ON S. AELGYFA, OR ELGIVA
QUEEN OF ENGLAND.
ABOUT DCCCCXXI
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
The cult from the Fasti: her husband Edmund, sons Edwy & Edgar Kings. Buried Algifa or Elgiva, Queen of England (St.)
BY THE AUTHOR G. H.
[1] In the very ancient monastery of Jumièges, five leagues from Rouen distant, there is an old Missal about the year one thousand written, & by the gift of Robert Archbishop of Canterbury about the year one thousand fifty received: from which they in the same place in the year MDCLXII excerpting the notice of some Saints, The cult 18 May, on this XVIII of May we found celebrated the feast of Aelgyfa the Queen. On which day also is inscribed the Translation of Elgiva the Queen in a MS. Martyrology of Utrecht of the Church collegiate of S. Mary, which contains very many of the English kingdom Saints, written for the said church in the year MCXXXVIII. Thirdly we observed the name of the same S. Elgiva the Queen on this XVIII of May inscribed in a certain MS. Martyrology of Christina Queen of Sweden: & even for that reason on this day her we preferred to bring forward, especially because in the learned MS. Utrecht one nowhere her Birthday is reported, so that perhaps on this same day is celebrated her deposition & translation of the body. In the English Martyrology, among the more recent ones 5 May, under the year VIII of this century published & under the year XL republished, she is referred to the day V of May: which followed Alford in the Annals of the English Church & the Index of the Saints of England, Ferrarius in the general Catalog, & Arthur du Monstier in the Sacred Gynaeceum. But Edward Maihew in the English Trophies in the year MDCXXV printed her celebrates on the day XXX of June, & 30 June. & by his example again the said Arthur: among whom no reason is given, why on those days they preferred her to bring forward.
[2] The place of burial of S. Aelgyfa, or Elgiva, was Septonia commonly Shaftesbury in the County of Dorset, of which William of Malmesbury book 2 On the Deeds of the Pontiffs of the English § on the Monasteries of the diocese of Sherborne &c. these things writes: Buried at Shaftesbury Shaftesbury is a village now, formerly a city, a place situated on a precipice of mountains. An indication of antiquity gives a stone in the Chapter of the nuns inscribed, & from the ruins of a most ancient wall thither translated,
IN THE YEAR OF THE LORD'S INCARNATION DCCCLXXX ALFRED
THE KING MADE THIS CITY, OF HIS REIGN THE VIII. There
Elgifa the wife of Edmund, who was the great-grandson of this Alfred, a monastery of nuns made, & in the same place the spoils of flesh after death laid down: a woman to good works always intent, with piety & sweetness endowed, so that even the guilty, whom a sad sentence of Judges openly had condemned, she herself secretly redeemed. A precious garment, renowned for virtues which to some women is a pander of dissolving modesty, to her was the furniture of munificence, so that however dear a garment, the poor being seen, at once she would bestow. The beauty of body & the workmanship of hands in her envy also would commend, since nothing to reprehend it could … And living indeed of virtues she did the works, but after death shone the miracles, just as in verse once I sang.
For having suffered for some years the molestation of diseases, A purged & refined soul to God she gave. Life's deed therefore being completed, her blessed spoils With infinite signs the clement Deity illustrated, The needy of sight & of hearing, if they adore the tomb, & with miracles. Restored to health prove the Saint's merit. A right step bears home, who came lame-footed; The mind-captured returns sound, rich in good sense.
[3] These things there Malmesbury; by whom the mentioned Edmund, the husband of S. Aelgyfa, to his brother Aethelstan on XXVII October of the year DCCCCXL having died succeeded: & to him S. Aelgyfa bore two sons afterwards Kings, Edwy & Edgar: of whose last one's nativity in the year DCCCCXLIII these things writes Florence of Worcester: married to King Edmund, she bore 2 sons Kings, To the magnificent King Edmund when with his Queen Alfgiva her son she had borne Edgar, the holy Abbot Dunstan heard as if on high the voices of those singing psalms & saying, Peace to the Church of the English, of the boy now sprung & of our Dunstan in the time. Which the same things have the Durham one, the Westminster one, Malmesbury, & other later ones, & are confirmed by Osbern in the Life of S. Dunstan to be given on XIX May, chapter IV. But the said King Edmund having died on XXVI May in the year DCCCCXLVI, S. Aelgyfa remained a widow under Eadred King the brother of Edmund: who in the year DCCCCLV having died, the Atheling Edwy, says Worcester, namely of King Edmund & the holy Alfgiva the Queen son, the monarchy of the empire took up, & in the same year at Kingston by Odo the Archbishop of Canterbury was consecrated King. The same things have the Durham one, the Westminster one, Hoveden: & the Queen Alfgiva in the same manner holy they address. But this her son Edwy, Edwy, by whom she suffered much; sufficiently impious & to obscene pleasures given & to his mother rebellious to have been, writes Osbert in the Life of S. Dunstan in Surius XIX May chapter 20. Edwin, he says, his mother, the foundress & ennobler of the whole English kingdom, the consoler of Churches, & the sustainer of the oppressed & the needy; Edgiva I mean the Queen, immensely afflicted. Indeed a little before the same with the title of all goodness distinguished he had called. But the said King Edwy or Edwin not long survived, in the year DCCCCLIX from life snatched, about whom Baronius on the said year num. 7 these things writes: The wretched Edwin, more by the impulse of a wanton harlot, than by his own will had sinned, not altogether bad, born of a holy Queen: by whose prayers it was brought about, that also penitent of his crimes from this life he departed.
[4] Edwy was succeeded by Edgar his brother, a most illustrious King, then sixteen years old: & Edgar most pious, to whom what afterwards divinely was shown, thus in style commends Malmesbury book 2 On the Deeds of the Kings of the English chapter 8. He had come into a forest fertile of hunting, & as happens often, his companions to pursue the beasts being dispersed through byways, alone he had remained. And so by continuation of the course to the egress of the wood arriving, he stopped awaiting his comrades. Nor delay, sleep weighing his nodding eyes, on foot he is made, that the labor of the past day to temper the pleasure of a moderate rest might. He lay therefore under a wild apple-tree stretched, to whom an offered vision about the future state of the kingdom after him where the hanging branches round about had made a leafy chamber. Weariness indeed persuading, a stream beneath flowing with babbling bubbles invited slumber; then
a female dog, whose care it is to follow the tracks of beasts, pregnant & lying near his feet, the sleeper terrified. For while the mother was silent, the puppies enclosed in the womb, manifold & sonorous barkings rendered, by a certain joy of their own prison incited. By this prodigy astonished, while to the top of the tree his eyes he directed, he saw apples, one & another fallen into the river: by whose collision with the watery bubbles among themselves curling, an articulate voice resounded: Wel is thee, that is, well is to you. Nor much after, the waves' rollings acting, a little pitcher upon the water appeared, & after the little pitcher a pitcher overflowing with water: for the other empty was. And although by the frequent impulse of the gurge the greater the lesser urged, namely that its waters into it it should infuse; never yet could it obtain, but the empty little pitcher withdrew, & again as if with a proud gesture the victor the pitcher attacked. Home therefore returned, as says the Psalmist, with heat he was exercised, & he swept his spirit. Psal. 76, 7 But his mother met him, that he should serene his brow & mind, that for her it would be a study to call upon God, who could the riddles by His inspiration lay open. By which admonition he beat back his sadness, & loosed into leisures his cares, conscious of his mother's sanctity, to whom God was wont many things to reveal. She was by name Elfgifa, to good works intent… She therefore in her inmost marrow imbibing the prophecy, on the next morning to her son said: The barking of the puppies, which while the mother rested they gave, she herself explains, signifies that after your death, those resting, who now live & flourish, not yet born scoundrels against the Church of God will bark. Truly that one apple followed another, so that from the collision of the second into the first there seemed a voice to have sounded, Wel is thee, intimates, that from you, who now are a tree overshadowing all England, two will proceed sons: the favorers of the second will extinguish the first. Then the inciters of the diverse party will say to both boys, Wel is thee, that the dead one will reign in heaven, the living in the age. But now that the greater pitcher the lesser could not fill, this designates, that the Northern nations, which are more numerous than the English, England after your death will attack: & although by frequent coming of their compatriots their ruins they will fill; never this corner of the world will they be able to fill, but rather our English, when most conquered they will seem, will expel them, & it will be under its own & God's arbitration until the time prefixed by Christ. Amen.
[5] The truth of this prophecy the later lesson will lay open. There ought therefore to be considered the indubitable sanctity of parent & offspring, praised for eximious sanctity that the one saw the riddle waking without obstacle, & the other solved the problem from a far-stretched oracle of prophecy, & to the sanctity of morals communicated the spiritedness of severity, so that no man of whatever dignity to elude the laws with impunity she permitted. These things Malmesbury. Succeeded to King Edgar S. Edward his son, by the first apple designated: who, the stepmother instigating, being slain, as on XVIII March at his Acts we said, succeeded Ethelred, his brother & the other son of Edgar by the second apple indicated: who still reigning, England under the Danes groaned: & in the place of Edmund his son, who the kingdom being divided scarcely a year reigned, succeeded the Danish Kings, Canute & his son Hardacanute, & after these S. Edward the Confessor, from the ancient English begotten. All which by S. Elgifa are reported foretold.
[6] In the Glastonbury Annals there is a charter of Edgar the King, published by Henry Spelman among the English Councils page 485, given in the year DCCCCLXXI, Indiction XIV, & in the first place subscribes Edgar the King, then Elgiva of the same King the mother with joy consents. the body of the dead one is revealed in the year 973. Nor long survived this holy Queen, in the same perhaps or following year having died. Whose body, Westminster being witness, in the year DCCCCLXXIII was divinely revealed in the place, which Septonia is called.