Eadgyth of Aylesbury also known as Eadridus was a Dark Ages

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

saint from Anglo-Saxon England.

History

She is known to history mainly through the hagiography of the Secgan Manuscript, but also the '' Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' She was the daughter of

Penda of Mercia Penda (died 15 November 655)Manuscript A of the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' gives the year as 655. Bede also gives the year as 655 and specifies a date, 15 November. R. L. Poole (''Studies in Chronology and History'', 1934) put forward the theor ...

. One of her sisters was Eadburh of Bicester; the other, Wilburga, was married to

Frithuwold of Chertsey Frithuwald was a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon ruler in Surrey, and perhaps also in modern Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, who is known from two surviving charters. He was a sub-king ruling under King Wulfhere of Mercia. According to late hagiogr ...

. Wilburga's daughter St Osyth grew up in the care of her maternal aunts. A Saint Edith is also mentioned in ''Conchubran's Life of Saint Modwenna,'' a female

hermit A hermit, also known as an eremite (adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions. Description In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Ch ...

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 Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who ...

by the name of Ite, a

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...

who served as the Kings

tutor TUTOR, also known as PLATO Author Language, is a programming language developed for use on the PLATO system at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign beginning in roughly 1965. TUTOR was initially designed by Paul Tenczar for use in ...

and had a

maidservant A handmaiden, handmaid or maidservant is a personal maid or female Domestic worker, servant. Depending on culture or historical period, a handmaiden may be of slave status or may be simply an employee. However, the term ''handmaiden'' generally ...

called Osid. Although an

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

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.Robert Bartlett, Geoffrey of Burton. Life and miracles of Modwenna (Clarendon, 2002) pp. xviii-xix.

References

Anglo-Saxon nuns 7th-century English nuns People from Aylesbury 7th-century Christian saints Mercian saints East Saxon saints Year of birth unknown Christian female saints of the Middle Ages {{Saint-stub

History

See also

Further reading

References