Eadburh of Winchester
| Saint Eadburh of Winchester | |
|---|---|
| Died | 15 June 960 |
| Venerated in |
Anglican Communion Roman Catholic Church Orthodox Church |
| Canonized | 972 |
| Feast | 15 June |
Saint Eadburh (or Edburga) (died 15 June 960) was the daughter of King Edward the Elder of England and his third wife, Eadgifu of Kent.
Life
There is little contemporary information for her life, but in a Winchester charter dated 939, she was the beneficiary of land at Droxford in Hampshire granted by her half-brother King Athelstan.[1] Eadburh was educated at St Mary's Abbey, Winchester (Nunnaminster) which was founded by her grandmother, Queen Ealhswith. She remained there as a nun and died probably before the age of forty.[2]
A cult developed after her death and in 972, some of her remains were transferred to Pershore Abbey in Worcestershire, which is dedicated to SS. Mary, Peter and Paul, and Eadburh. Her feast is celebrated on 15 June.[2]
In the twelfth century, a Latin Life of her was written by Osbert de Clare, who became prior of Westminster in 1136 (and who also wrote a Life of King Edward the Confessor).[3] Her cultus continued to flourish to judge by the Lives written in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
Notes
- ↑ Sawyer no. 446
- 1 2 Farmer, David. "Edburga of Winchester", The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 5th ed revised, Oxford University Press, 2011, ISBN 9780199596607
- ↑ The text is edited by Susan J. Ridyard in her The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England, 253 ff.
Sources
- Sawyer no. 446
- Osbert de Clare, Vita Edburgae, MS. Laud Misc. 114, f. 85–120 (Bodleian, Oxford), ed. S.J. Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England. A Study of West Saxon and East Anglian Cults. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought 4. Cambridge, 2008. 253 ff (Appendix).
- Anonymous, De vita sanctae Edburgae virginis, preserved in the early fourteenth-century MS Lansdowne 436, f. 41v-43v (British Library, London), ed. Laurel Braswell, "Saint Edburga" (see below). 329-33.
- Lectiones in Breviary of Hyde Abbey (late 13th century), Rawlinson liturg. E I and Gough liturg. 8 (Bodleian, Oxford)
- Middle English Life (late 13th century), Egerton 1993, f. 160-1 (BL, London); Eng. Poet. A I f. 32-32v and Bodley 779, f. 282-293v (Bodleian, Oxford), ed. Laurel Braswell, "Saint Edburga" (see below). 329-33.
Further reading
- Ridyard, S.J. The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England. A Study of West Saxon and East Anglian Cults. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought 4. Cambridge, 2008.
- Braswell, Laurel. "Saint Edburga of Winchester. A study of her cult, A.D. 950-1500, with an edition of the fourteenth-century Middle English and Latin lives." Mediaeval Studies 33 (1971): 292-333.