Saint Æbbe of Coldingham (also Ebbe, Aebbe, Abb), also known as Æbbe the Younger, (died 2 April 870) was an

Abbess An abbess (Latin: ''abbatissa'') is the female superior of a community of nuns in an abbey. Description In the Catholic Church (both the Latin Church and Eastern Catholic), Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, Lutheran and Anglican abbeys, the mod ...

of Coldingham Priory in south-east

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. Like many of her fellow female saints of

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

England, little is known about her life. She presided over the Benedictine Abbey at

Coldingham Coldingham is a village and parish in Berwickshire in the Scottish Borders. It lies a short distance inland from Coldingham Bay, three miles northeast of the fishing village of Eyemouth. Parish The parish lies in the east of the Lammermuir ...

. She is best known for an act of self-mutilation to avoid rape by Viking invaders: according to a thirteenth-century chronicle, she took a razor and cut off her nose in front of the nuns, who followed her example. Their appearance so disgusted the invaders that the women were saved from rape but not from death, as the Danes soon returned and set fire to the convent, killing Æbbe and her entire community.

References

External links

Project Continua: Biography of Aebbe the Younger
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aebbe Of Coldingham 870 deaths Northumbrian saints Anglo-Saxon abbesses 9th-century abbesses 9th-century Christian saints Year of birth unknown