevertheless he did not renounce the filth of idolatry, nor was he washed in the font of faith. While the father lived, Peada, the elder son, ruled the Middle Angles, Sisters of King Peada, or Mediterranean English, in the present-day counties of Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Cheshire, and parts of Warwickshire and Shropshire, as much as can be determined from the ancient boundaries of the diocese of Lichfield. The other part of Shropshire with the County of Hereford and perhaps Monmouth constituted the kingdom of the Western Mercians, which was held by another of the sons, Merwala, father of the holy Virgins Milburga, Of Merwala, Mildred, and Milwida, as was said more fully in the Life of Saint Milburga on February 23. Both these brothers embraced the Christian faith -- Peada two years before his father's death, namely in the year 653, and Merwala about the year 660. But when King Penda was killed, Oswiu, the most Christian King of the Northumbrians, occupied the kingdom of the Mercians, but to Peada, his son-in-law, on account of his having married his daughter Alcfleda, he gave the kingdom of the South Mercians, around the river Trent, separated from the Northern Mercians, whose kingdom he retained. Of Wulfhere, But when Peada was slain in the year 657, while Oswiu again ruled the Mercians, the Mercians rebelled and raised up the still-adolescent Wulfhere as king. When he died in the year 675, Saint Ethelred succeeded him, recovered the kingdom of the Northern Mercians, and finally, having handed over the kingdom to Cooenred, son of Wulfhere, And of Saint Ethelred, he entered the monastic life and, having afterward died in holiness, is venerated on May 4.
[5] These few things about the royal family had to be indicated because the church of Saint Peter at Peterborough mentioned by Goscelin, or the monastery and town of Peterborough, formerly called Medeshamstede, on the river Nene In the founding of the monastery of Peterborough, after Peada and Oswiu, (called Ausona by the Romans), on the borders of the counties of Huntingdon and Lincoln, owes its origin to that family. King Peada, having embraced the Christian religion, planned this monastery in the year 656; to which was joined as collaborator Saxulphus, a man most powerful in both worldly and religious affairs, most acceptable to the king and to the Church, who was afterward made the first abbot when the monastic community was assembled, and later elevated to the bishopric of the Mercians and Middle Angles. Oswiu, Peada's father-in-law, especially after the latter's murder, promoted the work begun, as did most especially Kings Wulfhere and Saint Ethelred, whose charters survive in the Monasticon Anglicanum. Wulfhere, among other things, speaks thus: Wulfhere assists, "Because for the sake of Saint Peter, Prince of the Divine faith and of the Churches and key-bearer of the Kingdom of God, through whom I may be admitted into the paradise of the Lord, I desire to be reconciled to myself through the privilege of his house, which at Medeshamstede has been gloriously founded by the zeal of the venerable Abbot Saxulphus, and well ordered with a divine family of monks. Whatever my predecessor and brother Peada or Oswiu, my Christian brother and co-ruler, have granted to it, I wish not only to confirm by my authority but also to add something of my own. Therefore I, with the support of my brothers Ethelred and Merwala, together with my most blessed sisters Kineburga and Kineswitha... bestow upon Blessed Peter for the aforesaid monastery of Medeshamstede these marshes and swamps and lakes and fisheries with lands and all things lying within." Having enumerated these at length, he adds: "Let this church possess these as a queen, not as a servant. This is our principal Roman church in its region, with Blessed Peter presiding over it, and especially so; They subscribe to the donation: here let us seek that Patron whom we cannot seek at Rome... You, my brother Ethelred, and you, most pious sisters Kineburga and Kineswitha, for the mutual redemption of our souls, subscribe as excellent witnesses to this our testament." This is reported to have been done in these words: "I, Ethelred, brother of the King, have consented with him. I, Kineburga, sister of the King, embrace it. I also, Kineswitha, sister of the King, have favored it... This privilege was sanctioned in the year of the Lord 664, the seventh year of King Wulfhere." Other matters concerning this charter we shall examine below.
[6] Then in the year 680, during the reign of Ethelred, a decretal letter of Pope Agatho was sent from Rome, directed to the said King Ethelred, to Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, and to Bishop Saxulphus and the other fellow priests, by which the Abbot of Medeshamstede is constituted Apostolic Legate throughout all England, and the monastery itself is made the equivalent of visiting the Apostolic See for the absolution of vows that had been conceived of making a pilgrimage to Rome. This decretal letter survives, rendered into Latin from a Saxon manuscript by Henry Spelman in the Ancient British Councils, from page 163. Saint Ethelred approves this: When it was read at the Council of Hatfield, King Ethelred said: "All that my brother Peada, and my brother Wulfhere, and also my sisters Kineburga and Kineswitha gave and bequeathed to Saint Peter and to this Abbot, I wish to be ratified and immovable." In the year 680. Spelman warned that those acts seem not to be entirely intact; they were afterward more fully printed in the Monasticon Anglicanum, where on page 67 King Ethelred asserts: "I confirm that the monastery of Blessed Peter at Medeshamstede, through the industry of our spiritual father Saxulphus -- with a foreign father of the flesh leading the way -- my brothers of most kindly memory, Peada, royally founded, and Wulfhere, with royal wealth and privilege, principally ennobled. I also, both for the salvation of my soul and for that of my brothers, as well as for my most sacred sisters, Saint Kineburga dead, Saint Kineswitha still living; namely Kineburga of most blessed memory, and Kineswitha who still serves Christ in consecrated virginity, have taken care to increase with property and fortify with divine authority."
[7] From these things it is evident that these holy sisters, together with their three brother kings, can be regarded as co-founders of this most illustrious monastery of Medeshamstede or Peterborough, or as donors of many possessions. Afterward patrons of this monastery, buried there: After the Apostle Saint Peter, they were made its principal patrons. Indeed, as far as can be gathered from what follows, they were buried there from the beginning and by their own testament. For they had chosen a dwelling-place quite nearby, two miles distant, called Caerdorm by Henry of Huntingdon and Dormecaster by Camden, in the territory of the Iceni and the County of Huntingdon, contracted to Caster -- In a nearby place they dwelt. which is said to have been leveled to the ground by Danish fury. In this place, therefore, these royal virgins, having received Christian instruction from the monks of Medeshamstede, led their lives in great holiness. We believe that their Acts were burned in that Danish devastation together with the neighboring monasteries, as will presently be said.
Section II. The destruction and restoration of the monastery of Peterborough. The translation of the bodies of these Saints and of Tibba to Ankarig and their return. Sacred veneration.
[8] The Chronicle of Peterborough is preserved, written by hand, in the Cotton Library, in which the destruction of the monastery seems to be faithfully described, at least from a copy made by those who lived at the time. Some of it has been printed in the Monasticon Anglicanum:
some of which pertain to Saints Kineburga and Kineswitha, The Danes in the year 870 slay the monks and burn the monasteries: Bardney, and must necessarily be given here. That narrative therefore begins on page 68 thus: "In the year of the Lord 870 the pagans, leaving York, landed by ship in Lindsey, where, devastating the country, they also handed over to the flames the monastery of Bardney, having slain all the monks without any mercy. Passing through into Kesteven, they destroyed, killed, and burned everything... Against them the assembled Christians, on the feast of Saint Maurice the Martyr, joined battle with the pagans, the Lord granting them the victory... But the Danes, more enraged at the slaughter of their own men... raged as they pleased like lions against a few little sheep... There the Christians, avenging their blood as much as they could, at last pierced by innumerable wounds, fell upon the corpses of their brothers. Crowland, A few young men, having cast aside their arms, barely escaping into the nearby forest, entering Crowland the following night, announced the slaughter of the Christians. Abbot Theodore, retaining with himself the older monks and a few children, dismissed the others with the sacred relics of the monastery and also with certain valuables, charters, and records... The barbarians, indignant that they had not found the hoped-for treasures, having miserably dragged all the bodies of the saints from their broken tombs, on the third day, having set fire according to their custom, burned the church with all the offices and buildings of the monastery on the sixth day before the Kalends of October. On the fourth day they crossed over to Medeshamstede, where Count Hubba, raging with anger beyond measure and especially savage against monks, And Peterborough: slew by his own hand all those clothed in the garb of holy religion; the rest raged against the rest. No one from the entire monastery was saved, neither the venerable Father Hedda, a very aged man, nor all his monks with everyone else. All the altars were dug up, all the tombs broken, a great library of holy books burned, an immense quantity of monastic charters torn apart, the precious relics of the holy Virgins Kineburga, They trample the bodies of Saints Kineburga, Kineswitha, and Tibba. Kineswitha, and Tilba trampled underfoot, the walls demolished to their foundations, and the church itself with all the other buildings consumed by fire, blazing in continual conflagration throughout the following fortnight." The same things about the holy Virgins are read in nearly the same words, like most other passages, in the work of Ingulf, to be cited below. But the author continues.
[9] "Brother Turgar, having escaped by flight into the nearest ruin, and walking all night, entered Crowland at first light. He found that his Brothers, fellow-monks from Ankarig, had returned the previous day, By the monk Turgar who escaped by flight, and were laboring most strenuously to extinguish the fires still burning in many parts of the monastery. Seeing him safe and sound, they were somewhat comforted; but hearing from him in what places both their Abbot and the other fellow-brothers and seniors lay slain... clearing away the ruins of the roof of their church, they found the body of the venerable Father Abbot Theodore near the great altar... and when an election had been held, the venerable Father Godric was made Abbot. To him came the venerable old Prior of Ankarig, Toretus, and his Sub-prior Lord Tisa, both most holy anchorites, When others had been led back to Peterborough, devoutly entreating that, taking with him some of the Brothers, he would deign to go to Medeshamstede and consign to Christian burial, out of regard for charity, the bodies of their Abbot and other fellow-brothers, still exposed to wild beasts and birds and unburied. Complying therefore with their prayers, the venerable Abbot Godric went to Medeshamstede with many Brothers, among whom Brother Turgar was present, with all the Brothers from Ankarig meeting them, After the burial of the 84 slain monks, and with much effort buried all the bodies of the monks of the said monastery, numbering 84, in the middle of the cemetery, in one very large tomb prepared for this purpose, on the feast of Saint Cecilia the Virgin... Then also Lord Toretus, Prior of Ankarig, instructed by Brother Turgar as to how and in which corner of the church the most sacred relics of the blessed Virgins Kineburga, The sacred bodies are shown, Kineswitha, and Tilba had been cast down and trampled by the pagans, but had been reverently gathered up by the aforesaid Brother Turgar as best he could and placed there, he took the aforesaid relics with him from the public way, They are carried to Ankarig and returning with his Brothers to Ankarig, placed them as honorably as he could in his oratory." So far the Chronicle of Peterborough. Ankarig was a monastery with hermitic cells built in honor of the Mother of God by Saxulphus, the first Abbot of Medeshamstede, A hermitage subject to it. in the time and with the favor of King Wulfhere, in the adjoining wilderness, so that there either cenobites on behalf of anchorites or anchorites on behalf of cenobites might live in divine peace -- as is read in nearly these words in the above-cited donation of King Wulfhere. Ingulf places the wood of Ankarig as a neighboring island to the south of Crowland.
[10] The monastery of Peterborough remained for a hundred years hidden under its ashes and as if buried, until the times of King Edgar, surnamed the Peaceful, who was established as King of the Mercians and Northumbrians in the year 957, Under King Edgar and two years later as monarch of all England; he lived until the year 975. During his reign, in the year 963, Saint Ethelwold received the bishopric of the Church of Winchester; having exerted outstanding effort in restoring the splendor of the English churches, he departed this world in the year 984. In his Life, to be elucidated on the Kalends of August, he is called an exceptional builder of churches and diverse works. Among other things, Peterborough is restored by Bishop Saint Ethelwold, he purchased from the King the place of Medeshamstede, now called Burgh, and consecrated a basilica adorned with appropriate buildings in honor of Blessed Peter; he gathered monks and appointed Eadulphus as their Abbot, who after Saint Oswald presided with honor over the Cathedral Church of York. In the aforementioned Chronicle of Peterborough, it is reported that the said Bishop Saint Ethelwold began to restore the monastery of Medeshamstede in the year 970 and called it the Burgh of Saint Peter, in the equally hundredth year of its desolation. At the petition of this holy bishop, King Edgar granted the same monastery very many privileges and donated various possessions, the charter of all of which survives in the Monasticon Anglicanum, page 65. In it Bishop Ethelwold is called an indefatigable builder of churches and is especially praised for the restoration and liberty of the ancient monastery, which "was originally called Medeshamstede, and now, with God's help and by his and our exertion," says the King, "is restored and called Burgh."
[11] [The sacred bodies are brought back to a church dedicated to them: in the year 980,] In the English Martyrology for this sixth day of March it is read that the monastery of Peterborough was built by Saint Ethelwold in honor of Saints Kineburga and Kineswitha, and that their sacred relics were brought by him to this church in the year 980 with honorable solemnity -- not from Dormandcaster or Kineburge-caster, as is there stated, but from the nearby monastery of Ankarig built for hermits, to which we said they were brought after Peterborough was burned by the Danes. The repose was not very long, on account of new harassments by the Danes, especially when King Swein came with a fleet and devastated everything with a fresh army... "Then the monastery of Burgh and the estates of the neighboring towns" (these are the words of Ingulf, Abbot of Crowland) "were plundered and given to the flames. Again they are carried to the monastery of Thorney. The Abbot, however, with the greater part of his convent, taking with him the sacred relics of the holy Virgins Kineburga, Kineswitha, and Tilba, went to Thorney. The Prior, with some Brothers, taking with him the arm of Saint Oswald the King, fled to the isle of Ely. The Sub-prior with ten Brothers came safely to Crowland." So much for that, and the year 1018 is added, but printed by a typographical error in place of the year 1013, In the year 1013. in which year King Swein is read to have arrived with a strong fleet in the month of July, according to Simeon of Durham. But in the following year, after the innumerable and cruel evils he had wrought, on the third day before the Nones of February he was pierced by the appearing King Saint Edmund and ended his life in a miserable death. These things are also reported by John of Salisbury in book 8 of the Policraticus, chapter 21. The historian of Huntingdon in book 5 of his Histories places the Abbey of Thorney near the one at Burgh, in the middle of the marshes, yet in a most pleasant situation. We believe the relics were brought back from that place when the persecution ceased and the monastery of Peterborough was restored. Harpsfield in century 7 of his Ecclesiastical History of England, chapter 23, asserts that the relics of these Virgins -- Chineswide, Chinesburge, and Cibbe, as he calls them -- were brought with great pomp to the monastery of Peterborough and deposited there during the reign of Henry I. But since John Capgrave is noted in the margin, it seems that instead of the year 1005 expressed in his work, he read the year 1105, when Henry I was ruling England. But what that Translation indicated by Capgrave could have been is not clear: perhaps the one which the English Martyrology places as having been made in the year 980 is referred to the year 1005.
[12] Since the Acts of these Saints, as is also indicated in the Nova Legenda already cited, were either not written out through the negligence of scribes, or if they were written, perished destroyed by fire in the Danish devastation, we set forth the few gleanings left by other writers. The holy sisters praised by Ingulf, First, the aforementioned Ingulf, Abbot of the monastery of Crowland under William the Conqueror, which is only a few miles from Peterborough, in his Description compiled at the beginning, enumerates the sons of the fanatical King Penda as most devout cultivators of the Christian religion, and then adds that he had daughters Kineburga and Kineswitha, both excelling in holy continence, and he frequently names afterward the holy Virgins Kineburga, Kineswitha, and Tilba. Ranulph of Chester in the Polychronicon, By the Cestrian, which we have in manuscript, book 5, chapter 18, reports that King Wulfhere had two holy sisters, Kenedrida and Kenewida, dedicated to God, both buried at Medeshamstede. Matthew of Westminster explains the same things that were said by these two, By the Westminster writer, somewhat more copiously in the Flores Historiarum at the year 705, where, having related the death of King Saint Ethelred, he adds: "The King had two sisters, most holy Virgins, Kinedrida and Kineswitha, both dedicated to God from infancy, who brought the noble purpose of virginity more nobly to its end... The Relics of these holy Virgins are happily venerated by the people at Medeshamstede, which town is now called the Burgh of Saint Peter." And by others. In the English Martyrology of the first edition, very many things are transcribed from these Flores together with the name Kinesdride, but in the later edition, these being omitted, the name Kineburga has been restored. Polydore Vergil and the later writers generally praise these same Virgins.
[13] What the feast days of these sisters are is not entirely clear. In the manuscript Florarium Sanctorum on January 31, Saint Kineswitha the Abbess is recorded. Each is venerated separately. "In England" is added in the additions to Usuard collected by Hermann Greven, a Carthusian of Cologne who flourished about two hundred years ago. The same Greven on this March 6 venerates Saint Kineburga the Virgin, to whom, as the elder, were perhaps joined her sister Saint Kineswitha and their kinswoman Tilba or Tibba, who died, as will presently appear from the Nova Legenda of Capgrave, on December 13. The festivity, moreover, as is there added, Together with Saint Kineburga on March 6, in the manuscript Martyrologies.
of Saints Kineswitha, Kineburga, and Tibba is festively commemorated at the monastery of the Burgh of Saint Peter on the day before the Nones of March. In a manuscript Martyrology of Usuard augmented in England, which exists at Rome in the library of the Duke of Altemps, the following is read, inserted by an ancient hand: "At the monastery of Burgh, of Saints Kineburga, Kineswitha, and Tibba." The memorial of the same is celebrated in the Martyrology of Richard Whitford, printed at London in the year 1526, And in printed works. likewise in the Flores Vitarum of the Principal Saints of England, Scotland, and Ireland, published in English by Jerome Porter, and in the Trophaea of the English Congregation of the Order of Saint Benedict erected by Edward Maihew. Ferrarius in the General Catalogue writes: "In England, of the holy Virgins Chinisdrede and Chiniswwide, sisters." The English Martyrology is cited, in whose first edition we said the reading was Kinesdride. In its second edition the Translation of the relics is reported as being performed on this day. But we most strongly disapprove the reading in the same Martyrology of the first edition -- and from it in Ferrarius -- that these holy sisters migrated to the Lord about the year 634, when we judge that they had not yet been born or had not passed their early adolescence.
[14] But on the third day before the Nones of March they are inscribed in the Monastic Martyrology of Menard in these words: "In England, at the monastery of Peterborough, of Saints Kineburga and Kineswitha, sisters, On another date, March 5, the holy sisters daughters of Penda, King of the Mercians." Bucelinus also follows with a long encomium and cites not Menard but Capgrave and Harpsfield, in whom he could read that their memorial was annually solemnly observed on the day before the Nones of March, as also that of Saint Tibba, whom both celebrate separately on December 13, the day on which she died. We have found her joined to the others in their veneration, and so we leave her. Concerning her, the following is found in Capgrave: "Blessed Tibba was a kinswoman of the aforesaid holy Virgins, And of Saint Tibba on December 13. who, living in solitude for many years in great holiness, commended her spirit to God. Appearing to a certain blessed man, she said among other things: 'I have descended from our heavenly festivity; I have come to announce to you the day of my departure. For this night is the day of Blessed Lucy the Virgin, on which I offered my soul to the Lord Jesus Christ.'"
Section III. Kineburga, married to King Alcfrid, is different from Saint Kineburga the Virgin. Was Saint Kineswitha betrothed to King Offa?
[15] We said above in the words of Goscelin, a most trustworthy author, that the brother kings of the aforesaid sisters -- namely Saints Kineburga and Kineswitha -- were the first and most zealous propagators of Christian instruction; The murder of two sons falsely attributed to King Wulfhere: and especially, just as Saint Ethelbert was King at Canterbury, where he received Saint Augustine and his companions sent by Saint Gregory, so Wulfhere was the first to extend Christianity in Mercia. Yet malevolent posterity imputed to him a most abominable calumny, as if he had been so hardened in the idolatry of his gods that he even slaughtered his own sons with barbarous savagery out of hatred for the Christian religion. This calumny was taken up by great and otherwise learned men and inserted into their books as true history. We examined this entire fabulous calumny in the Life of Queen Saint Ermenilda, his wife, on February 13, the day on which she is venerated, and showed from the English History of the Venerable Bede and other principal writers that it is a most pernicious fabrication, and that King Wulfhere was such a person as Goscelin describes. Let what was said there in sections II and III be read, which it is not appropriate to repeat here. With the same Goscelin attesting in the cited Life of Saint Werburga, the blessed and royal Domneua, married to Merwala, Wulfhere's brother, In place of Domneua, wife of Merwala, Saint Ermenburga is wrongly assigned. "produced for the grace of the supreme Trinity a threefold laurel of virginity, namely the most holy sisters Milburga, Mildreda, and Milwida." Domneua was descended from her great-grandfather Saint Ethelbert and her grandfather Eadbald, Kings of Kent, her father being Ermerend, brother of Eorcenbert, likewise King of Kent. She afterward lived in a monastery on the island of Thanet in Kent, built by herself, with her daughter Saint Mildreda, as we showed in the Life of Saint Milburga on February 23, and this is confirmed in the Monasticon Anglicanum, pages 83 and following. Meanwhile, William of Malmesbury in book 1 of the Deeds of the Kings of England, chapter 4, substitutes for Domneua her sister Saint Ermenburga, Abbess of Faversham in East Kent, as if she, married to Merwala, had borne the three aforementioned daughters. Twelve kings omitted. But the greater ignorance or even carelessness of Malmesbury appears in the Kings of Northumbria, of whom he omitted twelve, and among them Eardulf, by whom Saint Alchmund was killed, as is more clearly indicated in his Life on March 19.
[16] [Concerning Saint Kineburga, many contradictory things are reported in Malmesbury:] It was fitting to preface these remarks on account of other errors that the same Malmesbury adds in the above-mentioned chapter, when he writes: "Kineburga, daughter of Penda, was taken as wife by Alfrid, King of the Northumbrians, who afterward, having grown weary of carnal union, assumed the monastic habit in the monastery that her brothers Wulfhere and Ethelred had built." But Malmesbury, not sufficiently mindful of himself, had shortly before repeated the words he had found in Ingulf, when, enumerating the children of King Penda, he reports that he had two daughters, Kineburga and Kineswitha, "both excelling in holy continence." The same author, in book 4 of the Deeds of the Bishops of England, in the section on the Bishops of Dorchester or Lincoln, writes: "In the district of Huntingdon are Burgh and Ramsey and Crowland. Burgh was formerly called Medeshamstede, but after Abbot Kenulphus enclosed the place with a wall, it was called Burgh in the likeness of a city. Here the most blessed Ethelwold built a monastery with such elaborate expenses and enlarged possessions that nearly the entire surrounding region is subject to it. There the distinguished Virgins Kinedreda and Kineswida, daughters of King Penda, cherish and foster the relics of their bodies. Both, dedicated to God from infancy, maintained their noble resolve until old age. Three daughters of Penda: the eldest, Cymburga, married to King Alcfrid: But the younger, not content with the salvation of herself alone, also consecrated her bridegroom Offa to celibacy. He was King of the East Angles for a few years, a young man of pleasant face and spirit, of blooming age, most beloved by the citizens. Taught by the admonition of Kineswitha, whose marriage he had hoped for, to change his loves for the better, he went to Rome with Kenred, King of the Mercians, and Egwin, Bishop of the Hwicce, where, having been tonsured as a monk, he bade farewell to earthly things in due time. King Saint Oswald adorns (as they proclaim) the company of the Virgins, whose arm they claim to possess there." So much from Malmesbury, not sufficiently mindful of himself, as I said: first, because here he calls Kinedreda the one whom he had twice before called Kineburga; then here he says she was dedicated to God from infancy and maintained her noble resolve until old age, whereas above he said she was married to King Alfrid and afterward, having grown weary of carnal union, assumed the monastic habit. Meanwhile she and her sister are called distinguished Virgins, indeed "both excelling in holy continence," Two others dedicated to God: and a "company of Virgins."
[17] We therefore judge that three daughters of Penda must be established, of whom the first, also older than her brothers, was called Cymburga, Cyneburga, Chineburga, or Kineburga, and was married before the year 653 to Alcfrid, son of the most Christian King Oswiu of the Northumbrians. As far as we can gather, she was sent some years earlier into that kingdom to be imbued with the mysteries of the Christian faith, washed in the font of baptism, and finally to contract marriage in the Christian rite. But while she was absent, or perhaps after her marriage, a second daughter seems to have been born, also called Kineburga, Two others dedicated to God: as afterward a third, Kineswitha. Upon the death of their father Penda during their infancy, they could have been dedicated to God either by their mother Queen Cinewise, a widow converted to the Christian religion, or by their most pious brother kings. What if this second Kineburga was from the beginning called Kinedreda and Kinesdreda, Saint Kineburga perhaps formerly called Kinesdreda: and after the death of the first Kineburga was called by her name by their mother out of singular affection? And thus, just as the three holy nieces of these saints -- the daughters of their brother Merwala -- were Milburga, Mildreda, and Milwitha, so these their aunts would have been Kineburga, Kinedreda, and Kineswitha. But even if from the beginning the second was also called Kineburga, the two should not on that account have been conflated into one. Did not King Oswiu too have two daughters of the same name and two sons? Elsewhere, brothers and sisters of the same name. Of the daughters, the one Alcfleda -- called Elfleda by Ranulph and Harpsfield -- was married to King Peada in the said year 653; the other is Saint Elfleda, offered by her father Oswiu and dedicated to sacred virginity to God, should he emerge victorious -- whose Life we gave on February 8, where we too, misled by Malmesbury, did not distinguish Alcfrid, the husband of Cymburga or Kineburga, from the illegitimate Alfrid, which, now better informed, we do.
[18] But there are also more errors in the above narrative of Malmesbury. First, Ramsey is in the district of Huntingdon, but not Peterborough or Crowland: Other ineptitudes in Malmesbury, since the former monastery is in the county of Northampton, and the latter in Lincolnshire, in its part called Holland. Then he reports the monastery of Peterborough as having been built by Bishop Saint Ethelwold, so as to seem ignorant of its origin, which is owed to Peada, Wulfhere, and Saint Ethelred, and to their holy sisters Kineburga and Kineswitha. Furthermore, he asserts that Offa, King of the East Angles, taught by Saint Kineswitha, scorned marriage and went to Rome with Kenred, King of the Mercians, and Egwin, Bishop of the Hwicce. Especially concerning Saint Kineswitha. We gave the Life of Saint Egwin, Bishop of Worcester, on January 11, from which it is clear that those three came to Rome in the time of Pope Constantine, who sat from the year 708 to the year 714. The Anglo-Saxon Chronologist assigns the journey of Cenred and Offa to the year 709. But those dates are too distant from the death of King Penda, slain in the year 655, for Saint Kineswitha to have been sought in marriage at the age of at least fifty-four or fifty-five by a young man of pleasant face and spirit and of blooming age, as was related above. Meanwhile, this fable is marvelously embellished in Capgrave, Amplified in Capgrave, where Saint Kineswitha is said to have been betrothed to King Offa, compelled to this by the threats and promises of her brothers, but, comforted by the appearing of the glorious Virgin Mary, whose aid she had implored, she rescinded the agreement and persisted in her resolve of chastity; whereupon King Offa too set out for Rome and was consecrated as a monk. But since all the brothers had died, Kenred, son of Wulfhere, having then left his kingdom, became his companion on the journey. In the same way, what is read in Malmesbury about "growing weary of carnal union" As also the marriage of Saint Kineburga. is not only marvelously amplified in Capgrave but also transferred to the donation of Wulfhere, into which the following words, which we have enclosed in parentheses, seem to have been intruded by later hands: "I therefore," he says, "with the support of my brothers Ethelred and Merwala, together with (my most blessed) sisters Kineburga and Kineswitha (of whom the former, a Queen, exchanged her sovereignty for the servitude of Christ, presiding over the monastery of Kineburga, which is adorned with her name, mother of sacred Virgins; the latter, in inviolate virginity, burns for the divine bridal chamber. With these, I say, consenting) I bestow upon Blessed Peter for the aforesaid Medeshamstede
monastery, etc." What purpose do these praises of the sisters rather than the brothers, who were equally alive, serve? Then many of the subscriptions seem to be interpolated. For Ithamar, Bishop of Rochester, died not long after the consecration of the Archbishop Deusdedit, about the year 656, and Damian sat in his place. But I leave these matters for others to examine.
[19] We are more affected by the fact that Saint Kineburga, in the very exact description of the destroyed monastery, is regarded as a Virgin just as much as her sister; and the same was maintained by Ingulf, the Westminster writer, and, as we noted, by Malmesbury himself. Edward Maihew writes that they were customarily honored by the people of Peterborough with the Office of Virgins. For this reason he devised that she preserved her virginity in marriage -- which we do not read among the ancients, nor do we easily think it should be conceded given the silence of the ancient writers, and especially of the Venerable Bede, who mentions this marriage in book 3 of the English History, chapter 21, and then in chapter 25 writes that Alcfrid had as his teacher in Christian learning Wilfrid -- that Wilfrid, I say, of blessed memory, whom in book 4, chapter 19, he adduces as a most certain witness of the virginity of Saint Etheldreda, who was married to Egfrid, brother of Alcfrid: who, he says, "reported to me when I inquired of him, since some had come to doubt whether it was so." Why then, if there had been even any talk or rumor of this matter, would Bede not have investigated it, especially if she had left her marriage and entered the monastic life -- a change of status that this most diligent investigator of Kings and Queens who, having cast aside their royal scepters, preferred to hide in monasteries, would not have neglected to indicate in commendation of the monastic Order?
Section IV. The two Kings Alcfrid, sons of Oswiu: to the elder Kineburga was married, to the younger Saint Cuthburga. Monastic profession wrongly attributed to the latter.
[20] We established above that there is one thing to be inquired into at this point: whether the aforesaid King Alcfrid, son of Oswiu, to whom Cymburga or Kineburga was married before the year 653, should be considered one and the same as Alfrid the illegitimate son of the same Oswiu, who succeeded his brother Egfrid in the kingdom of the Northumbrians when the latter died in the year 685. Malmesbury in book 1 of the Deeds of the Kings of England, chapter 3, judges them to be one and the same. "Oswiu," he says, [Malmesbury wrongly considers Alcfrid, husband of Kineburga, and the illegitimate Alfrid to be one and the same.] "had two sons: the younger Egfrid, legitimately born, succeeded him, the illegitimate one having been rejected." And after some intervening remarks: "When the more conspicuous report of Egfrid's death was being spoken of everywhere, the news also reached the ears of his brother Alfrid by an anxious letter of hasty pen. He, because he was illegitimate as I said, was deemed unworthy of the kingdom by the faction of the nobles, although he was the elder, and had withdrawn to Ireland, either by force or indignation. There, both safe from his brother's hatred and imbued with great leisure in letters, he had composed his mind with all philosophy. Wherefore, those who had formerly expelled him, now judging him more fit for the reins of empire, voluntarily sought him out: necessity turned the remedy into entreaty. Nor did he disappoint them in their hope, for he presided over the province for nineteen years in the greatest peace and joy... He had as his successor his son Osred, a boy of eight years." So much from Malmesbury, whom very many follow; but Bede did not lead the way, from whom especially this dispute must be decided.
[21] Bede therefore recognized the elder Alcfrid as a legitimate son of King Oswiu, and nowhere called him illegitimate or spurious or born of an unlawful bed. And first he mentions him in book 3 of the English History, chapter 21, where Peada, son of Penda, King of the Mercians, is said to have been persuaded to accept the faith chiefly by the son of King Oswiu, Alcfrid the elder, married before the year 653, "named Alcfrid, who was his kinsman and friend, having that one's sister as his wife, named Cyniburga, daughter of King Penda" -- who would not have given her to an illegitimate son. And after narrating his baptism and the conversion of the Middle Angles, it is added: "These things were begun two years before the death of King Penda," therefore in the year 653. Then in chapter 24, narrating the conflict entered into between Kings Oswiu and Penda, he asserts: "King Oswiu, with his son Alcfrid, having a small army but trusting in Christ as leader, met them. In the year 655 he takes part in the battle: For his other son Egfrid was at that time held as a hostage in the province of the Mercians at the court of Queen Cinewise." After King Penda had been slain, "King Oswiu concluded this war in the thirteenth year of his reign, the year of Christ 655." Afterward, when that solemn controversy about the celebration of the Easter festival was being agitated in the year 664, about which Bede treats in chapter 25 of the same book 3, "it came even to the ears of the Princes themselves, namely of King Oswiu and his son Alcfrid... Moreover, Alcfrid had as his teacher in Christian learning Wilfrid... At that time Agilbert, Bishop of the West Saxons, In the year 664, at the Synod over the Easter controversy, a friend of King Alcfrid and of Abbot Wilfrid, had come to the province of the Northumbrians, and at the request of Alcfrid had also made Wilfrid a Presbyter. When the question about Easter or the tonsure or other ecclesiastical matters was raised there, it was arranged that a synod should be held at the monastery of Streanashalch, and this question decided. And both Kings came there, father and son." And not long after, as the same Bede says in chapter 28, "King Alcfrid sent the Presbyter Wilfrid to the King of the Gauls, that he might have him ordained Bishop for himself and his people." Furthermore, in book 5, chapter 20: "Wilfrid, coming to Britain, was united in friendship with King Alcfrid, who had always learned to follow and love the Catholic rules of the Church. Whence, because he found him to be a Catholic, he soon gave him land of ten families in the place called Stanford, He appoints Saint Wilfrid Abbot of the monastery of Ripon, and not long after a monastery of ten families in the place called Inrhypum. Which place he had formerly given for building a monastery there to those who followed the Scots." What he means by the Scots, the same Bede explains in the Life of Saint Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, to be given on the twentieth of this month of March, where at number 13 he has: "When it pleased King Alcfrid, for the redemption of his soul, to give a certain place in his kingdom called Inrhypum to Abbot Eata for building a monastery there, Previously donated to the monks of Melrose: the same Abbot, taking with him some of the Brothers, including Cuthbert, founded there the monastery that was requested, and imbued it with the same rules of regular discipline as formerly at Melrose."
[22] All these things Bede says about Alcfrid, the first son of King Oswiu, who was also established as King by the goodwill of his father, having been given some part of his kingdom -- but how large, Bede does not explain, though he names two places of his kingdom, namely Stanford and Inrhypum: the former situated on the border of Lincolnshire on the river Welland, formerly famous for the Roman military road, still now a populous and fortified town; Inrhypum, The kingdom of Alcfrid called the monastery of Ripon in Bede's poem on Saint Cuthbert, between the rivers Skell and Ure on the border of the western and northern parts of the Duchy of York. If one may add a conjecture, I would say: since Alcfrid is called King only after the victory obtained over Penda, it seems that that portion of the Mercian territory around the river Trent, which remained detached from the Mercian kingdom until the times of King Saint Ethelred, was ceded together with the rest to Alcfrid, and that he was King of the South Humbrians, by whom Ostrytha, sister of Alcfrid but wife of Saint Ethelred, was afterward killed. Thus an appropriate explanation is given for this designation "South Humbrians," which is mentioned by the writers of Worcester, Westminster, and others, from a region south of the Humber growing together from parts of the kingdoms of the Mercians and Northumbrians. Finally, I ask the Reader to be pleased to observe Friendship with kings. that nowhere is Alcfrid branded with any reproach of ignoble birth, as if he were illegitimate, spurious, or born of an unlawful bed; Whether he died while his father Oswiu was still living: but that he is everywhere fostered by the friendship of all, bishops and kings, even of Chlothar III reigning in France. About his death Bede is silent, but by his silence he seems to imply that he died before his father Oswiu, and perhaps a full five years before, namely before the return of Saint Wilfrid from Gaul to England; and therefore when Oswiu had received the kingdom of his son Alcfrid, and no episcopal see had been assigned to Wilfrid anywhere, he had to withdraw to Ripon and live as an Abbot among his monks.
[23] The rest will become clearer from the account of what the same Bede writes about the illegitimate Alfrid and Egfrid's successor as King. And first indeed in book 4, chapter 26: "Alfrid succeeded Egfrid in the kingdom," he says, "a man most learned in the Scriptures, who was said to be his brother and son of King Oswiu; The later Alfrid was illegitimate, and he nobly recovered the ruined state of the kingdom, although within narrower boundaries." Bede explains these things more clearly in the Life of Saint Cuthbert, who was questioned by Saint Elfleda, sister of these Kings, as is said at number 39: "How long Egfrid was to live and govern the kingdom, he predicted that only one year of life remained. Then she asked who was to be his heir of the kingdom, since he lacked both sons and brothers." Not sufficiently recognized as Oswiu's son. After a brief silence, he said: "Do not say that he lacks one. For you shall have a successor whom you shall embrace with sisterly affection, just as you do Egfrid himself." At which she said: "I beseech you, tell me in what places he is." He said: "Do you see this great and spacious sea, how many islands it abounds with?... She understood therefore that he was speaking of Alfrid, who was reported to be a son of her father, and was then living in exile among the islands of the Scots for the sake of study." He succeeded Egfrid, And then at number 40: "After a year Egfrid is slaughtered by the sword of the Picts, and Alfrid, his illegitimate brother, is substituted in the kingdom, who for not a few years previously had been devoted to reading in the regions of the Scots, there enduring voluntary exile for the love of wisdom." The same things Bede had already written earlier, while Alfrid was still living, in a poem about the same Cuthbert; and what was said in the conversation between Cuthbert and Saint Elfleda is at number 21, but what concerns the succession itself is at number 22, in which, because he explains his youthful age when he was made King, I append it here. He writes thus:
"When Egfrid fell by the hostile sword of the Picts, And his illegitimate brother succeeded to the honor of the kingdom -- He who, then dwelling in the lands of the Scots, Aspired with intent heart to heavenly Wisdom. For he had left the borders of his homeland and its sweet fields, A diligent exile that he might learn the mysteries of the Lord. His venerable pledge now in Tyrian purple Plainly a young man: By paternal right already handles the given reins of the scepter, And like a new Josiah, mature in faith and spirit more than In years, he nobly governs our world."
[24] So far Bede, who, as Malmesbury testifies, did not know how to flatter. But Josiah, King of the Jews, in 4 Kings chapter 22, verse 1, was eight years old when he began to reign, and he excelled in holiness and religion. Previously he studied among the monks of Iona under Abbot Adamnanus. If Alfrid is said to have received the kingdom at the age of eighteen or twenty years, he would have been born within the last five years of Oswiu's life, and would have acquired the name of his earlier brother Alcfrid, then dead. Nor did he, as Malmesbury asserted above, withdraw to Ireland either by force or indignation, but for love of Wisdom, in order to learn the divine mysteries.
nor to Ireland, but, as the monk of Lindisfarne wrote in the Life of Saint Cuthbert, book 3, number 6, "he was then on the island which they call Hy Iona, and now reigns peacefully." He then lived there under Abbot Adamnanus, from whom we have the description of the Life of Saint Columba, the founder of that monastery, who was afterward sent as an envoy of his people to King Alfrid, as Bede says in book 5, chapter 22, and who declares as an eyewitness that he admired his virtues.
[25] Finally, Arnold Wion in book 4 of the Lignum Vitae, chapter 14, makes this Alfrid the husband of Saint Kineburga. "Saint Chinneburga," he says, "or Cymburga, the most Christian daughter of Penda, the pagan King of the Mercians, Kineburga was not married to him, and wife of Alfred, King of the Northumbrians in England, about the year of the Lord 705, when her husband passed to the religious life, she too exchanging her sovereignty (to use the words of the ancient author) for the servitude of Christ, presided as mother of many sacred Virgins over the monastery of Dormundcaster on the Avon, which from her name began first to be called Chinneburgecaster, and afterward in contracted form, Caster." The same Wion had already written about the husband in the earlier chapter 6: "Saint Alfred, or Alfrid, or Ealfrid, the thirteenth King of Northumbria in England, a man most learned in every way, at the request of a certain enclosed monk who was accustomed to narrate his visions to him, whose company he greatly enjoyed, in the nineteenth year of his reign, the year of the Lord Christ 705, was clothed in the monastery of Melrose, Nor did he become a monk after leaving the kingdom, and was also adorned with the monastic tonsure, and afterward, as some report, was assumed to the Bishopric of Lindisfarne on account of the merit of his life and the learning of his wisdom." Cited from Wion, he has been inscribed in the Catalogue of Ferrarius and the English Martyrology, in the first edition on January 15, in the second on March 14, and in the Benedictine Menologium of Bucelinus on May 15 with a long encomium. The authority of Bede, book 5, chapter 13, is alleged by all, but wrongly understood, since Bede testifies that it was not Alfred but Drythelm who was received into the monastery of Melrose at Alfred's request. Nor rightly inscribed in the sacred Fasti. Bucelinus recorded Drythelm, or Trythelm, on November 15. The same Bucelinus asserts, following the example of the husband, that Kineburga also, on both March 5 and August 26, embraced the monastic life and was afterward made Abbess of the monastery of Dormundcaster, built by herself and her brothers. We would prefer these claims to be confirmed by ancient authors. King Alfrid died on December 14 at Driffield, a town on the river Hull in the county of York. So says the Worcester writer. Camden adds that the town is noted for his monument.
[26] Four daughters of King Penda wrongly considered saints. The English Martyrology of the first edition is entangled with wonderful confusion. For besides Kinesdreda, whom we have called Kineburga, and her sister Kineswitha the Virgins recorded on March 6, it separately recorded on September 15 Saint Kineburga the Queen, wife of Alfred, afterward a nun, as we reported above from Wion, who is cited, and it is added that she lived until about the year 690. Afterward, on December 21, Saint Edburga is celebrated, also a daughter of Penda, King of the Mercians, together with the three already named, and is established as a Virgin and nun in the monastery of Dormundcaster under the governance of her sister Saint Kineburga, and to have succeeded her as Abbess, to have lived until the year 680, and then to have been buried beside her sister, who is said above to have lived another ten years. Finally, with great care this Edburga is distinguished from other saints of the same name, and especially from Saint Edburga, Abbess of the Worcester monastery, daughter of Ethelwulf, King of the West Saxons. Ferrarius in the General Catalogue, as he everywhere copies from this Martyrology all the English saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology, so also celebrates these four and even names them as daughters of King Penda. In the later edition of this Martyrology, mention of them is omitted at September 15 and December 21, and, as we indicated above, on this day the Translation is celebrated -- not of Kinesdreda, but of Kineburga and Kineswitha, sisters and daughters of Penda, King of the Mercians. No mention is made either of marriage or of virginity.
[27] To the younger Alfrid, Saint Cuthburga, sister of King Saint Ina, was married. The origin of this great confusion seems to be attributed to those who conflated these two brothers, the elder Alcfrid and the illegitimate Alfrid, into one, and transferred Kineburga into the times of the said illegitimate Alfrid, whose wife was Saint Cuthburga, whom we said, from the Anglo-Saxon Chronologist reporting this at the year 718 on the occasion of the death of her brother Ingels that year, was separated from him while he was still living out of zeal for the monastic life. That separation seems to have occurred about the year 700, since Alfrid is reported by the same Chronologist to have died in the year 705, leaving as heir of the kingdom Osred, whom Bede recognizes as the son of Alfrid in book 5, chapter 19, and a boy of eight years.