Osith

ON ST. OSITH, OR OSGITH, VIRGIN AND MARTYR, IN THE TOWN THAT BEARS HER NAME IN THE COUNTY OF ESSEX IN ENGLAND,

Perhaps about the end of the 7th century.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Ositha or Osgitha, V. M., in the little town of her name in the county of Essex in England. (S.)

BY C. S.

§ I. Knowledge of the place where she lived, suffered, and was venerated: her memory in the Martyrologies: the Life to be edited is of slight credibility: what things persuade that she flourished in the 7th century.

That the reader may have knowledge of the place in which this holy and, as is believed, royal Virgin lived and suffered, and was especially venerated before England's defection from the Catholic faith, The Saint had a church at Chiche, a village of Essex, I transfer here what Camden noted of it in the description of the county of Essex, page 325. After he had treated there of Colonia, or the city of Colchester, he proceeded thus: Where the river Colne mingles with the sea, there stands the little town of St. Osith, whose ancient name Chic was abolished by that royal virgin Osith, who, wholly fixed upon God, was stabbed there by Danish pirates, and obtained among our ancestors the honours of a Saint; and in her memory Richard

bishop of London, about the year MCXX, built a sacred house, which he filled with Regular canons. But now it is the principal seat of the most honourable lords Darcy, who are called DE Chich, whom King Edward the sixth advanced to the most ample dignity of baron. So Camden; which, however, I would not wish to be taken as if no church existed in that place, in which St. Osith was venerated, before the times of Richard, bishop of London; for the contrary will become plain from what is to be said.

[2] What Richard accomplished in this matter is narrated also by William of Malmesbury, enlarged by Bishop Richard with a college of Regular canons, a writer of the 12th century, book 2 On the Deeds of the Bishops of the English, under the same Richard, saying: When Richard, his (Bishop Maurice of London's) successor, had made over all the revenues pertaining to the bishopric to the building of the basilica (of St. Paul, which Maurice had begun at London), supporting himself and his people from elsewhere, he seemed to accomplish almost nothing (on account of the greatness of the work), and, nobly prodigal, he exhausted his whole income on this, and little came forth to effect. Wherefore the impulse of good which he had at the beginning of his episcopate, as the years gave way, gradually languished, wearying with despair. There is a place in the diocese of London among the East Saxons, called by its native name Cit * (in the margin is added: elsewhere Cic), where is the resting-place of blessed Osgith, a virgin famous in miracles. This man filled it with some lands and with Regular canons; and he himself was meditating, once he had laid aside the wrappings of the world, to pass over thither, especially as he was admonished by the wasting of a long paralysis, had not the habit of power drawn back his sick mind by its allurements. The first Prior of this place was William de Corbeil, who, Ralph, archbishop of Canterbury, having died, was raised to that honour. Richard, therefore, did not set up the first sacred house of St. Osith at Chich, but converted it into a college of Regular canons, and endowed it, and perhaps repaired it.

[3] concerning whose foundation Of the same place Roger Dodsworth and William Dugdale treat, volume 2 of the Monasticon Anglicanum, from page 182, where they recite some charters of donations made to it, in the first of which it is called the Church of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul and of St. Osith, virgin and martyr; in the second and third, the Church of St. Osith and Osyth of Chich, and in all three express mention is made of the canons living there. There follows in the same place the Charter of King Henry the second, reciting and confirming the grants of the donors, and among them that of Richard; but this is read there to have been given wrongly in the fifty-third year of the same Henry, whereas he died in the 35th year of his reign, of Christ 1189. In that charter he says that he has confirmed in perpetual alms to God and to the church of St. Osith of Chiche, and to the canons serving and to serve God there, the whole manor of Chiche, in which is situated the monastery of St. Osith, virgin and martyr, free and quit from all earthly service and secular exaction, which manor they have by the gift and confirmation of Richard, bishop of London, with all the appurtenances and liberties which the bishops of the church of London had in the same manor while it was in their lordship etc. For the rest, that place is called there an abbey.

[4] some things are noted; Finally there is subjoined the charter of John, king of England, by which he granted the advowson, as they call it, of the same place to the bishops of London. This, because it is short, I write down here. John, by the grace of God king of England etc. Know that we, out of regard for God, and out of reverence for blessed Paul, have given, granted, and by this our charter confirmed to God and to the church of St. Paul of London and to our venerable father, the lord William, bishop of London, and his successors, the advowson of the abbey of St. Osith of Chiche, and all the right which we had in it, as well in the custody of the same abbey when vacant as in the election of its abbot, with all the liberties and free customs pertaining to an advowson of this kind. Wherefore we will etc. Given by the hand of Hugh de Welles, archdeacon of Wells, at York, on the 12th day of February in the seventh year of our reign, that is, of Christ 1206. The same writers of the Monasticon Anglicanum at the place cited add from Leland's Itinerary: There was, as it is said, a house of veiled virgins, or of other Religious, where today is the rector's mansion; and there exists authentic testimony that this house was of the Order of the Mathurins, otherwise the Brothers of the Order of the Holy Trinity.

[5] It may have been of veiled virgins from the time of St. Osith, there now survives in the same place a little town called after her. of Regular canons from the foundation, as we have seen, of Richard, bishop of London, in the 12th century; but whether, and from what time, it was of the Brothers of the most holy Trinity I have read nowhere else. For the rest, this monastery of Regular canons, from the time when it was dispersed and demolished (under Henry VIII, king of England), reckoned an annual revenue of 758 English pounds, 5 shillings and eight pence, says Godwin, praised above; and the catalogue of the Religious houses of that time, edited at the end of the Ecclesiastical History of England by Nicholas Harpsfield, agrees, in which it is said then to have been of canons of the black habit, under the title of St. Peter and St. Osith, founded in the year MCXX by Richard, bishop of London. This place afterwards passed into the hands of secular nobles, as we said above from Camden, and now there survives a little town, preserving by its name alone, by which it is also known in geographical Maps, the memory of the ancient cult of St. Osith in it, and of the religion and piety toward the Saints of the old English. Let us proceed to the martyrologists.

[6] Pietro Galesini in his Martyrology of the Roman Church had given a place on this day to this holy Virgin in these words: She is commemorated in various Martyrologies in the months of June and October, In England, of St. Osith, virgin and martyr; but Cardinal Baronius, although he records her martyrdom honourably in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year 653 from the Life to be edited, yet did not put her back in his Roman Martyrology, in which she does not appear even to this day. But in other sacred Calendars of this kind she is by no means unknown, nor does her memory exist on one day only. Among the Usuardine Additions in our Du Sollier the Brussels codex, enlarged once in England, marks her briefly thus on the 3rd day of June: Likewise of St. Osicha (read Ositha), virgin: the Altemps one in the same place likewise corruptly: On the same day, of St. Esitha, virgin. Greven expressed the name more rightly, but on the day after, or the 4th day of June, adding also to virginity the palm of martyrdom and royal birth, saying: Of Osith, virgin and martyr, daughter of the king of the East Saxons. He himself repeated her more briefly on the 5th of October in this way: Of Osyth, virgin and martyr. See the Passed-over in our Work on the said days, whence her Acts have deservedly been deferred to this 7th of October.

[7] Certainly on this day those whom I have just praised repeat her, and especially today, the Usuardine Altemps codex and Greven, of whom the former, from her Life, has thus: Among the East Saxons, the passion of St. Osith, virgin and martyr; whose head, cut off by the Danes, the Martyr herself took up and carried from place to place: and the other only this: On the same day, of Osgida, virgin. There are added the Lübeck-Cologne Usuardine edition, and our Manuscript Florarium of the Saints, written a very few years before this edition, in which she is also called Osgida. I pass over Wilson in the English Martyrology, Ferrari in the General Catalogue of the Saints whose names are not read in the Roman Martyrology, and others, as also the Benedictines, Dorgain, Wion, Ménard, Bucelin and Maihew, announcing the same holy Virgin on this very day as an abbess of their Order, Mabillon far more rightly not recording her even among the Passed-over Benedictine Saints and Blessed.

[8] and more accurately in Chastelain. I add, however, the announcement of Chastelain in the Universal Martyrology, and the addition which he afterwards rightly advised should be made in it. Receive the words made Latin from the French. In England, St. Osgitha (so it is read in the margin in Latin; for in French it is Osithe), virgin, niece of Penda, king of the Mercians, instructed under St. Modwenna, crowned with martyrdom by idolatrous Normans who had put in from Denmark. Her body was afterwards placed in a precious reliquary by Maurice, bishop of London. Thus there; but at page 984, among the things to be added and corrected, for more accurate knowledge of the martyrdom and of the old cult of that place, he ordered these words to be substituted for the words in England: At Chich (in French A Chich) in Essex, a province of England. Further, what reason impelled the martyrologists to refer Osith to the aforesaid various days I have not ascertained, for in the Life to be edited the day of her martyrdom is not recorded, which is only read in it to have happened in the month of October.

[9] her Life, whether by Tynemouth or by Vere, That Life John Capgrave in the 15th century inserted in his Legend of the Saints of England, which we have published in print at London in the year 1516. It is, however, older than Capgrave, if he copied it, as Ussher, Antiquities of the British churches, page 706, and others have affirmed, from the Sanctilogium of John of Tynemouth, who is read in John Pits, Writers of England, to have flourished in the year 1366. The same as Capgrave's Laurentius Surius also recorded on the present day of October, from I know not what codex, with this title or note: Life of St. Osith, virgin and martyr, whose author has no name in the Manuscript codex; but it is nevertheless worthy of credence; and I think it is an epitome of that which Alberic de Vere, a Regular, wrote. A Life of this Saint written by him was also praised by Thomas Sirinus in a posthumous Manuscript, which our Pien used on the 5th day of July in the critical Commentary on St. Modwenna, § I, number 6 and following; and the things which Sirinus records there from it agree so rightly with the Capgrave and Surius editions that these may seem either a compendium of it or the very lucubration of Vere.

[10] a Regular canon of the same church in the 13th century, The elogium of Vere you have in the praised Pits, from whom I have excerpted the following. Alberic de Vere, an Englishman by nation, born of the most illustrious and at the same time most ancient families of the earls of Oxford and of Clare, studied privately for a long time under domestic preceptors at the estate of Bonaclea of the Trinobantes, as Leland witnesses. That place is situated on the shore of Chich not far from the shrine of St. Osith … At length, following the Rule of St. Augustine there, he was admitted into the society of Regular canons … he wrote … the Antiquities of his monastery, one book. On the life of St. Osith, virgin, one book… He flourished in the year of the Saving Restoration MCCL. If these things are true, Alberic, as a religious inhabitant of the place famous for the life, martyrdom and cult of St. Osith, and in age too preferable to John of Tynemouth, could have inquired more studiously and more happily into the deeds of that holy Virgin. His lucubration could also have lighted the way for John of Tynemouth, and hence it may have come about that Sirinus related from Vere the same things which are read in Capgrave and Surius.

[11] Meanwhile it is certain that the Life which we have

is not older than the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century, or has some writer a little older than these, since mention is made in it of the body of St. Osith presented with a more precious reliquary by Maurice, bishop of London, the beginning of whose see Godwin fixes at the year 1087 and its end at 1107, in the Commentary on the Prelates of England. What moves me, however, the less to dare to ascribe it to Vere is that nothing is read in it of the monastery of Regular canons founded at the church of St. Osith by Richard, the immediate successor of the aforesaid Maurice, which indeed does not seem likely to have been passed over by Vere, as being a religious son of the same monastery. That it nevertheless existed in the biographer's time can somehow be gathered from the same Life, number 10. Wherefore its author can be altogether different from Vere, and have written much later. But let us grant for a little that it is the offspring of Vere; even so it would have been too far removed from the age of the same holy Virgin to be able to have value from antiquity; especially if she herself was crowned with martyrdom in the 7th century, as is said in the same Life.

[12] However these things may be, I cannot indeed attribute to it in general the credence it is of slight credibility. The Saint's grandfather Penda, of which Surius judged it worthy, both because the reckoning of time wavers in it, and because it contains some things doubtful and obscure, some also fabulous or like fables, which, that they may create certain belief, require an older and more certain writer. As regards the reckoning of time, it may be doubted from it whether St. Osith is to be referred to the 7th century, or to the 9th, or even the 10th. For the 7th century, in the fifty-third year of which she is read in the same Life to have suffered martyrdom, the principal persons mentioned in it make the case. For Osith is said there to have been the granddaughter of Penda, king of the Mercians, through his daughter Wilteburga and his son-in-law King Frithewald, of whom it is established from Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English nation, book 5, chapter 25, that Penda fell in the year 655 in a conflict against Oswy, the Christian king of the Northumbrians. And indeed no Wilteburga occurs elsewhere among Penda's children; but from this it is not permitted to deny that there certainly was none.

[13] Frithewald, the father of the holy Virgin, is believed to be him Frithewald her father, Sigher her betrothed, whom Florence of Worcester in his Chronicle at the year 675 calls Frithewold the under-king, and by whose help he writes that St. Erconwald, before he entered the bishopric of London, was assisted in founding his monastery of Chertsey, William of Malmesbury agreeing in the Bishops of London, and adding that the same under-king acted under Wulfhere, namely king of the Mercians, whom Bede, book 5, chapter 25, relates died in the year 675 after a reign of seventeen years. That Siger, or Sigher, king of the East Saxons, to whom St. Osith, by the command of her parents, as the same biographer witnesses, was married, flourished in the same 7th century, we also learn from Bede, book 3, chapter 30, where he relates that he himself, in the time of the pestilence in the year 664, relapsed with part of his people from the Christian rites which he had before embraced to idols, and not long after was happily brought back to the deserted religion by the work of Bishop Jaruman.

[14] On the faith of the same biographer Osith had a certain mistress under St. Modwenna, King Alfrid and the bishops named in it flourished in the 7th century, named Edith, sister of King Alfrid, two of which name, sons of Oswy, the aforesaid king of the Northumbrians, our Henschen brings forward on the 6th of March in the historical Commentary on SS. Kyneburga and Kyneswitha, § I; namely the one Alcfrid, the elder, born of lawful wedlock, who, reigning in the part of the kingdom received from his father, died before the year 666; the other Alfrid, the younger and illegitimate, who after the lawful sons of the same Oswy at length obtained his father's kingdom in the year 685, and died in the year 705, as Bede has, book 5, chapter 25. The sister, then, of one or other Alfrid, whether lawful or illegitimate, could in the 7th century have been the Edith mentioned by the biographer. Nevertheless, of this Edith and of the abbess of both, Modwenna, particular speech will recur below. To the 7th century likewise belong Ecca and Bedwin, ordained bishops of the East Angles while Bishop Bisi was living indeed, but prevented by a most grievous infirmity from administering the bishopric, as Bede has, book 4, chapter 5, by whom St. Osith is asserted in the same Life to have been veiled to God.

[15] but with some of these the year of the Saint's death does not agree, And all these things indeed conspire that we should believe the biographer that Osith flourished in the 7th century; yet they cannot equally be reconciled with the time of the same Saint's martyrdom, which he tied in the same place to the year of the Lord six hundred and fifty-three. For Bede, cited in the last place, set before the ordination of Ecca and Bedwin, or, as he himself calls them there, Aecci and Badvini, the synod held at Hertford in the year 673, and observed that the aforesaid Bisi still took part in it: whence the writers of English affairs deservedly determine that the praised Ecca and Bedwin were ordained bishops at least not before the year 673. How, then, could the same, already initiated into the episcopal order, consecrate Osith as a Virgin to God, if she had already been crowned with martyrdom from the year 653? The slaying of the sacred Virgin is therefore to be placed much later, or an error of the biographer is to be acknowledged in assigning the names of her consecrators, which lies less probably in these than in the year 653, as being perhaps faulty from the sole carelessness of the copyist, and agreeing also less with the rest of the narration.

[16] which certainly is to be placed later than the year 653. For, as the two praised prelates were certainly ordained later than the year 653, so Sigher, Osith's betrothed before she was veiled, began his reign among the East Saxons under Wulfhere later, since, as Bede witnesses, book 3, chapter 24, Wulfhere himself was not raised to the kingdom of the Mercians before the year 659 by his people rebelling against Oswy, king of the Northumbrians, the princes whom Oswy had set over them being cast out. Nor do other things stand in the way; nay, they even favour placing Osith's martyrdom many years after the year 653: for so much the more easily can she seem to have been the granddaughter of Penda, slain in the year 655, through his daughter Wilteburga, and of Frithewald, or Frithewold, whom the man of Worcester mentions at the year 675. For these causes our Bolland, in volume 1 of February, under St. Brigid the Wonder-worker, judged that St. Osith was first betrothed to Sigher about the year 673, and then clothed by the bishops Ecca and Bedwin with the sacred veil of virginity. But how long she lived after these things, who will divine? For the very landing of the Danes in England, by whom she is said to have been slain, is unknown from elsewhere, nor is it without difficulty, as we shall see below.

§ II. Reasons are related for tying the same Saint to the 9th century, and it is pronounced more probably for the 7th century.

It is difficult to say who were Modwenna and Edith, this Virgin's mistress; The things we adduced in the former § make for placing St. Osith's martyrdom toward the end of the 7th century: but there are also other things in the same Life from which the aforesaid can be made suspect together with the biographer's credibility. First of all Osith, while she was a little girl, is said to have been handed over by her parents, that she might be imbued with good manners, to St. Modwenna the abbess, who near the wood (I recite the words of the biographer) which is called Arderna had built two monasteries, one in the place which is called Pollesworth, the other in the dwelling which is named Streveshal. Of these she (Modwenna) chose the one … the other she granted to Blessed Edith, sister of King Alfrid … who was made mother and guardian in the congregation of holy virgins. To her (Edith) the young handmaid of God Osith adhered for some time, commended to her by St. Modwenna the abbess etc. It is to be inquired, therefore, who this Modwenna is, who likewise Edith, and in what age they flourished. Our Pien first, on the 5th day of July, disputed at length concerning St. Moduenna, or Monenna, Monynna, Monyma, Moninia, whether one or more? And then on the 6th day of the same month, to which he had referred the reader the day before, he treated of St. Darerca or Monynna, called also by other related names, and there gave a twofold Life of this holy abbess; the first by an anonymous author indeed, but older and more sincere, the other written by Conchubran, sprinkled with fables and parachronisms.

[18] In these two Lives St. Darerca, Monynna, in a certain Life of St. Moduenna this one would have to be said or Moduenna, is said to have received the sacred veil of virginity from St. Patrick, the apostle of the Irish; which could not have happened sooner than the year 432, in which he began his apostolic labours in Ireland, nor later than the year 460, in which he crowned them with a blessed death, according to the chronotaxis of his affairs given in our Work on the 17th day of March, on which he is venerated. Further, in the Conchubran Life (not in the other), numbers 39 and 40, among the disciples of this St. Moduenna a certain Osid is also named, and is said, after they had been submerged for three days, to have been recalled from the river to life, which is read in the same way of our St. Osith in the Life to be edited, number 1 and following; but the other disciple of the same Moduenna, who in the Life to be edited is called Edith, is called Ite in the Conchubran Life of Moduenna. Osith and Edith, however, are also so called in the Life of the same St. Moduenna edited by Capgrave, so that you cannot doubt that in all these alleged places the speech is of the same SS. Moduenna, Osith and Edith.

[19] Wherefore, if this St. Moduenna was the mistress of today's St. Osith, to have flourished in the 5th century, the latter cannot be put off to the 7th century, unless she is ineptly feigned to have been prodigiously long-lived, but to the 5th or 6th century, to which Pien put back the praised Moduenna, venerated on the 6th day of July; and so the things which I recorded above from the biographer concerning St. Osith's grandfather, parents, betrothed, and the bishops who veiled her will have to be relegated among fables. But since in the Life to be edited no word is read of St. Patrick, and the praised Pien, on the 5th day of July, under Moduenna, §2, is of opinion that three Moduennas altogether are to be distinguished, of whom one died in the 5th or 6th century, the second, the mistress of today's St. Osith, flourished in the 7th century, and that from the confusion of these three were born the parachronisms which disfigure the Conchubran Life of St. Moduenna, so faulty a lucubration cannot stand in the way of our believing our biographer that St. Osith lived in the 7th century, if the other things agree from elsewhere.

[20] and to have been the mistress of Edith and Osith in the 9th century. More trouble is made by St. Edith, who, both in the Life to be edited and in that of Moduenna edited by Capgrave, is narrated to have had the care of St. Osith, committed to her by Moduenna. For who is this St. Edith? In the Life to be edited indeed she is said to have been the sister of King Alfrid, two sons of which name of Oswy, king of the Northumbrians, in the 7th century above

I have assigned; but in the Life of St. Moduenna in Capgrave she is asserted to have been the sister not of King Alfrid but of Adulph, king of the West Saxons, which Adulph, otherwise called Atulph and more commonly Ethelwulph and Ethelwolph, had a son Alured, also called Alfred, both of whom, it is beyond doubt, reigned in the 9th century. St. Osith, then, would likewise have to be referred to the 9th century, if her mistress Edith was the sister of that Atulph. But besides that Edith, the sister of Adulph or Ethelwulph, is as unknown in the 9th century as the sister of King Alfrid in the 7th, that Life of St. Moduenna ought not to delay us again, which fabulously relates that she was veiled by St. Patrick, that is, in the 5th century, and nevertheless also flourished while Ethelwulph reigned, that is, in the 9th century.

[21] No Edith, daughter of Oswy, is known; but the biographer seems to have some Among the children of King Oswy no Edith is known; but our Bolland, on the 8th day of February, in the historical Commentary on St. Elfleda, § III, brought forward from Bede and others three daughters of his; namely the said St. Elfleda, virgin abbess of Streneashalch or Streaneshalch in England, Alhfleda, married to Penda, prince of the Middle Angles, son of King Penda, and Ostritha, called by others Ostrida, Ostrica, Ostgilda and Ostgida, wife of Ethelred, king of the Mercians, slain by the chief men of his kingdom in the year 697, as is established from Bede, book 5, chapter 25, in the Recapitulation. But this holy historian, in book 3, chapter 24, narrates of the praised St. Elfleda certain things so similar to the assertions of St. Osith's biographer that I am compelled to doubt whether he did not, in composing the Life of this Virgin, wrongly and ineptly adapt certain things from them to the argument of his writing, and fasten the birth of St. Elfleda upon Edith, whether real or fictitious. Whether my suspicion departs from probability I willingly leave to the reader's judgment.

[22] which he had read in Bede of SS. Hilda and Elfleda, daughter of Oswy, In Bede at the place cited it is read that Oswy, the Christian king of the Northumbrians, being about to engage in the year 655 with Penda himself, king of the Mercians, vowed to God that, if he came off victor, he would offer his daughter to the Lord to be consecrated by sacred virginity, and at the same time would give twelve estates of farms for building monasteries; and that, this vow being made, together with his son Alchfrid and a small army, he won a memorable victory over Penda, who was slain in the same battle. Then King Oswy (so the holy writer proceeds), according to what he had vowed to the Lord, giving thanks to God for the victory granted him, gave his daughter Elfleda, who had scarcely completed one year of age, to be consecrated to perpetual virginity. Here, then, you have a daughter of King Oswy, sister of King Alcfrid, but by name Elfleda, dedicated to God by perpetual virginity from her infancy in the 7th century, and afterwards abbess, as we shall soon see, such as the biographer writes his Edith also was. Let us hear the rest.

[23] And the aforesaid daughter of Oswy (the words again are Bede's), he had read in Bede, to be dedicated to God, entered the monastery which is called Heruteu, that is, the Island of the hart, over which Abbess Hild then presided, who after two years, having acquired a possession of ten families in the place which is called Streaneshalch, built a monastery there, in which the said daughter of the king (St. Elfleda) was first a disciple of the Regular life, and then also its mistress, until, having completed the number of fifty-nine years, the blessed virgin entered into the embrace and nuptials of the heavenly Bridegroom. In which monastery both she herself and her father Oswy, and her mother Eanfled, and her mother's father Edwin, and many other nobles were buried in the church of St. Peter the apostle. So St. Bede, from which someone here will perhaps suspect that Hilda was called by another name Modwenna, and Elfleda Edith, or at least that Modwenna is called by the biographer by error for Hilda, and Edith for Elfleda. So, I say, someone might suspect, did not other things forbid.

[24] I pass over that in this opinion too the martyrdom of St. Osith is to be placed far later to SS. Moduenna and Edith than the biographer made it, since it is clearer than the light of midday that it cannot be that St. Elfleda, who, as Bede witnesses, had scarcely completed one year of age in the year 655, was the mistress of Osith, if the latter fell in the year 653. But even if her slaying is deferred many years, as must altogether be done, it will not therefore become probable from the same Life that SS. Hilda and Elfleda, as mistresses of St. Osith, are designated by the names of Modwenna and Edith. For the wood Arderna, near which Modwenna, St. Osith's mistress, is narrated by our biographer to have founded two monasteries, Pollesworth and Streveshal, in one of which Osith dwelt with Edith, was situated in the county of Warwick; but of the two monasteries of St. Hilda mentioned by Bede, the one, Heruteu, that is, the Island of the hart, now, as Camden witnesses, called Hartlepool, is in the county of Durham; the other, now, as the same witnesses, known by the name of Whitby, over which St. Elfleda presided, in that of York. This distance of the monasteries does not permit Hilda and Elfleda, of name so different, to be believed to have been the same as Modwenna and Edith.

[25] To me, as I insinuated above, it appears far more probable ineptly transferred, that the inept biographer of St. Osith transferred certain things read in Bede of SS. Hilda and Elfleda to Modwenna and Edith, the mistresses of the same holy Virgin, and that hence that Edith, sister of King Alfrid and daughter of King Oswy, is sought in vain. You see, as Bede witnesses, Hilda had two monasteries, over one of which she at one time set St. Elfleda, daughter of King Oswy, her disciple. The biographer narrates that as many monasteries were built by Modwenna, and that she committed one of them to her disciple Edith, sister of King Alfrid, and therefore daughter of the same Oswy. One of those two monasteries of Hilda Bede called Streaneshaleh; the biographer similarly called one of the two of Modwenna Streveshal, a word so akin that most probably by an easy slip of the pen, or by a different manner of expressing the place, Streveshal is read here for Streaneshalch. The suspicion is increased by this, that, as St. Hilda's monastery of Streaneshalch is known even today, so Moduenna's of Streveshal is so unknown that it may deservedly be doubted whether it ever existed. Hear Alford at the year of Christ 871, number 38. As regards the other monastery (of St. Modwenna), he says, Streneshalen, I have nothing to say: for that place among the Brigantes, which in Bede's time was called Streneshalk and the Bay of the Lighthouse, and which posterity called Whitby, does not seem able to be understood.

[26] keeping the monastery of Pollesworth, And why our biographer called the other monastery of Modwenna not Heruteu, as Bede called Hilda's, but Pollesworch, this reason can be assigned, that, as he knew from elsewhere that Pollesworth had been founded by a certain St. Modwenna, so he held it for ascertained, both likewise from elsewhere and from the cult of Edith in that place, that some holy Edith had at one time presided over it. Camden, in the description of the county of Warwick, page 429, says this to our matter: Beyond these to the North is Pollesworth, where Modwenna, an Irish virgin of notable repute for holiness, built a convent for sacred virgins, which R. Marmion, a noble man, restored. The words of the donation of the praised restorer and of his wife exist in the Monasticon Anglicanum, volume 1, page 198 and following, from which the cult of St. Edith among the people of Pollesworth is manifest. Here they are: Be it known to all that we have granted to Osanna the Prioress, for restoring religion, the church of the nuns there of St. Edith of Pollesworda, etc.

[27] over which it was established from elsewhere that these presided, Concerning the monastery of Pollesworth built by St. Modwenna, and the headship held in it by Edith, her cult and church, Alford agrees at the year 871, number 37, praising also Speed in the same place, who, after he had said that Edith presided in it, and died and was buried with honour, subjoined: On account of reverence for whom that place takes its name from St. Edith. Add Nicholas Harpsfield in the Ecclesiastical History of England, 9th century, chapter 13, and in the Catalogue of religious houses added at the end of the Work, in which among the convents of the county of Warwick it is read thus: At Pollesworth, T. (that is, under the title) of St. Edith; F. (that is, founded it) Modwenna, an Irish virgin. Richard Marmion, an illustrious man, repaired it. Since, then, we have Modwenna as the foundress of the monastery of Pollesworth (for I have read no one who denies it), and Edith as another abbess of the same place, we must think that no others than these are designated as the mistresses of St. Osith by her biographer, who narrates both that the monastery of Pollesworth was built by Modwenna and handed over by her to Edith, and finally that the education of Osith was committed to the latter by the same. It is to be inquired, therefore, whether the time of the founding of that same nunnery can be reconciled with the other sayings of the biographer.

[28] from the age of which place, the irruption of the Danes, Harpsfield, praised above, the writers of the Monasticon Anglicanum and Alford, and, so far as I could understand from this, Speed also, tied the beginnings of the convent of Pollesworth to the 9th century, following the Conchubran Life of St. Modwenna, or such as Capgrave edited, in which that Edith is said to have been the sister, or, as others will have it, the daughter, of Athulph, or Ethelwulf, king of the West Saxons, and the sister of Alured or Alfred; which being granted, they certainly cannot be fixed before the year 837, in which Ethelwulf began to reign. I would not make so much of a Life infected, as I have said, with certain parachronisms as to believe that I must stick here on its account, did not other things also move a not altogether light suspicion that Osith should be removed to the same century. As the biographer himself witnesses in the Life to be edited, number 6, this holy Virgin was struck in the head by a band of heathens brought … from the parts of the Danes. But indeed in the 7th century no eruption of the Danes into Britain is known among the historians, while in the 9th century they were frequent, with a huge slaughter of monasteries, as may be read in the commonly met writers of England.

[29] Moreover, there is a deep silence of the venerable Bede concerning this holy Virgin martyr, and from the silence of Bede, Alford suspects that there were two Osiths, although her royal birth, the holiness of her life, and her recent martyrdom would seem likely to have admonished him not to pass her over unpraised, if she had flourished in the very century in the seventy-third year of which he was born. On the contrary, the reason for this silence is placed beyond all controversy if Osith is believed to have suffered in the 9th century, when Bede had already departed from among the living from the year 735. Matters being so entangled, Alford mentions the age of St. Osith three times: and first, at the year 653, to which Baronius had ascribed her martyrdom from the Life, he rightly observes that it is to be placed far later. Then at the year 673, before which Ecca and Bedwin, by whom the same Virgin is said in the same Life to have been veiled, were not ordained bishops, he speaks of her entrance into the monastery and her subsequent martyrdom. At length, at the year 871, fixing Modwenna's coming into England to the 9th century, he discourses thus in doubt.

[30] I know (he says) that many things which are related of Modwenna, of whom one flourished in the 7th century, the other, today's, in the 9th. the foundress of two monasteries, are referred by Baronius and others to the seventh century, as was said there when I recorded the martyrdom of the virgin Osith: but, I think, far more rightly the holiness of Modwenna first became known in this ninth century. She, then, who taught Osith, the wife of Sigher, king of the East Saxons, yet incorrupt, could perhaps have been called Modwenna; but she differs from her who was illustrious in the time of Alfred (in the 9th century), who perhaps, as an emulator of the holiness of the former Modwenna, succeeded to her name: and certainly it was familiar to Saints to assume the name of the Saints whom they desired to imitate. Hence perhaps another Osith also flourished at this time (in the same 9th century), who could far more probably have been slain by the Danes than that one, once the wife of Sigher, of whom at the year of Christ DCLIII and DCLXXIII. For those who refer Moduenna to this century affirm that Osith too was taught by her.

[31] Thus far Alford, whose opinion being admitted, it will likewise have to be admitted But this opinion does not please us; either that it is not established whether today's St. Osith, who up to England's defection from the Roman Church had a celebrated cult in her monastery of Chich, and left her name to the little town of that place, ever existed, or that nothing is known of her except that she was a sacred virgin slain by the Danes in the 9th century; but that the rest which is read of her in her Life will have to be referred to a certain far different Osith, two centuries earlier, not known even from cult, nay, not known at all, except from the often-mentioned Life of St. Moduenna, sprinkled with parachronisms and fables. Indeed the alleged reasons do not prove to me that so great an obscurity of Blessed Osgith, a virgin famous in miracles, as the man of Malmesbury speaks, is to be admitted; let us weigh them a little besides.

[32] In the 7th century there is known a hostile irruption of the Danes into the island of Britain, wherefore, the reasons alleged on both sides but most well known and most grievous ones in the 9th century. So it is; but who from this would deservedly determine that in the same century no barbarian pirates either put in to the same from the German Ocean by the river Colne, near whose mouth the nunnery of St. Osith at Chich was situated? And why could not a biographer far later in age have believed that these pirates were brought from the parts of the Danes, whether truly, or by a fallacious conjecture taken from the later irruptions of the Danes into Britain? Assuredly the biographer in the same place neither asserts nor insinuates any graver devastation of that province, such as, as we have said, afflicted the same island in the 9th century; but only a certain sudden one of the village of Chich, situated not far from the place where the river Colne (as Camden witnesses) mingles with the sea. Receive the biographer's words: A band of heathens (he says), brought in ships from the parts of the Danes, put in among the East Saxons at the village of Chich, and there, going out from the ships, raged against the Christians with plunderings and burnings.

[33] being weighed, The slaying of St. Osith is subjoined; nor are more things read in him of these Danes, no otherwise than as if, content with this their booty, they soon betook themselves back to their ships and departed thence. If these things were done so, as they could have been, what is there much to wonder at if this sudden plundering of the village of Chich was not numbered by the English historians among the other hostile irruptions of the Danes, and was passed over altogether? Even less weight has the other reason objected from the time of the building of the monastery of Pollesworth; for while the more recent writers adduced above connected its beginnings with the 9th century, they relied solely on the Life of St. Moduenna, manifestly faulty, as we have said, in more than one place, and of far slighter credibility than the Life to be edited. Concerning Edith, who in the 7th century was the mistress of St. Osith in the nunnery of Pollesworth, there is no greater difficulty than concerning her of the 9th century, since this sister or daughter of Adulph, or Ethelwulf, king of the West Saxons, is no less unknown from elsewhere than that daughter of Oswy, king of the Northumbrians. There remains, therefore, the silence of St. Bede concerning St. Osith, which certainly would be graver, were it not established that he also passed over other things, and by name two holy virgins, daughters of Penda, king of the Mercians, Kyneburga and Kyneswitha, more to be recorded even by that title, that they were begotten of so impious a father, concerning whom see Henschen's historical Commentary in our Work on the 6th day of March.

[34] it appears more probable that she flourished toward the end of the 7th century. Since, therefore, it is established from what has thus far been related that those assigned by the biographer to St. Osith, her grandfather Penda, her father Frithewald, her betrothed Siger, and those who consecrated her as a virgin to God, the bishops of the East Angles Ecca and Bedwin, lived in the 7th century; and nothing compels us to deny that in the same century pirates, such as we have described above, put in at the village of Chich; and from elsewhere likewise nothing proves that at that time no Modwenna presided over the monastery of Pollesworth; we cannot deny either that it is not unlike the truth that St. Osith lived in the same 7th century and was slain by those robbers; although many years later than the year 653, as was shown more fully in §1.

LIFE,

By an Anonymous Author,

From the collection of Laurentius Surius on the Lives of the Saints of the month of October.

Ositha or Osgitha, V. M., in the little town of her name in the county of Essex in England. (S.) BHL Number: 6353

By an anonymous author.

[The royal virgin is handed over to St. Moduenna to be brought up; by her mistress Edith] Blessed Osith, virgin and martyr, drew her origin from the most noble lineage of the English. For she was the daughter of King Frithewald and of Wilteburga ^a, daughter of Penda, king of the Mercians ^b. And the virgin Osith is handed over, to be formed in good manners, to St. Modwenna the abbess, who near the wood which is called Arderna had built two monasteries; one in the place which is called Pollesworch, the other in the dwelling which is named Streveshal ^c. Of these she chose the one for herself, intent on prayers; the other she granted to Blessed Edith, sister of King Alfrid ^d, beloved by her intimately for the merit of her holiness, who was made mother and guardian in the congregation of holy virgins. To her for some time the young handmaid of God Osith adhered, commended to her by St. Modwenna the abbess. When, then, it happened in the winter time that Blessed Edith was occupied in examining a certain codex, she determined to communicate to St. Modwenna the things which, in reading, she had noticed in it as useful.

[2] Having summoned Osith to her, then, she said: Go, and carry this volume to our lady and mother Modwenna, sent to Modwenna, she falls into a river and is drowned, who will perhaps find in it something of holy contemplation and edification. She, having received the book, when she had come to a certain wooden bridge, driven by the force of the winds on the top of the bridge, fell headlong down into the river, and, snatched by its onrush, was swallowed up in a moment. And when three days had elapsed, an angel of the Lord, appearing to Modwenna as she prayed in her cell, said: Go with haste to the river, to accomplish there something necessary. When she came to the river, she found there the virgin Edith seeking the girl Osith; and noticing her as if frightened, she said: What is it, sister? Is all well? She answered: It is now three days, lady, since I sent Osith to you, and I come to inquire what is the cause that she does not return to me. Is she with you? Modwenna said: In truth I have not seen her, nor did she come to me. And the shepherds being asked whether they had seen the girl, answered thus: Three days ago we saw a girl go up on the bridge; but whither she either went away or arrived, we, attending to the care of the flocks and intent on other things, are altogether ignorant.

[3] Having heard these things, St. Moduenna said to Edith: Let us pray the Lord, from which, three days after, she comes back unharmed. dearest sister, that by the merits of all His Saints He may restore to us at this hour the lost Girl, that we may see and know His wonderful power, and may praise together His mercy perpetually. When, then, they had bowed themselves to the earth, and had prayed long with tears, Modwenna, rising from prayer, cried three times with a clear voice: Osith, Osith, Osith, in the name of the holy and undivided Trinity come forth, and from this river in which you have been drowned emerge, by the virtue of His power, sound and unharmed, restored to life. The holy virgin had not yet fully finished the words, and behold, the Girl comes forth from the river with the codex unharmed, and three times with ready voice answers: Here am I, here am I, here am I, my lady. St. Modwenna, receiving her with great exultation, and giving immense thanks to God, restored her to Edith, and returned with her codex to her cell ^e. That place, having taken its name from the event, is called by the inhabitants Nunpole ^f: although she was not then a nun, yet she is believed to have been clothed with a black mantle.

[4] Married to King Siger, she keeps her virginity, And after the departure ^g of St. Modwenna, Blessed Osith, brought back to her parents, advanced daily in virtue and manners, and when she had come to marriageable years, Siger, king of the East Saxons, soliciting the Girl's parents, asked that the Virgin be given to him as wife. But when her parents exhorted her to consent, she, rejecting their blandishments, declared in mind and action that the purity of virginity was more to her heart. Nevertheless, though resisting and unwilling, the nuptials being furnished with royal apparatus, she was handed over to that king. But commending her affection and desires to the heavenly Bridegroom, she offered prayers to God both devoutly and constantly, that He would preserve her unstained from the touch of a man. Meanwhile, for many days, by a certain praiseworthy deceit and the timely pretext of many occasions, she held back the king's desire; but he, the more ardently the less he was aware of her vow, ordered her to be brought into a secret chamber, that he might enjoy her long-desired embraces.

[5] and, secretly veiled, he then consenting, she presides over virgins. But behold, by the divine nod a messenger is at hand, bringing pleasant news to the king, that a stag, remarkable in bearing and form of body, is running about before the doors of the royal house. So the king, leaving the Queen untouched, with huntsmen joined to him, flies swiftly to pursue the stag: and Osith, as if snatched from shipwreck, gives thanks to Christ her Deliverer, and quickly sends letters to the bishops of the East Angles, Ecca and Bedwin, religious men, setting out to them the desire of her mind. And they, coming to her with hastening step, give her the habit of religion, and, the veil being imposed, consecrate her a nun. And the king, returning after some days from the hunt, hastens eagerly to visit the Queen, and seeing her clothed in the holy habit and bound by a divine vow, is affected with grief. But nevertheless, not wishing to change love into hatred, he suffers her to persist in her purpose, though unwilling ^h, and, buildings suited to religion being constructed, gives her the village of Chich to possess ⁱ. Then she, joining sacred virgins to herself, undertakes the purpose of a more austere life, by the discipline of manners, the rigour of silence and the censure of continence, each

she forms, and both by word and example unceasingly kindles them to the love of heavenly things and the contempt of the world.

[6] By order of the chief of the Danish pirates And when she had toiled for some time in the service of God, the devil, enemy of the human race and exterminator of virtues, envied her blessed conversation, and her whom he saw advancing from day to day he strove to turn aside from the way of holiness. So he sent his satellites for the overthrow of the holy Virgin from the borders of the Danes ^k, sons of perdition, devoid of Christian faith and piety, stirring them to lay waste the region of the East Angles ^l. The custom of that barbarous nation was to practise piracy, to delight in the slaughter of Christians, to gape after plunder, to lead an empty idleness whenever they kept their hands from crimes and impious misdeeds. In the year of the Lord six hundred and fifty-three ^m, then, in the month of October, a band of heathens, brought in ships from the parts of the Danes, put in among the East Saxons at the village of Chich, and there, going out from the ships, raged against the Christians with plunderings and burnings.

[7] And he who held the first place among those wicked men, [beheaded, she carries her own head: a spring gushing forth at the place of martyrdom.] having learned the condition and religion of Blessed Osith, began with prayers and gifts to provoke her to idolatry, adding also threats of blows and wounds unless she consented to the veneration of the gods whom he worshipped. But the holy Virgin, both despising blandishments and dreading nothing the harshness of threats, made little of the impending punishments. For which reason that chief, enduring to bear neither her constancy nor the injury to his gods, a capital sentence being passed against her, compelled her to bow her head. And when it had been cut off, at once the body raises itself, and with its hands seizes the head lying on the ground, and, advancing with straight step and firm footsteps, carries it nearly three stadia to the church of the Apostles Peter and Paul: and stopping at the locked door of the church, with bloodied hands she knocks that it may be opened to her, and, leaving traces of blood there, falls to the earth ⁿ. And in that place where the holy Virgin underwent the capital sentence a clear spring burst forth, affording health for various kinds of diseases ^o.

[8] Further, having heard of her martyrdom, her parents burned with a special desire The body is carried to Aylesbury, whence, at her own bidding, that, consoled at least by the pledge of the truncated body deposited with them, they might redeem the loss of their grief. And when her body had been brought to them, they placed it honourably in a little leaden coffer in the church of Aylesbury [p]. And many miracles having afterwards been wrought in that place by the merits of the holy Virgin, she, appearing in a vision to a certain smith, said: Arise, and go to the church of Aylesbury, and taking that leaden coffer in which are my bones, and placing it cautiously on a horse, carry it to the church of Chich. And lest so great a labour beget distrust in you, when you have entered upon the road I will be present to you as reliever and helper in the labour of the way and the sweat of the burden.

[9] After a threefold apparition of this kind, finding his opportunity one night, carried back to her church, it is enclosed in a precious reliquary. he entered the church, found the watchers weighed down with sleep, drew the leaden coffer out of the earth, placed it on a horse, and departed [q]. In the morning the guards, awaking, rouse the neighbours; they search the byways of the streets and the secret short-cuts of the paths, in case perhaps they can seize him whom they were pursuing. And that smith, seeing a crowd of men approaching, having poured out prayer to God and the holy Virgin, his pursuers, struck by an alienation of mind and a wonderful stupor of the eyes, returned empty to their own homes. And when the smith had come with the relics of the holy Virgin to the church of Chich, Maurice, bishop of London, laid them up honourably in a precious shrine; and the bishop of Rochester [r], who was present, was cured of a grievous infirmity.

[10] When certain sailors were secretly carrying away with them a piece of marble from the portico of the church of St. Osith the virgin, the little ship in which they had put that marble remained unmoved, as if fixed to the earth, until they acknowledged their fault and restored the marble to her church. A theft divinely prevented: a cleric brought back to amendment: A certain cleric promised by a simple vow that he would take the monastic habit in the monastery of St. Osith the virgin [s]; but putting off carrying out his purpose, fortune flattering him ill, he is brought to the extremity of life, his illness growing heavier. St. Osith, appearing to him, said: What is it that you call upon me so anxiously? Do you not remember what I did for you in the fourth year from now? When you were sick and near to death, and when I was making satisfaction for this province, a mortality threatening, and obtained from my Lord Jesus Christ that He would visit my people; then too I asked the Lord for you, and you, freed from your infirmity, promised conversion of life: and yet from that time you have always become worse than yourself. With what face, then, given over to gains and courtly trifles, have you dared to call upon me? And when he promised with tears amendment of life, the Virgin, indeed now looking upon him with a more cheerful countenance, said: I have pity on you, if you yourself, having pity on yourself, will serve God even late. Soon he, healed by her touch, took the monastic habit, and, serving God devoutly, was elected Prior at St. Bartholomew's in London [t].

[11] various infirmities cured by her help: a violator of a vow corrected: The holy Virgin raised up a contracted woman; restored to a dumb and deaf youth the faculty of speaking and hearing; and came to the aid of many others imploring her help in their infirmity, health being restored. A certain girl so deprived of the function of her arm that it clung inseparably to her side, when she had been perfectly healed by the merits of St. Osith, pronounced a vow of continence; but afterwards contracted marriage with a certain youth. St. Osith, appearing to her, rebuked her, reproaching her with a most foul marriage, for having with rash daring broken the vows which her lips had uttered, and bound her feet more tightly with the invisible bond of fetters, so that, not able to tear apart foot from foot placed under it, utterly destitute of the function of her feet, she felt the scourge of divine vengeance. But at length, however, health being restored by the merits of the holy Virgin, she strove thereafter to live more correctly.

[12] a woman presented with the power of walking. A certain woman could not walk with her feet for many years. So she was repelled by the guardians of the church of St. Edmund [u] as the reproach of men and the outcast of the people. But there appeared to her a certain man of venerable countenance, and in a vision said to her: Woman, why do you linger here? In vain do you await here what you ask. Arise: the health which you demand must be sought by you elsewhere. And she said: Who are you, lord? I am, he said, the servant of God Edmund. Go to the church of St. Osith, that you may merit to obtain perfect health. And when she had come thither, the pain of her members being allayed, she rose up sound.

ANNOTATIONS.

and Bedwin were not ordained bishops before the year 673, Osith could not have been veiled by them before the same either.

p. Ægleburgum, from the Saxon Ægleburg, otherwise Ailesburia, in English Ailesbury, is a town of England in the county of Buckingham on the river Thame.

q. For this so wonderful translation too I require a more certain witness than the biographer.

r. The Maurice of whom it is here is said in Godwin, in the Commentary on the Prelates of England, to have presided over the church of London from the year 1087 until 1107; at which time, as the same Godwin witnesses, Gundulf presided over that of Rochester. Did, then, the body of St. Osith lie at Aylesbury from the 7th century, or from the ninth, if she is to be believed to have lived in this latter, up to nearly the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth? This indeed I would not dare to affirm on the sole credibility of this biographer. It appears more credible to me that her sacred body, in the time of the Danish irruptions, was carried from her church of Chich, situated not far from the German Ocean, to Aylesbury as to a safer place, and, the fear of them ceasing, was carried back to Chich.

s. It is not sufficiently established to me whether the speech here is of a monastery of men built near St. Osith's nunnery, such as were formerly customarily added to those of girls to administer divine things to them; or of the monastery of Regular Canons of St. Augustine, which I have shown in the preliminary Commentary from number 1 was founded in that place in the 12th century by Richard, bishop of London.

t. I think the priory of St. Bartholomew in Smithfield, in the Suburb of the city of London, is indicated here, concerning which the Monasticon Anglicanum, volume 2, page 166 and following.

u. St. Edmund, or Eadmund, king and martyr of the East Angles, is venerated on the 20th day of November.