Edith

ON ST. EDITH, VIRGIN AND NUN,

AT WILTON IN ENGLAND,

Not long after the year CMLXXXIV.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Edith or Eadgitha, virgin and nun, at Wilton in England (St.)

BY THE AUTHOR C. S.

§ I. The Saint's memory in the sacred Fasti and her cult: the Life to be published; what is to be thought of three other Ediths who are said to have shone with sanctity in England in the same century.

[ ] St. Edgar or Eadgar the confessor, king of England, we gave in volume 2 of July on the eighth day of our Work; The Saint's memory in the Martyrologies and St. Wilfrida, who is also called Vulfrida and Wolftruda, abbess of Wilton in England, in volume III of September, on the ninth day, on which she is inscribed in the Martyrologies. Their daughter, and her mother's disciple as a nun in the aforesaid convent, the Roman Martyrology of Baronius announces on the present day thus: In England, of St. Edith the virgin, daughter of Edgar king of the English, who, dedicated to God in a monastery from her tender years, was ignorant of this world rather than forsook it. Things most like these are read in the Roman Martyrology of Galesinius, whence they were drawn. The Hagenau codex in Sollerius celebrates her memory on this day

among the Usuardine Auctaria, where it is read: Likewise in England, of St. Edith, queen and virgin. But interpret queen here as the king's daughter. The Lübeck-Cologne edition in the same place has thus: In England, of St. Edith the virgin. A little more fully Grevenus: In England, of Edith, virgin and abbess, daughter of Edgar king of the English. Who, consecrated to Christ by religious parents at two years old, and living most holily, was ignorant of the world rather than forsook it. The Greater Antwerp codex in the same place on the same day has: On the same day, of St. Eadipa the virgin; our Sollerius rightly judging that Edith is designated here also, especially since she is said to have been called Eadgitha too.

[2] On this day likewise her memory stands in our manuscript Florarium Sanctorum, on this day; where nevertheless she is wrongly written Oditha; but in the preliminary Index, Editha. Wilson also mentions her in the Anglican Martyrology, in the earlier edition, namely that of the year 1608, in which on the sixteenth day of September he illustrates her with this eulogy: On the same day at Wilton in the church of St. Denis, the deposition of St. Edith, virgin and abbess, daughter of St. Edgar king of England, who, despising all worldly and temporal glory, embraced the religious life in the monastery of Wilton under the care and discipline of her own mother Wilfrida, after whose death she herself was made abbess of that same place, where in all holiness of life she delivered her soul to her heavenly Spouse in the year of Christ CMLXXXIV. Many illustrious temples and monuments of her name are still beheld in various places of England, and one in the town called Church-Eaton in the county of Stafford, where there is seen a little spring of water exceedingly salutary against various infirmities, commonly called St. Edith's Well. Thus far Wilson, but not without error, as we shall show in its own place. The same Martyrologist in the other edition, of the year 1640, for what reason I know not, referred our holy Virgin to yesterday's day, namely the fifteenth of September, and subjoins this concerning her burial: And she was buried at Wilton in the church of St. Denis, which she had once founded, and there she was long kept in great veneration. But as he added these things, so on the contrary he omitted what he had said in the earlier edition about the various churches and monuments. But as regards the day, it is asserted in the Life to be given that the sixteenth of September was the day of her death, and we shall see that she is honored on it.

[3] her elevation on the 3rd of November; her ancient cult. I pass over Arthur in the Gynæceum, Bucelinus in the Menologium, Wion in the Wood of Life, Maihew and others, who have reviewed her in their sacred Fasti. Another memory of our St. Edith, namely the elevation of her virginal body, the aforesaid Wion announces on the third day of November in these words: In the same place (namely in England, as he had premised) the elevation of the body of St. Edith, virgin and nun. But in his annotations he cites the Life of the Saint in Surius on the sixteenth day of September, in which, as also in our manuscript, that sacred body is said really to have been elevated on the said day of November at Wilton in the church of St. Denis, which she had founded. Wilson followed Wion in the earlier edition of his Martyrology on the aforecited day of November. Further, of her ancient and celebrated cult throughout England William of Malmesbury writes thus in book 2 of the Deeds of the pontiffs of the English: Her venerable feast is therefore kept in very many places of England, which let no one presume to violate with impunity. I have also at hand two Breviaries of the church of Salisbury in Wiltshire, of which one was printed at London in the year 1499, the other at Paris in the year 1557, and in which the Office of our St. Edith with proper Lessons is prescribed on this sixteenth day of September. More things will come to be said in the course of our work.

[4] Gotcelin is believed to be the author of the Life, Surius published the Life of St. Edith on the present day, with the style altered and without the author's name, but he judged that it had been written weightily. From Surius, Mabillon inserted it into the Acts of the Saints of the fifth Benedictine century, page 637 and following. We too have the same in manuscript, transcribed from a manuscript of Rouge-Cloître, less polished indeed, but for the rest most like the Surian edition, so that it cannot be doubted that this or one like it lay before him. We have besides another in a certain collection of Lives in our Museum marked ✠ Ms. 160. It is much shorter, and abridged from the former, and therefore will be of no use to us. We shall therefore publish our manuscript, reporting among the Annotations anything in Surius's edition that occurs worthy of observation. The aforesaid Mabillon in his preliminary Observation judges that Gotselin or Goscelin or Gocelin the monk, who composed the deeds of St. Augustine the apostle of the English, is the author of this Life also. Of this writer treatment was made in our Work on the third day of February in the preliminary Commentary to the Life of St. Werburga the virgin, §1, and on the twenty-sixth day of May in the likewise preliminary Commentary to the life of the aforesaid St. Augustine, and elsewhere; and it was said that he flourished toward the end of the eleventh century.

[5] Receive his eulogy from the aforesaid Malmesbury, On the Deeds of the kings of the English, book 4, an account of whom is given, chapter 1: Here the occasion of the times of William (II the king) would prompt me to set forth the translation of Augustine, the most excellent apostle of the English, with his companions, had not the genius of the most skilled Goscelin run before me: of Goscelin, who as a monk of St. Bertin had once come to England with Herman bishop of Salisbury, notable for his skill in letters and in chants. He, ranging over the bishoprics and abbeys for a long time, gave in many places monuments of his illustrious learning, second only to Bede in the praises of the Saints of England… In short, he set forth with his pen countless Lives of the more recent Saints, and renewed more elegantly those of the ancients, either lost through hostile action or issued in shapeless form… Happy the tongue which has served so many Saints, happy the breast which has poured forth so many tuneful melodies, especially since in his converse the uprightness of his learning vied with it. Now the reason why Mabillon judges the Life of which we treat to be his work also is this, that, as he says, he is said to have written the Acts of St. Eadgatha the virgin in the Catalogue of the writers of Britain, and in Wion and Possevino; and that he holds it for certain that that Eadgatha is the same as Edith.

[6] This opinion Valerius Andreas openly delivers in the Bibliotheca Belgica, and this is likely enough. reviewing among Gotselin's Works the Life of St. Edith or Eadgitha the virgin, which once stood in manuscript at London among the Augustinians, as Bunderius testifies. But Bale also in the Writers of Great Britain, and from him Wharton and others, review among Gotselin's Works the Life of St. Eadgitha, book 1. It can therefore probably be ascribed to him, especially since it savors sufficiently of his style. Further, since St. Edith is said in the aforesaid Life to have died about the year of the Lord DCCCCLXXXIV, while Gotselin flourished toward the end of the eleventh century, the age of a writer a whole century later cannot procure great authority for the Life. Perhaps, however, he had some documents from which he composed it; but he does not narrate many of her deeds, and what he reports is not of such a kind that you should rightly hold the writer's credit in them suspect, except that in his chronological arrangement he has strayed somewhat from the truth. Finally William of Malmesbury, in book 2 of the Deeds of the kings of the English, reviews the greatest part of them, perhaps from this very Life, as we shall observe in their places.

[7] Mabillon, praised above, in his preliminary Observation reviews three other Ediths, Of 3 other Ediths, who in the same century and these likewise royal virgins, in this manner: In the same age three other Ediths, royal virgins, are said to have lived in England, besides the Edith who was wife of Otto the Great. One the daughter of king Ethelwulf, sister of king Alfred, who was handed over to St. Modwenna the abbess (concerning whom in the omitted Saints of the Fourth Century). The second Edith, daughter of Edward the elder, sister of Æthelstan: the third, daughter of king Edmund, sister of Eadgar; all holy, and indeed nuns in the monastery of Polesworth, which is beside the forest of Arden in the diocese of Chester. The first is praised in the Acts of St. Osyth in Surius on the 7th day of October, and of St. Modwenna abbess of Streneshalh in Capgrave; which Modwenna is reported to have set Edith, sister of king Alfred, over the monastery of Polesworth founded by herself. The place was afterward called St. Edith's Pollesworth, or De Pollesworda, as the ancient monuments in volume 1 of the Monasticon Anglicanum, page 179 [\], attest. The second Edith, daughter of Edward, given in marriage to Sithric king of the Northumbrians by her brother Æthelstan, but afterward repudiated by him, withdrew to Polesworth, and there passed the remainder of her life religiously, as Matthew of Westminster testifies at the year DCCCCXXV.*

[8] are said to have shone with sanctity; the first The third is Edith, daughter of king Edmund, sister of Eadgar, granddaughter of Edward the elder, whose daughter we said the second Edith was. Thomas Maihew, on the 15th day of July, where he treats of these three together, suspects that the second and third are not different, and are no other than the daughter of Edward the elder: for no Edith is found who was daughter of Edmund and sister of king Eadgar. But in chapter 1 of the following Life Edith, sister of king Edgar, is praised. Yet the solution of this difficulty does not so depend on the following Life that no doubt is thence left. For if its author is Gotselin, who flourished at the beginning [\] of the eleventh century, we cannot determine the matter with certainty from his opinion. Thus far Mabillon. Of the first of these three, brief treatment was made among the Omitted on the fourteenth day of May in our Work, in words which I subjoin: Edith, sister of Ethelwulf king and monarch of the English, is indicated by Alford in the Index of the Saints of England, as though she ought to have been placed in the Anglican Martyrology on this day. She may be treated of together with the other on the said sixteenth day of September. But that she — although by Alford she is called the sister, not the daughter, of Ethelwulf — is the same as the one whom Mabillon mentions in the first place, is clear from this, that in Capgrave in the Life of St. Modwenna, which is praised both by Maihew and by Mabillon, she is likewise called the sister*, not the daughter, of that same king; while in the Life of St. Osyth in Surius, praised in like manner by both, she is called the sister of Alfred, and accordingly the daughter of Ethelwulf.

[9] is known from uncertain documents; concerning the second, But neither the Life of St. Modwenna, such as it stands in Capgrave, nor that of St. Osyth in Surius, is fit enough to persuade us with certainty that such an Edith ever existed; since both labor under foul anachronisms, which can by no means stand with the century of Ethelwulf. And concerning the former consult, if you please, our Work, volume 2 of July, on the fifth day, on which that Saint was treated; but the other, namely the Life of St. Osyth in Surius, on the seventh day of October, on which it will likewise come to be discussed by us. In the Monasticon Anglicanum, volume 1, page 197, similar things are read of Edith, and a certain document is there recited

written in English concerning St. Modwenna and Edith, which latter is in both places called the sister, not the daughter, of Atulph or Ethelwulf. But neither is this instrument ancient enough to command certain belief. Of the second Edith, Matthew of Westminster writes thus at the year of Christ 925: In the year of grace DCCCCXXV Æthelstan king of the English honorably joined in matrimony his sister Eadgitha to Sithric, sprung of the Danish nation, king of the Northumbrians. Who, for love of the maiden abandoning paganism, received the faith of Christ; but not long after, repudiating the blessed virgin and casting off Christianity, restored the worship of idols, and after a short time the apostate wondrously ended his life.

[10] The holy girl therefore, her virginity being preserved to her, at Polesworth in fastings and vigils, and concerning her cult in prayers and in zeal for almsgiving, persevered abounding in good works until the end of her life. And after the course of a praiseworthy life she passed from this world on the Ides of July, where to this day divine miracles do not cease to be celebrated. Yet she was little known to William of Malmesbury, since he, in book 2 of the Deeds of the kings of the English, chapter 5, reviewing the children of Edward the elder, says among other things: He had his first-born Ethelstan by Egwina, an illustrious woman, and a daughter whose name I have not at hand in writing. Her her own brother gave in marriage to Sithric king of the Northumbrians. And again in chapter 6 he says of Ethelstan: With Sithric king of the Northumbrians, one of his sisters being given him in matrimony, as I said before, he struck a treaty that was to last; and when he died after a year, he subdued that province to himself, having expelled a certain Aldulph who was rebelling. It is clear that the same sister of Ethelstan, whom the Westminster writer calls St. Edgitha, is treated here; and yet no mention at all is made of her repudiation, her preserved virginity, her monastic life, and the miracles wrought after her death, which we reported from the Westminster writer. Concerning these Florence of Worcester is likewise silent in his Chronicle, writing thus at the year 925: The vigorous and glorious king of the English Æthelstan gave his sister in matrimony with great honor and glory to Sithric king of the Northumbrians, sprung of Danish stock. Then indeed at the following year he narrates Sithric's death and the seizing of his kingdom by Ethelstan; but of Edith he records nothing further.

[11] Nevertheless that silence cannot stand in the way of our believing the Westminster writer's assertion, it seems to be sufficiently established. especially since he asserts that that Edith was famous for miracles even in his own time in her monastery of Polesworth. It is difficult, however, to claim for her an untouched virginity, as he says, if she was not only betrothed to Sithric, but also handed over to him. Among more recent writers Alford treats of her in various places of volume 3 of his Annals, who at the year 925, num. 10, censures the writers of Scottish affairs, because they cast upon her — whom they wrongly call Beatrice — the cause of the tumults which arose at that time in Northumbria; and feigned that she prepared poison for Sithric, and, being convicted of treason, paid the penalty there by a violent death. But the same annalist fixed her death in the monastery of Polesworth about the year 980, citing the Anglican Martyrology, in which nevertheless she is said to have died in the year 926, as he himself had noted, and had advised should be corrected, in num. 2 at that same year 926. Further, this Edith, whom the aforesaid Westminster writer also at the year 901 calls St. Edgitha, besides Wilson in the said Martyrology, Wion, Dorganius, Bucelinus and others have inserted into their sacred Fasti on the fifteenth day of July, on which the Westminster writer reports that she died. But in our Work she was in the same place reported among the Omitted, because concerning her cult, unknown from any other source, it seemed not to be sufficiently established from those monastic Martyrologies alone. Nevertheless what we reported above from the Westminster writer leaves small room for doubting it.

[12] The third Edith the Life of our holy Virgin indicates thus below in num. 1: The third is more obscure, and perhaps the same But among the many examples of the Saints, … and among the present lights of the Saints and above all of her religious kindred, she (our Saint) was more nearly kindled by the virginal palm of her most holy aunt Edith, own sister of her father king Edgar, who in the monastery of Polesworth in the province of Warwick shone forth with signs of merits, as she herself did at Wilton. Hence she too, as though distinct from the others, was reckoned by Wilson and other martyrologists on the fourteenth day of May among the Saints, but by us among the Omitted. Nicholas Harpsfield in the English Ecclesiastical History likewise seems to have followed the aforesaid Life, when in the 10th Century, chapter XI, he says: In this century Edith, a pious woman, sister of king Edgar, presided over the monastery of holy virgins at Polesworth. But Maihew, as we said above, supposed her to be the same as the second, that is, as the daughter of Edward the elder; and thought that the error by which she was believed the sister of king Edgar could have arisen from this, that she was called the amita of our St. Edith, whereas that word, by a usage received among them, signified also a grandfather's sister, which is what the daughter of Edward the elder was to our Virgin. Certainly this suspicion is by no means idle, and an error of this kind could easily have crept upon the biographer, who, as we have said, wrote about a whole century, or even more, after the Saint's death. But the reason why we believe that Edith to have been Edgar's aunt rather than his sister is this, that Matthew of Westminster expressly mentions his aunt and the life she passed most holily in the monastery of Polesworth, and the miracles enduring there after her happy death down to the fourteenth century, and other writers too admit that she existed; whereas we have Edith the sister of Edgar from the Life of our Saint alone, whose writer, from what has been said, could easily have been deceived here.

[13] as the second. Nor does the reckoning of time stand in the way of Edgar's aunt having been able to survive among the living while our St. Edith was living in the convent of Polesworth. For St. Edith is said by the biographer to have died about the year of Christ 984, in the 23rd year of her age. But Edith, Edgar's aunt, was, the Westminster writer says, given as bride to Sithric in the year of Christ 925, and being repudiated, withdrew to Polesworth. Suppose then that she was 20 years of age in the year 925; she would have been only about eighty when our St. Edith died; and she may have been some years younger when she was betrothed, and may have died before our Saint; so that on this side nothing hinders the belief that those two virgins lived at the same time. Of the same opinion with us is Alford in the Annals, where at the year 962, num. 4, he thinks Wilson must be corrected, in that on the fourteenth day of May he called Edith — whom he there writes died in the year 980 — the sister of Edgar, and distinguished her from that same Edgar's aunt, of whom he makes mention on the fifteenth day of July, and whom he wrongly held to have died in the year 925. And let these things said about the Ediths on occasion of our holy Virgin suffice.

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§ II. The Saint's illustrious parents: the chronology of her life examined: her monastic life and deeds down to her death: the elevation of her body: a miracle reported by Harpsfield.

[ ] The Saint is born of SS. Edgar and Wilfrida. The illustrious parents of St. Edith her biographer indicated at the very threshold of the Life in these words: The blessed virgin Edith was the daughter of king Edgar and of Wolftruda, daughter of a royal duke, whom the king had purposed to associate with him in the kingdom by indissoluble vows; but when her childbearing was accomplished, she chose rather to live chastely than to serve allurements, for God's sake; and she received the habit of nuns from the hand of St. Ethelwold the bishop at Wilton, and, advancing in virtues and in examples, deserved to be made spiritual mother to the virgins. This Edgar, otherwise called Eadgar, was king of England, and is reckoned among the holy confessors, whose deeds you have illustrated in our Work in volume 2 of July, on the eighth day. The same honors Wolftruda, who is also called Wilfrida and by other names as well, merited by the sanctity of her life, as we have already shown on the ninth day of September, where she likewise was treated. Further, the biographer tacitly hints at St. Edith's unseemly birth by the words given; for that she was not born of a lawful marriage of her parents we showed in the historical Commentary on St. Wilfrida, §2, where we also referred the reader, as to Edgar's notable penance, to the historical Sylloge on that same holy king, §2.

[15] The biographer delivers this chronology of her life: In the 23rd year of her age, on the XVI Kalends of October, she passed to Christ, Its chronology, as asserted by the biographer, about the year of the Lord DCCCCLXXXIV. He had also said before: But when she was fifteen years old, she was made abbess by her father king Edgar over three monasteries of nuns… According to these things the Saint must have been born about the year 961 or 962, and been adorned with the office of abbess about the year 976, or in the year next following or preceding. But these things suffer no small difficulty from the chronology of her father St. Edgar, which persuades us that either the Virgin's final age must be diminished by a few years, or her death set just as much later. For that the end of the seven years' penance which Edgar, for the violence offered to the virgin Wilfrida, from which St. Edith was begotten, humbly and fervently performed, imposed upon him by St. Dunstan, fell in the year of Christ 973, the Westminster writer, Malmesbury, Worcester and Hoveden indicate not obscurely, when they write that Edgar was crowned in that year by St. Dunstan himself with the greatest joy of the magnates: for it was part of the penance imposed that he should not wear the crown of his kingdom during all those seven years.

[16] But now if we subtract seven years from the year 973, the year of Christ 966 will result, suffers some difficulty. and accordingly that lapse of Edgar's must have happened either in that year or the preceding, and Edith cannot have been born in the year 961 or 962, nor, dying in the year 984, have numbered the twenty-third year of her age; unless the king's disgraceful act was so studiously concealed from the year 961 down to 966 or 965 that before that time it did not break out into the open, nor come to the ears of St. Dunstan. Besides, since St. Edgar passed over to the blessed life on the eighth day of July in the year 975, as was shown in his historical Sylloge, Edith cannot in the fifteenth year of her age have been set over them as abbess by him, unless she had been brought into the light already from the year 961. These things therefore render the present chronology doubtful: yet the discrepancy, as is clear, is only of a few years. Nay, the biographer himself sufficiently indicates that he was not altogether settled about the year of the Saint's death, when he places it about the year of the Lord CMLXXXIV: for the little word about allows some latitude and indicates the writer's doubt. Hence I thought it should be noted in the margin with a like latitude.

[17] She passed her life in the monastery of Wilton, Of the Saint's deeds we have indeed but few things, whether from the biographer or from any other source, and these Baronius rightly comprehended in a brief compendium in the Roman Martyrology, saying: Dedicated to God in a monastery from her tender years, she was ignorant of this world

rather than forsook it. Certainly the biographer in num. 1 of the Life writes that she, left under her mother's care in the monastery of Wilton, and veiled there with the consent of the king her father, passed her life in it. Now that monastery was situated in the county of Wiltshire, of which Malmesbury makes mention thus in book 2 of the Deeds of the pontiffs of the English: The monastery of Wilton blessed Edith, daughter of king Edgar, adorns with the sweet remains of her bones as their seat, and cherishes with her love. Wilton is a village of no small size set upon the river Wile, of such celebrity that the whole shire is called after it. There Edith, consecrated to God from infancy, by the uncorrupted virginity of the Lord and by her diligence in services won the favor of men, pressing down the swelling of her birth by the nobility of her mind. So he: a little more fully Camden treats, in his description of the aforesaid county, of the situation of that place and of its condition in ancient times and in his own; whence I copy what bears upon our purpose.

[18] an account of which place is given But where these streams (Willey and Nadder) flow together, he says, Willey gives its name to the town of Wilton, watered by streams, once the head of the whole shire, to which it also gave its appellation, in antiquity called Ellandunum. For this the ancient parchments teach, which expressly have, "Weolstan earl of Ellandunum, that is, of Wilton"; and elsewhere: "that he set up a little monastery of Ellandunum, that is, of Wilton…" But in the Saxon age it flourished above all in the number of its citizens; king Edgar adorned it with a monastery of holy virgins, as the Annals have, and set his daughter Edith over it. But from an ancient charter of that same Edgar, given in CMLXXIV, it is established to be more ancient. For thus it is written in it: "The monastery which was founded by my forefather king Edward in the famous place which is called by the inhabitants by the known name of Wiltun." And in the Life of St. Edward the confessor we read: "While St. Edward is laboring at the monastery of blessed Peter of Westminster, Edith his wife at Wilton, where she had been brought up, began a stone monastery with royal workmanship in place of a wooden church, following the king's zeal with her own zeal." Nor did this town so decline (although it was most grievously torn apart by the rage of Swein the Dane) until the bishops of Salisbury diverted the road by which men had formerly gone this way into the western regions; for then it gradually as it were wasted away, and now it boasts only of being a slender hamlet, as it were, with only a Mayor for chief magistrate, and of the most elegant house of the earl of Pembroke, which arose out of the ruined monastery.

[19] she built a church there and a hospice: Thus far Camden, rightly observing that that monastery is older than St. Edgar, as is also said in the Monasticon Anglicanum, volume 1, page 191: but what Camden subjoins from the Life of St. Edward the confessor is later than Edgar, nor is it read in the Life of that same St. Edward composed by St. Ailred and published in our Work on the fifth day of January. Further, it is not to be doubted that Edgar, munificent toward sacred buildings and monasteries almost beyond belief, as may be seen in his oft-praised deeds, §2, also increased and enlarged the ascetery of Wilton with goods for the sake of Wilfrida and of his daughter Edith. Certainly the sacred Virgin herself is said in the Life, num. 5 and 6, to have built a church there to St. Denis, and to have instituted a hospice in the courtyard of that same monastery, in which, as the biographer testifies, thirteen poor persons were accustomed to be refreshed or fed even in his own time. For the rest, that that monastery survived to the times of Henry VIII king of England we learn from the Monasticon Anglicanum, in volume 1 of which, page 1045, it is reviewed together with its annual revenues in the catalogue of the sacred houses in England drawn up by that same king's order.

[20] Camden in his description of the county of Stafford makes mention in these words of another convent built by her at Tamworth: and perhaps the monastery at Tamworth: she was not abbess. Edith, daughter of king Edgar, who, having turned away from marriage, was inscribed in the catalogue of the Saints by the repute of her chastity, established a small building here for veiled virgins, which after a few years the Marmions, Normans on whom William I bestowed this town, had transferred to Polesworth, when they erected a collegiate church here, etc. But whence Camden learned these things I do not know; whereas in the Monasticon Anglicanum, volume 1, page 198, something similar is said of the more ancient Edith, namely the sister of Ethelwulf; nor have I ascertained in which of the two places it is more correctly reported. The title of abbess I have not judged should be given to our St. Edith; because, although it is read in the Life that she was set by her father over three monasteries of virgins, yet it is denied that she ever presided, and it is said that, other abbesses being set over each place, she preferred to be subject to her mother St. Wilfrida in the convent of Wilton rather than to command the rest elsewhere. Wherefore the office of abbess seems indeed to have been offered our Virgin by her father, but not accepted by her. But what Wilson says above in num. 2, that she succeeded her dead mother in the government of the monastery of Wilton, we shall see to be false.

[21] Her father king St. Edgar, who died in the year 975, Surviving her father and her brother the kings, and her brother Edward — born, however, of another mother, and slain in the year 978 by the wiles of his stepmother Alfrida — Edith survived; and, if we believe the biographer, she was invited by the magnates of the realm to her father's throne of England, Ethelred the son of Alfrida being passed over, for whom the latter had paved the way to it by the murder of her holy stepson. But Edith, long accustomed to the most chaste delights of her heavenly Spouse, steadfastly withstood those who invited her, and preferring the sacred veil to the diadem, chose rather to lead a humble life in the monastery under her mother's discipline than to reign as mistress of affairs in her father's court. She was present, together with her mother Wilfrida and the other sacred virgins of her ascetery, at the translation of the body of that same holy brother of hers, which some attach to the year 979, others rightly to 981, as was shown in the preliminary Commentary to the History of the martyrdom and translation of St. Edward himself, §1, on the eighteenth day of March. But the translation itself is there reported at greater length on page 645, whence I transfer here what pertains to the present subject.

[22] He (earl Alfer, who was taking care that the sacred body of the martyr should be translated) also directs a messenger to the abbess Wolfrida, she is present at the translation of the latter. in the monastery of Winton [\], and announces that she should come together with the virgins committed to her for the performing of the obsequies of so great a man. Now there was in the same monastery a certain venerable virgin, sister of St. Edward himself, abounding in great uprightness of life and manners, called Edith, who was the daughter of the aforesaid king Edgar and of his consort Wolfrida (see what was said above) not yet consecrated to God. When these had presently come together with the greatest diligence and veneration, the bishops also with the abbots being gathered, as we said, the aforesaid Alfer assembled from Dorset no small multitude of men and women, and came as far as Wareham, where the body of the man of God had lain buried for three years.* Then follows the history of the translation, which does not further pertain to our purpose, and therefore I do not review it further. The other things which bear upon St. Edith need no commentary, and we shall elucidate them sufficiently among the Annotations to the Life: one thing, however, which is not read in it, must be reported here.

[23] The biographer's error in assigning the year Of the year of our holy Virgin's death something can be established, as far as may be, from what was said above: it remains that we here examine the time of the elevation of her virginal body, as asserted by the biographer. He says in num. 8 of the Life that it was done thirteen years after blessed Edith's deposition, by blessed Dunstan, to whom she, appearing, had commanded that it be so done; and adds that on the third of the Nones of November the holy body was raised from the earth. These things, according to the biographer's reckonings, will bring us to about the year of Christ 997, since he himself holds that the Saint died about the year 984. But by that time St. Dunstan too had already departed from the living, having died namely in the year 988, as was proved in his Acts on the nineteenth day of May. And so the biographer must be said to have erred either in the time of the elevation or in its author. Yet that it took place under St. Dunstan John Bromton also writes in his Chronicle, and Malmesbury himself in book 2 of the Deeds of the kings of the English, chapter 13, and likewise in book 2 of the Deeds of the pontiffs of the English, sufficiently intimates. Hence it will be well to have reported Malmesbury's words from the former place.

[24] of the sacred body, partly incorrupt, After the said death of the Saint he proceeds thus: And not long after the same Blessed man (Dunstan, as he had premised) saw in the vision of a dream St. Denis holding the Virgin amicably by the hand, and by a divine oracle steadfastly commanding that she be honored by her servants on earth as she was venerated by her Spouse and Lord in heaven. Thus, as miracles multiplied at her tomb, it was decreed that the virginal body should be raised and set on high; and it was found all dissolved into ashes except the finger and the belly and the parts below the belly; whereupon, as some disputed about it, the Virgin herself stood by one of those who had seen it as he slept, saying that it was no wonder if those parts of the body had rotted, since it was the way [\] that lifeless bodies should flow away into certain hidden recesses of that nature, and she, being a girl, had sinned with those members; but that justly the belly was corrupted by no rottenness, which had never been goaded by any lust; and that she had been free from surfeit and from carnal union.* He repeats the same in the other place just cited.

[25] or its author. Further, our biographer reviews in num. 8 and 9 a twofold vision, both offered to St. Dunstan, and in the former of which he brings in St. Edith alone appearing to him, commanding that her body be elevated, and foretelling the said incorruption. But in the other he joins St. Denis to the Virgin, confirming her words and urging the execution of her commands. But I could not easily say by whose authority we ought rather to stand here: yet this is more probable, that this elevation was made by St. Dunstan, and that therefore the biographer erred in assigning the time. Michael Alford, in volume 3 of the Annals, at the year of Christ 984, num. 12, in order to remove that error, reads for thirteen years thirteen months, and advises that it should so be read, and that Capgrave, who likewise reckoned as many years, must be corrected. In this way, I confess, all difficulty is removed; for then St. Dunstan was still among the living, and so it is rightly understood that the Saint, thirteen months having passed since her death, appeared to him and ordered her body to be elevated; and that this was carried into execution on the third of the Nones of November. Finally, on this opinion Malmesbury's narrative also stands correctly, which holds that all these things happened not long after St. Edith's death. Nevertheless not only Capgrave, but Surius too, with our manuscript, have thirteen years.

[26] Nicholas Harpsfield in the English Ecclesiastical History, The History of the divine vengeance upon the violators of the feast century 10, chapter 10, reports a wonderful history of the divine vengeance upon the wanton violators of the vigil of the Lord's Nativity, of whom he affirms that one, Theodoric, obtained the end of his punishment at Wilton at the tomb of St. Edith, citing a certain ancient

codex of the church of York or, as he judges, of Durham, unknown to the rest of the writers. The punishment for the profaned feast various writers, both of Saxony, where it is said to have happened, and of England, have handed down, among whom William of Malmesbury in book 2 of the Deeds of the kings of the English, and Matthew of Westminster, reported it at the year of Christ 1012. The sum of the matter is this: when twelve or fifteen men with three girls were dancing wanton dances on the vigil of the Lord's Nativity near the church of St. Magnus the martyr in Saxony, the priest of the place, after fruitless admonitions, is said to have imprecated upon them that they should go on singing and dancing so for that whole year; and so, as he had imprecated, it came to pass. When the year had passed they fell into a sleep, and then, some of their number having died, the rest, separated from one another, gave in various places a dire spectacle of themselves by a horrid trembling of their limbs.

[27] But this history is clothed with fabulous accompaniments, of the Lord's Nativity, and the healing of one of them so that it irks me to report it here, and I am compelled to doubt of the very substance of the matter. Those writers do indeed produce testimonies as given by St. Bruno bishop of Toul, who afterward, being created Roman Pontiff, was called Leo IX, and by Peregrinus the successor of St. Heribert bishop of Cologne; but these same are for the same reason at the least suspect of forgery, nor can we admit them as genuine unless it be more solidly proved from another quarter that they are theirs. Certainly that narrative, which William of Malmesbury says was written by Peregrinus or Peligrinus, sufficiently makes plain the imposture, when toward the end it has this: The priest's daughter (one of the number of those dancers) straightway breathed out (her soul, namely, the year of the punishment being completed); the rest of us slept for three continuous days and nights, some afterward died and shine with miracles; the rest betray their punishment by the trembling of their limbs. Who would believe this fabler, that of those wanton persons some who died in the heavenly vengeance presently shone with miracles, while their companions were still paying their penalty?

[28] I know indeed that in St. Augustine's time seven sons and three daughters, reported by Harpsfield, we pass over. upon whom their raging mother had imprecated that, wandering over the globe of lands, they should be a horror to all, were shaken with a prodigious trembling and fulfilled their mother's curses, and that of these two, namely a brother with his sister, obtained their soundness at the memorial of St. Stephen the protomartyr at Hippo Regius, as the aforesaid holy doctor clearly testifies in book 22 of the City of God, chapter 8, and in Sermon 322, otherwise 31, On divers matters. But that narrative of the Saint's, although wonderful, contains nothing which you would rightly hold suspect, and is far removed from the like fables which occur in the history of which we treat. This therefore we pass over here, the reader who may wish to read it being referred to the writers cited. One thing I add, namely that that prodigious cure of Theodoric at St. Edith's tomb, which that anonymous writer — who strives to persuade us that he was contemporary with the event — reports in Harpsfield, was plainly unknown both to the biographer and to the English writers who made mention of the aforesaid history. But of these things more than enough. I therefore subjoin the Life.

\ Wiltoniensi*

\ otherwise habeat*

THE LIFE

By the Author, as is believed, Gotselin the monk.

From a manuscript of Rouge-Cloître.

Edith or Eadgitha, virgin and nun, at Wilton in England (St.)

BHL Number: 2391

From the Manuscript.

Born of a royal father, she is veiled in the monastery of Wilton; The blessed virgin Edith was the daughter of king Edgar and of Wolftruda ^a, daughter of a royal duke, whom the king had purposed to associate with him in the kingdom by indissoluble vows; but when her childbearing was accomplished, she chose rather to live chastely than to serve allurements, for God's sake; and she received the habit of nuns from the hand of St. Ethelwold ^b the bishop at Wilton ^c; and, advancing in virtues and in examples, deserved to be made spiritual mother to the virgins. But holy Edith, left under her mother's care, at length with the king's consent received the habit of religion in the same monastery; whom her mother strove to adorn not with gold and necklaces or varied ornament, but with the comeliness of letters and of virtues. But among the many examples of the Saints which she read in books, and among the present lights of the Saints and above all of her religious kindred, she was more nearly kindled by the virginal palm of her most holy aunt Edith ^d, own sister of her father king Edgar, who in the monastery of Pollelworth in the province of Warwick shone forth with signs of merits, as she herself did at Wilton.

[2] she shines in virtues: she wears a hair-shirt beneath a shining garment: For to her sisters she showed herself a Martha, to Christ a Mary: to each she bowed herself in serving, and embracing all guests in the bowels of Christ, she was abstinent as though she feasted, and so feasted that frugality was preserved; she bade farewell to earthly favors, spent herself upon the sick and the destitute, and preferred lepers to the sons of a king. The more deformed with diseases anyone appeared, so much the more was she borne along the more compassionate in kindness and the more overflowing in service: she was an eye to the blind, a staff to the feeble, clothing and food to the needy, and the solace of all the desolate. She used a most harsh hair-shirt next her flesh, while outwardly she was adorned with shining garments. Whence, when blessed Ethelwold saw her once going forth in more ornate dress, he said: O daughter, one does not go to the bridal chamber of Christ in these garments; the heavenly Spouse is not delighted by outward adornment. But she meanwhile, conscious of her Indweller, answered thus: Believe me, O father, no worse mind shall dwell beneath this covering, by God's inspiring, than beneath a goatskin cloak. I have my Lord, who regards not the garment but the mind ^e.

[3] The man of God therefore perceived in the Virgin the authority of grace, and did not dare to sadden the heavenly Ruler within her; She frequently makes the Cross, and refuses to preside: rather he rejoices, perceiving that the Lord works all things in his Saints as he wills, and also that it makes no difference whether in purple or in sackcloth, if the mind be kept clean. Wherever Edith walked, the cross of Christ was her companion; she set the cross before her on her forehead, on her breast, on her journey, in all her work. For at a certain time, when she was carrying out food after her custom on a dish, which she meant to hide in the bosom of a poor man, a boy met her at her side, asking alms: and when she had held it out to him with her accustomed sign of the cross, the beggar so vanished that no one was seen who might receive it. But when she was fifteen years old, she was made abbess by her father king Edgar over three monasteries of nuns, namely Winton ^f, Barking ^g, and a third; yet she could not be torn from the house in which she had begun to serve God; but she appointed spiritual mothers in each place, as being more effectual, preferring to be subject to her mother rather than to preside over others; to fear her mother rather than to command others ^h.

[4] But when her father Edgar had died ⁱ, and his son Edward, still a little child, was succeeding him [\] ^k, she foresees her brother's murder, and refuses the kingdom offered her. the holy Virgin dreamed that her right eye had fallen out: which, reporting to her sisters and at the same time expounding, she said: I seem to myself to see that this vision portends the fall of my brother Edward.* And not long after, Edward, while he desires to see his brother Ethelred, was slain by the sons of iniquity, as is plain in his Passion ^l. And when the magnates strove to draw the holy Virgin out of the monastery and raise her to her father's throne — as in very many nations women hold rule ^m — and pressed her, and at last wished to use force, they could more easily have turned stones into lead than have bent her from her purpose and from the service of God.

[5] For when she had built a church in honor of St. Denis, St. Dunstan foretells that her thumb shall not be corrupted, and her death. and had invited blessed Dunstan ⁿ to its dedication, that same pontiff saw the blessed Virgin frequently stretch out her right thumb and imprint the sign of the cross upon her forehead. Delighted at which, Dunstan, taking her right hand, said: May this finger never rot. Straightway, in the midst of the solemnities of the Masses, Dunstan burst into tears, and being asked by his deacon why he wept, he, sighing and drawing his voice from the depth of his breast, said: This Soul beloved of God, this starry gem, will be caught away to the fatherland of the Saints from earthly filth and from our toilsome companionship: for the wicked world is no longer worthy of the presence of so great a light. For on the forty-third day from this present one this most shining star sets for us; the lamps of the Saints are taken away from our prison-house, and we sit in darkness and in the shadow of death: an untimely age condemns us sluggish old men, which enters the palaces of heaven while we slumber ^o.

[6] But when the hour drew near in which she should pass from this world to the Lord, Her death made illustrious by God: St. Dunstan is present, and arming her soul with exhortations and prayers, commended it, when it had gone forth from the body, into the hands of God. Meanwhile a certain sister, running in trepidation from the church of St. Denis, where the holy Virgin had died, to the monastery, hears as it were a multitude singing psalms in the choir. To her as she hesitated there came one of beautiful countenance and glorious habit: Do not draw near hither, he said, because the holy angels have come together for the maiden Goda (for so she was more graciously called, who in her native tongue is surnamed Good), that they may bear her hence with them to eternal joys, so that with that harmony of the heavenly host she may enter the hall of perpetual delight. And thus in the 23rd year of her age, on the XVI Kalends of October, she passed to Christ, about the year of the Lord DCCCCLXXXIV [p]; and Dunstan buried her in the church of St. Denis, which she herself had founded. This place she had often marked out with a foreseeing mind, and had said, This is the place of my repose, and frequenting it, had watered it with a constant shower of tears. She instituted a hospice in the courtyard of the monastery, in which thirteen poor persons are refreshed to this day.

[7] [she appears to her mother in glory: she is believed to have been present at an infant's baptism.] On the thirtieth day after her death the holy Virgin appeared to Wolftruda her mother, so beautiful and glad, and clothed with light as with a garment, and glorious. She relates that she is well received by her King in eternal glory. And Satan, she said, accused me before my Lord, but by the patronage of the holy Apostles I crushed his head, and, having cast him down, triumphed over him in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ. On the thirtieth day after her passing there was born of most illustrious parents a little girl [q], concerning whom blessed Edith herself had been asked before her death to receive this offspring from the sacred font when it should be born. I will receive her, she said, when it shall please God: but she was born to heaven before this one to the world. When the little infant, therefore, had been brought to the church, and Elphege [r] was now baptizing her and afterward held out the taper, saying: Receive, girl, the lamp with which thou mayest enter to the nuptials of the Lord — suddenly, as it were, St. Edith, before him who was holding the infant she had received, stretched out her little palm and took the taper and held it. Bishop Elphege at once understood that this was a wonderful foretoken of divine revelation; and immediately said to her parents: Bring up this little infant to be betrothed to God alone, and after her weaning hand her over to a monastery. For this girl, called Brithgina, was made abbess at Wilton [s], and ended her life in holy converse.

[8] Appearing to St. Dunstan, she bids her body be elevated, Thirteen years having passed after the deposition of blessed Edith, she appeared to blessed Dunstan the archbishop [t], saying: Remembering [\], she said, his mercies, he has taken me up, and it pleases his unspeakable goodness that I be made illustrious among men for the salvation of his faithful, as he has glorified me among my fellow-citizens the angels in heaven. Go therefore to Wilton, and execute the divine commands, and take pains to raise my body from the earth: do not doubt, nor think that thou art deluded by any phantasm. For this sign of the truth will be given thee, namely that, apart from the offices of those members which I misused in girlish levity — that is, of eyes, hands, feet — thou wilt find the remainder of my body as untouched, so also uncorrupted. For I was ever free from lust and from surfeit: the thumb also of my right hand, with which I had continually imprinted upon myself the sign of the cross, thou wilt see no less unharmed, so that the kindness of the Lord may appear in the part preserved, and a father's chastisement in the part consumed.*

[9] which he carries out, and finds it partly incorrupt. Dunstan therefore, while he passed the night at Sarum [u] near Wilton, is carried in a vision into the church of Wilton, right up to the tomb of the holy Virgin; and behold, he sees St. Denis standing by the altar in angelic brightness, and the virgin Edith, splendid with light and radiance, addressing her beloved patron with this devotion: Thou knowest, father, what has pleased the Lord's grace concerning me; do thou, interpreter of the highest counsel and legate of the divine will, explain to this newcomer with what confidence and authority I have invited him hither. St. Denis said: Take note, brother, that the vision which thou latterly sawest is true concerning the declaration of this Beloved of the Lord. She is worthy to be venerated by the earth-born, who among the heaven-born deserved to be crowned: worthy of honor is this body, this temple of virginal modesty, in which the Lord the king of glory, the lover of virginity, reigned: for her prayers, acceptable with Christ, are necessary to mortals. Therefore on the third of the Nones of November the holy body is raised from the earth, and all things are found as was set forth above.

[10] A certain monk of Glastonbury [x], by name Edulph, The rash divinely restrained: the body of St. Juius kept there by God's nod: rashly cut with a knife a tunic gathered into a fold from the holy body, and at the same time struck the holy body with the iron: and without delay a flood of blood, drawn out as if from a living vein, burst forth and sprinkled the garments and the pavement. Terrified, the presumptuous man, casting down the iron with his sacred plunder, fell upon his face and took care to wash away his fault with weeping. And when he rose from his satisfaction, no gore now appeared. And when a certain sister tried to cut off a part of the fillet of the sacred head, the living head raised itself and frightened off the presumptuous woman with threatening indignation. Clerics of the Picts, carrying about in a shrine the holy confessor Juius [y], having been honorably received in the convent of the holy Virgin, laid down the relics upon blessed Edith's altar: and when the clerics wished to depart, Juius was fixed there with such weight that they could by no effort raise him from the altar. The newcomers weep, they wail, they rend their garments and tear their hair; at last, in despair, having received two thousand shillings from the abbess Wolftruda, they went away sorrowful to their own country.

[11] When king Canute [z], banqueting at Wilton on the feast of Pentecost, Canute sharply rebuked by the Saint; to whom afterward poured out solemn guffaws against blessed Edith, and said that he would never believe that the Daughter of king Edgar was holy, whose father had always been given over to lust and tyranny — Ednoth [aa] the archbishop, then present, contradicted him, and at once opened the Virgin's sepulchre, where the dead Virgin, raising herself as far as the girdle, was seen to make an onset against the contumacious king. He, troubled with this fear, fell to the ground as though lifeless, and at length, recovering his breath, blushed for joy, and asking pardon for his presumption and rashness, thereafter held the holy Virgin in great honor; whence once, a storm having arisen at sea, he invoked blessed Edith, and, calm being restored, put in at the desired harbor [bb].

[12] When Aldred archbishop of York [cc] was in peril in the Adriatic sea, as also to another in peril at sea she brings help: an unjust usurper punished. he invoked the holy Virgin, and she at once, appearing visibly, said: I am Edith; and suddenly brought back the tranquillity of the sea. When a certain man had usurped land of St. Edith, and, death coming upon him, had been snatched away impenitent, after some little space of time in which he had been dead, he rose, saying: Come to my aid, friends, help me, all ye faithful of God; behold, the intolerable indignation of St. Edith shuts out this unhappy soul of mine from every region of heaven and earth, and permits the usurper of her right to abide nowhere, nor to endure in this body, and grants me neither to live nor to die. But when the land was restored, without delay he gave up the ghost [dd].

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Concerning the difficulty about this year of her death compared with the year of her age asserted at which she died, and with the deeds of St. Edgar her father, go to the preliminary Commentary, num. 15 and 16. Malmesbury in both places cited at the preceding letter attributes to her the same years of age.

q. Mabillon nodded too much when, in volume 4 of the Annals at the year of Christ 984, num. 61, he wrote that this little girl was begotten of Wolfetruda or Wilfreda, namely the holy mother of St. Edith, as he himself there says, deceived by I know not what error or inadvertence. Certainly St. Wilfrida, after the childbearing of Edith — whom she seems to have conceived unwillingly and under compulsion of force — had already for many years set up a most holy life in the monastery of Wilton, and there as abbess presided both over her daughter and over the rest, when the latter died, as was said above.

r. Here seems to be designated St. Elphege, first bishop of Winchester, then archbishop of Canterbury and martyr, concerning whom treatment was made in our Work on the XIX day of April.

s. Harpsfield in the English History, Century 10, chapter 10, says that under this abbess, whom he calls Brithina, took place that cure of Theodoric at St. Edith's tomb, of which we made mention in the preliminary Commentary, num. 26 and following.

t. Consult the preliminary Commentary, num. 23 and following.

u. Sarum, Sarisburia and Salisburia, to the English Salesbury, is the chief city of the province of Wiltshire in England.

x. Glastonia, which the English call Glassenbury, is a city and district of England in the county of Somerset, where a famous and ancient monastery flourished.

y. Surius reads Juvius: Alford in the Annals at the year of Christ 704, num. 18, calls him Ywius, and makes him a disciple of St. Cuthbert, citing Capgrave. For the rest, he advises that his memory stands in the supplement of the Gallican Martyrology on

the 6th day of October. On the same day Wilson records him in the Anglican Martyrology, on which day these matters may be further examined.

z. This Canute, otherwise Cnut or Knut, was the son of Swein or Suanus king of the Danes, and himself king of the Danes, and at length obtained the kingdom of England, which both he and his father had long attempted to seize, after the death of Edmund; which Alford reports in the Annals at the years 1016 and 1017.

aa. Ednodus is also read in William of Malmesbury, who narrates these same things in book 2 of the Deeds of the pontiffs of the English. I suspect, however, that we should read Edelnothus or Egelnothus, or at any rate that this Ednod was the same as the man whom I have learned, from the same Malmesbury, book 1 of the Deeds of the kings of the English, and from other sources, both to have been archbishop of Canterbury and to have often rendered useful and salutary service to king Canute, with whom he had great weight by his authority. But I have found no archbishop Ednod of that time.

bb. Of this, whether miracle or benefit, Malmesbury has nothing: but in the Miracles of St. Augustine bishop of Canterbury, composed by Gotcelin, volume 6 of May, page 399, num. XI, the same king is said to have been rescued from a like peril by the invocation of the aforesaid Saint.

cc. He flourished in the middle of the eleventh century, when he went to Rome, as Malmesbury testifies in book 3 of the Deeds of the pontiffs of the English, where he may be consulted. But there, as also in Surius, he is called Aldred.

dd. This whole narrative sufficiently hints that that unjust possessor was not dead, but was then like a dead man, although the contrary is set forth beforehand.

\ ejus*

\ add God*