Saint Edith of Polesworth (also known as Editha or Eadgyth; d. ?c.960s
[G C Baugh et al (1970)]
"Colleges: Tamworth, St Edith"
in ''A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 3'', ed. M W Greenslade and R B Pugh (London, Victoria County History
The Victoria History of the Counties of England, commonly known as the Victoria County History or the VCH, is an English history project which began in 1899 with the aim of creating an encyclopaedic history of each of the historic counties of En ...
series), pp. 309-315, note
2–6
Accessed 1 February 2016.) is an obscure Anglo-Saxon abbess associated with
Polesworth
Polesworth is a large village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the North Warwickshire district of Warwickshire, England. Polesworth is situated close to the northern tip of Warwickshire, adjacent to the border with Staffordshire. It ...
(Warwickshire) and
Tamworth (Staffordshire) in Mercia. Her historical identity and
floruit
''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...
are uncertain. Some late sources make her a daughter of King
Edward the Elder
Edward the Elder (17 July 924) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death in 924. He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith. When Edward succeeded to the throne, he had to defeat a challenge from his cousin Æt ...
, while other sources claim she is the daughter of
Egbert of Wessex
Ecgberht (770/775 – 839), also spelled Egbert, Ecgbert, Ecgbriht, Ecgbeorht, and Ecbert, was King of Wessex from 802 until his death in 839. His father was King Ealhmund of Kent. In the 780s, Ecgberht was forced into exile to Charlema ...
. Her feast day is 15 July.
Identity
Edith (''Ealdgyth'') is included in the first section of the late Old English saints' list known as ''
Secgan
''On the Resting-Places of the Saints'' is a heading given to two early medieval pieces of writing, also known as ''Þá hálgan'' and the ''Secgan'', which exist in various manuscript forms in both Old English and Latin, the earliest surviving m ...
'', which locates her burial place at Polesworth.
[Yorke, ''Nunneries and the Anglo-Saxon royal houses'', pp. 77-8.] The question of St Edith's historical identity is fraught with difficulties.
As sister to a West-Saxon king
The tradition which was written down at the monastery of
Bury St Edmunds
Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as Bury, is a historic market town, market, cathedral town and civil parish in Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – ...
in the 12th century and was later re-told by
Roger of Wendover
Roger of Wendover (died 6 May 1236), probably a native of Wendover in Buckinghamshire, was an English chronicler of the 13th century.
At an uncertain date he became a monk at St Albans Abbey; afterwards he was appointed prior of the cell of ...
(d. 1236) and
Matthew Paris
Matthew Paris, also known as Matthew of Paris ( la, Matthæus Parisiensis, lit=Matthew the Parisian; c. 1200 – 1259), was an English Benedictine monk, chronicler, artist in illuminated manuscripts and cartographer, based at St Albans Abbey ...
(d. 1259) asserts that she was a sister of King
Æthelstan
Æthelstan or Athelstan (; ang, Æðelstān ; on, Aðalsteinn; ; – 27 October 939) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and King of the English from 927 to his death in 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder and his first ...
, who gave her in marriage to
Sihtric Cáech Sihtric or Sitric is an anglo-Saxon personal name. It is cognate with the Old Norse Sigtrygg.
People called Sihtric or Sitric, include:
* Sitric Cáech (died 927), ruler of Dublin and then Viking Northumbria in the early 10th century
* Sitric II ...
, a Hiberno-Scandinavian king of southern Northumbria and Dublin. It then suggests that the marriage was never consummated. When Sihtric broke his side of the agreement by renouncing the Christian religion and died soon thereafter, she returned south and founded a nunnery at Polesworth, not far from the Mercian royal seat at
Tamworth, spending the rest of her life as a devout nun and virgin.
[Hudson, ''Viking Pirates and Christian Princes''. pp. 28-9.]
The story appears to take its cue from an earlier source, the D-version of the ''
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alf ...
'', which confirms that on 30 January 926 King
Æthelstan
Æthelstan or Athelstan (; ang, Æðelstān ; on, Aðalsteinn; ; – 27 October 939) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and King of the English from 927 to his death in 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder and his first ...
married his sister to Sihtric (d. 927) and attended the wedding feast at the Mercian royal centre of Tamworth. The ''Chronicle'', however, gives no name. Reporting on the same event in the early part of the 12th century,
William of Malmesbury
William of Malmesbury ( la, Willelmus Malmesbiriensis; ) was the foremost English historian of the 12th century. He has been ranked among the most talented English historians since Bede. Modern historian C. Warren Hollister described him as "a ...
identified her as a daughter of
Edward the Elder
Edward the Elder (17 July 924) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death in 924. He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith. When Edward succeeded to the throne, he had to defeat a challenge from his cousin Æt ...
and
Ecgwynn
Ecgwynn or Ecgwynna (Old English ''Eċġwynn'', lit. "sword joy"; ''fl''. 890s), was the first consort of Edward the Elder, later King of the English (reigned 899–924), by whom she bore the future King Æthelstan (r. 924–939), and a daughter ...
, and therefore a full-blooded sister to
Æthelstan
Æthelstan or Athelstan (; ang, Æðelstān ; on, Aðalsteinn; ; – 27 October 939) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and King of the English from 927 to his death in 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder and his first ...
, but says that he was unable to discover her name in any of the sources available to him. A variant version of the Bury tradition, which locates her burial place at Tamworth rather than Polesworth, identifies this Edith as a daughter of
Ælfflæd, Edward's second wife, and hence
Æthelstan
Æthelstan or Athelstan (; ang, Æðelstān ; on, Aðalsteinn; ; – 27 October 939) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and King of the English from 927 to his death in 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder and his first ...
's half-sister.
[Thacker, "Dynastic monasteries and family cults", pp. 257-8] However, another late source drawing upon earlier material, the early 13th-century
Chronicle of John of Wallingford
John of Wallingford (died 1258) was a Benedictine monk at the Abbey of St Albans, who served as the abbey's infirmarer at some time between c.1246-7 and his death in 1258. He is now mostly known through a manuscript containing a miscellaneous c ...
, names Sihtric's wife ''Orgiue''.
These late, contradictory statements have garnered a mixed response from modern historians. Some scholars favour Roger's identification or at least the possibility that her name was Eadgyth/Edith.
Alan Thacker, for instance, states that "given the strong Mercian connections of Æthelstan himself, it is not at all unlikely that such a woman, if repudiated, should have ended her days in a community in the former heartlands of the Mercian royal family. Perhaps, like Æthelstan, she had been brought up at the Mercian court.".
Barbara Yorke, however, argues that the name Eadgyth is unlikely to belong to two of Edward's daughters at the same time, the other being
a daughter by Ælfflæd.
A slightly earlier if largely legendary source which potentially casts some light on traditions surrounding St Edith is Conchubran's ''Life'' of Saint
Modwenna
Modwenna, or Modwen, was a nun and saint in England, who founded Burton Abbey in Staffordshire in the 7th century.
According to the medieval ''Life of St Modwenna'' she was an Irish noblewoman by birth and founded the abbey on an island in the ...
, a female hermit who supposedly lived near
Burton-on-Trent
Burton upon Trent, also known as Burton-on-Trent or simply Burton, is a market town in the borough of East Staffordshire in the county of Staffordshire, England, close to the border with Derbyshire. In 2011, it had a population of 72,299. Th ...
. The text, written in the early 11th century, mentions a sister of King Alfred by the name of Ite, a nun who served as the saint's tutor and had a maidservant called ''Osid''. Although an Irish nun called St
Ita was active in the 7th century, Ite's name has been interpreted as "almost certainly a garbling of Edith"
and that of ''Osid'' a rendering of
Osgyth
Osgyth (or Osyth; died 700 AD) was an English saint. She is primarily commemorated in the village of Saint Osyth, Essex, near Colchester. Alternative spellings of her name include Sythe, Othith and Ositha. Born of a noble family, she founded a ...
.
As early Mercian saint
Yorke prefers to identify the historical figure of Edith with an earlier namesake instead. The saint's inclusion in ''Secgan'', grouped as she is with other early saints buried near rivers, may be taken as evidence for the hypothesis that she was a Mercian saint who flourished in the 7th or 8th century.
[Yorke, ''Nunneries and the Anglo-Saxon royal houses'', pp. 22, 39 n. 58, 77-8.] According to Alan Thacker, on the other hand, the entry in ''Secgan'' may also be a later addition, along with at least two other items which seem to reflect interests peculiar to Æthelstan's time.
Later traditions
The saint is commemorated in a number of churches around the
Midlands
The Midlands (also referred to as Central England) are a part of England that broadly correspond to the Kingdom of Mercia of the Early Middle Ages, bordered by Wales, Northern England and Southern England. The Midlands were important in the Ind ...
, the most notable of these being Polesworth Abbey and the
Collegiate Church of Tamworth, which bears her name. Other churches dedicated to St. Edith include
Church Eaton
Church Eaton is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in Staffordshire some southwest of Stafford, northwest of Penkridge and from the county boundary with Shropshire. It is in rolling dairy farming countryside. The hamlet of W ...
in
Staffordshire
Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...
,
Amington Parish Church (in Tamworth), St Edith's Church in
Monks Kirby
Monks Kirby is a village and civil parish in north-eastern Warwickshire, England. The population of the parish is 445. Monks Kirby is located around one mile east of the Fosse Way, around 8 miles north-west of Rugby, seven miles north-east of ...
, Warwickshire as well as a number of churches in
Louth, Lincolnshire
Louth () is a market town and civil parish in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England.OS Explorer map 283:Louth and Mablethorpe: (1:25 000):
Louth serves as an important town for a large rural area of eastern Lincolnshire. Visitor ...
.
See also
*
Church of St Editha, a Grade I listed building
Notes
References
Primary sources
*William of Malmesbury, ''Gesta regum Anglorum'', ed. and tr. R. A. B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom (1998), ''William of Malmesbury. Gesta Regum Anglorum: The History of the English Kings''. Oxford Medieval Texts. 2 vols.: vol 1. Oxford.
*Hyde' Chronicle'' (also ''Warenne Chronicle''), ed.
*Geoffrey of Burton, ''Life and miracles of St. Modwenna'', ed. and tr.
Secondary sources
*
*
*
Further reading
*
*
External links
*
Who was Saint Editha?(article discussing the Editha legend)
Polesworth Abbey's website(which includes a history of the abbey]
St Editha's Church, Tamworth
{{DEFAULTSORT:Editha
West Saxon saints
Christian female saints of the Middle Ages
10th-century Christian saints
Anglo-Saxon abbesses
House of Wessex
Daughters of kings