Saint Cuthburh or Cuthburg, Cuthburga (; died 31 August 725) was the first Abbess of Wimborne Minster. She was the sister of Ine, King of

Wessex The Kingdom of the West Saxons, also known as the Kingdom of Wessex, was an Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, kingdom in the south of Great Britain, from around 519 until Alfred the Great declared himself as King of the Anglo-Saxons in 886. The Anglo-Sa ...

and was married to the

Northumbria Northumbria () was an early medieval Heptarchy, kingdom in what is now Northern England and Scottish Lowlands, South Scotland. The name derives from the Old English meaning "the people or province north of the Humber", as opposed to the Sout ...

n king

Aldfrith Aldfrith (Early Modern Irish: ''Flann Fína mac Ossu''; Latin: ''Aldfrid'', ''Aldfridus''; died 14 December 704 or 705) was king of Northumbria from 685 until his death. He is described by early writers such as Bede, Alcuin and Stephen of Ripo ...

Life

Cuthburh was the daughter of Cenred of Wessex. In addition to her brother Ine, she also had a brother Ingild, who was an ancestor of

Alfred the Great Alfred the Great ( ; – 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 both died when Alfr ...

, and a sister Cwenburh. Her marriage to Aldfrith allied him with Ine, one of the most powerful kings in

Anglo-Saxon England Anglo-Saxon England or early medieval England covers the period from the end of Roman Empire, Roman imperial rule in Roman Britain, Britain in the 5th century until the Norman Conquest in 1066. Compared to modern England, the territory of the ...

. Cuthburh was Aldfrith's only known wife. Aldfrith had at least two sons, Osred and Offa, it is believed Cuthburh was the mother of Osred, Offa it is not certain. It is also believed they were the parents of a daughter Osana, who would later be known as Saint Osana. According to a report by Florence of Worcester, written long afterwards, at some time before Aldfrith's death in 705 he and Cuthburh "renounced connubial intercourse for the love of God". Following this, Cuthburh entered Abbess Hildelith's nunnery at

Barking Abbey The Abbey of St Mary and St Ethelburga, founded in the 7th-century and commonly known as Barking Abbey, is a former Roman Catholic, royal monastery located in Barking, in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. It has been described as havi ...

. Cuthburh is traditionally associated with the "Cuthburh" mentioned in the dedication of Aldhelm's treatise ''De virginitate''. It is thought that she was in some way related to Aldhelm. After Aldfrith's death, around 705, Cuthburh and Cwenburh established a double-monastery in her brother's kingdom of

, at Wimborne, Dorset. She is described as austere, and she communicated with prelates through a little hatch in the

nunnery A convent is an enclosed community of monks, nuns, friars or religious sisters. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The term is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican Comm ...

at Wimborne. Among

Saint Boniface Boniface, OSB (born Wynfreth; 675 –5 June 754) was an English Benedictines, Benedictine monk and leading figure in the Anglo-Saxon mission to the Germanic parts of Francia during the eighth century. He organised significant foundations of ...

's surviving letters is an anonymous account of a vision of Abbess Cuthburh in Hell. Cuthburh died on 31 August 725 at Wimborne and is said to be buried under the wall of the chancel. In 1538, Wimborne Minster being in need of repair, the guardians of the church wrote

Thomas Cromwell Thomas Cromwell (; – 28 July 1540) was an English statesman and lawyer who served as List of English chief ministers, chief minister to King Henry VIII from 1534 to 1540, when he was beheaded on orders of the king, who later blamed false cha ...

for permission to melt down the silver reliquary containing Cuthburh's head. As a few years later, the tower collapsed, it is surmised that the reliquary was confiscated to the King's use. It is not mentioned what then happened to her head."Wimborne Minster", ''The Saturday Review'', October 1, 1881, p. 415, John W. Parker and Son
/ref> The

feast day The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context does n ...

associated with her is 31 August.Mayo, 1860

References

Sources

* Farmer, D. H. (1987). The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, p. 96. Oxford:

Clarendon Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

. * Lapidge, Michael, "Cuthburg", in M. Lapidge et al., ''The Blackwell Encyclopedia of

.'' (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999) * Mayo, C.H. (1860). History of Wimborne Minster: The Collegiate Church of Saint Cuthberga and King's Free Chapel at Wimborne, (pp. 4–6). London: Bell and Daldy
archive.org

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cuthburh Year of birth unknown 725 deaths 8th-century English nuns 8th-century Christian nuns 7th-century Christian saints West Saxon saints Anglo-Saxon royal consorts Burials at Wimborne Minster (church) House of Wessex English princesses Date of death unknown Place of birth unknown Female saints of medieval England 7th-century English nuns 7th-century Christian nuns 8th-century Christian saints Medieval English saints

Life

See also

References

Sources

External links