ON SS. ETHELRED AND ETHELBERT, BROTHERS AND MARTYRS, IN ENGLAND,
IN THE YEAR 670.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Ethelred, martyr, at Eastry in England. (S.)
Ethelbert, martyr, at Eastry in England. (S.)
E. C.
§ I. SS. Ethelred and Ethelbert, great-grandsons of St. Ethelbert, who was the first Christian king of Kent. Their genealogy is established.
Compendium of the Acts. Among the royal families of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, after the Gospel had been announced to them by St. Augustine, apostle of the English, many, receiving the first-fruits of the spirit, shone out so in piety and miracles too that they have rightly been enrolled among the heavenly ones. The Life of most of them, as will be plain more fully below, has already been given in our Work. Today there are recorded in the calendars, on account of some translation of relics, the holy martyrs Ethelred and Ethelbert, sons of Eormenred, whose father Eadbald was king of Kent, or of the Cantuarii, namely the second after the reception of the faith. To Eadbald succeeded Eormenred's brother Earconbert, who, however, is said to have been younger by birth, the father so disposing Below in the Acts, no. 2.. He, after a reign of 24 years, departed this life, on the witness of Bede, in the year 664, in the same month as
and on the day on which Deusdedit, sixth bishop of the church of Canterbury, died, and he left the sceptre to his son Egbert, which he is said to have borne for nine years [Bede, book IV, chapter I; Malmesbury, On the Kings, book I, folio 4 and following, edition of Savile.]. While Egbert was reigning, when his cousins Ethelred and Ethelbert were growing up in innocence and the exercise of virtues, he, fearing for himself concerning the succession to the kingdom, allowed his kinsmen to be killed by a certain perverse minister of his, named Thunor. Their tomb is said to have been soon revealed by a signal miracle, and as other miracles succeeded one another, they were held as martyrs, cult came about, and a double translation took place.
[2] The genealogy of the martyrs Before these individual things are proved from the writers of English history, it pleases me to present in full the genealogy of the martyrs from the shorter Acts which we have in manuscript, namely the same which Capgrave published in the Nova Legenda, with which we have compared ours. And in order that the reading of our Commentary may be made plainer, we place alongside the series of the kings of Kent and Mercia and their progeny, into which our Henschen once inquired at sufficient length [On the Life of St. Ermenilda, volume II of February, p. 286; and of St. Ethelbert, volume III of February, p. 470.]. And we propose these in two little tables, not much differing from the fuller ones which are printed at the end of volume I of the History of England of Paul Rapin de Thoyras, edition of 1749; on this condition, that we draw out here only those things which are connected with the present Acts, and that we add to the saints the day of cult on which it has been spoken of them in our work, or is to be spoken hereafter. We indicate more besides about the saints of Kent in the Appendix to these Acts.
[3] is set out. Here then is the genealogical proem of the aforesaid Passion of the holy martyrs Ethelred and Ethelbrect, brothers: "Eadbald, king of Kent, son of Ethelbert, who was converted to the faith by St. Augustine, begot from his wife, the daughter of the king of the Franks, Emma by name, two sons, Eormenred and Earconbert, and one daughter, Eanswith [] by name, a holy virgin, who was buried in the monastery of Folkestone, which she herself had built. And Eadbald having died, his son Earconbert succeeded him, who took to wife the sister of St. Etheldreda, Sexburga by name, from whom he begot a son named Egbert, and two holy virgins, Erkengota and Ermenilda. But Eormenred, brother of Earconbert, from his wife Oslana begot SS. Ethelred and Ethelbrect [], and four daughters, Dompnena [], Ermenburga, Etheldritha [] and Ermengitha. And Dompnena was given in marriage to Merewald, son of Penda, king of the Mercians, who begot from her the holy virgins Mildred [*], Milburga and Milgitha, and the holy boy Merefin, who, while still in his boyish years, passed from this light to God." These things agree exceedingly with the genealogical series which is read at the beginning of the Life of St. Werburga Volume I of February, p. 386. written by the most diligent monk Goscelin, whose praises William of Malmesbury pursues at the end of book IV On the Deeds of the Kings. A similar genealogical derivation is read in the Chronicle of William Thorne In Twysden, Ten Writers, column 1905 and following., and there, at the year 1262, on the occasion of St. Mildred, the Passion of SS. Ethelred and Ethelbert was inserted; but what concerns these and other things from the said Chronicle of Thorne Sollerius published in the Commentary on St. Mildred at the 13th of July Acta Sanctorum, volume III of July, p. 512 and following, nos. 14, 4 and 5..
[4] Emma, their grandmother, was the daughter of Clothar II; Further, in the premised fragment of the Passion there comes first to be considered Emma, wife of Eadbald, who is also said to be the daughter of a king of the Franks. It is indeed beyond doubt that she was born of some king of the Franks, since, besides the testimony of that Passion and of Thorne, we have William of Malmesbury On the Deeds of the Kings of the English, book I, p. 10., a chronicler of the greatest name, agreeing, and moreover the subscription of Emma herself in a diploma reported by Thorne [In Twysden, column 2125. Cf. on this diploma Gebhardus, Reges Francorum Merovingici, p. 110 and following.]: "I, Emma, daughter of the king of the Franks and queen by marriage to Eadbald, have armed it with the standard of the adorable cross." But it is asked of what king she was the daughter. Of Theodebert, king of Austrasia, answers Alford Annales Ecclesiae Anglicanae at the year 640, no. 2.; and the writers of the New Monasticon Anglicanum repeat the same Volume I, p. 120.. But since Emma's father is called king of the Franks, not of Austrasia, Le Cointe held Annales Ecclesiastici Francorum at the year 628, no. 10, volume 2, p. 794. that Clothar II, king of all Francia, is indicated. Which Valois had already confirmed Rerum Francicarum, volume III, p. 74.: "Afterwards," he says, "when I was turning over a certain old Chronicle, I found written in express words in it what I had long since noticed: 'That Eadbald was succeeded in the kingdom by his son Earconbert, begotten of Emma, daughter of Lothar II, king of the Franks.'" To which opinion the most skilful Gebhardus added his vote Reges Merovingici, p. 109 and following.. And so much of the grandmother of SS. Ethelred and Ethelbert.
[5] their mother was Oslava, their father Eormenred, son of King Eadbald. Their mother is called in the Passion and elsewhere [William Thorne's Chronicle in Twysden, Ten Writers, column 1906, and Monasticon Anglicanum, volume I, p. 447.] Oslana; but the true name seems to be Oslava, by which she is called by the biographer of St. Werburga Acta Sanctorum, volume I of February, p. 384 and following., whom Henschen tried, not unsuccessfully, to show to be the most learned monk Goscelin Ibid. Cf. Tanner, Bibliotheca Britannica, under Gotzelinus.; similarly by the Worcester chronicler at the end of his Chronicle in the Genealogy of the kings of Kent; and so elsewhere commonly. Lewis moved an engine against Eormenred History of the Isle of Tenet, in Monasticon Anglicanum, volume I, p. 447.. For when he had come upon the writing of a certain Thorne, a native of the isle of Thanet and monk of St. Augustine's at Canterbury (different, however, as it seems, from the commonly known William Thorne), and had found there Eormenred called king of Kent, and no Eormenred met him among the kings of Kent, going further he called into doubt the very existence of Eormenred, or rather wholly denied it. But what? Because perhaps Thorne erred in calling Eormenred king, is Eormenred himself therefore to be denied? The former can be granted, the latter by no means; because most certain documents are at hand. First of all we have the testimony of the Anglo-Saxon Chronology, which is one of the best monuments on ancient English affairs after the Ecclesiastical History of Bede. And in it at the year 640 we read [Bede's Ecclesiastical History and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, p. 319, Giles edition.]: "In this year Eadbald, king of the Kentishmen, died, and he had reigned twenty-five years. He had two sons, Eormenred and Earconbert, and Earconbert reigned there after his father. He overthrew all idolatry in his kingdom and was the first of the kings of the English to establish the Easter fast. His daughter was called Earcongota, a holy and wonderful woman, whose mother was Sexburga, daughter of Anna, king of the East Angles. And Eormenred begot two sons, who were afterwards martyred by Thunor." William of Malmesbury likewise, whose great authority in English historical matters escapes no one, mentions in more than one place the royal stock of the holy martyrs; and indeed in book 2 On the Deeds of the Kings Folio 47, edition of Savile 1696. he has this: "Egbert, king of the Kentishmen, son of Earconbert … had young kinsmen, touching the line of the kings by a near degree of consanguinity, Ethelred and Ethelbrith, namely the SONS of Eormenred his paternal uncle." To these many other chroniclers could easily be added, teaching the same.
[6] They had four sisters, of whom the one who founded The sisters of the holy martyrs are called in the Passion Dompnena, or Dompneva, Ermenburga, Etheldritha and Ermengitha; by Goscelin in the Life of St. Werburga Acta Sanctorum, volume I of February, p. 384. Domneva, Aermenberga, Aermenburga and Aermengida; and in both places Domneva is called the wife of Merewald and mother of the holy virgins Milburga, Mildrith and Milgitha, and also of St. Merewin, who as a little child was snatched away from baptism to the Holy Innocents. But the Worcester chronicler has other things in his Chronicle at the year 675, mentioning Merewald, who held the kingdom of the Mercians in the western region; "to whom," he says Ibid., volume III of February, p. 389., "his queen St. Ermenburga, daughter of King Eormenred, bore three daughters, namely St. Milburga, St. Mildritha and St. Milgitha, and one son, a boy of exceptional holiness"; and again at the end of the Chronicle, in the Genealogy of the kings of Kent, he records as daughters of the petty king Eormenred and of Oslava Ermenberga, who was queen of Merewald, king of the West Angles; St. Ermenburga, St. Aetheldritha and St. Ermengitha; likewise Malmesbury, chapter IV of book I On the Deeds of the Kings: "Merewald had as wife Ermenburga, daughter of Eormenred, brother of the same Earconbert: he had three daughters by her." Wherefore it seems it must be admitted, first, that the holy martyrs had four sisters, which number most chroniclers indicate in express words; then, that among these were Aetheldritha, Ermengitha, and a third named Ermenberga or Ermenburga. But it is asked what was the name of the fourth; which matter concerns us the more nearly because this very sister founded a monastery by reason of the holy martyrs, her brothers.
[7] the Thanet monastery, seems to have been called both Ermenburga and Domneva. Three opinions might be proposed about her name: the first establishing that her genuine name was Domneva; and this, besides the testimony of the Passion of SS. Ethelred and Ethelbert and of the monk Goscelin, has for itself the authority of Henry of Huntingdon, the unpublished Life of St. Milburga, an old geographical map of the isle of Thanet, which was reprinted in our work Volume III of July, p. 513. with the Life of St. Mildred and in which beside the figure of the monastery these words are read: "This monastery of St. Mary Domneva founded"; and finally the diploma of St. Edward the Confessor, of which more below. These testimonies Henschen has already weighed at the Life of St. Milburga, daughter of Domneva Volume III of February, p. 389.. The second opinion could rest on the authority of the Worcester chronicler and of Malmesbury, and would establish that she was called Ermenberga or Ermenburga. The third, finally, contends that she was first called Ermenberga or Ermenburga, but that after she was made abbess the surname Domneva was added to her, which little by little became as it were her proper name; and those who think so can defend themselves with the considerations of both preceding opinions, and with this note of the Annalist of the Monastery of St. Augustine [In Lewis, History of Tenet, p. 57; cf. Monasticon Anglicanum novum, volume I, p. 447.]: "Note that Dompneva, who by another name is called Ermenburga, after she had professed the habit of a nun, was designated Aebba by kings and magnates." Similarly Simeon of Durham Below in the Acts, no. 12. and
William Thorne Volume III of July, p. 515, no. 13; and Twysden, column 1906. openly relate that she had two names, or was called Ermenburga and Domneva; nay, Thorne even makes her three-named, writing of Eabba, abbess of Minster, who preceded blessed Mildred In Twysden, column 1770.. From which this argumentation is made out: since the title of Domnus and Domna attached to monks and nuns, but chiefly to abbots and abbesses Du Cange under Domnus and Domina., she who was called Aebba must in common speech have been called Domna-Aebba, or (especially among the English) Dompna-Aebba; whence by an easy deflection arose Dompneva or Domneva. This opinion does not displease, however much it may follow from it that Eormenred had two daughters almost of the same name, Ermenburga and Ermenberga; which seems to be the same name. Since nevertheless the old chroniclers did not hesitate to admit this, let no one press this difficulty too much: add that other similar examples of persons of the same name in one family have already been collected by Henschen Acta Sanctorum, volume I of March, p. 445, no. 17.. There is scarcely need for me to point out that Malmesbury erred at the year 654, when he makes Ermenburga or Domneva, wife of Merewald, the sister of King Egbert; for he himself corrects this error at the year 676, where he rightly asserts her to be the sister of the holy martyrs.
GENEALOGICAL FRAGMENT OF THE ROYAL FAMILY OF KENT. (See the Commentary, page 90, number 2.)
GENEALOGICAL FRAGMENT OF THE ROYAL FAMILY OF MERCIA.
Annotata* Capgrave: Enstritha, who in the monastery…
* Capgrave: Ethelbrict, with i everywhere.
* Capgrave: Dompneva, with V everywhere.
* Lacking in Capgrave.
* Capgrave: Milb., Mild., Milg.
§ II. The martyrdom is narrated from the shorter Acts. In what year it happened. The foundation of the Thanet monastery of St. Mildred.
The account of the martyrdom Let us now hear from the manuscript, whose genealogical part we gave at no. 1, the very account of the martyrdom which immediately follows: "Ethelred and Ethelbrect, then, after the death of their parents, being still of boyish age, were commended to King Egbert, son of Earconbert, to be brought up. But the execrable enemy, foe of all equity, stirred up with the spite of envy against the little children a certain wicked man named Thunor, to whom Egbert had imparted the stewardship of the kingdom: and when that most savage henchman saw the blessed brothers advancing daily in holiness, industry and virtue, fearing that, if they enjoyed a longer life, they would be held more acceptable to the king than he, he blazed up sharply against them with the fury of madness, and was accustomed diligently to accuse and charge them secretly before the king, at the same time affirming with venomous mouth that, if perchance they enjoyed this present light for long, they would surely deprive him and his sons of his earthly kingdom; and he began to importune the king with fraudulent prayers that he would allow him to kill them secretly. But the king, because he loved them not a little on account of affinity and nearness of blood, would by no means consent to his petition [*] or to a will detestable to God, his conscience abhorring the crime. But that most wicked man, unable to desist from his undertaken purpose, envy driving him, kept assailing the king, assiduously imploring him with frequent demands, with the blandishment of false flattery, that he would assent to his desire.
[9] from the shorter Acts, "At length, when the king answered with a feigned voice that he wished to know nothing whatever of it, that cruel butcher knew what to do. As soon as black cloud had covered the night with darkness, he slew those happy youths with a bloody death in the place which is called Eastry, and did not cease to bury them secretly beneath the royal hall: and behold, like a blazing torch, there shone out over the saints a ray of long and immense light, which was seen to stretch through the highest roof of the royal hall right up to heaven. And after cockcrow the king, waking from sleep, rose, and, the door being unbarred, going out of doors, saw close at hand the radiance of that flashing brightness shining. He is amazed (no wonder) and shaken with huge dread: he commands that the most impious henchman Thunor be summoned to him with all speed, whom with threatening face he questioned indignantly what had been done about his young cousins [*] and kinsmen. When he at length confessed everything, the king, greatly fearing the wrath of the divine indignation for his consent to so great an iniquity, commands a council of bishops to be quickly gathered; and, Archbishop Theodore being present, he inquires what would be best for him to do. 'I fear,' he says, 'and greatly dread lest I incur the unjust and due wrath of the Lord for consent to so great an iniquity. For I cannot excuse myself of consent to their death.' And relating all that he had seen of the ray, by the consent of all he did not delay to send as quickly as possible for the lady Dompnena, sister of the martyrs.
[10] "When she therefore came (namely from the kingdom of Mercia) and of the foundation of the Thanet monastery of St. Mildred. into the presence of the king, he with a kind affection of will granted her the fulfilment of her mind for the affliction of grief with which she was afflicted on account of the destruction of her brothers. She chose therefore, according to God's [] disposition, as their price, land of 40 ploughlands in the place which is called Thanet: and when, the river having been crossed, she had come to the place, the king said: 'How great a part of the country do you desire to have for the death of your brothers?' She answered: 'I ask no more than my hind will traverse by its course in going'; asserting that it had been divinely intimated to her thus, that she should take for her own use as much as the hind should circle by its continuous [] course. For indeed the nimble hind kept up a swift motion before them in a direct course, all following its tracks until it came to the place called Thumreslat []: the name of which place took its beginning from that malignant Thunor. For he, in that place, drawing near to the king, with fraudulent mind addressed him flatteringly thus []: 'Glorious king, how long do you not cease to follow the step of this brute animal? And if this untaught beast strives to go round all this land by running about, will you endeavour to bestow the whole on this immoderate woman?' Scarcely had he finished the words and behold, he fell from the back of his champing horse and, his neck broken, expired, and was buried there. Over him a very great heap of stones was raised, which is called by the inhabitants to this day Thumnirlat [*]."
[11] The saints seem to have been killed between the years 668 and 670, In order that some light may be shed on these things, let us note before all the time of the slaughter of the holy martyrs. All the chroniclers agree in ascribing it to King Egbert, who, on the witness of Bede Ecclesiastical History, book IV, chapter V., died in the six hundred and seventy-third year from the Lord's Incarnation, in the month of July, his brother Hlothere succeeding to the kingdom; and so his cousins were killed before the middle of the year 673. Their death is likewise to be placed after the 14th day of July of the year 664, since the same Bede Ibid., book IV, chapter 1. writes at this year: "Deusdedit, sixth bishop of Canterbury, died on the day before the Ides of July; but Earconbert too, king of the Kentishmen, having died in the same month and on the same day, left the seat of the kingdom to his son Egbert, which he took up and held nine years." But that space may be narrowed; for from the Passion it is manifest that St. Theodore was sitting at Canterbury when violent hands were laid on the holy martyrs; whence, since, on the witness again of Bede Ibid., place cited., after the death of Deusdedit the bishopric was vacant for no little time, and so since Theodore Ibid., place cited. was ordained by Pope Vitalian in the six hundred and sixty-eighth year of the Lord's Incarnation, on the seventh day before the Kalends of April, a Sunday; and was thus sent with Hadrian to Britain on the sixth day before the Kalends of June; it follows that the death of SS. Ethelred and Ethelbert happened after the middle of the year 668. We have another limit too from William Thorne, who in the Augustinian Chronology at the year 670 records the foundation of the monastery of Minster in Thanet, which certainly followed the slaying of the holy martyrs. Let not the Durham chronicler and the Westminster one detain us, who continually contradict themselves in these matters and refer that punishment at once to the times of King Egbert and of the archbishop either Adeodatus or Deusdedit; which perhaps arose from the fact that the word Theodorus signifies the same.
[12] since they were perhaps fifteen years old; The age of SS. Ethelred and Ethelbert also is not to be passed over. In the Passion they are called little children, young boys, or youths; but the Westminster chronicler at the year 654 praises them because, "remaining after the regeneration of baptism in innocence and voluntary chastity, they fortified the honesty of their manners with the guard of humility"; William Thorne [Chronicle in Twysden, column 1906, and in Monasticon Anglicanum, volume I, p. 449.], since he relates that they had first been handed over to Earconbert to be brought up, by that very fact makes them at least seven years old when they died; which age seems rather to be increased than diminished on account of the age of their eldest sister Domneva, who, as Henschen shows Volume III of February, p. 390. from Bede Ecclesiastical History, book II, chapter IX., was given in marriage to Merewald about the year 660, and who in the year 670, when she founded the Thanet monastery, had already borne her husband several children See above, no. 2.. To which is added that the holy martyrs were cousins of King Egbert. Wherefore I should readily believe that they had reached at least the 15th year of their age. To these things, if it is asked what is to be thought of the assertion of Thorne, who affirms that they were entrusted to Earconbert to be brought up, while in the Passion they are said to have been handed over to Egbert, I do not know what to answer; yet Simeon of Durham agrees with the Passion. For the rest, this history is full of doubtful things: and among them perhaps the question of the cause of the slaying of SS. Ethelred and Ethelbert holds the chief place; to which, leaving the rest, we now come.
[13] [the cause of this slaughter, although it is not known whether the father obtained the kingdom,] The Durham chronicler, then, narrates See below in the Acts, no. 2. that Eormenred was the elder son of Eadbald, Earconbert the younger; "of whom the younger, the father so disposing, received the imperial principate of the kingdom." Which are altogether to be compared with what we recited at no. 5 from the Saxon Chronology. Bede makes no mention of Eormenred, but only writes Ecclesiastical History, book III, chapter VIII: "In the six hundred and fortieth year of the Lord's Incarnation, Eadbald, king of the Kentishmen, passing from this life, left the helm of the kingdom to his son Earconbert; which he took up and held most nobly for twenty-four years and some months," or until the 14th of July of the year 664. The Westminster chronicler at the year 640 has it somewhat otherwise: "Eadbald," he says, "king of the Kentishmen, at length passing from this life, left two sons, Eormenred and Earconbert, heirs of the temporal kingdom; but the younger, Earconbert, cunningly stealing the kingdom from his brother, DEPRIVED HIM OF THE KINGDOM." William Thorne too has these things otherwise: "Eormenred died," he says In Twysden, column 1906., "who left his two sons, namely the aforesaid Ethelred and Ethelbryth, to his brother Earconbert, that he might guard them and, when they were grown up, faithfully resign their inheritance to them; who, during the time while he lived, fulfilled his brother's desire; he died, however, before
the lawful age of the boys, on the day of St. Deusdedit, and more attentively commended the aforesaid boys to his son Egbert, succeeding to the royal inheritance, under the form and for the cause aforesaid." From which it would follow that Eormenred was king after Eadbald, and that Earconbert was appointed by Eormenred guardian of his sons; yet Thorne himself in the same place calls Earconbert himself king and his wife Sexburga queen; with which appellation he honours neither Eormenred nor Oslava. Florence of Worcester seems to go equally doubtfully: at the year 675 and in the appendix of his Chronicle P. 573, edition of 1592. he calls Eormenred king and petty king; but treating of the succession of the kings of Kent he agrees with the rest in designating Earconbert as successor of Eadbald at the year 640. Ranulf of Chester at the year 674 presents Eormenred as king of Kent, and that Thorne does the same, whom Lewis follows Cf. Monasticon Anglicanum novum, volume I, p. 447.. To which it must be added that all seem to agree in this, that bloody hands were laid on the holy martyrs because there was fear lest, when grown up, they should claim the royal dignity for themselves; but that on the other hand they had been committed by their father Eormenred to be brought up either by Earconbert or by his son Egbert; which paternal trust seems to indicate that until the death of Eormenred there was good agreement between him and his brother's family.
[14] the fear was lest they should some time seize the throne of Kent; When I consider all these things, I do not know what is to be established; since the public law of the Angles and Saxons is very obscure. Indeed in the Heptarchy, or Octarchy, a certain right of election is to be seen in the hands of the chief men of the kingdoms, and at the same time of succession, favouring the first-born rather than other brothers or kinsmen; and yet very often this order is not kept. Examples also occur of testamentary dispositions, by which kings at their pleasure divided their kingdoms among sons or kinsmen. From which instability of law disturbances and slaughters very often defiled England. And hence indeed the cause of the slaying of SS. Ethelred and Ethelbert could be derived. But if Eormenred their father had been placed after his younger brother Earconbert for whatever cause, how would it be understood that he handed over his sons to be brought up either by Earconbert or by Egbert? Nothing perhaps is plainer than that it be said that Eormenred and Earconbert succeeded their father Eadbald with equal or not much different right; that Eormenred, dying, entrusted his sons to his brother Earconbert or to his son Egbert; that Bede, further, following brevity in narrating civil affairs, made mention of Earconbert alone, because the kingdom was transmitted through him, the other stock having been taken away; and that the remaining writers either tried to accommodate things to the public law of their own times, when the one eldest by birth succeeded, and therefore ascribed the rights of the kingdom to Eormenred; or, since they were hindered by the authority of Bede presenting Earconbert as the successor of Eadbald, had recourse to testamentary dispositions or even evil arts.
[15] this slaughter was done at Eastry, that is, in a royal villa of Kent; Finally, the place of the slaughter and of the first burial must be spoken of. All the chroniclers agree that it was a royal villa called Easterige or Eastreia. But where this villa was situated seems to have been made doubtful after Malmesbury wrote in book IV On the Pontiffs: "The place of the saints' sepulchre was in East Anglia, whose name is Eastreia." But since Egbert was king of the Kentishmen, not of the East Angles, his villa is to be sought in Kent, not in another kingdom. Esterige, therefore, or Eastreia, is a village of Kent near Sandwich; and the first part of the name, East, by which the East is designated among the English, more probably led Malmesbury into error; but Eastreia, also called Estrey, Eastrege, Estry or Eastry, on the authority of Richard Kilburne Topography of Kent, p. 89, London 1659., got its name so that it might be distinguished from Rye, otherwise West Rye in Sussex.
[16] for the wergild part of the isle of Thanet was given to the sister, whose bounds And since among the Angles and Saxons, just as among the ancient Germans of whom Tacitus speaks Germania, chapter XXI., homicide was atoned for by a certain number of herds and flocks, a reckoning of money being fixed, or even by a certain measure of fields; from which law not even kings themselves (as examples show) were immune; the Passion and the chroniclers whom we have already adduced, and also a Saxon little work of the end of the tenth century to be printed in the Appendix, subjoin to the slaying of the holy martyrs the narration of the compensation or Wergild, which King Egbert paid to St. Domneva, sister of SS. Ethelred and his brother, eldest by birth. The council of bishops which is asserted to have been held with St. Theodore presiding is perhaps nothing else than the assembly of twelve men who by law had to constitute themselves sureties for paying the Wergild. But what is said about the course of St. Domneva's hind I hold all fabulous, and I think it arose from the fact that, since the holy martyrs were of royal blood, there had to be paid for their death what was called dear-born (for so the Wergild was called from the nobility of those killed), which was to be paid for the slaying of men who surpassed the ceorl in nobility. Further, since deer among the English is a hind, who does not easily see that the whole story could have been built upon this similarity of words? In the Saxon little work of the tenth century already mentioned, which was written at Canterbury in the Monastery of St. Augustine, and which Goscelin and William Thorne, monks of this monastery, had before their eyes in their Lives of the Saints and Histories (as will become manifest from the Appendix to these Acts), in this little work, I say, the Martyrdom of SS. Ethelred and Ethelbert is narrated, and other things which followed it, but about that hind there is deep silence. Nay, the narration itself does not seem to admit such a little story, since it is said there roundly that Egbert gave Domneva eighty carucates of land for the Wergild, where she herself built a monastery, namely in the isle of Thanet. Consult that little Appendix itself.
[17] marked by the course of the hind, I confess, however, that this little fable is older than the times of William the Conqueror or of the Normans. For it is found in a royal diploma which I touched on above at no. 7, and which Henschen Volume III of February, p. 389. had referred, from Thorne's Chronicle, to Edward III, although from the more recent edition of the Monasticon Anglicanum [Volume I, p. 450, Charter of Edward called the Confessor; cf. the preceding Charter of Cnut to Aelstan, and p. 121, the Catalogue of the abbots of St. Augustine's.] it becomes manifest that it belongs to St. Edward the Confessor, or was drawn from his instrument to Aelstan, abbot of St. Augustine's at Canterbury. It will perhaps please some to have before their eyes the testimony of this diploma; here it is then: "I too, sprung from the stock of the same King Ethelbert and, God helping, possessed of his kingdom, hand over the isle of Thanet, which King Egbert by hereditary right granted to the venerable queen Domneva, namely the mother of St. Mildred, as much as the hind had traversed by its course, for the slaying of her two brothers Aethelred and Aethelbert, whom by command of the same prince Thimur (otherwise Thunur), hateful to God, laid low by an unjust death, whom the heavenly vengeance soon terribly followed, destroying him. But all the donations also … I attribute … to Abbot Aelstan …," who died in the year 1047.
[18] are handed down, other fables being mixed in. And when this story of the course of the hind had grown strong, the name Deer's Course was given, after the coming of the Normans, to the boundary of the fields of the monastery of St. Mildred and of the town of Monkton Cf. Lewis in Monasticon Anglicanum novum, volume I, p. 447., or also of St. Mildred's bank, St Mildred's lynch, as Camden has it Britannia, volume I, p. 239, Gough edition.. Thunor's pit, or Thunors-lef, in which Thunor is said to have been buried, or also (as some chroniclers have it) in which he was swallowed alive, is for Lewis Place cited above. nothing else than a chalk pit; which perhaps was opened when the monastery was being built. In Lewis's time there was also shown a little hill from which the king had seen the hind running with St. Domneva: no wonder, if the bent of the common people for adorning and explaining fables is attended to. And the fields granted by Egbert comprised 10,000 acres, as Camden has it Place cited., eighty carucates according to the often-mentioned Saxon little work On which word see Du Cange's Glossary., but according to Thorne Volume III of July, p. 513, no. 6. forty-eight ploughlands.
Annotata* Capgrave: nec petitioni … nullo modo … noluit neither to the petition … in no way … he would not.
* Capgrave: adolescentibus youths.
* Capgrave: Deum [God].
* Capgrave: prepeti.
* Capgrave: Thurneslan.
* Capgrave: illum tal.
* Capgrave: Thumnirlan.
§ III. The translations of the bodies to Wakering and then to Ramsey. Cult.
The translations of the bodies are indicated in the Passion; As we have already seen, SS. Ethelred and Ethelbert are reported to have been killed in the place called Estreia or Eastry and buried beneath the royal hall, or beneath the king's palace, and indeed, as some chroniclers have it, beneath the royal throne itself. The fates of their relics are set out in the Passion, in which the following are related: "For how pleasing to God their way of life was became plain, when after the impious slaughter he declared them to the world by so flashing a ray! so that it might be known everywhere how great a love of divine equity burned in them whom the unjust vengeance of a bloody torturer struck down. And in the time of King Ethelred, son of Edgar, their bones were translated to the monastery of Ramsey [], and rest there to the present day. But while the holy martyrs rested in their former tomb, the Lord deigned to adorn them with frequent miracles. Among which a certain robber, seizing a poor man's sheep, makes his way through the cemetery where the martyrs rested: and behold, at once thrown to the ground, carrying the sheep in his hands, he lost the breath of life. And the man from whom the theft had been taken, following, recovered his own, and left the guilty man, overtaken by a sudden death through the vengeance of the holy Innocents. And their translation was made from the place called Wiakering [] to the monastery of Ramsey [*] on the 16th day before the Kalends of November."
[20] they were first buried at Eastry and a church adorned; From these we have that the bodies of the holy martyrs, first buried at Eastry, were translated from there to Wakering and Ramsey in the time of King Ethelred, son of Edgar, and indeed on the 16th day before the Kalends of November; whence their festivity has attached itself to the present day. All of which must be explained somewhat. William of Malmesbury, by whom the translation to Wakering was unknown, and who thought that the holy martyrs rested at Eastry until they were carried to Ramsey, writes in book II On the Deeds of the Kings Folio 5, edition of Savile. that the rubble, thrown with hasty turf over the bodies sunk by Thunor in a deep pit, was dug out by the neighbours; and that the trench was directed into the appearance of a sepulchre, a church being built over it; and in book IV On the Pontiffs he repeats the same. Nor does this building of a church seem foreign to the truth; although Simeon of Durham, and after him the Westminster chronicler at the year 654, tie the Wakering translation to the times of Egbert.
[21] from here they were translated to Wakering in the middle of the 9th century; For the Durham chronicler is of lesser authority here, since he would have Deusdedit, who died before the times of Egbert, present at this celebration, and since he speaks of a most famous monastery of Wakering, behind whose principal altar he asserts the holy martyrs were committed to fitting burial. For who would bear Wakering to be called a monastery, and indeed a most famous one, when (as we shall presently see) those sacred pledges were carried from there to Ramsey because the burial did not seem seemly enough? Add that this place scarcely occurs anywhere, and nowhere as a monastery. Among the possessions of the priory of Bilech, otherwise of Maldon, in Essex, there is said to be a farmed rectory, and below Wakeryng magna also appears Monasticon Anglicanum novum, volume VI, p. 902., likewise in a charter of Edward I Ibid., p. 901, note b.; but in neither place does a trace of a monastery appear. Its situation, however, is understood from the Maps which Richard Gough had inserted into Camden's Britannia. There lie, namely, Lit Wakering and Great Wakering, with Lit Wakering hall adjoined, in Essex at the mouth of the Thames, below Rochford, near the sea, at the marshes between the river Crouch and the Thames. As regards the Westminster chronicler, he indeed substitutes Theodore for Deusdedit; but all the other errors of the Durham one he took over, whom besides he was accustomed to pillage. Add that there seems to be no cause why the bodies of the holy martyrs should then have been carried outside Kent. Wherefore it seems much more likely that this was done on account of fear of the Danes, who from the seventh century to the eleventh very frequently plundered Kent. The celebrated battle is known, fought in the year 851 near Sandwich and so near Eastry, in which the Danes were defeated by King Aethelstan with huge slaughter. To a similar cause, therefore, I should ascribe the translation of our martyrs to Wakering, just as of St. Milgitha, their niece, into the borders of the Northumbrians Volume III of February, p. 389 d..
[22] then into the new monastery of Ramsey, William of Malmesbury describes the translation to Ramsey at sufficient length in book IV On the Pontiffs, where he treats of Ramsey: "The founder of the abbey of Ramsey," he says, "was St. Oswald, bishop of York, with the co-operation of a certain Egelwin, ealdorman of the East Angles; both praiseworthy for laudable liberality, but especially the layman, who, because he had seen the prelate in this place performing the funeral rites of a certain prince, his eyes sweetly fixed on the ground, frankly shedding tears, was so captivated by his piety that he made all his possessions ready for him. Inclined, therefore, by holy favour, he built that monastery most opulently, situated in a certain marshy fen. Felix, first bishop of the East Angles, lies there, carried from Soham by order of the ealdorman Egelwin: but also the two brothers Egelred and Egelbrith, whom Egbert, king of the Kentishmen, fearing that the sons of his paternal uncle were growing up in hope of the kingdom, having kept about him for some time, at length removed from the crowd of the court, begrudging them his sight. To the royal malignity was added a deadly minister named Thunor (which means thunder), who, having deceived them with daily kisses, stabbed them with a dagger in the very midst of embraces: when killed he sank them in a deep pit and, as is reported, beneath the very seat of the king, lest anyone should think the boys were to be sought there; for who would seek them there? But that divine eye, which the secrets of hearts do not deceive, brought the innocent ones to light, bestowing there many abundances of healings, and moreover affecting the king with a terrible miracle, so that a fire blew upon him as he sat above. The neighbours therefore, moved, digging out that rubble thrown over the bodies with hasty turf, set up a basilica to their martyrdom. The king himself, repenting of the slaughter, assigned to the sister of the boys a very large part of the isle of Thanet for building a monastery, as an expiation for the slayer and the slain. When Thunor with his accustomed impudence twisted this to evil, he was suddenly swallowed up by a gaping of the earth, and, seeing and living, entered into hell. The place of the saints' sepulchre was in East Anglia, whose name is Eastreia. Wherefore the ealdorman of the province, Egelwin, having raised them from the obscure church, brought them with celebrated pomp to Ramsey."
[23] St. Oswald and the ealdorman Ailwin taking care of it, That this narration is defiled by the errors about Eastreia being placed in East Anglia and about the omitted translation to Wakering, which we have corrected elsewhere, everyone will notice. It pleases me therefore to add here also another narration drawn from the history of the monastery of Ramsey which Gale published Fifteen Writers, Oxford, 1691, p. 405.: the title of chapter XXV being premised, "that Aethelwin had the two martyrs Aethelred and Aethelbrith translated to Ramsey," these things are read: "At the same period two twin brothers, Aethelred and Aethelbrith, sprung from the noble stock of ancient kings, and, after the death of their father, when they were growing up to the dignity owed to them by the benefit of ancestral blood, innocently slaughtered by the devouring envy of a certain worthless fellow, were held from antiquity buried together in the church at a villa of the venerable Ealdorman, Wacheringe by name. When the divine piety had declared them, exalted by the glory of martyrdom, by some indications of signs, it seemed to the same Ealdorman that less honour and reverence than was fitting was shown them there; and he had their pledges translated to Ramsey with fitting devotion, adorning the church itself and the consummation of all his donations with the illustriousness of two precious gems."
[24] by the founders of this monastery On which the following are to be noted: Ramsey, Ramesege, Ramesia, Rameseia etc. was a most celebrated abbey in Huntingdonshire, whose beginnings seem to the writers of the New Monasticon Anglicanum Volume II, p. 546. rather to be referred to the year 969 than to the year 986, as others have it. Nor is that opinion to be abandoned which Henschen had already urged to be altogether held Acta Sanctorum, volume III of February, p. 754., at the same time showing that five years were spent in raising the buildings and that the church was consecrated on the 6th day before the Ides of November of the year 974, a Sunday and at the same time the octave of All Saints. This solemnity was performed by St. Oswald, bishop of Worcester and then of York, who had also given the counsel for instituting this ascetery to Ailwin or Aethelwin, ealdorman, or count or duke, of the East Angles, and son of Athelstan, halfkineg, or ealdorman or half-king of all England.
[25] and they having died in the year 992; St. Oswald certainly died in indiction V, on the second weekday, the 29th day of February of the year 992, as Henschen relates from the Worcester chronicler Ibid., p. 749, no. 5., and as is still more certain from Roger of Hoveden, who heaps together indications of time agreeing most closely with one another Scriptores post Bedam, edition of 1596, folio 245 b.. And he adds: "Not long after the departure of the blessed father Oswald, Athelwin, a duke of excellent memory, a friend of God, died, and was honourably buried at Ramsey." The Genealogy of Count Ailwin ties the deaths of both to one and the same year (but wrongly to the following, or 993), relating Cf. Monasticon Anglicanum novum, volume II, p. 555.: "In the year 993 St. Oswald died, and in the same year Count Ailwin." The day of Ailwin's death may be learned from the notice of the foundation of the Abbey of Ramsey, although here there is an error of six years: "In the year 998," so it is read there Ibid., volume VI, p. 554., "there passed from this temporal life to the eternal, namely St. Oswald on the second day before the Kalends of March and the aforesaid duke on the eighth day before the Kalends of May," or the 24th day of April; all which it has pleased me to note, so that the source of the error of the writers of the Monasticon Anglicanum may be plain, who refer the death of St. Oswald and of Ailwin to the year 998, although they themselves afterwards (where they treat of the bishops of York) fix the heavenly birthday of St. Oswald in the year 992 Ibid., p. 1172..
[26] whence this translation seems to have been made in the year 986: From these it follows that the translation of the holy martyrs was made between the years 974 and 992. The time is determined more accurately in the Passion, where the bodies are said to have been translated to Ramsey in the time of King Ethelred, son of Edgar, and therefore after the month of April of the year 978, in which Ethelred took up the helm of the kingdom. But Malmesbury has otherwise in book II On the Deeds of the Kings: "They lay there," he says Folio 49, edition of Savile., "until the time of King Edgar. For then they were raised by blessed Oswald, archbishop of Worcester, and carried to the monastery of Ramsey. From which day they have manifested themselves by many miracles, easily entreated by the prayers of suppliants"; and Edgar, further, died in the month of June of the year 975. It could therefore be said that the translation was made on the occasion of the dedication of the church of Ramsey; but this does not appear, since otherwise mention would certainly have been made of this matter in the notices (of which we have several [Cf. Monasticon Anglicanum novum, volume II, p. 554 and following. The shorter Life of St. Oswald in Acta Sanctorum, volume III of February, p. 753 and following. The other Life by Eadmer, in Wharton, Anglia Sacra, volume II, p. 191 and following, etc.]) about this consecration of the church. Add that in the notice of the Foundation of Ramsey it is related that the consummation of all Ailwin's donations was adorned by the grant of the bodies of the holy martyrs. For which causes I should refer this translation rather to the time of King Ethelred, or to the space of time which elapsed between the years 978 and 992, and so more probably to the year 986, in which the 17th day of October was a Sunday, the dominical letter being C.
[27] in the year 1192 they are placed in new biers. Of the honour paid to these pledges at Ramsey few things have become known. Yet in the notice of the Abbots of Ramsey Monasticon Anglicanum novum, volume II, p. 580. these things are read: "Robert Trianel was made abbot in the year 1180… In his time, namely in the year 1192, the bones of the saints, St. Felix, Ethelred and Ethelbrith, were placed in biers." Of that St. Felix, first bishop of the East Angles, it was treated in our work on the 8th day of March Volume I of March, p. 779.; where it may be seen that his body was carried from Dunwich to Thetford, from there to Norwich, afterwards to Soham and finally from there (as the Ramsey Notice just cited has it Monasticon Anglicanum novum, volume and page cited.) in the year 1026 to Ramsey. Yet before the bodies of the holy martyrs were placed in these new biers, their honour was not lacking to them at Ramsey. For Henry of Huntingdon, who flourished before the middle of the 12th century: "At Ramsey," he says, "which is situated above the marshes, going on from the aforesaid river (the Ouse, which he had said above passes through Buckingham), you will find both the bodies and the Lives of Adelred and Edelberth; who, sons of Eormenred, son of Eadbald, king of Kent, were secretly martyred and found by a great miracle." Where you may notice that already then the Lives, or rather the Passion, of the holy martyrs existed. These things I report here from a parchment codex, since that ninth book, in which Huntingdon treats of the saints of England, has never been printed; his eight books published by Savile are known, nor is that ninth book itself unknown to the learned.
[28] Their memory in the Martyrologies; To the cult also pertain the memorials of the Martyrologies. To omit the eulogy which Richard Whitford published in the Usuardine Martyrology with
additions [The Martiloge in Englysshe after the use of the Chirche of Salisbury, London 1526.], the brief announcement which John Wilson inserted in his English Martyrologies of the years 1608 and 1640 and which Ferrarius transferred into his General Catalogue, and the other longer one which Chastelain put into his Universal Martyrology, and likewise the eulogies which are to be found in the English Martyrology Memorial of ancient British piety. of the past century and in the Britannia Sancta of Richard Challoner; to omit, I say, all these things, it will be enough here to have presented what the Usuardine Altemps codex, written formerly at Winchester Cf. Sollerius, Martyrology of Usuard, preface, p. LXIII., added to Usuard on the 17th day of October: "At Ramsey in England, the translation of the brothers and precious martyrs of Christ Ethelred and Ethelbrith, sprung of royal stock. Their bodies indeed, wickedly slain and secretly buried beneath the royal seat, a light brighter than the sun, sent from heaven through the roof of the royal hall at midnight, revealed; and not long after, of the slain (rather, their slaying), the earth swallowed him alive and sent him to the lower world, to declare his madness and the glory of the martyrs."
[29] why they are venerated as Martyrs and Holy Innocents. But that in this and other martyrological announcements they are called Martyrs, just as with most of the writers whom we have adduced above, no one will wonder who has known even the least of the ancient customs: for formerly the praise of martyrdom was quite often given to men who had borne an unjust death with piety; whereas according to the present manner of speaking the word martyrdom signifies death undergone for piety or another Christian virtue Cf. Benedict XIV, De Canonizatione Sanctorum, book III, chapter XVII.. But a matter worthy of consideration is that SS. Ethelbert and Ethelred are so often reckoned not only among the Martyrs but also among the Holy Innocents, just as St. Merewin or Merefin, of whom at nos. 3 and 6. Wherefore I shall raise a question, which however I shall confess cannot be resolved by me, namely whether many bodies of Holy Innocents which have been venerated from ancient times may not be the remains of children who had died before the grace of their baptism had been exposed to dangers. And to this point too are the children's bodies which have been found in the sepulchres of very many saints [Cf. Th. Pallu du Parc, Recueil des pièces relatives aux reliques de Saint Eutrope de Saintes, p. 38 and following.]. And if the proposed question had to be answered in the affirmative, there would be no superstition intervening here, since these children are wholly holy through sanctifying grace; whence too in that part of South America which we commonly call Chile the bishops tolerate that dead little children be exposed, that they be prayed to, and that around their corpses, made at one time temples of the Holy Spirit through baptism, incense be burned and other signs of cult be shown [Voyage autour du monde sur la corvette la Coquille, by P. Lesson, volume I, p. 100, Brussels 1839.]. But I profess again and again that these things have been put forward by me in the manner of one inquiring, not of one affirming.
[30] The Acts to be published. It remains that we publish such Acts of the holy martyrs as there are from Simeon of Durham, who lit the way for Matthew of Westminster, William of Malmesbury, William Thorne and others. Simeon flourished before the middle of the 12th century, and Selden pursues his praises at length in the preface to the Ten Writers published by Roger Twysden. Without doubt he had before his eyes a Passion more ancient than that which has been inserted entire, though in parts, into this Commentary. For in the latter mention is made of the translation to Ramsey, while Simeon himself was ignorant of it. More things in commendation of these Acts do not seem to need indicating.
Annotata* Capgrave: Rameseia
* Capgrave: Wakering… Rameseiae.
FULLER ACTS
From Simeon of Durham, On the deeds of the kings of the English; in Twysden, Ten Writers.
Ethelred, martyr, at Eastry in England. (S.)
Ethelbert, martyr, at Eastry in England. (S.)
BHL Number: 2643
aFROM SIMEON OF DURHAM.
[1] The genealogy of the kings of Kent, Here begins the Passion of SS. Ethelbert and Ethelred, boys of royal stock b. In the year from the Lord's incarnation 616, which is the 21st since the most holy Augustine c was sent with his companions to preach, Ethelbert, king of the Kentishmen, after the temporal reign which he had held most gloriously for 56 years, entered into the eternal joys of the heavenly kingdom d. Now this same king was the son of Irmiric, whose father was Octa, whose father was Oiric, whose father was Hengest, who, invited with his son Oisc by King Vortigern, first entered Britain, as Bede e describes in clear speech. And Eadbald, son of Ethelbyrht, took up the helm of the kingdom, who begot two sons, Eormenred f and Erconbyrht. King Eadbald, passing from this life, left the sceptres of empire to Erconbert. He first of the kings of the English commanded idols to be abandoned and destroyed in his whole kingdom; and at the same time by princely authority ordered the fast of forty days to be observed g; to whom was born a son named Ecgbert. And to Eormenred were born Ethelbert and Ethelred; whose life and triumph of passion it pleases me to insert at the beginning of our History, and to show the glory of their holiness.
[2] and likewise of the holy martyrs. For King Ethelbyrht was perfect in the empire of glorious power, who, delighted above all with the words of divine knowledge, was dipped in the baptism of salvation. By whose zeal or shrewd help the state of the churches of God was spread everywhere, and by the bestowal of his goods the assembly of the faithful was strengthened. Whence, the monarchy of the kingdom having been most skilfully disposed according to his power, the Clemency of the just rewarder calling him (for he had done all things to follow), he is deprived of carnal things, and is raised up to the heights of the ether to reign with the saints. And to him in the administration of government succeeds his son Eadbald, as we have said above, of whom are begotten two sons of royal stock, Eormenred and Erconbyrht, of whom the younger, the father so disposing h, received the imperial principate of the kingdom. And after the death of Erconbyrht, his son named Ecgbyrht governed it powerfully. But Eormenred, the elder, remained without dominion of empire in the revolving course of this perishable life: to whom, a just man, from a most just wife i two sons were born, who, nourished in the lordly palace of the heavenly king, were enriched in manifold ways with the royal gift of eternal glory, of whom one shone with the name Ethelred, the other gleamed with the appellation Ethelbyrht.
[3] Their birth, For at their most holy birth, all the orders of the blessed spirits in heaven, as we suppose, rejoiced, because those whom they beheld destined on earth they saw would return to them the stronger after the heavy contests of this life. The height of the earth rejoiced, feeling itself adorned with the grace of a double gift, and, because it is punished by the excessive misfortune of adversities, that it would always be bettered by such a help. Holy Mother Church besides gives thanks, while she is illumined by so great a dowry of her spouse, by which she may both shine better with the light of merits and always grow to the most upright summit of holier equity. Handed over to the womb of this pre-eminent teaching, to speak without the accurate eloquence of magisterial discipline, first of all, in the most serene sanctuary of that holy meditation k, they were washed in the shining baptistery of saving water, in whose seven steps of pure liquid they obtained the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit l, bedewed with episcopal blessing and anointed with holy Chrism.
[4] and innocent life. Supported on every side most fittingly by these things, they strove to live as virgins and most tender in holy body, through sevenfold courses of days, so that, seven being multiplied seven times and a unit placed beneath, they might acquire in the present life the singular fruit of the jubilee m, that is, the year of eternal felicity. By this then illustrious care of signal virtues, with soul doubling body, after the course of life was completed, they might take the hundredfold fruit consecrated to most sacred virgins. For distinguished by an excellent form of holiness, bound by the most apt rays of charity, rich in the offices of bowing humility, with the titles of unconquerable, thrice-blessed patience, performing according to their power large pursuits of humility, adorned with the heartfelt privileges of unfailing prayer, they are also made drunk n with very many mirrors of the goodnesses of the father of spirits. Since therefore we have touched beforehand, according to our capacity, on the seedbeds of virtues naturally implanted in them, we now attempt to undertake in a brief series of notation how they are called to the joys of the heavenly homeland through the crown of martyrdom.
[5] Thunor, the impious minister of King Egbert. Both their parents, therefore, departing from the misery of this life while they still had the weakness of youthful age, they were handed over to King Ecgberht, their first cousin o, in order that they might both be brought up in the exercises of skilful prudence and be sustained by the solaces of human infirmity. But to such endeavours of the pious there were not lacking the poisons of wicked hurling, which is always armed with the darts of envy against the sons of God through the sons of distrust. For in the royal palace there was found a certain man of sin and son of perdition, a member of the devil and also of the house of Satan, who, swollen with the vain pomps of the world and crowned with royal munificence, neither feared God nor regarded man. He, while on account of excessive ambition for honour he enjoyed counsels with the prince above all, was lifted up in vain by the foul favour of human levity. Haman was goaded against Mordecai by the fire-haired furies of deadly harassment, with which he himself afterwards, unexpectedly bound, was to be hanged. He was called, further, by a name fitting for him, Thunor [p], which in Latin interpretation sounds "thunder." For he was ceaselessly harassed by the morbid furies of the foulest spirits, by whose horrid crashes he was to be plunged into the Tartarus of hell. Seeing therefore the happy ones whom we have reckoned above [q] living happily, he is disfigured with the scratching itch of sordid meditations, and in the muddy wallow of his impious mind he began to think by what rubbish of inventions he could deliver them to death. Whence with canine tooth he presumed to gnaw at their praises among very many of the courtiers, and in mad calumny to bring forward such things to their leader:
[6] His speech to the king. "Since, most serene king, with strenuous mind, skilful work, the strength of perspicacious sense and the vigorous balance of your power, the most ample folds of the kingdoms subject to your majesty are disposed with the most prudent balance of equity, it is as precious that not only now the kingdom be rightly moderated by a stable rod [], and the sceptre of the state of the world governed, as that it should provide the unharmed honour of peace for your most beautiful offspring. For you would not be tossed by such clouds of solicitudes for yourself, were you not delighted by the excellent beauties of the sons most illustrious who are to succeed to your dignity. Wherefore we think it worth the effort that a prosperous path of tranquillity be redeemed for them, by which the commonwealth that is to succeed to them may be shaken by no wave of whirlwinds, may waver with no anguishes of discords. Let every felicity abounding in all good things smile upon them, let a persevering joyfulness flow fully upon those placed in gladness. But I seem to see that a great injury to this wholesomeness arises with you, because you nourish with diligence those who will some time presume to usurp for themselves the heights of your kingdom, and will change them; you diligently show such things to them, to the disadvantage of you and your posterity. Of [] those who stand by your highness I speak, of the young recruits Ethelred and Ethelbyrht, who grow rather in increase of the damnation of you and your children than of any advancement of yours. Therefore, the little knowledge of a right omen having been sought out, by which a little sentence of equal reason may be advanced against them, I should believe it would be counsel of common utility to you that either
you would order them to be sent into exile in some far-off region,
or permit them to be handed over to my blades with all speed.
[7] While the king dissembled on these matters, unwilling either to grant or to refuse,
while that man nevertheless obstinately goaded him to allow it to be done,
and repeated this again and again, The king dissembling, the holy brothers are killed. since he forbade it but lukewarmly and without
sharpness, he brought on the rashness of audacity, so that they should perish.
O how crafty always against the guiltless is the cunning
of the faithless! O how merciless against the innocent is the savagery
of the deceitful! No gentle, most gracious
[r] care of piety, no bowels of mildness
are in them at all. Only what is bitter do they meditate,
what they carry is like unto poisons. Why say more? With deadly
wickedness that same pestilent whirlwind arms itself against itself,
by which, in the absence of the king's presence, it strove
to stretch out its hand against the necks of the Innocents, bowed down to God [s].
By this persecution, then, of the envious persecutor the martyrs
of Christ were crowned with the palm of victory, and, received by
Christ, they rejoice in the estate of everlasting life
with the angels of the heavenly fatherland. But the precious
limbs of such great champions he ordered to be covered with earth in dishonourable places
beneath the royal benches, believing
that what he had accomplished would long lie hidden from all, the device of a dull
perversity, in the wickedness of the criminal slayer.
Moreover, though no sigh of weeping was granted them, no
office of the ten-stringed instrument resounding, nor the most beautiful
Ambrosian [t] title of hymns, nor the Gregorian
organ [u] of sweet harmony obtained, yet there were not lacking
the gifts of the manifold power of the supreme Deity.
[8] A column of light over the tomb. For in the dead quiet of night there was seen,
flashing by divine power over the hall of the king's palace, a shining
column of light [x], which by its unwonted brightness
troubled many of the king's household. And as they raised a din
of shouting in excessive wonder, the king was awakened,
and knowing nothing of this he rose from the bed
of his chamber and made his way to the nocturnal
hymns of Matins. When, having gone out from the house, he sees
the world grown white with the brightness of a new splendour, whose
source flowed from the aforesaid wondrous throne
of light. Indeed, astounded at the sight of a thing so new,
the king began to be stirred, anxious, by his thoughts,
both as to where those were whom he had seen the day before, and he was moved
by the sharpest meditation concerning the conversation
about destroying the martyrs which the minister
of iniquity had had with him a while before. Then, very swiftly
summoning the author of so great a crime, he asks in what distant
region his kinsmen had been placed, whose
illustrious beauty he was not enjoying in their presence.
When the most wicked executioner offered ears plainly deaf to these
promptings, and with the voice of Cain, with proud
haughtiness of mind, grunted more foully that he did not know,
the king, with threatening countenance, being as it were terrified by the light
of the divine brightness, is said to have pressed upon him such words as these:
[9] The bodies are uncovered. You have always talked to me a great deal about them, things
contrary to good; you spoke evil about their exile,
you spoke of their wicked slaughter, against them you were gnawed
by much madness. It behoves you, most wicked one, to declare fully to our
diligence how those may be found
whom you persecuted with the heavy zeal of hatred, with a corrupt mind.
To this that gallows-bird, foul bilge of malice, said:
Their dead corpses lie beneath the place
of your seat in the house. What was the prince to do? Struck
indeed by a huge whirlwind of fear, because he was
in part tormented by the biting stain of the wings of conscience,
in that he had not stoutly resisted the enemy of goodness, and
because he was unable to avenge what had been unjustly
done, he stood fixed in stupefaction, and as far as he could,
he repented. And so, as the dawn of the day shone upon the earth,
having called together the companions on whom he then relied,
and the princes of his kingdom with the bishops, among
whom the archbishop of Dorovernum [y] stood pre-eminent,
a man of great blessedness, by name Deusdedit [z],
he hastens to the place of the aforesaid Innocents,
tears up the earth with a digging-tool [aa], and uncovers the most holy bodies,
shamefully slaughtered and dishonourably buried.
Alas, with how deaf an ear he stood if he did not weep,
when he beheld the innocent sons of his uncle destroyed!
Alas, what an iron breast he had if,
when he saw the kinsmen of his own flesh dyed with the happy
redness of blood, he was not touched by grief of heart! Alas,
with how heavy a shower of tears he must have been bathed, when
he saw such illustrious flowers of so great nobility handed over to so worthless
a burial!
[10] Their translation. Therefore, along with the funeral rites of men, there were also not
lacking the mighty works of the everlasting Deity. For those crowned
on the throne of the kingdom of eternity He deigns to visit here also
by a wondrous miracle of His power. These things
were done at the royal vill which in the common
pronunciation is called Easterige [bb]. When, therefore, the most precious bodies of the holy
Innocents, taken out of the secrecy of the earth,
had been placed upon a bier, it was proposed that
they be carried into the city of Kent and buried in the monastery of Christ
[cc]; and they could not be moved from the place in which
they had been set. It was proposed that they be borne to the church of St. Augustine,
but they could not be lifted.
They decided also to carry them to very many and honourable
places, and the arms of the hands laid to the biers
failed. At length, a wholesome counsel having been found,
that they be borne to the most famous monastery
called Wacrinense [dd], they are lifted by an unhoped-for office
of most swift agility, so that there seemed to be no burden
in the long-desired carrying. When they had come
there, with most beautiful chants of hymns
and gentle melodies of psalms, with many
choirs resounding and with cymbals of jubilation they are received,
and are committed to a seemly burial behind the principal altar.
When they had been laid here for many courses of years [ee],
the most high Lord, who regards the lowly
and knows the lofty from afar, willed to enrich them with very frequent
miracles, of which I (resolve) now to make known two for the knowledge
of those who come after, in the present discourse.
[11] A sheep-thief is punished. It happened that a certain man, blinded by the goods of another,
secretly took away the sheep of a certain poor man, which,
carrying it on his shoulders with its feet tied, he was eager to carry off
past the monastery [ff] of the holy Martyrs,
but he could not. He was able to carry it as far as there, but from there
he was not able to convey it. The man guilty of this crime is therefore at once
deprived of the breath of life, and is laid prostrate dead
on the ground, holding the living sheep in his hands, while
he from whom the theft had been made followed after. The innocent man recovers
his own, and leaves the guilty one, overtaken by sudden
death through the vengeance of the holy Innocents. At once
running to the sacristan he asks whether he had slain
that robber: he learned that he had been slain by no mortal.
And having received leave to carry back what had been his,
he returns joyful and merry to his own home, giving many thanks to God and His
Saints.
[12] The sister of the martyrs is summoned. Since, then, we have briefly touched upon the passions of the holy Martyrs
as well as we could,
it remains that we should briefly treat how the divine vengeance came upon the most wicked
judge, the author of their most holy death.
They had a sister, begotten of the same father's
and mother's seed, Eormenburga
or Domneva [gg] by name, whom the king of the Mercians, Mearwald
by name, had in the union of lawful
wedlock, and whom King Ecgberht, having sent to her the bearer
of his embassy, arranged to summon. Coming, she
is received by all the chief men of that
region, as was fitting, with the honourable dignity of a conspicuous
attendance. Resolving therefore to honour her,
so that she might ask whatever honour befitting her she wished
within the dominion of his power, and receive it without
delay, the holy woman with a humble answer
replies that he should grant her only so much land as
a hind, which she had reared for herself, should traverse on foot in one day
by divine prompting.
[13] The king at once gladly orders a troop of companions to be made ready
for the morrow, On which occasion the executioner paid the penalty. relying on which he was to make his way by ships
to the island called Tenet. When they had
arrived, and she herself had entered the island by boat with the hind,
the hind took the way of going round it, and the prince and
the handmaid of Christ follow on horses with the military company.
When by now very much of it had been gone round, the abominable
executioner is troubled with envy, and as if from fidelity
to the king, to whom nothing seemed to remain of his own pleasant
broad lands, he began, as though sympathizing, to
prattle such things in its paths: Since you carry out all things by the helm of keen-sighted
prudence, why do you follow this brute animal
with most devoted pace, as though it were doing something great?
These words said, struck by the darts of the supreme Deity,
he fell from his steed. At once the exceedingly, exceedingly unhappy
Thunor is swallowed, with his arms and his horse,
by a new gaping of the earth; and the king, with all
his fellow soldiers, seized by exceeding terror, orders his body
to be speedily covered with a dreadful heap of stones,
his soul being kept for everlasting burning, for the muddy fires of the abyss,
of which punishments it is said: Souls shall pass
from the punishments of snows to excessive heat. Job 24:19. Which
place is called by passers-by Thunerhleap [hh], and it holds such
a name. With the insane butcher experiencing such offices of stupefying death,
and paying penalties of torments in place of delights,
the aforesaid beast, as far as its will
allowed, made its way, with them accompanying it; and so it fixed
its step, while all wondered. The king did what he had promised,
terrified by the miracle he had seen; he confirmed it with his own hand,
and so returned home.
[14] The monastery of Thanet of the B.V.M. in memory of the Martyrs. But the woman, a friend of holy virtue and greatly
chosen by God, established on this island a church of the kindly Mother of God
Mary, ever Virgin, in memory of the Innocent
Martyrs of Christ, her brothers;
and her daughter, a virgin of good disposition,
called Mildryda [ii], instructed in ecclesiastical disciplines in parts
beyond the sea, she afterwards
placed there, with seventy nuns consecrated by the
holy archbishop Deusdedit, and there
gathered them together. There, then, the mother of blessed Mildritha,
after the passing of very many years, after
the display of good virtues, after the edification
of very many minds of men and of Virgins
whom she strengthened in Christ, with the lamp of justice
merited to hear from Christ: "Arise, make haste, my friend,
come from Libanus, come, thou shalt be crowned." Whose
soul, led to the palace of heaven, receives from Christ
the unfading gifts of victory, to reign with Him and His
Saints in everlasting glory. In the
rule of the monastery she is succeeded by her illustrious offspring,
whom she had brought up most becomingly, the noble Mildrytha aforesaid, unfailing
in the service of Christ, a most holy
virgin, shining with much grace of miracles.
ANNOTATIONS.
a. Longer than
those which, so that they might more easily be weighed, I inserted in the Commentary at nn. 3, 8, 9,
10 and 19. And indeed what is here reprinted from Simeon of Durham is truly
prolix, that is, to follow the etymology of the word, loose and
slack, and under many windings of words it scarcely embraces more facts than those shorter
ones. Yet they bear the name of their writer before them, whereas the former
are anonymous; it is established also that they did not flow from one another, since
Simeon added certain things which are lacking in the shorter Acts, and
conversely. Finally, although, after the manner of many writers of the Middle Ages, he is verbose,
and uses periphrases, sentences with like endings, and other things which smack
of rhythm, such candour of mind shines in his narration, such grace in his style, that Simeon seems deservedly called, in the heading of the History in Twysden, a monk of holy and sweet memory. Leland acknowledged this very thing, calling the same history the painted meadows of Simeon In the Preface of Selden in Twysden, p. II.. Further,
we have for the most part preserved the orthography, as they say, in which Simeon is here
edited. Some sentences will perhaps occur whose sense,
because of the studied arrangement of the words, will not be immediately obvious; but
since it can be uncovered by attentive reading, it is not worth while to linger
over explaining it in these Annotations. Simeon of Durham flourished before
the middle of the twelfth century, and was a contemporary of William of Malmesbury, certain Abridgements of whose History he inserted Selden, l. c., p. III..
b. These
are the first words of the History of the Deeds of the Kings of the English. For Simeon
begins from the kings of Kent, omitting those things which Bede related, and so at the
beginning of his History he undertakes to relate this martyrdom. Bede carried his
Ecclesiastical History down to the year 731; but the martyrdom, as
was said above in the Commentary, n. 11, more probably took place between the year
668 and 670.
was the first of the mission, the year 616 is here rightly called the twenty-first of the
mission. Other English chronographers, among them William Thorne Twysden, X Script., col. 2229, reckon the years
not from the mission but from the arrival in England, and for them the first year
is the one which immediately follows the arrival, namely 598. For that St. Augustine arrived in the year 597,
and that in the same year St. Ethelbert, king of Kent, received
the faith, was demonstrated long ago in our Work Vol. I of June, p. 494, and vol. III of February, p. 472..
on which Henschenius gave his Life. He also illustrated with brief notes the genealogy of St. Ethelbert
or Ethelbyrht which follows here.
f. Eormenred
is called elsewhere Ermenred. So Ercombyrht, Erconbert, Earconbert
are one and the same name. On Saxon names E.
Gibson discusses fairly copiously at the end of the Saxon Chronicle, and other more recent writers. For us it
will suffice to have explained here in a few words the names of Ethelred and Ethelbert. The initial Æthel signifies noble, excellent, exactly like the German adel, the Belgic edel, and the Saxon ægel seems to signify the same; while beorht, briht, berht, byrht, whether initial or terminal, signify bright, splendid, which has remained in the modern English bright. Finally, the word red, ræd, rad, rud is in Latin counsel, counsellor, safety, prosperity Cf. Wiarda, Deutsche Vornamen, etc., p. 50.. Whence Æthelred, Athelred, Ethelred, Etheldred or Egelred, each of which we meet, denote noble counsel, almost what the Greek εὒβουλος does; while Æthelbert, Ethelbyrht, etc. indicate something at once noble and splendid.
he says, was round,
like a tower, in whose middle, almost at the centre, was a stone basin of water,
either of round form or displaying the figure of the Cross.
The basin was in the floor of the building, and into it those to be baptized descended by three steps on the right,
and by three others on the left they ascended from it; at
its very bottom, almost on the floor, was another step, on which stood both the bishop and the godparents.
Those who were baptized thus passed through the water
of the baptistery, descending on one side and ascending on the other, and this to
signify the passage to the life of grace, and further in imitation of the passage
of the Red Sea, which prefigured baptism. See the interpreters on 1 Cor. 10: They were baptized in the cloud and in the sea.
Egbert was born of Ercombert, the brother of Ermenred. William
of Malmesbury called the holy Martyrs Egbert's fratrueles; a word which St.
Jerome used Cf. Acta SS., vol. II of February, p. 350, col. 2.. Here is seen whence came the French expression: Cousin germain. But whether the Latin Germanus consobrinus
is often met in this sense I do not know, since it is lacking in Du Cange's Glossary.
Whether they were handed over to Egbert or to Ercombert to be brought up was left doubtful
in the Preliminary Commentary, num. 13 and 14.
p. More commonly Thunre, but also Thuner, Thunor, Thunnur, Thimnur in the Preliminary Commentary and in these Acts here and there.
q. Taxare, that is, to say, to write; cf. Du Cange.
r. Gratiare for gratias agere was used everywhere in the Middle Ages; gratiatus for gratus, acceptus can be derived thence, unless one prefers to read here: gratiosissima.
s. The kind of death inflicted is explained by Malmesbury. See the Commentary, num. 22.
t. All
Hymns were formerly called Ambrosian, because St. Ambrose
composed very many and these same were among the first in use in the sacred liturgy. So St.
Isidore of Seville Book I on the Ecclesiastical Offices, ch. VI.: Hymns are called Ambrosian from his name, etc.
u. By the Gregorian organ of sweet harmony he perhaps understands Gregorian chant; though it may equally be that the man of Durham is here speaking of a musical
instrument. At the end of the seventh century organs were known in England, as is clear from
Aldhelm's book On Virgins, but there perhaps they did not yet exist; of
bringing them in there St. Boniface treats in a certain letter. Cf. Turner,
Hist. of the Anglo-Saxons, Paris 1840, vol. III, p. 273.
x. On the same prodigy you have some testimonies in the Commentary. The Westminster writer at the year 654 has these things from our author:
A column of light sent down from heaven filled the royal buildings with inestimable
brightness. The servants of the king's household, beholding it and falling to the
ground for amazement, were almost turned to madness. And when the king had awakened at the
tumult of the attendants and was wholly ignorant of the cause of the tumult,
he rose according to custom to hear Matins. And going out from the house he saw
the world flashing with the rays of a new splendour. And the king remembered the
conversation, etc. But would that all these things rested on contemporary documents! Cf. the Appendix, num. 1.
y. Dorovernensis, that is, of Canterbury; and Canterbury is distant only four or five leagues from Eastry. The summons seems to have been made on the day after the
killing: And so, as the dawn of the day shone upon the earth, etc. On the occasion of this assembly cf. the Preliminary Commentary, num. 10.
z. Not Deusdedit but Theodore. See the Commentary, 11.
aa. Suffossorium, which they call bessa. Lethaldus in the Miracles of St. Maximinus, abbot of Micy, n. 34, in Du Cange's Supplement. Now in French: une beche, in English a spade.
bb. On this place consult the Commentary, num. 15.
cc. The monastery
of Christ Church of Kent, that is, of Canterbury, was distinct from the monastery of St.
Augustine in the same city, of which mention follows there immediately.
dd. Go to the Commentary, num. 21 and 23.
ee. Until they were translated to Ramsey, about the year 986. Cf. the Commentary, num. 26.
ff. Arcisterium, corruptly for asceterium, that is, monastery, from the Greek ἀσκητήριον. The matter
concerns the monastery which Simeon in the preceding number called Wacrinense, and which
from these words you would say bore the name of the Martyrs. But see the Commentary, n.
21 and 23.
gg. Whether
both names were rightly applied to the same person, we have inquired in the
Commentary, num. 6 and following. On the little story of the hind, cf. the Commentary, num. 16
and following.
hh. In the others Thunorsleap, and in the new Monasticon Anglicanum Vol. I, p. 447. also Thunor-Hyslepe and Thunors-lep. The manuscript Annals of St. Augustine's of Canterbury, which Lewis attributes to a certain Thorne (see the Commentary, n. 5): A pit, they say, appears near the course of the hind beside Aldeland, and at the time when the Annals were written the pit is said to have had the name Heghigdale. In the map of the isle of Thanet which Sollerius wished to be reprinted in the Acts of St. Mildred, there is read only: Thunor's pit Vol. III of July, p. 513.. As regards the origin of this pit, cf. the Commentary, num. 18. Hasted in the History of Kent Vol. III, p. 632, in the Monast. Anglic., vol. I, p. 454. wrote that the monastery of Reculver was founded by Egbert in expiation of his slain cousins; certainly Egbert founded the monastery of Reculver;
but that does not prevent his having granted lands for founding that of Thanet,
as innumerable writers, whom we have cited here and there, teach.
Some chronographers and also more recent writers
relate that divine vengeance clung to the homicide Egbert and to his brother Lothair because he had
mocked the holy Martyrs. But all these things seem to have been invented after the eleventh century, and not to deserve that we linger over them.
ii. On all these things cf. Sollerius in the Acts of St. Mildred Vol. III of July, p. 513..
* kingdom?
* read De
APPENDIX. THE PLACES OF BURIAL OF THE SAINTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY OF KENT,
From a Saxon manuscript of the Library of Cambridge [Bennet Library, Cambridge, vol. 284, p. 147. Cf. Harleian MSS, vol. I, p. 323, n. 24.].
Ethelred, martyr, at Eastry in England. (S.)
Ethelbert, martyr, at Eastry in England. (S.)
Very many things which were disputed in the preceding Acts
are confirmed by a Saxon little work, which
we found translated into English at the end of a certain English
Martyrology A Memorial of British Piety, p. 181., and which, rendered into Latin, we
judged most fittingly printed here. From it also
all that has been written in various places of the Acta Sanctorum about
the genealogy of the kings of England, and about the Saints of that kingdom,
will be much illustrated. Of most of those,
however, who are named here, our predecessors have already
treated; wherefore in the Annotations at the end of the little work
I shall note the place which anyone may consult,
and also, if they were Saints, the day on which they are venerated:
but where the day of veneration is not noted, it will be a sign
either that those who are indicated as Saints were not venerated,
or that in that place they are treated only in passing. It is worthy of note
that this little work was written at Canterbury in the monastery of St. Augustine,
and this can easily be established
in the Annotations from the words with which it concludes. It appears
also that the writers of this monastery, Goscelin On whom cf. vol. I of February, p. 384, n. 2; vol. VI of May, p. 374, n. 1. and
William Thorne made use of this little work, as will likewise be indicated
in the Annotations. The former of these flourished
about the year 1100, the other about the year 1380 Cf. Tanner, Biblioth. Britan., London 1748, p. 334 and 712..
The age in which it was written is deduced from two
places of the little work, the first of which runs thus: In the same
church (Ely) rests also her (Ætheldryda's)
sister St. Withburga; for it is certain that the Translation
of St. Withburga from Derham to the monastery
of Ely was made in the year 974 [Vol. II of March, p. 606, n. 3, and 607, n. 4. Cf. the New Monastic. Anglic., vol. I, p. 458, col. 2.]. The other place is found in the same text
a little above, in which mention occurs several times
of the monastery of St. Mildred in the isle of Thanet,
as still existing while the author was writing;
but it is known from the Historians that that monastery
was destroyed by the Danes in the year 1011. From these, therefore,
it is gathered that the said little work was written between the year 974 and 1011,
and this is confirmed from other
places which will be indicated in the Annotations. Indeed it could perhaps be said
that it was written before the year 986, since
the writer was ignorant of any Translation to the monastery
of Ramsey, which we said in the Commentary, n. 26, was solemnly made
in this year. Now
we subjoin the version of it made from the English word
for word, with all the names, both of men
and of places, expressed in the manner in which they were read in the English
exemplar.
A Narrative of the Saints who rest in the land of the English, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
A list of places of burial St. Augustine a baptized Æthelbert [b], king
of Kent, with all his people c. The wife of Æthelbert was called
Bertha [d]; his son was Eadbald and his daughter
Æthelburga e, surnamed Tata. This lady
was given in marriage to Eadwin [f], king of the Northumbrians,
and St. Paulinus g accompanied her, who baptized
this king with all his nation. After
the death h of Eadwin, Æthelburga returned to
Kent, where her brother King Eadbald gave her land
in Limene * i, where she built a church, and
there she rests together with St. Eadburga k. Eadbald
had as wife Emma, daughter of the king of the Franks l.
Of this marriage was born St. Eanswitha m, who
rests in Folkstone: and two sons, Earcombercht
Eormenred had two sons, St. Æthelred and
St. Æthelbright, and two daughters, Eormenburga [p] and
St. Eormengitha [q]. King Earcombercht had two
sons by his queen Sexburga [r], King Ecgbert and
King Lothair, and two daughters, St. Eormenilda [s] and
St. Eorcongota [t]. St. Eormenburga, otherwise called
Dompneva [u], married Merwald, son of King Penda [x]:
of whom were born St. Milburg [y], St. Mildred [z],
St. Milgith [aa], and St. Mervin [bb]. All these, out of love
of God, gave all their goods, while they lived,
to pious uses. Dompneva afterwards went to Kent,
to receive from King Ecgbert the Weregeld [cc] which
he desired to pay her on account of her two brothers,
killed at his command, in the isle of Thanet [dd],
and privately buried in the royal palace at Estrey,
where they were miraculously discovered by a splendid column
of light, which appeared at midnight above the place of burial
[ee]; seeing which the king was greatly terrified,
and thereupon, moved concerning his crime, he sent to
their sister Dompneva, and gave her eighty
carucates [ff] of land: where she built a monastery,
in which prayers might be made for their
souls, the king himself assisting her in building it [gg].
She also sent her daughter Mildred beyond the sea, that she might
be instructed in monastic disciplines, which she learned so perfectly
that she made great progress in
all holiness; proof of which thing are the things which
are still seen. Her mother delivered to her care
the monastery which she had erected [hh]. And so St. Mildred
received from Archbishop Theodore [ii] the sacred
veil, with seventy other virgins her companions
[kk]; with whom, continuing to advance in all
virtues according to the will of God, she merited eternal life;
and she was afterwards illustrious for many miracles.
[2] Of the Saints of the royal family of Kent. St. Eormengitha spent the days of her mortal life in
the same monastery with her sister's daughter [ll],
and after death she was buried, as she had desired,
at the distance of one mile towards the east from
the monastery of St. Mildred [mm]; where miracles were formerly
frequent and illustrious, nay, and are celebrated even to this
day. St. Mildred was succeeded
in the government of her monastery by St. Eadburga [nn], who
built the church which is there (who built the
church there), in which also she rests buried [oo].
Sexburga [pp], queen of Kent, founded the monastery
of St. Mary in the isle of Shepey, and placed nuns
there [qq]. St. Sexburga, St. Ætheldryda [rr] and St. Withburga
[ss] were daughters of Anna, king of the East Angles.
St. Ætheldryda married St. Ecgfrith, king
of the Northumbrians, but nevertheless always preserved
her virginity. She is buried in the great church at Ely,
where she was illustrious for miracles. In the same church rests
also her sister St. Withburga [tt]. St. Eormenilda
[uu], daughter of Earcombercht and Sexburga, married
King Wulfere, son of Penda, king of the Mercians, in whose
reign the nation of the Mercians received baptism. Of
this marriage was born St. Werburga [xx], a virgin consecrated
to God, who was buried in the monastery of Heanburh [yy].
Afterwards she was translated and now rests in Legecester
*. But St. Eormenilda rests in the monastery
of Ely together with her mother and with her mother's sister
St. Ætheldryda: where she is renowned for many miracles. Her
sister (St. Eormenilda's) St. Eorcongota [zz] was sent
beyond the sea to be brought up by her aunt St. Æthelburga
[aaa], abbess of the place [bbb]: and there by the will of God
she made much progress in virtue; and when
she had met her last day, she soon began to become renowned for miracles.
King Withred, son of King Ecgbert, founded
a monastery in Dover in honour of St. Martin [ccc],
the Saint himself designating the place in which he wished
that monastery to be erected; which was accordingly carried
into execution. He also placed monks there, and
gave them lands for their sustenance even to
this day. This king rests near St. Augustine
in the porch, on the south side of the church of St. Mary
[ddd], which his great-grandfather King Eadbald had built
in honour of God and St. Mary [eee].
ANNOTATIONS.
d. Bertha
was the daughter of Charibert, king of the Parisians (vol. III of February, p. 471, n. 4, 5 and
7. Cf. vol. VI of May, p. 439, n. 23). For the genealogical deductions which
follow, the tables at p. 90 will usefully be consulted.
206 a; vol. VIII of September, p. 708, num. 66, and p. 709, num. 70 and 71; vol. VI
of October, p. 6 and p. 112, num. 118 and following; she is also commemorated in certain
calendars on the 14th of December.
vol. III, p. 473, num. 15; she is to be distinguished from the one of Thanet who is
commemorated on the same day, concerning whom consult the places cited and vol. III of July, p. 515, num. 16; p.
518, num. 7, and p. 519, num. 13 and 2; that one of Thanet occurs here a little
below.
p. Or Domneva, as is said there a little after. She is venerated on the 19th of November.
q. Eormengita
is below again distinguished with the title of Saint, and moreover is said to have been renowned
for miracles. The author of the English Martyrology already cited (A Memorial
of British Piety) assigns or chooses for her the 30th of July; for
he confesses on page 7 that he sometimes chose days where the monuments were silent. —
Here we now cite a passage from William Thorne, so that it may be plain that he had before his eyes these
Saxon pages, which were written in his monastery.
Column [ ] of Twysden's edition has as follows: King Ethelbert had by Queen
Bertha a son Edbald, and a daughter Ethelburga, called by another name Thate,
who was given in marriage to Edwin, king of the Northumbrians, whom Saint
Paulinus, sent with Ethelburga, converted to the faith and baptized
with his nation. After the killing of which king the queen returned to
her brother Edbald, who was then king of Kent. And Edbald himself gave
her the vill of Limminge, and she
made a monastery there and was buried there on the Ides of December. Edbald
had by his wife a daughter Enswitha, who rests at Falkstane. Ermenred,
by his wife Oslana, etc. What follows you have already printed in the Acts of St.
Mildred (vol. III of July, p. 516, num. 13; p. 51, num. 4 and following, and p. 519, num.
2); certain other things excerpted by G. Thorne from the same Saxon List, which
were omitted in the Acts of St. Mildred, we bring forward below. Similarly
Goscelin in the Life of St. Wereburga (vol. I of February, p. 386) almost copied out the
former part of the List: Æthelbright, then, by Queen Bertha, daughter
of the king of the Franks, begot Eadbald with a daughter Æthelburga, whom he left the best heir of his
piety and kingdom. But Queen Æthelburga, after
the killing of the pious king of the Northumbrians Eadwin, having returned to Eadbald
her brother, built a monastery in the vill of Liminga, in which with St. Eadburga
rests. Eadbald also, by Emma, daughter of another king of the Franks,
begot the princes Eormred and Ergombert and the holy Virgin Answitha, who
is venerated laid to rest at Folcanstan, etc. The rest you have partly in the Commentary, n. 10, and more can be read in Henschenius (vol. I of February, l. c.). — In the Saxon MS.
only two daughters of Ermenred come forward here, whereas by the other writers
four are enumerated; but it is to be noted, first, that in this List of places
of burial it is almost solely Saints that are treated, and next that below also not all
the sisters of St. Sexburga are accurately enumerated together, for afterwards is added St.
Æthelburga, the aunt of St. Eorcongota and sister of the same Sexburga.
r. Vol. II of July, at the 6th day, p. 346.
s. Vol. II of February, at the 13th day, p. 686.
t. Vol. III of February, at the 23rd day, p. 387.
u. Henschenius
had formerly conjectured that a distinction should be made between St. Ermenburga and Domneva,
wife of Merwald (vol. III of February, p. 389, num. 3, 4), namely from
the Westminster writer at the year 654; but he copied Roger of Wendover, as
he usually does; and Roger (cf. Roger, London 1841, vol. I, p. 152 and 167) badly
understood Simeon of Durham; both correct themselves at the year 676, where
they write expressly that St. Ermenburga was the wife of Merwald.
x. Of the kings of Mercia Henschenius treats in vol. III of February, p. 389, num. 2.
y. Vol. III of February, at the 23rd day, p. 388.
z. Vol. III of July, at the 13th day, p. 512.
aa. Vol. II of January, at the 17th day, p. 176.
bb. Ibid., p. 176, num. 8. In a certain alphabetical Calendar of Saints (Nicolas, The Chronology of History, London 1838, p. 168) St. Mervyn occurs on the 6th of January. The Martyrology often praised (A Memorial etc.) refers him to the 17th day of the same month.
cc. Cf. the Commentary above, num. 16.
dd. I do not know
whether these things were accurately translated by the English editor from the Saxon MS., for
Thorne and all the rest write that the same things happened at Eastry. Perhaps these
words, in the isle of Thanet, are to be taken of the weregeld, or compensation, which Domneva was to receive in that island. Cf. the Commentary, num. 15.
ee. The writer
of this List (namely of the places of burial of the Saints who were born of the kings
of Kent) could not have omitted both Translations of these Martyrs, if he knew them,
namely the first from Kent to Wakeringe and
the second to the monastery of Ramsey. The first he could more easily have been ignorant of, since
it was made in the time of the Danish incursions, and Wakeringe is said by some to be an
obscure place; the second, however, not so (cf. the Commentary, n. 20 and
following). From which it becomes probable that this List was written before the year 986, in which the second Translation was made. But see what will presently be said on the same subject.
ff. On
carucates see Du Cange's Glossary. Their value seems to have varied
at different times and in different parts of England; if it be admitted that they
amounted to 100 acres (cf. Hist. d'Angleterre by Dr. Lingard, translated
by M. de Roujoux, Louvain 1827, vol. I, p. XXI), we shall have 8,000 acres. See what was said in the Commentary, num. 17.
gg. Thorne
here inserts the little tale of the hind, which you have excerpted from him in the Acts of St.
Mildred, vol. III of July, p. 513, num. 5. Cf. the Commentary, num. 16 and following.
hh. It is plain
that the Saxon writer composed his little work almost solely for the monks of St. Augustine's of Canterbury;
for he omits to indicate here the place where that monastery was built,
namely the isle of Tanet. The same will become manifest from the last words of the
List.
ii. Vol. VI of September, at the 19th day, p. 55.
kk. Namely in the isle of Tanet, and not at Eastry, as the Westminster writer had erroneously written at the year 654 (cf. above, Annotation u); by
whom, however, Henschenius was deceived and thought Domneva different from St. Ermenburga.
But that even the shadow of a monastery existed at Eastry I have nowhere been able
to find. Eastria, Estrie, Estreya come forward several times in the charters
of the monasteries
of Canterbury (New Monastic. Anglican., vol. I, p. 96, 97 and passim), but either with no appellation, or with that of vill alone added.
ll. With the daughter of her sister Domneva, namely St. Mildred,
mm. The same is asserted in vol. III of July, p. 519, num. 2.
nn. This
is St. Eadburga of Thanet, who in the English Martyrology (A Memorial
etc., p. 127) is said to have been translated to the monastery or hospice of St. Gregory at Canterbury
in the year 1055; but this is to be corrected to 1085, for only in the year 1084 was that
hospice founded by Archbishop Lanfranc (New Monastic. Angl.,
vol. VI, p. 614. Cf. vol. III of July, p. 519, num. 13). On the same Eadburga see
above, Annotation k.
oo. From
these it is easily drawn out that this Saxon little work was written before the year
1011, in which the monastery of Thanet was destroyed by the Danes (vol. III of July, p.
520, num. 3; Saxon Chronicle at the year 1011; cf. vol. II of April, p. 636
and following); but perhaps it is some years older (Annotation ee). The relics of St. Mildred were translated to the monastery of St. Augustine at Canterbury in the year 1030, on the 18th day of May, the second feria of Pentecost (cf. vol. III of July, p. 521, num. 7, 8, 9, and the New Monastic. Angl., vol. I, p. 449); and those of St. Eadburga to the hospice of St. Gregory at Canterbury in the year 1085 (above, Annotation nn). From elsewhere
we gather that the same little work was written after the year 974, from the Translation
of St. Withburga to the monastery of Ely, as will be indicated below.
pp. Vol. II of July, at the 6th day, p. 346.
qq. The English
editor here draws a little line, from which I conjecture that certain things in the MS. could not
be read. They can be supplied from G. Thorne who, as we have said, translated this whole List
into the Latin tongue, with very many things interposed. Thus, therefore,
he has it at this place (Twysden, X Script., col. 1908): Her son (Sexburga's) King Lothair gave her a possession of lands from which she might live. After this he continues thus with the Saxon little work:
Now Saint Sexburga and Saint Etheldretha and Saint Withburgh were
daughters of Ina, king of the East Angles. Blessed Etheldretha had been given
in marriage to Egfrid, king of the Northumbrians, who nevertheless always remained a virgin,
and rests in the monastery which is called Ely with her sister Withburgha.
Ermenold, daughter of King Ercombert and of his wife Sexburgh, is given in marriage to Fulcher
(Wulfere), son of Penda, king of the Mercians: in whose time the nation of the Mercians received the faith and baptism, and they begot the holy virgin Werburgha, who rests at Laycerna (Legecestria, that is, Chester).
Ermenold with her mother Sexburga and her aunt St. Etheldreta is buried at
Ely. St. Ercongota, her sister, was sent beyond the sea to her aunt
and died there. Withred, king of Kent, was the son of
King Ebrech (Egbert). Blessed virgin Mildred having died, etc. What follows was edited by Sollerius (vol. III of July, p. 520, n. 3), who, as we too, had very many things to emend in Twysden's edition of Thorne.
rr. Vol. IV of June, at the 23rd day, p. 489.
ss. Vol. II of March, at the 17th day, p. 605.
tt. St. Withburga was translated to the monastery of Ely in the year 974, as we said above, p. 101, col. 1.
uu. Vol. II of February, at the 13th day, p. 686.
xx. Vol. I of February, at the 3rd day, p. 384.
yy. In the vernacular Hanbury in south Staffordshire, between the rivers Trent and Dove, and there
389, num. 13, and p. 390, note c. She was translated hence to Chester in the year 875, as
Brompton narrates in his Chronicle (in Twysden, X Script., col. 810; cf. the Saxon Chron., ed. Giles, at the year 875, and vol. I of February, p. 385, num. 5): In the year of the Lord 875, in which the said Burred, king of the Mercians, was expelled by the Danes at Ripendon (now commonly Repton. Cf. Camden, ed. Gough, vol. I, p. 301 and
306), the natives of Hamburg, who were distant about five
miles from Ripendon, overcome with fear, translated the body of the holy virgin Wereburga,
long buried there, to Chester as to a safe place.
zz. Vol. III of February, at the 23rd day, p. 387.
aaa. Vol. II of July, at the 7th day, p. 481.
bbb. Of Faremoutiers in Gaul, four leagues from Meaux. Cf. vol. III of February, p. 387, num. 1.
ccc. The same is said in vol. VI of May, p. 434, num. 10. On this monastery cf. the New Monastic. Anglican., vol. IV, p. 528.
ddd. The English editor translates: the church of S. Mary. But Goscelin in the Acts of St. Augustine (vol. VI of May, p. 413 and following) usually calls this church the Oratory of St. Mary. That Oratory was destroyed,
because it threatened ruin, in the year 1091 (ibid., p. 430, n.
56; p. 437, n. 16; p. 413, n. 2); and on this occasion the bones
of the holy prelates, kings and others were translated from the porches of the Oratory of St. Mary,
which the new church entirely took in, to the new crypt of St. Mary (ibid.,
p. 437, ch. III and IV). Of this Translation
Goscelin wrote a rather intricate narrative; wherefore I have here
already indicated some things, and add these few besides: The placing of the relics
of the holy prelates in the old Oratory of St. Mary is described ibid., p. 416,
num. 17; that of the kings, and among others of that Withred of whom mention is made in the
Saxon little work, ibid., p. 434, num. 9 and 10; the translation of the prelates and their placing in the new crypt, p. 419, n. 24, and p. 438, n. 21; of St. Ethelbert the king, p. 439, ch. IV; of the rest, finally, p. 443, n. 41.
eee. The same
is asserted l. c., p. 434, num. 9. From all these things it is clearer than the noonday light
that this List was composed at Canterbury in the monastery of St. Augustine.
* Liming.
* Chester.