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Signs of Devotion
The Cult of St. Æthelthryth in Medieval England, 695–1615
Virginia Blanton
The Pennsylvania State University Press University Park, Pennsylvania
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library of congress cataloging-in-publication data Blanton, Virginia. Signs of devotion : the cult of St. Aethelthryth in medievalEngland, 695 –1615 / Virginia Blanton. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-271-02984-9 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-271-02984-6 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Etheldreda, Queen of Northumbria, 630 – 679 — Cult. 2. Christian hagiography—History— To 1500. 3. Christian saints— Cult—England—History— To 1500. 4. England— Church history—Sources. I. Title. BR754.E84B53 2007 235'.209420902 — dc22 2006037231
Copyright © 2007 The Pennsylvania State University All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA 16802-1003 The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Association of American University Presses. It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper. This book is printed on Natures Natural, containing 50% post-consumer waste, and meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material, ansi z39.48 –1992.
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To my family as a sign of my devotion
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contents
list of illustrations ix acknowledgments xiii list of abbreviations xvii
Introduction 1 1
Cicatricis uestigia parerent: The Mark of Virginity in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History (ca. 630 – ca. 731) 19
2
Æ2eldry2 wolde 2a ealle woruld-4incg forlætan: The Ideology of Chastity and Monastic Reform (ca. 970 – ca. 998) 65
3
Tota integra, tota incorrupta: The Inviolable Body and Ely’s Monastic Identity (1066 – ca. 1133) 131
4
La gloriuse seint Audrée / Une noble eglise a fundee: Chastity, Widowhood, and Aristocratic Patronage (ca. 1189 –1416) 173
5
Abbesse heo was hir self imad after 4e furste 6ere / And an holi couent inow heo norisede 4ere: Clerical Production, Vernacular Texts, and Lay Devotion (ca. 1325 – ca. 1615) 231 Conclusion 289 appendix: Imagines Ætheldredae (970 – 1550) bibliography 309 index of manuscripts 341 index of subjects 343
295
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list of illustr at ions
figures 1. Detail, pictorial cycle painted on retable, Translation of Æthelthryth. Ely Cathedral, 1455 (by permission of The Society of Antiquaries of London) 54 2. Alabaster panel of virgin saints, Æthelthryth back row, center. St. Peter Mancroft, Norwich, Norfolk, 1450 –1500 (photo by author) 55 3. Æthelthryth’s feast day, Benedictional of St. Æthelwold. British Library, Add. ms 49598, fol. 90v, ca. 973 (by permission of The British Library) 84 4. Christ in majesty, Benedictional of St. Æthelwold. British Library, Add. ms 49598, fol. 91r, ca. 973 (by permission of The British Library) 85 5. Bishop blessing the congregation, Benedictional of St. Æthelwold. British Library, Add. ms 49598, fol. 118v, ca. 973 (by permission of The British Library) 90 6. Pictorial cycle, capital in octagon, miracle of Æthelthryth being saved from Ecgfrith. Ely Cathedral, 1325 –45 (photo by author) 155 7. Detail, historiated initial, Marie’s La Vie Seinte Audrée. British Library, Add. ms 70513, fol. 100v, 1375 –1425 (by permission of The British Library) 191 8. Pictorial cycle, painted on retable, four scenes from the life of Æthelthryth. Ely Cathedral, 1455 (by permission of The Society of Antiquaries of London) 192 9. Roodscreen, detail of Æthelthryth. St. Mary’s, North Tuddenham, Norfolk, ca. 1520 (photo by author) 272 10. Roodscreen, detail of Æthelthryth. St. Margaret’s, Upton, Norfolk, ca. 1450 (photo by author) 273 11. Roodscreen, detail of Æthelthryth. St. Helen’s, Gateley, Norfolk, ca. 1500 (photo by author) 275 12. Roodscreen, showing chancel and parclose screens. St. Helen’s, Ranworth, Norfolk, 1475 –1525 (photo by author) 277 13. Roodscreen, north altar, featuring Æthelthryth, Agnes, John the Baptist, and Barbara. St. Helen’s, Ranworth, Norfolk, 1475 –1525 (photo by author) 278 14. Roodscreen, south altar, featuring Mary Salome, the Virgin Mary, Mary Cleophas with their children, and Margaret. St. Helen’s, Ranworth, Norfolk, 1475 –1525 (photo by author) 279
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list of illustrations
15. Roodscreen, detail of Æthelthryth. St. Helen’s, Ranworth, Norfolk, 1475 –1525 (photo by author) 282 16. Pictorial cycle, capital in octagon, Æthelthryth consecrated abbess. Ely Cathedral, 1325 –45 (photo by author) 284
tables 1. Chronology of selected events in the life and cult of Æthelthryth 2. Vitae Ætheldredae
6
9 –10
3. Popular saints in Anglo-Saxon litanies
100 –101
genealogical ch arts Genealogical Chart 1. Beauchamp family, Earldom of Warwick
203
Genealogical Chart 2. Ufford family, Earldom of Suffolk, part 1
212
Genealogical Chart 3. Ufford family, Earldom of Suffolk, part 2
213
Genealogical Chart 4. Ufford, Beauchamp, de Ferrers, Despenser, and Arundel family matrix 217
maps Map 1. Sites associated with Æthelthryth’s cult in Anglo-Saxon England Map 2. Sites associated with Æthelthryth’s cult in medieval England
21 269
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acknowledgments
When I consider how many people have been instrumental in the process of writing this book, I am awed by the enthusiasm and generosity shown by so many. Foremost, I wish to thank my adviser, Paul E. Szarmach, who first introduced me to “Tawdry Awdry” and with whom I have shared a particular affection for this Anglo-Saxon saint. The other members of my doctoral committee include Marilynn Desmond, Clare A. Lees, and Barbara Abou-El-Haj. I appreciate their guidance and continued support. Helene Scheck deserves special recognition, having participated in countless conversations about this project and having lent her perceptive insight to more than one thorny problem. Others who gladly shared their time and expertise include Theresa Coletti, Shari Horner, Richard F. Johnson, Kathy Krause, Daniella Mallinick, June Hall McCash, Linda Mitchell, Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Linda Voigts, and the Junior Faculty Research Group at University of Missouri—Kansas City. In addition, the anonymous readers who offered so many useful suggestions have helped to make this a much better book. Being a medievalist means that one owes a great deal to librarians, both to the curators of medieval collections and to those who secure books via Interlibrary Loan. I wish to acknowledge the staff who so cheerfully and readily fetched manuscripts at the Bodleian Library, the British Library, the Cambridge University Library, the Institute for Historical Research, Lambeth Palace, the Norfolk Record Office, the Public Record Office, and the Society of Antiquaries, as well as those at my home institutions who have valiantly located books and made them available: the library staff at Binghamton University, Syracuse University, Marist College, and the University of Missouri–Kansas City. Others have offered access so that I could pursue imagines Ætheldredae, including the Bishop and Dean of Ely Cathedral, who were most generous in making their offices available to me; the Reverend Phillip McFadyen, vicar of St. Helen’s, Ranworth, who allowed me to consult the Ranworth Antiphoner and who discussed the magnificent roodscreen paintings with me; and the countless church wardens who opened doors, rifled their bookshelves for church guides, and poured tea to make
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my visits to their parishes more enjoyable. Likewise, the staff at Penn State Press has been unfailing supportive, and I appreciate very much Peter Potter and Michael B. Richards, who have such faith in this project. In order to prepare the manuscript for publication, I have relied on Martha JohnsonOlin, who is an excellent researcher and proofreader. I truly appreciate all her work on this project. The errors that remain are undoubtedly a result of my poor judgment, not hers. Financial support for this book includes research grants from Marist College, the University of Missouri–Kansas City, and the University of Missouri Research Board, which also provided a year’s leave from teaching to complete the manuscript. A book subvention from the Department of English, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Office of Research Services at the University of Missouri–Kansas City has helped to offset the costs of publication, and a gift from the Department of English subsidized the permission fees. I am humbled by the generosity of Artin H. Arslanian, Jeff Rydberg-Cox, Karen S. Vorst, and John R. Baumann. Finally, I wish to thank my family, who has always supported my work, most especially Don and Bonnie, who gave me the gifts of inquiry and gritty determination, Greg and family for repeated trips to churches and shrines, and Monica and Skyler, who made sure I laughed often and played much. I am grateful to you all. 23 June 2006 Feast of Saint Æthelthryth
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abbreviat ions
BL Bodl. BSE CUL EETS EH GEC HMSO IPM LE LgA PML PRO SA SEL V&A VCH VSA
British Library, London Bodleian Library, Oxford Benedictional of St. Æthelwold (BL, Add. ms 49598) Cambridge University Library, Cambridge Early English Text Society Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum), ed. Colgrave and Mynors George Edward Cokayne, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom Her Majesty’s Stationery Office Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem and Other Analogous Documents Preserved in the Public Record Office Liber Eliensis, ed. E. O. Blake Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda Aurea Pierpont Morgan Library, New York Public Records Office, London Sanctilogium Angliae, Walliae, Scotiae et Hiberniae (ed. by Horstmann as Nova Legenda Anglie) South English Legendary Victoria and Albert Museum, London The Victoria History of the Counties of England Marie, La Vie Seinte Audrée, ed. Östen Södergård
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Introduction
In analyzing these miracle narratives as semiotic entities we must simultaneously attend to three aspects of the texts; we must see them as rhetorical structures (a set of internally related signs), as historically contingent constellations of signs, and as sign systems designed to have historical agency. —Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn1
Medieval hagiography is rich with cultural signs. The stories of holy figures are embedded with ecclesiastical ideologies, cultural values, institutional tensions, and political dynamics, to name but a few. The production of these semiotic narratives, therefore, is of particular interest because focusing in this direction allows us to examine the ways saints and their bodies are used to shape meaning. Important too are the target audiences for whom these vitae are produced and the secondary audiences who also have access to them, for their participation in interpreting or decoding the significations is integral to the continued viability of these signs. Investigations of production and reception also require an awareness of mediation, or how texts were transferred from writer to audience. The epigraph, taken from Writing Faith: Text, Sign, and History in the Miracles of Sainte Foy, illustrates how Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn have situated themselves as modern readers of the medieval miracle stories of Saint Foy. They assert that hagiographical writings are rhetorical texts, ones that are crafted and shaped for particular audiences with specific purposes. In drawing on semiotics, they remind us that a sign does not exist in a vacuum but has multiple associations, relationships to other signs or sign systems. Any given saint’s life or miracle story of that saint, therefore, is connected to the larger system of hagiographical writing, even as it has a relationship to the written and oral sources on which it is based, the liturgical or devotional rituals that it supports, the theological ideas that it represents, the historical and political 1. Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn, Writing Faith: Text, Sign, and History in the Miracles of Sainte Foy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 20.
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events surrounding its production, the religious and lay communities that it addresses, or the audiences who experience it. I begin this book, Signs of Devotion, by considering what the rhetorical field of hagiography offers about medieval religious culture.2 In the past, religious scholars unquestioningly embraced saints’ lives as sacred texts, others discounted the historical value of hagiographical texts, and still others derided them as second-rate literary exercises that revealed little about language and poetics. Important work has begun to shift these attitudes. The acceptance of saints’ cults as a legitimate form of academic study rests in large part on the wealth of data these narratives provide about underrepresented and underprivileged groups (such as women and laborers), cultural values and expectations, medieval reading practices, and devotional behavior. The study of saints is inherently a multidisciplinary enterprise, and this has afforded scholars a means to interrogate the complexities of medieval religious life that was not bound by disciplinary rules. That hagiography has achieved a central place in modern academic work is demonstrated by a number of publications. Influential studies have revealed the significance of a single cult to a specific community,3 where others have demonstrated how a cult was celebrated in various places and in distinct historical moments.4 In addition, some have shown how groups of saints, particularly the virgin martyrs, are revelatory about medieval attitudes regarding gender and ideology,5 while other specialists have investigated the generic relation 2. Some standard discussions of hagiography include Hippolyte Delehaye, The Legends of the Saints: An Introduction to Hagiography, trans. V. M. Crawford (New York: Longman, Green & Co., 1907); Thomas Head, Hagiography and the Cult of Saints: The Diocese of Orléans, 800 –1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Thomas J. Heffernan, Sacred Biography: Saints and Their Biographers in the Middle Ages (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); Alexandra Hennessey Olsen, “‘De Historiis Sanctorum’: A Generic Study of Hagiography,” Genre 13 (1980): 407–29; Donald Weinstein and Rudolph Bell, Saints and Society: The Two Worlds of Western Christendom, 1000 –1700 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982); and Stephen Wilson, ed., Saints and Their Cults: Studies in Religious Sociology, Folklore, and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 3. Mary Clayton, The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Karen Jankulak, The Medieval Cult of St. Petroc (Woodbridge, Suff.: Boydell, 2000); and Katherine J. Lewis, The Cult of St. Katherine of Alexandria in Late Medieval England (Woodbridge, Suff.: Boydell, 2000). 4. Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn, eds., Interpreting Cultural Symbols: Saint Anne in Late Medieval Society (Albany: University of Georgia Press, 1991); and Jacqueline Jenkins and Katherine J. Lewis, St. Katherine of Alexandria: Texts and Contexts in Western Europe (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003). 5. Karen Winstead, Virgin Martyrs: Legends of Sainthood in Late Medieval England (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997); Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Saints’ Lives and Women’s Literary Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); and Maud Burnett McInerney, Eloquent Virgins from Thecla to Joan of Arc (New York: Palgrave, 2003).
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of hagiographical writings to historical or literary texts.6 Scholars have used a variety of approaches, focusing their work on hagiographical sources, disciplinary objectives, or theoretical understandings of the past and present. All, in some form or other, have provided an entrée into the culture of medieval religious devotion. In effect, scholars are reshaping our understanding of medieval religiosity by investigating the ways in which the cult of saints “makes meaning” for devotees.7 The great majority of this scholarship focuses on universal saints, particularly when attention has been focused on late medieval English devotion.8 Native saints, those who are venerated only in the locality or region where they lived, or where their remains were interred, have received some attention, as books on the Anglo-Saxon cults of Mildrith, Cuthbert, and Swithun attest.9 Still, there is a great deal of evidence regarding insular devotional practice, both before and after the Conquest, that has not been assessed and still less regarding early cults that survived or were reinvigorated post-Conquest. Toward this end, I have focused this study on Æthelthryth of Ely (d. 679), who was the most important native female saint in England and one of the most significant of all native English saints.10 6. Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, “Saints’ Lives as a Source for the History of Women, 500 –1100,” in Medieval Women and the Sources of Medieval History, ed. Joel Rosenthal (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1990), 285 –320; and Sherry Reames, “A Recent Discovery Concerning the Sources of Chaucer’s ‘Second Nun’s Tale,’” Modern Philology 87 (1990): 337– 61. 7. Sarah Beckwith, Christ’s Body: Identity, Culture, and Society in Late Medieval Writings (New York: Routledge, 1993), 3, uses this term to illustrate that “the study of symbolic forms needs to be understood in the context of social and political differentiation of unequal power.” I invoke the term here to demonstrate that saints’ cults are used to make meaning of religious, political, social, literary, and economic ideas. Representations of saints, no matter the form, are repositories of intention and as such are designed to convey meaning to specific audiences. What those audiences receive, and indeed what those audiences bring to their understanding of these representations, also shapes meaning, perhaps ideas never intended by the producers themselves. 8. Catherine Cubitt makes a similar distinction in “Universal and Local Saints in Anglo-Saxon England,” in Local Saints and Local Churches in the Early Medieval West, ed. Alan Thacker and Richard Sharpe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 423 –53. 9. D. W. Rollason, The Mildrith Legend: A Study in Early Medieval Hagiography in England (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1982); Gerald Bonner et al., eds., St. Cuthbert, His Cult and His Community to A.D. 1200 (Woodbridge, Suff.: Boydell & Brewer, 1988); and Michael Lapidge, The Cult of St. Swithun (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). See also Antonia Harbus, Helena of Britain in Medieval Legend (Woodbridge, Suff.: D. S. Brewer, 2002); and Jankulak, Medieval Cult of St. Petroc. Two texts that demonstrate the wealth of native cults are Susan J. Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England: A Study of West Saxon and East Anglian Cults (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); and D. W. Rollason, Saints and Relics in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989). 10. Throughout the medieval era, Æthelthryth’s name appears spelled in a variety of ways, including Æ4el2ry2 in Old English, Etheldreda and Ethelred in Latin, and Audrée in
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Spanning a nine-hundred-year period, her cult boasts a mass of evidence to document this saint’s popularity, and this collection permits us to examine the reasons that Æthelthryth became such an important signifier for medieval communities from vastly different time periods and social classes. Hagiographical narratives, monastic charters, liturgical texts, miracle stories, estate litigation, shrine accounts, and visual representations collectively testify that the story of Æthelthryth was an important part of the cultural landscape in medieval England. The abbess was made famous by Bede, who relates that she was an East Anglian princess who had resisted the conjugal demands of two political marriages to maintain her virginity. The early eighth-century historian quotes eyewitness testimony regarding Æthelthryth’s chastity within marriage before recording that she divorced her second husband, King Ecgfrith of Northumbria, and forfeited her royal position to become a nun. After her profession, Æthelthryth founded a monastery at Ely in 672/3, where she ruled as abbess for six years before dying of a tumor. A translation — an exhumation and reburial— of her corpse, which was accompanied by an elaborate ceremony, revealed that her body had not decayed after sixteen years and that the surgically lanced tumor had healed. Her inviolability after death was read as proof that she had maintained her virginity despite two marriages and had received God’s favor. A number of miracles, which were associated with the original shroud and coffin in which she was buried, provided further proof of her sanctity.11 Æthelthryth’s story contains a series of cultural signs—royal asceticism, political marriage, conjugal chastity, monastic patronage, bodily incorruption, maternal nourishment—that deserve examination.12 Narratives about the saint are fixated on embodiment: the body as a physical object, the wondrous body, the virginal body, the chaste body, the perfection of the body, the healing of the body, the body as metaphor, the body as empirical proof of holiness, the body as place, the body as referent. Moreover, each of these significations relates to historically specific concerns, such as the Anglo-Norman. In contemporary parlance, she is known in the Church of England as Saint Audrey, and her appellation is the origin of the word “tawdry,” used to describe the cheap lace that was sold at the fairs on her feast day and called Saint Audrey’s lace. Both “Æthelthryth” and “Etheldreda” have become standard spellings by scholars, but because she was an Anglo-Saxon I have opted to use the standard modern spelling of her Old English name as a reminder of the saint’s origins. 11. Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (1969; reprint, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 390 –401. 12. For a similar discussion of cultural symbols, see Beckwith, Christ’s Body.
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developing Anglo-Saxon church, the ideological project of the Benedictine Reforms, and institutional sovereignty during the Norman Conquest. Æthelthryth’s body also does cultural work as a site of vanity, pollution, disease, confession, and transformation. These are but a few of the ways the body operates as a signifier in the texts produced to honor her memory, be they written, aural, or visual. In truth, the extensive history of textual production of this cult illustrates the complex ways the imagery of the saint could be recrafted, depending on social or political circumstance. Thus, the methodology that underpins Signs of Devotion demonstrates how we can organize resources from various disciplines to highlight the responses and attitudes toward saints in widely divergent historical moments, and how these can be charted as a means of recording venerative practices and religious belief over time. While Signs of Devotion is hugely indebted to other investigations of sanctity, virginity, and religious practice, it is distinctive within the field of hagiographical research. This monograph is the first longitudinal study of an early Anglo-Saxon cult, providing critical analyses of both written and visual texts dating from the early eighth century to the destruction of the saint’s shrine at the Reformation.13 In examining the production and reception of texts, I demonstrate how one national figure provides a central point of investigation among the cultic practices of several disparate groups over an extended period of time — religious and lay, aristocratic and common, male and female, literate and nonliterate. This study finds that the figure of Æthelthryth became a malleable—indeed, a multivalent—image that could be readily adapted by a variety of medieval groups, but, more important, it reveals the particular devotional practices of these groups.14 My intent here is to uncover the ways in which a regional female saint’s body operates as a cultural signifier in several different historical periods, among quite divergent audiences, using a variety of data: vitae, miracle stories, liturgy, and visual representations. By centering the discussion around issues of textual production and reception, these chapters provide illustrative commentary on English hagiography, cultural belief, and devotional practice. 13. Three similar studies are Lapidge’s Cult of St. Swithun, Harbus’s Helena of Britain in Medieval Legend, and Jankulak’s Medieval Cult of St. Petroc. 14. Richard Marks has shown how images of saints are multivalent and therefore dependent “upon a whole range of cultural determinants affecting both the image . . . and the viewer.” See Image and Devotion in Late Medieval England (Thrupp, Gloucestershire: Sutton, 2004), 25 –37.
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Table 1. Chronology of selected events in the life and cult of Æthelthryth before 654 ca. 660 671/2 672/3 23 June 679 695 695 –731 731 ca. 970 971–984 992 –998 10th c. 1071 11th c. 17 Oct. 1107 1109 1116 –31 1131–74 ca. 1200 17 Sept. 1252
ca. 1300 1322 –28 ca. 1400 1455 late 15th c. 1450 –1550 1539
Æthelthryth’s marriage to Tondberht Æthelthryth’s marriage to Ecgfrith Æthelthryth enters monastery at Coldingham Æthelthryth founds monastery at Ely as double house for women and men Æthelthryth dies First translation of Æthelthryth’s coffin; undecayed body found Bede composes hymn in honor of Æthelthryth Bede finishes Ecclesiastical History, which includes a Latin hymn and a Latin prose account of Æthelthryth’s life Æthelwold and Edgar refound Ely monastery for men only Benedictional of St. Æthelwold produced, including first known illustration of Æthelthryth Ælfric translates Bede’s account into Old English Æthelthryth’s feast day appears in calendars and martyrologies Revolt at Ely, led by Hereward; William seizes monastic properties Æthelthryth’s translation feast begins to appear in calendars Second translation; Æthelthryth’s sarcophagus moved into new Norman church Diocese of Ely formed Gregory of Ely writes his verse life Liber Eliensis compiled, including an expanded prose narrative of Æthelthryth’s life in Latin and a new set of miracles Marie translates the life of Æthelthryth in the Liber Eliensis into Anglo-Norman Third translation; Æthelthryth’s shrine moved into new presbytery; Henry III present and the cathedral is dedicated to Peter, Mary, and Æthelthryth Epitome of Æthelthryth’s life included in the South English Legendary Octagon built, pictorial cycle of Æthelthryth’s life carved on capitals above monks’ choir Pilgrimage at Ely peaks Pictorial cycle on altar retable painted Alabasters depicting scenes from Æthelthryth’s life carved Images of Æthelthryth on parish roodscreens abound Dissolution of Ely monastery; Dean and Chapter of Ely formed
Begun after the elevation and translation of the saint’s body in 695, the cult developed because of Bede’s investment in presenting Æthelthryth as a central figure of the emerging Anglo-Saxon church. (See Table 1 for a historical overview of the cult.) After waxing and waning during this turbulent, early period, the cult flourished after the Norman Conquest and was well supported until the dissolution of the monasteries in the early sixteenth century. Few English cults survived long enough to support the type of
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inquiry taken up in this book, and far too many scholars have been bound by the periodic division that separates Anglo-Saxon studies from late medieval scholarship. It is significant that the cult of Æthelthryth is particularly suited to a chronological and multidisciplinary study, in no small part because the saint was venerated for more than nine hundred years. The Saxon cult was invigorated by the support of influential figures, such as Bede in the early eighth century and Bishop Æthelwold and King Edgar in the late tenth century. Once the cult was adopted by the Normans in the late eleventh century, the Isle of Ely became an important locus of institutional power, and as such the monastic center promoted its own political and economic interests using stories and architectural programs to illustrate the saint’s power, agency, and autonomy. In addition, we find throughout parish churches iconographical survivals that demonstrate the influence of this cult in lay communities of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The collective textual and visual evidence, which is abundant, illustrates how devotion to the saint was changed or modified over a significant period of history: at one moment, Æthelthryth is characterized as a model of chastity that Anglo-Saxon lay men could emulate; at another, she is presented as the patron who wreaks vengeance on those who abuse her properties during the Norman Conquest; and at still another, she is the pious aristocratic woman who successfully negotiates the social demands of marriage, even as she uses her dower properties to support the development of nunneries. Through these portraits, we learn a great deal about the producers and consumers of this cult — and, by extension, we can examine the changing nature of English devotional practice over time. In effect, Signs of Devotion reveals how medieval people actively adapted cults to their own purposes, and these revelations allow us to consider the complex ways in which devotional figures could be utilized for both religious and nonreligious reasons. What is more, this approach suggests that while saints were perceived as intermediaries between petitioners and God, they could also be recast as intelligible signs that devotees used to negotiate the social, economic, and political aspects of their daily lives. Longevity alone does not account for the value found in studying this English cult. Several other factors contribute to its selection as a model for multidisciplinary study. First, Æthelthryth was categorized in several ways: queen, widow, virgin, abbess, and saint. Each role provided multiple audiences with a means to identify with her life. Where the Ely monks valued the image of their protector saint and produced collections of miracles during the
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twelfth century to reclaim properties appropriated during the Norman invasion, aristocratic lay women seemed far more invested in Æthelthryth’s conduct as wife and patron. A vita, written in Anglo-Norman in the early thirteenth century by an aristocratic woman, seems to have been produced specifically for women who had been married before adopting a religious career. The proverbial statements included therein are framed to help a female audience imitate Æthelthryth’s choices as a patron of religious institutions. The differences between the Ely monks and the aristocratic females as promoters and as consumers of the cult illustrates well how easily this holy figure was appropriated and used to mitigate the behaviors of disparate audiences. Second, Æthelthryth’s accessibility might well account for the large number of vitae, or saints’ lives, that survive about her. At least twenty-five versions exist, and the differences between them hint at the various groups who embraced this cult. Table 2 offers a chronological overview of the vitae associated with this cult, and it indicates the author of each, if known, the manuscripts or modern edition in which it can be found, and the language and form in which it is written (prose is assumed unless otherwise indicated). The existence of so many narratives, all deriving ultimately from Bede’s account, is evidence of the significance of this cult from its inception through the Reformation. Some lives were written in Latin, clearly for monastic audiences, while others were composed in Old English, AngloNorman, and Middle English. The vernacular texts appear to have been produced alternately for clerical consumption, for the edification of nuns, and for lay devotional reading. For instance, the discussion of Bishop Æthelwold’s refoundation of Ely during the Benedictine Reforms focuses on a mass blessing that accompanies a full-page miniature of the saint in the bishop’s lavishly decorated benedictional (BL, Add. ms 49598). When examined alongside an Old English life translated by Æthelwold’s student Ælfric and presented to an aristocratic lay audience, we see how Æthelthryth became the iconographic symbol of Benedictine chastity, an image of monastic piety that induced lay men to put aside their wives and join the monastic life of celibacy and piety. A comparison of these materials shows that Æthelwold was actively promoting a particular image of the saint and using her story as a means to advance the reformers’ ideals. Signs of Devotion examines, therefore, several important vitae and the context under which they were produced. Comparing the variations among these texts, moreover, allows us to see exactly how Æthelthryth was reimagined for new audiences, even as we consider why late medieval groups had such an investment in maintaining the cult of an early Saxon woman.
Ecclesiastical History of the English People, hymn Ecclesiastical History of the English People, vita Martyrologium, epitome Old English Martyrology, epitome Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, vita Lives of Saints, vita 4a halgan, vita vita Liber Eliensis, book 1, vita (multiple manuscripts) vita vita, verse La Vie Seinte Audrée, vita, octasyllabic couplets vita, rhyming prose vita, booklet drawn from Liber Eliensis
Bede
Bede
Bede
——— ———
Ælfric ——— Goscelin Richard of Ely
———
Gregory of Ely
Marie
———
———
before 731
ca. 731
early 8th c.
9th c. late 9th c.
992 –998 early 11th c. 11th c. early 12th c.
12th c.
12th c.
ca. 1200
13th c.
late 13th c.– early 14th c.
1
2
3
4 5
6 7 8 9
10
11
12
13
14
Table 2. Vitae Ætheldredæ
Latin
Latin
Anglo-Norman
Latin
BL, MS Cotton Tiberius D.iii, fols. 232v–233v BL, MS Cotton Domitian XV, fols. 8r–95r
London, Gray’s Inn, MS 3, fols. 143v–145 ed. Pauline Thompson & Elizabeth Stevens ed. Östen Södergård
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Latin
ed. Walter Skeat ed. Felix Liebermann lost ed. E. O. Blake
ed. Bertram Colgrave & R. A. B. Mynors ed. Bertram Colgrave & R. A. B. Mynors ed. Jacques Dubois & Geneviève Renaud ed. George Herzfeld ed. Thomas Miller
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Old English Old English Latin Latin
Old English Old English
Latin
Latin
Latin
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Latin
Santilogium Angliae, vita (reordered during 15th c. as Nova Legenda Anglie and printed in 1516) vita South English Legendary, epitome, verse (3 manuscripts)
vita vita, translation of Legenda Aurea vita, quatrains vita vita, metrical Kalendre of the Newe Legende of Englande, translation of vita in Nova Legenda Anglie The Holy Lyfe and History of Saynt Werburge, epitome, rime royal Lives of Women Saints of Our Contrie of England, vita drawn from Nova Legenda Anglie
John of Tynemouth
——— ———
———
Osbern Bokenham ——— ———
———
Richard Pynson
Henry Bradshaw
Ralph or Robert Buckland
before 1349
14th c. 14th c.
14th c.
ca. 1420 ca. 1420 1450 –1500
15th c.
printed 1516
printed 1521
1610 –15
16
17 18
19
20 21 22
23
24
25
26
English
English
English
Latin
ed. Carl Horstmann
ed. Carl Horstmann
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English English English
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Latin
BL, Lansdowne MS 436, fols. 34r–36v BL, Egerton MS 1993, fols. 163r–163v (1325 –50), Bodley MS Eng. Poet.1.a, fols. 33r–33v (“Vernon” ca. 1385), and Bodley MS 779, fols. 279v–280r (ca. 1400) Dublin, Trinity College MS 172, pp. 259 –75 Melrose, Scotland Abbotsford Library ed. Carl Horstmann Cambridge, CUL Add. MS 2604, fols. 52v–59r Oxford, Trinity College, MS 7, fols. 12r–16r ed. Manfred Görlach
Pembroke College, Cambridge MS 277, fols. 340v–343r ed. Carl Horstmann
Latin English
Latin
Legenda Aurea, vita
———
early 14th c.
10
15
Table 2. (cont’d) Vitae Ætheldredæ
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Third, dedications to Æthelthryth (of parishes, chantries, guilds, and altar lights) indicate how this regional saint was received as a national saint, particularly by those who had little or no access to devotional reading material or to the promotional documents of the cult center. Cultural literacies have been the focus of much scholarship, and, as many have argued, literacy is defined by one’s ability to interpret the community’s signs. Because saints were featured prominently in ecclesiastical ornamentation, they provide an avenue to examine the issues of literacy; religious rituals of devotion demonstrate how these saints were received and understood as cultural icons. My investigation of the iconography of the virginal, female body is not, however, concerned with the emblematic attributes that identify a saint. Instead, iconography here is also understood as part of the semiotic system that is the medieval cult of Æthelthryth. Locating the transformations of these images also demonstrates that there are sociohistorical and sociopolitical concerns that are uniquely linked to the context in which a narrative text or visual text is produced. The large number of surviving images in parish ornamentation, for example, illustrate that laity throughout southern England embraced Æthelthryth and, in at least one circumstance, included her in a complex narrative about virginity and purification. This portrait, which is presented on the parish roodscreen at Ranworth, Norfolk, illustrates the saint as a local incarnation of maternal virginity, an abbess who teaches about the virtues of virginity. The image of Æthelthryth as abbess and mother exists in direct counterpoint to another of Saint Margaret, the patron saint of pregnant women. The two virgin saints’ portraits are bookends that frame the elaborate screen, containing its meanings and forcing viewers to draw the images into a collective narrative about women’s sexuality and virtue. The Ranworth roodscreen indicates that some knowledge about Æthelthryth’s role as abbess circulated among lay audiences in East Anglia. In Signs of Devotion, I am especially concerned with examining the transmission of narratives and the exchange of representation between cult center and locality, even as I focus on the ways in which laity adapted the saint’s biography for their own ends. My aim, therefore, is not to study the representations of Æthelthryth as a set of static patterns but rather to uncover the multivalent representations of this female’s body over time.15 15. Some publications that influenced my thinking on visual literacy include Barbara Abou-El-Haj, The Medieval Cult of Saints: Formations and Transformations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Mieke Bal, “On Looking and Reading: Word Image, Visual Poetics, and Comparative Arts,” Semiotica 76 (1989): 283 –320; Madeline Caviness, Visualizing
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The cult of Saint Æthelthryth, as I have suggested, provides a dynamic lens through which we can examine changing religious behaviors in early and late medieval England. The various groups who showed devotion to the saint were male and female, lay and religious, aristocratic and bourgeois. The actions and reactions of these medieval people demonstrate how the figure was appropriated and transformed in different periods and in different milieux. Tracing the cult over an extended period enables us to document how religious devotion moved from an arena controlled by monastic production to one in which laity produced and challenged the clerical tradition with their own forms of religious devotion. The results of this inquiry add to the body of scholarship that has been concerned with the role of laity in religious practice in the later Middle Ages, for the evidence provided here indicates that parishioners did not simply receive the narrative produced by the cult center but rather adapted it to meet their own needs. Signs of Devotion emphasizes the complex intersections between clerical and lay devotion, even as it highlights the very different responses presented by religious and lay devotees. Each of the chapters outlined here demonstrates, moreover, that textual production and historical context are inextricably intertwined with issues of language, author, audience, and location. What is more, each individual representation of the saint is connected to the others, so that the chapters, which can be read as discrete entities, are interrelated and show collectively a larger system of signification. While I proceed here chronologically, simply to build on the existing historical context, each of the following chapters should be considered in light of the others and in light of the semiotic analyses provided in all, for only in this comparison will the nuances of any given production become pronounced and specific. Chapter 1 analyzes the first hagiographical record about Æthelthryth, included in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (ca. 731). Bede’s presentation of Æthelthryth emphasizes how the saint’s body is tested (by marriage and asceticism), how the body is punished (by the tumor, which is
Women in the Middle Ages: Sight, Spectacle, and Scopic Economy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001); Kathleen Kamerick, Popular Piety and Art in the Late Middle Ages: Image Worship and Idolatry in England, 1350 –1500 (New York: Palgrave, 2002); Lewis, Cult of St. Katherine; Marks, Image and Devotion; Richard Marks, Stained Glass in England During the Middle Ages (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001); and Elizabeth Langsford Sears and Thelma Katrina Thomas, eds., Reading Medieval Images: The Art Historian and the Object (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002).
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lanced by a surgeon), and how the body is perfected (by God’s intervention). Specifically, this chapter discusses the wound made on Æthelthryth’s neck by the surgeon when he punctured the tumor in an effort to save her life. The wound was found healed, marked only by a scar, when the body was translated. Bede’s emphatic discussion of this scene and the miraculous healing of the body underscores the mark’s importance as a signifier. The scar not only positively identifies the holy body but also provides visual evidence of Æthelthryth’s perfection post mortem: the mark indicates how the saint’s body has been literally closed by God as evidence of Æthelthryth’s purity during her life. I argue that Bede’s rhetorical presentation of the scar as evidence of the perfected body is demonstrative of a particular need to locate sanctity within the emerging Christian community in England, and the visual evidence of body and scar are important symbols of God’s provenance there. Where the first chapter engages the origins of the cult, Chapter 2 focuses on late tenth-century devotion to Æthelthryth, which Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester encouraged during the Benedictine Reforms as a means to promote monasticism and clerical chastity. Because Æthelthryth had abdicated her throne in favor of a monastic life, she became the perfect symbol of chaste monasticism. Æthelwold’s benedictional (BL, Add. ms 49598), an elaborately decorated service book made for his personal use, includes a full-page miniature of Æthelthryth in her habit and an inscription that reads “Imago sanctae Æ4eldry4ae abbatissae ac perpetuae virginis” (The image of Saint Æthelthryth, abbess and perpetual virgin). The inscription emphasizing her virginity accompanies a blessing that stresses how those who hear Æthelwold’s prayer read aloud can emulate the life of Æthelthryth by avoiding carnality and adopting the monastic life. Later, Æthelwold’s student, Æflric, translated Bede’s life and added a short anecdote to illustrate how lay men could also adopt Æthelthryth’s choices, even after marrying and producing children. Read together, these liturgical documents illustrate a deliberate presentation of the saint’s body, one in which lay men could identify with the twice-married queen who abdicated her elite social position in favor of a spiritual vocation. In Chapter 3, I explore how the cult was used to protect the monastery at Ely during the Norman invasion. The Liber Eliensis, the monastic chronicle, describes the saint as an avenger who actively threatens those who abuse her properties, her monks, or her church. The miracle stories included in the chronicle, clearly intended as a means of self-presentation,
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demonstrate how the saint’s virginal body became a symbol for the autonomy of the island community; in effect, any attempt to seize the monastic properties was read as a metaphorical rape of the saint’s purity, which would always be thwarted by God’s intervention. The imagery of intrusion was used to resist Norman appropriation of the Isle of Ely, and William the Conqueror’s attack was read as an attempted rape of the communal body of the saint. That the saint’s body was never transgressed is important, and a scene of preservation in the face of rape became so important that the monks later inscribed the cathedral fabric with an image of the saint successfully evading the advances of her royal husband. Despite the passivity illustrated in this visual image, the monastic chronicle makes clear that Ely’s patron is not a passive victim who awaits God’s intervention. Instead, Æthelthryth is also presented as an embodied virago who will take vengeance on any who transgress against the monastic community and its holdings. An important change in signification can be seen in a verse translation of the Latin vita offered by the monks, which is the focus of Chapter 4. La Vie Seinte Audrée was written in Anglo-Norman between 1179 and 1250 c.e., likely for an aristocratic, female religious audience. Found in only one manuscript—a fourteenth-century codex held by the wealthy nunnery at Campsey Ash, Suffolk— this vita indicates how Æthelthryth’s story was appropriated by aristocratic women to define their own lives. The account, which is drawn from the Liber Eliensis, expands the story at several significant junctures to highlight the connections between the saint’s life and the lived experience of thirteenth-century aristocratic women. In particular, the narrative includes proverbial statements that call attention to the audience’s experience as married women, statements that allow the audience to imitate Æthelthryth’s patronage of religious institutions. The historiated initial that begins this life, moreover, illustrates the saint in a new way; instead of her customary emblems, Æthelthryth holds a miniature replica of her church and gestures at it as she recounts her story from a book on the lectern. In effect, the image shows Æthelthryth teaching other aristocratic women about her life, even as the narrator of this life encourages these women to adopt the saint’s choices. This chapter ends with a discussion of the imitative practices of one aristocratic woman, Isabella Beauchamp Ufford (d. 1416), who likely heard this text read aloud at Campsey Ash Priory after she made a vow of chastity there and who may well have read the signs of foundation and patronage provided by Marie’s vie.
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Chapter 5 extends the discussion of Marie’s Vie Seinte Audrée by examining the circulation of texts written in the vernacular and the production of visual texts that complemented these narratives. Focused on accounts written in Middle English—specifically those included in the South English Legendary (mid-thirteenth century), an anonymous vita written in quatrains and associated with the nunnery of Wilton Abbey (early fifteenth century), and The Kalendre of the Newe Legende of Englande (printed in 1516)—this chapter discusses the ways in which the cult was presented to the religious and lay devotees in late medieval England. Of primary importance here are the connections between vernacular narratives and nonaristocratic lay responses, for this chapter considers how secular readers had access to these narratives and why these texts were deemed important for lay consumers. Evidence of lay knowledge comes from the visual texts produced by parishioners to honor the saint. In the Appendix, I provide a list of the known visual images of Æthelthryth, which number well over one hundred. Commissioned by laity for use in communal and private devotions, most of these images are found in the naves of parish churches. The late fifteenth-century painting of Æthelthryth at Ranworth, in particular, reveals that parishioners had some access to the content of these vernacular narratives, for the parish incorporated a lesser known detail from Bede’s account into a larger narrative about women’s sexuality. Chapter 5, therefore, examines this visual text alongside vernacular redactions of Bede and demonstrates that lay devotion to the saint as maternal nourisher both mimicked and challenged, and at times, transformed the presentations offered by clerical writers. These chapters collectively demonstrate the iconic and symbolic values of Æthelthryth in medieval culture. Because Æthelthryth was the most important native female saint, an analysis of her cult offers a useful commentary on English devotional practices and the importance of regional figures to native audiences. I would not claim that the cult is representative of those produced for native saints or that the representations of her are a means to understand the cults of native women, but I do contend that this study complicates our understanding of medieval religiosity and broaches a discussion about the differences between devotion to universal saints and veneration of native figures. While it would be too easy to attribute the medieval interest in Æthelthryth to a sense of nationalistic pride (though this is in evidence in all of the texts), we need to consider why native cults were so important in England and how they, as religious systems of signification,
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were utilized in daily life. As Jocelyn Wogan-Browne asserts, those of us who study hagiography must be aware of the gaps between authors and their texts, authors and their audiences, and the texts and ourselves.16 These gaps complicate our ability to read medieval texts outside the historical place and time in which they were produced, but in focusing on hagiographical writings as ones structured to provide meaning and as ones that convey meaning regardless of the producers’ intentions, we are better able to assess the iconic relations of these cultural signs, their correlations, and their associations with other sign systems.
16. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, “Queens, Virgins, and Mothers: Hagiographic Representations of the Abbess and Her Powers in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Britain,” in Women and Sovereignty, ed. Louise Olga Fradenburg, Cosmos no. 7 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1992), 14 –35.
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one Cicatricis uestigia parerent: The Mark of Virginity in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History (ca. 630 – ca. 731)
Cuius consortio cum XII annis uteretur, perpetua tamen mansit uirginitatis integritate gloriosa. . . . Nec diffidendum est nostra etiam aetate fieri potuisse, quod aeuo praecedente aliquoties factum fideles historiae narrant, donante uno eodemque Domino, qui se nobiscum usque in finem saeculi manere pollicetur. Nam etiam signum diuini miraculi, quo eiusdem feminae sepulta caro corrumpi non potuit, indicio est quia a uirili contactu incorrupta durauerit. (Though [Æthelthryth] lived with [Ecgfrith] for twelve years she still preserved the glory of perfect virginity. . . . Nor need we doubt that this which often happened in days gone by, as we learn from trustworthy accounts, could happen in our time too through the help of the Lord, who has promised to be with us even to the end of the age. And the divine miracle whereby her flesh would not corrupt after she was buried was token and proof that she had remained uncorrupted by contact with any man.)1
In his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Bede includes two accounts of Æthelthryth’s life, one written in prose, the second a hymn composed in honor of virginity. This narrative is featured, in part, because Æthelthryth was the first wife of Ecgfrith, the patron of Wearmouth-Jarrow, Bede’s monastic home, and it begins with their royal marriage. More important to this Northumbrian writer, however, is Æthelthryth’s conjugal chastity and her subsequent career as abbess of Ely. (See Map 1 for these geographical locations.) As the epigraph indicates, he is most impressed by the queen’s ability to retain her virginity, and the vita is designed to document her sexual purity. Bede asserts that God’s power is indicated by a miracle performed on Æthelthryth’s body: when the queen’s corpse is disinterred sixteen years after her death, it is found to be perfectly intact. As a result, the monk has great reverence for this queen who renounced her throne to serve 1. Bede, EH, 390 –93.
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God, comparing her virginity to that of universal saints, such as Agatha, Thecla, Agnes, and Cecilia. What is more, he takes enormous pride in claiming Æthelthryth as a saint of the emerging Anglo-Saxon church. Preserving one’s virginity for God, he maintains, is not an archaic practice of early Christianity. His statement “Nor need we doubt that this . . . could happen in our time too” echoes a verse written in the hymn he composed in the saint’s honor: “Nostra quoque egregia iam tempora uirgo beauit; / Aedilthryda nitet nostra quoque egregia” (Nor lacks our age its æthelthryth as well; / Its virgin wonderful nor lacks our age).2 The reassurance that miracles are not a phenomenon of the past is a major reason Æthelthryth is featured so prominently in this history. Identifying figures of sanctity to demonstrate God’s efficacy is one of Bede’s goals in the Ecclesiastical History, and as he recounts the political history of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, he features local luminaries who have served the Christian community. Æthelthryth is but one of several celebrated saints included, yet Bede distinguishes her by offering the two versions in imitation of scriptural practice.3 Furthermore, he stresses that he has received proof of the twicemarried saint’s virginity, identifying three important figures who witnessed the translation of the incorrupted corpse: Bishop Wilfrid of York, the abbess’ spiritual adviser; Cynefrith, her physician; and Seaxburh, Æthelthryth’s sister and successor as abbess of Ely. It is significant that Bede does not regularly identify his sources when recounting the lives of native saints, a practice that may indicate that these narratives originated with him.4 When a writer establishes the parameters for a hagiographical subject, he inscribes the life with a set of cultural norms and expectations.5 An examination of Bede’s participation in hagiographic discourse shows that he reworks models established in early Christianity. Of those honored, ecclesiastical and royal figures are preeminent, and the presentation demonstrates 2. Bede, EH, 398 –99. 3. Bede, EH, 396 –401. 4. Several scholars have commented on Bede’s documentary practices, including Clare A. Lees and Gillian R. Overing, “Birthing Bishops and Fathering Poets: Bede, Hild, and the Relations of Cultural Production,” Exemplaria 6 (1994): 35 – 65; and Joel T. Rosenthal, “Bede’s Use of Miracles in ‘The Ecclesiastical History,’” Traditio 31 (1975): 328 –35. For other discussions of Bede’s sources, see Dorothy Whitelock, “The Pre-Viking Age Church in East Anglia,” Anglo-Saxon England 1 (1972): 1–22; D. P. Kirby, “Bede’s Native Sources for the Historia Ecclesiastica,” John Rylands Library 48 (1966): 341–71; and Colgrave’s introduction to his edition of Bede, EH, xvii–xxxviii. 5. Thomas D. Hill, “Imago Dei: Genre, Symbolism, and Anglo-Saxon Hagiography,” in Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints’ Lives and Their Contexts, ed. Paul E. Szarmach (Albany: SUNY Press, 1996), 35 –50 at 36.
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Map 1. Sites associated with Æthelthryth’s cult in Anglo-Saxon England
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how each contributed to the birth and growth of Christianity in AngloSaxon England. Bede also indicates that his subjects are worthy of imitation, suggesting that laity and religious alike have models that they can and should emulate. His purpose, therefore, is to encourage his readers to take pride in their church heritage and to imitate the saints as well as they could. What follows here is a discussion of Bede’s position as historian and his textual authority in hagiographic narratives. The first section compares Bede’s presentation of the life of Æthelthryth with his account of her kinswoman, Hild, abbess of Whitby. Examining these two narratives allows us to see how Bede perceives the ecclesiastical contributions of these women, even as the differences between the two offer some insight regarding his position as narrator in the Life of Æthelthryth. In the second section, we see how Bede relies on the testimony of others to document the events of Æthelthryth’s life—a move he does not make in the Life of Hild. The repeated insistence on the veracity of this narrative is striking, and a close reading of both the prose and the verse accounts reveals the historian’s prescriptive authority in these texts.6 Finally, the chapter concludes with an analysis of Bede’s hymn in honor of virginity and presents a reading of the contents of book four to illustrate a rhetorical strategy that positions him as the authority on AngloSaxon sanctity.
Royal Abbesses and Bede’s Textual Authority Bede’s position as the author of the Ecclesiastical History allows him to shape our understanding of Anglo-Saxon cultural history. By including a number of holy figures (both female and male), Bede made a major contribution to the formation of Saxon discourse regarding sanctity, and his presentation of women in particular shifted the emphasis from veneration of virgin martyrs to celebrations of local royal women who could be included in the company of virgins like Agatha and Agnes and others who did not fit that hagiographical model. Bede’s interest in Æthelthryth and Hild marked them as two of the most significant women in late seventh-century Northumbrian society. Both were influential royal women whose participation in the development of monasteries gave them a powerful social position, and their vitae figure prominently in book four of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, in what has been 6. Donald K. Fry notes that Bede utilizes several literary tools to convince the reader of his veracity in “The Art of Bede II: The Reliable Narrator as Persona,” Acta 6 (1979): 63 – 82 at 64.
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called the “book of the abbesses.”7 Although Æthelthryth was an East Anglian and Hild a Northumbrian, they were second cousins by marriage. Hild was first cousin to Oswiu, King of Northumbria. Oswiu’s son, Ecgfrith, married Æthelthryth, making her Queen of Northumbria when the prince inherited the throne in 670. In addition, Hild’s sister, Hereswith, was also married to Æthelric, brother to Æthelthryth’s father. Because their families had often intermarried and because both had spent time in the other’s natal lands, it is more than reasonable to believe that the women knew one another well and were in some way cognizant of their mutual work as leaders of monastic communities. My intention here is to discuss the ways that Hild and Æthelthryth demonstrate acceptable religious behavior for aristocratic women. In Bede’s narrative, Hild is a maternal figure who supported an abbey that produced prominent male leaders. Æthelthryth, by contrast, renounced her position as queen to become a nun and was later elected abbess of a monastery she built at Ely. Both women contributed to the development of the English church, yet they are celebrated in Bede’s text less for their patronage of monastic houses than for their positions as spiritual leaders. Anglo-Saxon aristocratic lay women, by law and by social custom, held positions of power, maintaining and expanding their own material wealth; the role of abbess was also a position of social, economic, and sometimes political power as well.8 Monastic life offered women some advantages over the secular world: education as well as the education of others, power within the hierarchy of the church, and local governance over the estates of the monastic community.9 The church actively promoted a space of opportunity, 7. Lees and Overing, “Birthing Bishops and Fathering Poets,” 61 at n. 53. Æthelburh of Barking and Æbbe of Coldingham are two other abbesses whose accounts Bede gives in EH, book 4. 8. Three studies of Anglo-Saxon women are crucial to my work: Christine Fell, Women in Anglo-Saxon England and the Impact of 1066 (London: British Museum Publications, 1984); Stephanie Hollis, Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church: Sharing a Common Fate (Woodbridge, Suff.: Boydell Press, 1992), 1–14; and Dagmar Beate Schneider, “Anglo-Saxon Women in the Religious Life: A Study of the Status and Position of Women in an Early Mediaeval Society” (Ph.D. diss., University of Cambridge, 1985). 9. Schneider, Anglo-Saxon Women in the Religious Life,” 264 –70, indicates that the position of abbess was similar to a secular lord, while Lees and Overing, “Birthing Bishops and Fathering Poets,” provide a discussion of women’s education. See also Lina Eckenstein, Woman Under Monasticism: Chapters on Saint-Lore and Convent Life Between A.D. 500 and A.D. 1500 (New York: Russell & Russell, 1963); and Carol Neuman De Vegvar, “Saints and Companions to Saints: Anglo-Saxon Royal Women Monastics in Context,” in Holy Men and Holy Women, ed. Szarmach, 51–93.
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power, and privilege specifically designed for royal women by placing them as leaders of double houses. Some scholars have argued that abbatial positions were designed as extensions of dynastic power, and we might therefore see the role of abbess as one in which women could exert not only social but also political influence.10 Despite the real opportunities for leadership within their communities and among their families, abbesses have at times been characterized as passive placeholders of dynastic property. Clare A. Lees and Gillian R. Overing have argued that Bede represents Hild as a passive participant within the patriarchal reproduction of literacy, for it is Hild who receives and cultivates Cædmon’s talent at singing but remains nameless when Bede recounts the miracle. Lees and Overing argue that the description of Cædmon as the first author of Old English poetry and that the presentation of this account in book four places Cædmon within Bede’s master narrative, thereby situating the author at the origins of culture because he is defining and recording it for his readers. When detailing Hild’s life, Bede first describes Hild’s position as abbess of three separate communities: Heruteu, Kælcacæstir, and Streonæshalch or Whitby; Bede then lists the five great bishops who emerged from her monastery at Whitby: Bosa, Ætla, Oftfor, John, and Wilfrid II. As Lees and Overing observe, Hild’s death is recorded before the story of Cædmon, and the effect is a silencing of Hild; the placement of the miracle after her death, they maintain, undermines her participation within the production of literary culture. Bede records that the abbess was responsible for mentoring Cædmon, but he does not make clear that she is Hild and that her role was one of education and spiritual direction.11 Even Cædmon’s vernacular song receives little recognition; Bede provides only a loose Latin translation of the original, which he has identified as the first poem in Old English. Bede gives himself, therefore, “a place at the originary 10. Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg observes that royal families used monastic foundations as an extension of their households and, in controlling the election of abbesses, maintained control over the properties. “Female Sanctity: Public and Private Roles, ca. 500 –1100,” in Women and Power in the Middle Ages, ed. Mary Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988), 102 –25 at 107– 8. On the political aspects of the abbess’ role, see also Barbara Yorke, Nunneries and the Anglo-Saxon Royal Houses (London: Continuum, 2003); Mary Bateson, Origin and Early History of Double Monasteries (London, 1899), 137–98; and Sarah Foot, Veiled Women, 2 vols. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000). For a topographical approach that demonstrates how monasteries, or minsters, were organized and controlled as extensions of secular concerns, see John Blair, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 11. Bede, EH, 418 –19.
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moment, which is an a priori moment of cultural production — enacted between Cædmon and God, channeled through Bede.”12 Bede’s co-option of the production of literary culture prompts a critical awareness of his participation in other acts of cultural development. The Northumbrian monk carefully gathered and organized his information, translated works, and circulated a history that was infused with the discourse of sanctity.13 The wide circulation of his Latin text, in which he defines the significant events of insular history, made Bede the most important historian of Anglo-Saxon culture. His intention in writing is clearly articulated in a preface addressed to King Ceolwulf: “Siue enim historia de bonis bona referat, ad imitandum bonum auditor sollicitus instigatur” (Should history tell of good men and their good estate, the thoughtful listener is spurred on to imitate the good).14 The Ecclesiastical History includes, therefore, descriptions of good and bad kings, stories of the saints, and narratives about royal women religious, such as Hild and Æthelthryth, whose lives illustrate not only the history of Christianity in England but also appropriate Christian behavior. Bede calls his book of saints “the histories of the holy ones” (historiis sanctorum). This nomenclature reveals his understanding of ecclesiastical and hagiographical history. What is produced here, in Bede’s view, does not belong to the realm of legend or myth. Rather, the miraculous events of the saints document the growth of the Christian church in Britain; each of these stories demonstrates God’s abundant power and his favor for this new church. The hagiographer’s purpose, therefore, is to edify and to glorify that which is true history.15 Through this ecclesiastical lens, saints’ lives and bishops’ deeds are as worthy, if not more so, as the lives of kings and queens. Furthermore, it is not enough to remember the saints and bishops of antiquity, but Bede must widely circulate the lives of English people worthy of 12. Lees and Overing, “Birthing Bishops and Fathering Poets,” 41. See also Allen J. Frantzen, Desire for Origins: New Language, Old English, and Teaching the Tradition (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1990), 137–44. 13. R. H. C. Davis notes that the presence of roughly 160 known manuscripts denotes the relative popularity of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. In “Bede After Bede,” Studies in Medieval History Presented to R. Allen Brown, ed. Christopher Harper-Bill et al. (Woodbridge, Suff.: Boydell Press, 1989), 103 –16 at 104 –5. One immediate recipient, Bede claims, was King Ceolwulf, who had read the history and wanted it disseminated, 2 –3. 14. Bede, EH, 2 –3. 15. Bede, EH, 6 –7. See also Thomas W. Mackay, “Bede’s Hagiographical Method: His Knowledge and Use of Paulinus of Nola,” in Famulus Christi, ed. Gerald Bonner (London: SPCK, 1976), 77–92 at 87– 88.
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veneration — an act that again identifies the increasing power of God in England, even as it justifies Bede’s textual authority. In recounting Hild’s life, Bede does not even hint at the difficulties the abbess may have encountered when, at the Synod of Whitby, she supported the Irish contingent against her kinsman who chose to adopt the Roman rite. Bede’s representation focuses instead on the great men who emerged from her monastic house and the important role they played in cultural politics. With Æthelthryth, moreover, Bede is less interested in her foundation at Ely or the political problems that arose when she divorced Ecgfrith than in Æthelthryth’s likeness to the Virgin Mary, the perfect female.16 By selectively representing the lives of the female saints within a larger context of royal and ecclesiastical political negotiations, Bede omits the interplay between the church and the secular power structures at a time when both were highly precarious institutions. Bede is bound by the traditions of hagiography, yet he creates a narrative in which royalty determined the fate of Anglo-Saxon Christianity, and in so doing he demonstrates appropriate gendered behavior for abbesses, who are rarely shown interacting in political arenas. Focusing on royal women like Hild and Æthelthryth allows Bede to demonstrate, as well as celebrate, the iconic roles of mother or virgin without engaging the roles royal women played in the Christian conversion of England and the development of the church. Where secondary and tertiary histories support or refute the hagiographic stories of royal men, Bede’s text operates as the central, and almost singular, representation of early Anglo-Saxon royal women. That Bede saw women’s roles as important is evident in his general discussions of their ecclesiastical positions, but Bede rarely comments on their political influence and infrequently describes their specific ecclesiastical contributions, favoring instead demonstrations of piety and sanctity. In this way, Bede conforms to the traditional hagiographic discourse that promoted the social interactions of male saints as preachers and confessors but repeatedly demonstrated the sanctity of women through the purity of their bodies or their associations with male saints. Drawing on this older tradition of hagiography, Bede created a textual tradition for the Anglo-Saxon church, a tradition that included preacher/ 16. For a detailed examination of Mary in the period, see Clayton, Cult of the Virgin Mary, and “Centralism and Uniformity Versus Localism and Diversity: The Virgin and Native Saints in the Monastic Reform,” Peritia 8 (1994): 95 –106. A more general discussion is Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary (1976; reprint, New York: Vintage, 1983).
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confessors like Cuthbert, and virgins such as Æthelthryth; it is significant that Hild does not fit the sexual prerequisite of virginity, though she is highly praised for her service.17 Bede’s articulation of chaste behavior for English saints offers a textual basis by which he judged the success of his church. As his verse and prose accounts of Æthelthryth show, he developed a new model of virginal behavior, one that imitated and transformed the lives of early Christian virgins. Bede’s hymn to Æthelthryth survives as a coda to the prose life in book four. Written before Bede’s Ecclesiastical History— and thus, before the composition of Cædmon’s Hymn — the hymn establishes the historian at the origins of English hagiographic culture. In effect, as Bede detailed the sanctity of a native saint, he could articulate strong connections between his church, the early Christian tradition, and his liturgical contributions. In so doing, he also offered a new discourse of virginity, in which a woman could fulfill her royal duties and in which she could directly affect the church’s development through her leadership of royal monasteries. In order to understand how Bede establishes his authority, it is necessary to examine how he has culturally inscribed the body of Æthelthryth as virginal, discounting for the most part her political and social activities as an East Anglian princess, a Northumbrian queen, a landholder, and a builder of a monastic dynasty at Ely. While the royal elements of Æthelthryth’s life position her as a holy type, it is her renowned virginity, maintained despite two marriages, that places her within an older hagiographical tradition of female sanctity.18 Unlike bishops and other holy men, the elemental details of her daily life are secondary to the posthumous realization of bodily incorruption. For Bede, Æthelthryth’s importance rests in her virginity, tested by at least one amorous husband and sustained through God. This corporeal distinction allows Bede to make connections between the early Christian virgins and Northumbrian royal women, as well as to suggest that virginity is as important (perhaps more so?) as political history. Her spiritual choices subsume the political choices made for her by others. Bede’s presentation of Æthelthryth’s life (as well as the other narratives of female saints he recounts) is significant because her social position stands to influence 17. David Rollason, “Hagiography and Politics in Early Northumbria,” in Holy Men and Holy Women, ed. Szarmach, 95 –114 at 107. See also Mary Clayton’s discussion of Bede’s life of Cuthbert, “Hermits and the Contemplative Life in Anglo-Saxon England,” in Holy Men and Holy Women, 95 –114 at 155 –56. 18. Ridyard, Royal Saints, 82.
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Bede’s audiences, both lay and clerical. Æthelthryth’s conjugal chastity and her incorruption after death distinguish her from the other royal women in Bede’s history. His veneration of Hild’s wisdom as abbess is strong, but his account is not filled with the miraculous deeds she performed. Hild’s contribution is as the mother of bishops, whereas the strength of the cult of Æthelthryth rests on her virginity —which was an important ideal for patristic writers and an ideal Bede upheld in the Ecclesiastical History. The importance of virginity lies in the canonical hierarchy of female chastity: virginity, widowhood, and marriage. Patristic authors, such as Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine, ranked the heavenly rewards of these three states: a virgin was to receive the hundredfold; the widow, sixtyfold; the wife, thirtyfold.19 The stories of some women demonstrate how narrow, or even insufficient, the boundaries of this rigid classification were. As Stephanie Hollis has so succinctly noted, many women, despite the displeasure of Archbishop Theodore about the practice, left their husbands for the monastic life.20 The church could not afford to offend these women who so actively promoted church development through their monastic dynasties. Living chastely within marriage seemed to offer no assurance of a better reward than the conjugal state had provided, for as Aldhelm recorded, quae sicut trifaria disparis vitae qualitate singillatim sequestrantur, ita discretis meritorum ordinibus tripliciter dirimuntur angelo hoc modo alternatim distinguente, ut sit virginitas aurum, castitas argentum, iugalitas aeramentum; ut sit virginitas divitiae, castitas mediocritas, iugalitas paupertas; ut sit virginitas pax, castitas redemptio, iugalitas captivitas; ut sit virginitas sol, castitas lucerna, iugalitas tenebrae; ut sit virginitas dies, castitas aurora, iugalitas nox; ut sit virginitas regina, castitas domina, iugalitas ancilla; ut sit virginitas patria, castitas portus, iugalitas pelagus; ut sit virginitias homo, castitas semivivus, iugalitas corpus; ut sit virginitas purpura, castitas rediviva, iugalitas lana. 19. Michael Lapidge and Michael Herren, trans., Aldhelm: The Prose Works (Ipswich, Suff.: D. S. Brewer, 1979), 55. 20. Hollis provides a discussion of Æthelthryth and Archbishop Theodore’s Penitential in her Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church. For more on marriage laws and penitential codes, see Anne L. Klinck, “Anglo-Saxon Women and the Law,” Journal of Medieval History 8 (1982): 107–21; Theodore John Rivers, “Widow’s Rights in Anglo-Saxon Law,” American Journal of Legal History 19 (1975): 208 –15; and Pierre J. Payer, Sex and the Penitentials: The Development of a Sexual Code, 550 –1150 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984).
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(they are separated on three levels by the different order of their merits—with the angel distinguishing [them] in turn in this manner: so that virginity is gold, chastity silver, conjugality bronze; that virginity is riches, chastity an average income, conjugality poverty; that virginity is freedom, chastity ransom, conjugality captivity; that virginity is the sun, chastity a lamp, conjugality darkness; that virginity is day, chastity the dawn, conjugality night; that virginity is a queen, chastity a lady, conjugality a servant; that virginity is the homeland, chastity the harbour, conjugality the sea; that virginity is the living man, chastity a man half-alive, conjugality the [lifeless] body; that virginity is the royal purple, chastity the re-dyed fabric, conjugality the [undyed] wool.)21 This repetitive litany clearly separates each category from the other, leaving no doubt about which should be chosen. For a noble female audience, Aldhelm clearly indicated that the rewards they might receive were dependent on their life choices. A political situation might demand a marriage to a neighboring king, yet Christian doctrine insisted that such political interests should not figure in a woman’s decision; according to secular law, a woman had the right to refuse marriage, but what might the familial consequences be for such a choice? Writing to the women at Barking, Aldhelm was faced with this canonical crux, knowing that many of the nuns had chosen to remain chaste and had therefore left their marriages.22 His definition of chastity offered these women a prestigious place in the hierarchy, just below virgins: “castitas vero, quae pactis sponsalibus sortita matrimonii commercia regni caelestis causa contempsit” (chastity [is that] which, having been assigned to marital contracts, has scorned the commerce of matrimony for the sake of the heavenly kingdom).23 Like others before him, Aldhelm’s categorization 21. Aldhelm, De Virginitate, in Aldhelmi Opera Omnia, ed. Rudolf Ehwald (Berlin: Weidmann, 1919), 248. The translation is provided by Lapidge and Herren, Aldhelm: The Prose Works, 75. 22. Janemarie Luecke, “The Unique Experience of Anglo-Saxon Nuns,” in Peaceweavers, vol. 2 of Medieval Religious Women, ed. Lillian Thomas Shank and John A. Nichols (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1987), 55 – 65 at 61. 23. Aldhelm, De Virginitate, in Aldhelmi Opera Omnia, 249. Lapidge and Herren, Aldhelm: The Prose Works, 75. Hollis finds that Aldhelm’s conception of virginity, one that follows Augustinian doctrine, was a moral and psychological conception of virginity, as opposed to Bede’s physiological concept of Æthelthryth, at 81.
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placed married women who had avoided intercourse between virgins and widows (or between those who had never had sex and those who during their marriages had experienced the requirements of marriage), but he also emphasized the honor in chastity, because, unlike virgins, the chaste are tested and resist conjugal temptations. Michael Lapidge and Michael Herren argue that the new category of chastity allowed Aldhelm to praise by implication those Barking nuns such as Cuthburg who had spurned their marriages; at the same time it allowed him to praise “pure” virginity in traditional terms. And although “chastity” must obviously occupy an inferior position to “virginity” itself, Aldhelm was able to pay an indirect compliment to the Barking nuns by suggesting that virginity, because of its exalted station, is susceptible of pride, whereas chastity, because it starts from a lower station, is inclined to continual striving after perfection.24 Each of the classifications in this paradigm rests entirely on the engagement in or abstinence from sexual congress. Aldhelm was also one of the first patristic authors to include a list of male virgins in his text; others before him, like Ambrose, had only cataloged female virgins. Lapidge and Herren suggest that the reason for including males is that Barking was a double monastery.25 But because Aldhelm’s De Virginitate was addressed specifically to abbess Hildelith and her nuns, the text seems more focused on women’s sexual choices, not men’s. Bede’s history of Æthelthryth shows that she occupies two categories in Aldhelm’s hierarchy of women’s sexuality: a woman who, having scorned not one but two marriage beds for Christ, was both virginal and chaste.26 The indication is that Hild, on the other hand, was a widow, even though Bede does not discuss her marriage. He says simply that she spent half her life in the secular world, half in the monastic one.27 He assiduously avoids any discussion of Hild’s carnality, not even discussing how the sickness that caused her death affected her body. In contrast to Æthelthryth, whose sickness is highly described and whose monastic deeds are barely recorded, 24. Lapidge and Herren, Aldhelm: The Prose Works, 56. 25. Lapidge and Herren, Aldhelm: The Prose Works, 56 –57. 26. G. F. Browne records one of Bede’s sermons on virginity that ranked virginity and widowhood over conjugal chastity. In The Venerable Bede: His Life and Writings (London: SPCK, 1919), 252. 27. Bede, EH, 406 –7.
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Hild’s life focuses mostly on the great bishops who studied at Whitby.28 Bede’s admission of Hild’s prudence as a leader suggests his admiration, but the story of this important monastic leader does not compete with his account of Æthelthryth’s virginity. And while Æthelthryth might have performed nobly as abbess at Ely, these actions are passed over in favor of a detailed account of the saint’s purity and asceticism. Bede calls Hild a mother; he identifies Æthelthryth, by contrast, as mother to virgins.29 The canonical praise of virginity was not new to the Christian church, but Bede’s production of Æthelthryth’s life offers a standard by which all subsequent English virginity narratives would be judged. In addition to providing the beginnings of cultural literacy, as argued by Lees and Overing, Bede defines the sacrosanct in his account of Æthelthryth’s life when he praises God for the virgin’s miraculous incorruption. As we shall see, he also establishes Æthelthryth’s chastity as a cultural sign for his audience by presenting a narrative in which the physical body is inscribed with a multivalent mark. The result is a textual body, one whose virginal signs can be read and imitated. In the larger view, his narrative works to establish a new hagiographic discourse about the female body in the Christian religious tradition, one that privileges the local saint on the level of universal holy women.
Bede’s Life of Æthelthryth Only three early texts confirm details of Æthelthryth’s life: the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Stephen of Ripon’s Life of Wilfrid, and Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. In the year 673, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that Æthelthryth established a monastery, and because few women are included in the chronicle, the notice of this foundation — one of only a few building programs recorded—makes it unique: “AN..dclxxiii. Her Ecgbryht Cantwara cyning for4ferde. 7 4y geare wæs seno2 æt Heorotforda; 7 Sancte E˛4eldryht ongon 4æt mynster æt Elige” (In this year Egbert, King of Kent, passed away. The 28. Christine Fell, “Saint Æ2el4ry2: A Historical-Hagiographical Dichotomy Revisited,” Nottingham Medieval Studies 38 (1994): 18 –34, agrees that Bede’s presentation of Æthelthryth is unlike that of any other holy woman in the EH, including Hild and Æthelburh. 29. Bede, EH, 392 –93. Christine Wille Garrison notes that Bede praises Hild as he does Æthelburh of Barking, calling each “Mother of the community,” in “The Lives of St. Aetheldreda: Representation of Female Sanctity from 700 to 1300” (Ph.D. diss., University of Rochester, 1990), 37. Christine Fell also discusses Hild as a widow in “Hild, Abbess of Streonæshalch,” in Hagiography and Medieval Literature: A Symposium, ed. Hans Bekker-Nielsen et al. (Odense: Odense University Press, 1981), 76 –99.
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same year there was a synod at Hertford, and St. Æthelthryth founded the monastery at Ely).30 Regnal events are the means by which the chronicle marks time, but few women merit the distinction of being included, much less having a foundation named. Likewise, rarely are women’s death dates listed, yet the chronicle records that Æthelthryth died in 679.31 This notice further establishes her importance and suggests that she had become a wellknown figure, though both references could well have been drawn from Bede’s history and inserted into the chronicle at a later date. Following the death of Æthelthryth’s spiritual adviser in 709, Stephen of Ripon wrote an account of Wilfrid’s life, from which Bede drew much detail about the York bishop.32 The Life of Wilfrid describes an idyllic reign from the time Ecgfrith ascended the throne in 670 until 672, when Æthelthryth departed for Coldingham: In diebus autem illis Ecfrithus rex religiosus cum beatissima regina Aethiltrythae, cuius corpus vivens ante impollutum post mortem incorruptum manens adhuc demonstrat, simul in unum Wilfritho episcopo in omnibus oboedientes facti, pax et gaudium in populis et anni frugiferi victoriaeque in hostes, Deo adiuvante, subsecutae sunt. . . . [I]ta Ecfritho rege in concordia pontificis nostri vivente, secundum multorum testimonium regnum undique per victorias triumphales augebatur: concordia vero inter eos sopita et regina supradicta ab eo separata et Deo dicata, triumphus in diebus regis desinit. (Now in those days, the pious King Ecgfrith, and his most blessed Queen Aethilthryth [whose body, still remaining uncorrupted 30. The edited Old English text of the Parker Chronicle is Janet M. Bately, ed., MS A, vol. 3 of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition, ed. David Dumville and Simon Keynes (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1986), 31. The translation is provided by G. N. Garmonsway, trans., Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (1953; reprint, London: Dent, 1965), 34. The appellation “sancte” is not necessarily a testament to an early perception of Æthelthryth’s sanctity because later copies of the chronicle show that an effort was made to amend each saint name with this appellation. See also Christine Fell, “Edward King and Martyr and the Anglo-Saxon Hagiographic Tradition,” in Ethelred the Unready: Papers from the Millenary Conference, ed. David Hill (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1978), 1–13. 31. Bately, MS A, 31; and Garmonsway, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 38. 32. Stephan of Ripon, The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus, ed. Bertram Colgrave (1927; reprint, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 40 –41. In addition, the Mildred Legend, an oral tradition about the connections of the Kentish and East Anglian royal houses, survives only in later medieval accounts, and its late date makes it a questionable text regarding early historical events. For this account, see Rollason, Mildreth Legend.
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after death, shows that it was unstained before, while alive] were both obedient to Bishop Wilfrid in all things, and there ensued, by the aid of God, peace and joy among the people, fruitful years and victory over their foes. . . . [S]o when King Ecgfrith lived in peace with our bishop, the kingdom, as many bear witness, was increased on every hand by his glorious victories; but when the agreement between them was destroyed, and his queen had separated from him and dedicated herself to God, the king’s triumph came to an end during his own lifetime.)33 Only after Æthelthryth’s departure did Stephen reveal his disdain for Ecgfrith and the ensuing rift between the king and the bishop.34 This passage indicates two items of interest, one, that Stephen affords Æthelthryth agency for leaving her marriage and, two, that the writer was well aware of the tradition that Æthelthryth’s incorruption signaled her virginity. Wilfrid’s biographer also records a gift of land at Hexham that the queen gave the bishop on which to build a monastery, a donation that indicates her regard for the bishop: “Nam Inaegustaldesae, adepta regione a regina sancta Aethelthrithae Deo dicata, domum Domino in honorem sancti Andreae apostoli fabrefactam fundavit” (For in Hexham, having obtained an estate from the queen, St. Aethilthryth, the dedicated to God, he founded and built a house to the Lord in honour of St. Andrew the Apostle).35 Finished just after the Life of Wilfrid, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History draws on Stephen’s work for information about Wilfrid, but he does not extract from it any of the details about Æthelthryth.36 He claims his account comes 33. Stephen of Ripon, Life of Bishop Wilfrid, 40 –41. Stephen also says that during the years that Ecgfrith followed Wilfrid’s command, he was “unwavering in spirit and truehearted, on the advice of his counsellors trusted God, like Barak and Deborah, to guard his land and defend the churches of God even as the bishop taught him to do, and with a band of men no greater than theirs attacked a proud enemy [Wulfhere], and by the help of God, overthrew them with his tiny force,” at 42 –43. The biblical allusion to Barak and Deborah is about their triumph over Sisera ( Judges 4). Deborah, wife of Lapidoth and judge of Israel, prophesies Barak’s victory, and when Barak insists he will not make war without her, Deborah accompanies him. She says it is not for Barak’s honor that he will win but because God will deliver Sisera into a woman’s hands. Stephen’s allusion indicates a joint rule between Ecgfrith and Æthelthryth and suggests she went to war with Ecgfrith against Wulfhere and played some role in defeating him. 34. Stephen of Ripon, Life of Bishop Wilfrid, x. 35. Stephen of Ripon, Life of Bishop Wilfrid, 44 –47. 36. Colgrave indicates that Bede uses Stephen’s account of Wilfrid in his history but does not acknowledge him as a source; EH at xii and 591.
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directly from Wilfrid himself, who figures prominently in the four-part prose narrative, which includes (1) a description of Æthelthryth’s chaste marriages; (2) Æthelthryth’s religious life and her death; (3) the revelation of Æthelthryth’s incorrupt body; and (4) the geography of Ely.37 To establish the authority of his narrative, he begins by identifying the significant male figures in Æthelthryth’s life, including her father, Anna, the East Anglian king; her two husbands, Tondberht and Ecgfrith; and her spiritual adviser, Wilfrid: Accepit autem rex Ecgfrid coniugem nomine Aedilthrydam, filiam Anna regis Orientalium Anglorum, cuius saepius mentionem fecimus, uiri bene religiosi ac per omnia mente et opere egregii; quam et alter ante illum uir habuerat uxorem, princeps uidelicet Australium Gyruiorum uocabulo Tondberct. Sed illo post modicum temporis, ex quo eam accepit, defuncto, data est regi praefato. Cuius consortio cum XII annis uteretur, perpetua tamen mansit uirginitatis integritate gloriosa, sicut mihimet sciscitanti, cum hoc an ita esset quibusdam uenisset in dubium, beatae memoriae Uilfrid episcopus referebat, dicens se testem integritatis eius esse certissimum, adeo ut Ecgfridus promiserit se ei terras ac pecunias multas esse donaturum, si reginae posset persuadere eius uti conubio, quia sciebat illam nullum uirorum plus illo diligere. (King Ecgfrith married a wife named Æthelthryth, the daughter of Anna, king of the East Angles, who has often been referred to, a very religious man and noble both in mind and deed. She had previously been married to an ealdorman of the South Gyrwe named Tondberht. But he died shortly after the marriage and on his death she was given to King Ecgfrith. Though she lived with him for twelve years she still preserved the glory of perfect virginity. When I asked Bishop Wilfrid of blessed memory whether this was true, because certain people doubted it, he told me that he had the most perfect proof of her virginity; in fact Ecgfrith had promised to give him estates and money if he could persuade the queen to 37. The vita ends with the etymology of Ely as a place name, as well as with a description of the local geography, factual elements that assist in legitimating the narrative. Just as we have specific figures in this story (e.g., Anna, the king of the East Angles, and Ecgfrith, the king of the Northumbrians) that situate it in time, the geographical details (e.g., Coldingham and Ely) locate these events in space.
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consummate their marriage, because he knew that there was none whom she loved more than Wilfrid himself.)38 Bede admits that others have expressed doubt regarding the purity of this twice-married virgin; to offset this disbelief, he indicates that the story is verified by those closely connected to Æthelthryth. Beginning his narrative with secular, historical information about her relationships to important men allows Bede to situate the story in time and space.39 Documentation about the princess/queen rests solely on the men who figured prominently in her life, but it also provides Bede with two respected authorities for his narrative, a bishop, who was esteemed by Æthelthryth, and the king himself, who would have nothing to gain by lying about his unconsummated marriage. The presentation of the husbands is important in order to establish the crucial aspect of Æthelthryth’s virginity. To provide documentation of this claim, Bede recalls Wilfrid’s testimony about the attempted bribe, which he regards “se testem integritatis eius esse certissimum” (the most perfect proof of her virginity). To this, he adds that the incorruption of the body is “signum diuini miraculi” (the sign of a divine miracle).40 Here, Bede inserts himself again to explain the meaning of this sign, that this physical state is a metaphor for Æthelthryth’s virginal status.41 In the first few lines, therefore, the historian establishes that there are two kinds of proof of Æthelthryth’s virginity: the first, Ecgfrith’s admission that he has not had intercourse with his wife, and the second, the physical state of Æthelthryth’s body post mortem. As is made clear, the bishop himself is Bede’s source for the information gleaned. By mentioning those who are incredulous about this story, the Northumbrian monk positions himself both as the interrogator of the tradition and as the one who receives the truth from Wilfrid. Bede knew Wilfrid through his teacher, Ceolfrith, who had studied under the bishop and 38. Bede, EH, 390 –93. 39. Bede honored Anna for his faith, most especially because he was the first completely Christian king of East Anglia. The faith of Anna’s daughters supported the strong image: each became an abbess at monasteries in Gaul and East Anglia. Colgrave and Mynors note that “Anna had four daughters and a stepdaughter, all of whom appear in the calendar of saints,” including Æthelthryth, Seaxburh, Æthelburh, Wihtburh, and Sæthryth, at 234, but in “Saint Æ2el4ry2,” 32, Fell argues that this genealogy of five daughters is a later addition to the tradition and that Wihtburh is not listed by Bede as one of Anna’s daughters. 40. Here, I impose my translation for a more literal meaning. Alan Thacker notes that incorruption as a sign of sanctity was an eastern tradition, in “The Making of a Local Saint,” in Local Saints and Local Churches, ed. Thacker and Sharpe, 45 –73 at 49. 41. Bede, EH, 390 –93.
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who had observed monastic practice in East Anglia before joining Wearmouth. Ceolfrith is one source by which Bede learned about the East Anglian church and its politics, and perhaps he was the first to alert Bede to the miraculous story of Æthelthryth’s virginity. In any case, Wilfrid, as an important ecclesiastical figure as well as the Bishop of York during the royal marriage, was an established authority. The relationship between Wilfrid and Æthelthryth was well known, in no small part because of Stephen’s Life of Wilfrid. That the bishop sided with Æthelthryth by refusing Ecgfrith’s bribe is suggested by the royal couple’s separation. Some have suggested that the bishop’s deference to Æthelthryth’s desire for the nunnery might have been one of several factors that cost him the York episcopacy.42 To be sure, Wilfrid was a powerful man made more important by his association with Ecgfrith, and it is reasonable that he might have chosen to support the king. Yet, it is perhaps a testament of Wilfrid’s devotion to the spiritual decisions of the queen that explains his support, either that or that she offered a counterbribe: the land of Hexham.43 In any case, we know that Æthelthryth and Ecgfrith divorced ca. 672/73 and that Æthelthryth entered Coldingham. We also know that Wilfrid began work on Hexham about that time and that not long afterward the relationship between Wilfrid and Ecgfrith deteriorated to the point that the bishop was expelled from his see in 677.44 Because Bede considers the bishop an authority on the saint, as well as a commanding ecclesiastical figure, he uses Wilfrid’s testimony to authorize Æthelthryth’s virginity, but he supplements this narrative by saying that it was through God’s will and provenance that she remained chaste. As 42. D. H. Farmer, “Saint Wilfrid,” in Saint Wilfrid at Hexham, ed. Kirby, 35 –59 at 44 –48. 43. Hexham was a property within Bernicia, whereas all the land given to the bishop by Ecgfrith lay in Deira. As Michael Roper indicates, the gift of Hexham allowed Wilfrid to extend his influence throughout the Northumbrian kingdom. See “Wilfrid’s Landholdings in Northumbria,” in Saint Wilfrid at Hexham, ed. Kirby, 61–79 at 72 –73. In all likelihood, the land was originally a gift from Ecgfrith, perhaps a morgengifu, offered to Æthelthryth at their marriage. Such a marriage gift was generally given directly to the bride and was not considered a dowry given to her family. In Women in Anglo-Saxon England, 56 –58, Fell argues that AngloSaxon women such as Æthelthryth could keep or dispose of a morgengifu at will. The husband had no influence over it, and often at the wife’s death he was not allowed to inherit the property. The property usually reverted to the wife’s family or was willed to the wife’s daughters. 44. Michael Roper, “Appendix I: The Donation of Hexham,” in Saint Wilfrid at Hexham, ed. Kirby, 169 –71. See also the discussions of the Hexham church provided by John Crook, “The Enshrinement of Local Saints in Francia and England,” in Local Saints and Local Churches, ed. Thacker and Sharpe, 189 –224; and Edward Gilbert, “Saint Wilfrid’s Church at Hexham,” in Saint Wilfrid at Hexham, ed. Kirby, 81–113.
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Æthelthryth moves into a monastic sphere, the hagiographer replaces the paternal and marital families’ jurisdiction over her with that of Wilfrid and God, both holy fathers. At this point, Bede reminds his audience of God’s power, which signals a pivotal moment. Thus far, he has presented her marriages, her father’s sanctity, and Wilfrid’s testimony of her virginity. It is at this point that Bede asserts God’s ability by pointing to the proof of Æthelthryth’s incorrupt body. As the epigraph makes clear, “Nam etiam signum diuini miraculi, quo eiusdem feminae sepulta caro corrumpi non potuit, indicio est quia a uirili contactu incorrupta durauerit” (And the divine miracle whereby her flesh would not corrupt after she was buried was token and proof that she had remained uncorrupted by contact with any man).45 In this passage, Bede places the adjectival clause about Æthelthryth’s incorruption as an appositive to signum, the noun, and equates signum with indicio. The language of the passage makes it evident that the sign (that is, the incorruption) is the proof of God’s intervention. Bede does not afford Æthelthryth any agency here (or in the entire first section for that matter); it is only through God’s fortitude that the body does not decay. In the second part of the Life of Æthelthryth, Bede relates how the queen exchanged her secular position for a religious career. He describes Æthelthryth’s divorce, her entrance into the religious life at Coldingham, her patronage in building the monastery at Ely, her appointment as abbess there, her strict asceticism, and her prophetic power regarding her own death—all standard elements in a hagiographical narrative. He offers specific details about the abbess’ ascetic behavior that shed some light on Æthelthryth’s personal devotion: Post annum uero ipsa facta est abbatissa in regione quae uocatur Elge, ubi constructo monasterio uirginum Deo deuotarum perplurium mater uirgo et exemplis uitae caelestis esse coepit et monitis. De qua ferunt quia, ex quo monasterium petiit, nunquam lineis sed solum laneis uestimentis uti uoluerit, raroque in calidis balneis praeter inminentibus sollemniis maioribus, uerbi gratia paschae pentecostes epiphaniae, lauari uoluerit, et tunc nouissima omnium, lotis prius suo suarumque ministrarum obsequio ceteris quae ibi essent famulis Christi; raro praeter maiora sollemnia uel artiorem necessitatem plus quam semel per diem manducauerit; semper, si 45. Bede, EH, 392 –93.
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non infirmitas grauior prohibuisset, ex tempore matutinae synaxeos usque ad ortum diei in ecclesia precibus intenta persteterit. (A year afterwards she was herself appointed abbess in the district called Ely, where she built a monastery and became, by the example of her heavenly life and teaching, the virgin mother of many virgins dedicated to God. It is related of her that, from the time she entered the monastery, she would never wear linen but only woollen garments and would seldom take a hot bath except just before the greater feasts, such as Easter, Pentecost, and Epiphany, and then last of all, after the other handmaidens of Christ who were present had washed themselves, assisted by herself and her attendants. She rarely ate more than once a day except at the greater festivals or because of urgent necessity; she always remained in the church at prayer from the time of the office of matins until dawn, unless prevented by serious illness.)46 Each of these acts demonstrates her ascetic behavior within the cloister, a place in which the body is spatially confined.47 In fact, these are the only deeds listed by Bede for which Æthelthryth alone is responsible.48 Outside of this information, the account consists of her lineage, her marriages, her death, and her translation. There is not one scene of personal interaction, not even a miracle she performed during her life, which is a conventional element in hagiographical texts. Even more curious is that Bede does not make much of her direct promotion of the church, except to indicate that she established the monastery at Ely and that she provided instruction for virgins.49 Instead, his focus seems to be on the ways in which Æthelthryth controlled her physical needs. 46. Bede, EH, 392 –93. 47. Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, “Strict Active Enclosure and Its Effects on the Female Monastic Experience (ca. 500 –1100),” in Distant Echoes, vol. 1 of Medieval Religious Women, ed. John A. Nichols and Lillian Thomas Shank (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1984), 51– 86. 48. That another appointed her abbess is noted in the passive construction “[p]ost annum uero ipsa facta est abbatissa in regione quae uocatur Elge. . . .” The appointee, who might have been Bishop Wilfrid, her uncle the king of the East Angles, or one of the East Anglian bishops, remains unknown. 49. Bateson, Origin and Early History of Double Monasteries, discusses Anglo-Saxon double monasteries as places of learning, especially Streonæshalch, Barking, and Nursling. On the type of education Æthelthryth might have received, see Pauline Thompson, “St. Æthelthryth:
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Although typical behavior ascribed to saints, each action Bede recounts focuses exclusively on control of the body: clothing, fasting, bathing, kneeling. Each example points to her continued self-denial and to her humility. Æthelthryth allowed herself no luxuries, despite her royal status. Not for her were the later rebukes of Adamnan to the women and men of Coldingham, the house in which Æthelthryth received the veil.50 Bede makes a marked distinction between the luxuries enjoyed at Coldingham and the strict asceticism Æthelthryth practiced at Ely. This difference might account for her choice to leave Northumbria and found her own house in East Anglia.51 Regardless of the reason, Bede’s association of Æthelthryth’s humility with her corporeal purity offers a fitting supplement to the story of a married yet virginal woman. While one might expect the section describing Æthelthryth’s religious life to be a much larger account, it is in fact quite brief and appears to be but a prelude to the elevation and translation of her corpse. The exhumation of The Making of History from Hagiography,” in “Doubt Wisely,” ed. M. J. Toswell and E. M. Tyler (New York: Routledge, 1996), 475 –92. Little is known of the education of men or women at Ely, and it is only conjecture that it was a place of education. Bede says that Æthelthryth was a teacher of virgins. Teaching, of course, could be instruction by example, or it might refer to the education of children, in addition to the religious teaching of the nuns or monks, because both could be called virgins, according to Aldhelm. Given that her sister, Æthelburh, her stepsister, Sæthryth, and her niece, Eorcengota, joined and taught at educational monasteries in Gaul, it seems likely that Æthelthryth and Seaxburh were educated and educators. To date, there is no conclusive evidence for a scriptorium at Ely or for the production of any texts. In “Saint Æ2el4ry2,” 31–34, Fell contends that Ely fell into obscurity following Seaxburh’s abbacy and that the lack of information about nuns, monks, books, or education indicates that Ely was not a major religious or educational center until the late tenth century, when Æthelwold refounded the monastery. 50. Bede, EH, 424 –27. Few scholars, with the exception of Garrison, “Lives of St. Ætheldreda,” 38, have specifically discussed the men’s role in the decadent Coldingham monastery. For the most part, the women are condemned as those who brought destruction to the house. Adamnan makes it clear that the monks were as culpable as the nuns, but it is surprising that Æbbe is not blamed for her lack of leadership or guidance. Throughout Bede’s history, she is the voice of reason and wisdom, particularly when she begs Ecgfrith to release Wilfrid from prison. Æthelthryth may well have learned her strict asceticism from Wilfrid, because he was the first to promote the Benedictine Rule in Northumbria, or even from Æbbe herself at Coldingham. 51. Schneider, “Anglo-Saxon Women in the Religious Life,” 247, observes a pattern in the establishment of royal Anglo-Saxon monasteries. Widows who entered or founded monasteries did so within the country of their natal families, and young girls entered dynastic monasteries with their maternal relatives. These practices are consistent with the social relationships of secular society. It is odd, then, that Æthelthryth remains in Northumbria and joins a monastery that is a clear extension of the Northumbrian royal house, governed by Ecgfrith’s aunt Æbbe.
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Æthelthryth’s body is the longest part of this short vita, and in the pivotal scene regarding the body’s preservation, Bede emphasizes its importance by shifting from a third-person account to the first-person testimony of Cynefrith, the medicus who had attended Æthelthryth’s final sickness and who lanced the tumor beneath her jaw. According to Bede, Cynefrith is a crucial authority about the abbess’ final days and the events surrounding the translation of her body from the nun’s graveyard to a more important location in the abbey church. Relying on lay testimony is unusual, for Bede preferred to name ecclesiastical authorities, and while Wilfrid seems to have been present for the translation ceremony, the historian suggests that the doctor’s testimony is more authoritative.52 He says that the doctor’s speech offers “more certain proof ” (certiori notitia) of the incorruption of the body and is therefore worthy of being recorded directly: “Iusseruntque me” inquit “incidere tumorem illum, ut efflueret noxius umor qui inerat. Quod dum facerem, uidebatur illa per biduum aliquanto leuius habere, ita ut multi putarent quia sanari posset a languore. Tertia autem die prioribus adgrauata doloribus et rapta confestim de mundo, dolorem omnem ac mortem perpetua salute ac uita mutauit. Cumque post tot annos eleuanda essent ossa de sepulchro, et extento desuper papilione omnis congregatio, hinc fratrum inde sororum, psallens circumstaret, ipsa autem abbatissa intus cum paucis ossa elatura et dilutura intrasset, repente audiuimus abbatissam intus clara uoce proclamare: ‘Sit gloria nomini Domini.’ Nec multo post clamauerunt me intus, reserato ostio papilionis, uidique eleuatum de tumulo et positum in lectulo corpus sacrae Deo uirginis quasi dormientis simile. Sed et discooperto uultus indumento monstrauerunt mihi etiam uulnus incisurae, quod feceram, curatum, ita ut mirum in modum pro aperto et hiante uulnere, cum quo sepulta erat, tenuissima tunc / cicatricis uestigia parerent.” (“I was ordered,” he said, “to cut this tumour so as to drain out the poisonous matter within it. After I had done this she seemed to be easier for about two days and many thought that she would recover from her sickness. But on the third day she was attacked by her former pains and was soon taken from the world, exchanging pain 52. Cubitt, “Universal and Local Saints in Anglo-Saxon England,” 429 –30.
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and death for everlasting health and life. When, some years later, her bones were to be taken out of the sepulchre, a tent was erected over it and the whole congregation stood round singing, the brothers on one side and the sisters on the other. The abbess herself had gone inside with a few others, for the purpose of raising and washing the bones, when we suddenly heard the abbess cry out from within in a loud voice, ‘Glory be to the name of the Lord!’ Shortly afterwards they called me in, lifting the entrance to the tent; then I saw the body of God’s holy virgin raised from the tomb and laid on a bed like one asleep. They drew back the cloth which covered her face and showed me the wound I had made by my incision, now healed, so that instead of the open gaping wound which she had when she was buried, there now appeared, marvellous to relate, only the slightest traces of a scar.”)53 The presentation of Cynefrith’s testimony here is so effective that no one has found a reason to question how Æthelthryth died; indeed, there has been much discussion about the nature of Æthelthryth’s illness and the cause of her tumor.54 This level of interest points to the credibility of this narrative, and it becomes necessary to examine how Bede frames the passage rhetorically to stress the truth of Æthelthryth’s incorruption and her bodily purity.55 The dramatic recounting of Æthelthryth’s deathbed scene and the staging of the translation are details that make this narrative convincing, just as quoting the exclamation of Æthelthryth’s sister and successor makes the physician’s account all the more credible. There are no details about the freshness of the body or wholeness of the limbs, though the reference to the dormant body is certainly a nod toward that topos in hagiographical writing.56 Instead of describing the whole body (in fact, there is an indication he 53. Bede, EH, 394 –95. 54. See, e.g., the diagnosis of actinomycosis in Paul E. Szarmach, “Ælfric and the Problem of Women,” in Essays on Anglo-Saxon and Related Themes in Memory of Lynne Grundy, ed. Jane Roberts and Janet Nelson (London: Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies, 2000), 571–90 at 576. 55. It is worth noting here that Bede does not take such pains to prove other hagiographical accounts, even those about incorrupted bodies, such as Cuthbert, Fursa, and Æthelburh, Æthelthryth’s sister. 56. These motifs, which are typically employed to describe intact bodies, refer instead to the linens in which Æthelthryth’s body was wrapped. For a comparison, see Bede’s description of the translation of Cuthbert in EH, 442 –44.
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is not allowed to view the corpse in its entirety), Cynefrith’s examination is restricted to Æthelthryth’s face and the incision he made on her neck. He remarks on the distinct difference of the swelled area just before the body was buried and immediately following its elevation: the gaping wound has been replaced by a scar. The healed wound becomes the locus of authenticity in this entire narrative, a multivalent sign of inscription that underscores Cynefrith’s narrative.57 Indeed, because the revelation comes from the physician, we see how Bede distances himself as the narrator and historian, allowing the doctor to assign meaning to this external mark. In Cynefrith’s retelling, the scar serves as a visual point of identification and authentication. It is the means by which he ascertains that the body is Æthelthryth’s, that it is the one on which he made a surgical incision. Given that the body has not decayed and that Æthelthryth lies as if she is sleeping, one might expect that the congregation (including her sister Seaxburh, who knew the abbess so well) would recognize her, yet the narrative focuses on the doctor’s vision—what he cannot see initially as an outsider because a tent is draped over the grave, and what he sees when he is brought into the tent and the cloth is pulled back from Æthelthryth’s face.58 As one who is not a member of the monastic house, Cynefrith’s independent confirmation is imperative to the narrative of Æthelthryth’s incorruption (and one wonders if this is indeed the reason he was present for the translation).59 In any case, Cynefrith’s account displaces the abbess’ position as the one 57. At least two scholars have noted Æthelthryth’s scar as an act of inscription, but none has examined the multiple meanings inherent in this sign: Clare A. Lees, “Engendering Religious Desire: Sex, Knowledge, and Christian Identity in Anglo-Saxon England,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 27.1 (1997): 17–46 at 25; and Phillip Pulsiano, “Blessed Bodies: The Vitae of Anglo-Saxon Female Saints,” Parergon 16.2 (1999): 1–42 at 39. Body inscription has been the focus of scholarship about nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature for some time, and my work here has been influenced by Tattoo, Torture, Mutilation, and Adornment: The Denaturalization of the Body in Culture and Text, ed. Frances E. Mascia-Lees and Patricia Sharpe (Albany: SUNY Press, 1992); and John M. Bodner, “Accidental Narratives: Towards a Consideration of the Scar as Cultural Artifact,” Culture and Tradition 19 (1997): 37–52. 58. Catherine Karkov discusses lines of sight at Æthelthryth’s translation, in “The Body of St. Æthelthryth: Desire, Conversion, and Reform in Anglo-Saxon England,” in The Cross Goes North: Processes of Conversion in Northern Europe, A.D. 300 –1300, ed. Martin Carver (York: York Medieval Press, 2004), 397–411 at 400. 59. Thacker discusses the translation rituals at Ely and Lindisfarne, and he indicates that cult centers in England and Gaul had doctors at the sites of healing. Whether these physicians were present as part of the restorative process or to legitimate cures or miracles is unclear, but it is intriguing to think that Cynefrith was present on the off chance that miracles might occur at the elevation of Æthelthryth’s body. In “The Making of a Local Saint,” 70.
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presiding over the translation, and his description of the scar becomes the authoritative moment in Bede’s vita. As a signifier of the past, the mark allows the physician to recall the nature of Æthelthryth’s illness, his attempt at a cure, the abbess’ death thereafter, and the change in the body from the time that she was buried, that “instead of the open gaping wound which she had when she was buried, there now appeared . . . only the slightest traces of a scar.” Literally, the scar becomes the means by which this body’s history is read and made known to others via the physician’s memory. The physician’s story is also an authorization of how Æthelthryth died; like a modern-day coroner who provides facts in evidence, his position allows him to narrate intimate details that might not otherwise be known. In recalling the events surrounding Æthelthryth’s death, Cynefrith says that he was ordered to cut the tumor. The use of the passive voice here is important, for it illustrates that the doctor was following the will of others (Æthelthryth? the bishop? the nuns?). With this phrasing, he indicates that he has received permission to touch the virginal flesh. Indeed, he is compelled to do so, but even still his act has implications of power: in cutting the body of a virgin, he penetrates virginal flesh and figuratively writes on the body.60 Bede uses the verb incidere (to cut, to puncture, to penetrate, to inscribe), as well as the noun incisurae (incision, inscription), to illustrate that the doctor not only opens the flesh but also makes a mark on it. The scar, when healed, becomes a permanent signifier that allows Cynefrith to identify his mark and, by extension, the abbess’ body. It also recalls the point of rupture, the opening of the virginal flesh, and the revelation of the diseased flesh. When the doctor drains “the poisonous matter within,” he therefore cleanses or exorcises the tumor. 60. The translator of the EH into Old English clearly understood the implications of Bede’s use of incidere and incisurae in the Life of Æthelthryth, for he used the verb gesticcan (to cut, to pierce) in identifying the action performed. He uses the word sigila (sign) to indicate a necklace that has now been replaced by a swile (tumor) as punishment for Æthelthryth’s vanity. The cognates of sigila, which include segn (mark, token, sign), sigle (necklace, collar), and sigil (brooch, buckle), indicate the appropriateness of the translator’s word choice when describing the transference of meaning between the necklace and the scar. I note particularly that this is the only occurrence of sigila in the whole Old English corpus. For this passage, see The Old English Version of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Thomas Miller (London: EETS, 1898), 316 –25. I am grateful to Erik Vorhes for bringing the use of gesticcan to my attention, and I owe a debt of gratitude to Antonette diPaolo Healey for her assistance with the Corpus of Old English and the word sigila. Moreover, I would like to thank Paul E. Szarmach for sharing his forthcoming work, “Æ2eldreda in the OE Bede,” which provides an excellent discussion of the word choices made by the translator of Bede’s text. That essay is to be published in Poetry, Place, and Gender, ed. Catherine Karkov (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications).
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This reading of Æthelthryth’s scar draws heavily on Georgia Frank’s discussion of the Life of Macrina, written by Gregory of Nyssa after Macrina’s death in 380. She describes the scene in which Macrina’s brother, Gregory of Nyssa, finds a scar on his sister’s corpse when preparing it for burial and argues that the “scar becomes the site of locational memory, a place from which to remember the departed Macrina. By discovering, locating, and explaining Macrina’s scar, Gregory provided his readers with a fixed point from which to reconstruct their own meditations on Macrina.”61 This observation is very apt for Cynefrith’s presentation of Æthelthryth’s translation ceremony, in which the scar is the means by which he recalls the surgery, the abbess’ death, and her burial. Using the Homeric motif by which Odysseus is recognized, Gregory of Nyssa indicates the hagiographical importance not only of correctly identifying a corpse but also of how a scar is the reminder of God’s intervention. In the story of Macrina, the healed tumor is below the neck on Macrina’s breast, and as Vestiana and Gregory prepare the body for burial, Vestiana points to the scar and explains that Macrina refused to seek medical attention and that through prayer and her mother’s blessing the tumor was healed.62 Bede’s use of Gregory of Nyssa has not been documented heretofore. The similarities between the two lives, which focus on women who are nurturing mothers to their communities, are many: Macrina’s marriage is forced on her, but her husband dies soon thereafter (as Tonberht does), and she remains a virgin; Macrina adopts the ascetic life, treating all women as equals (as Æthelthryth does in washing the feet of all women in her community); Macrina’s deathbed scene provides an opportunity for her to comment on the nature of the soul and the reason for bodily existence (as Æthelthryth does when she explains her vanity and her understanding of sin and penance); Gregory offers a first-person account of her death (as Cynefrith does); Macrina’s scar is the token of God’s healing of her tumor (as 61. Georgia Frank, “Macrina’s Scar: Homeric Allusion and Heroic Identity in Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Macrina,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 8.4 (2000): 511–30 at 528. Frank draws her reading of the scar from Mary Carruthers’s discussion in The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400 –1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). For a related discussion, see Virginia Burrus, “Macrina’s Tattoo,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 33.3 (2003): 403 –17. On the use of memory and saints, see Catherine Cubitt, “Memory and Narrative in the Cult of Early Anglo-Saxon Saints,” in The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Yitzhak Hen and Matthew Innes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 29 – 66. 62. Saint Gregory of Nyssa: Ascetical Works, trans. Virginia Woods Callahan (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1967), 163 –91.
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Æthelthryth’s scar is an indication of what God has done post mortem, revealed by Seaxburh); and the funeral procession for Macrina is described with men and women separated but singing hymns (as at the translation of Æthelthryth’s corpse). Perhaps using this older narrative to frame his account, Bede has effectively demonstrated how an Anglo-Saxon queen has adopted a life of asceticism and monasticism. The parallels between the deathbed scene where Macrina’s scar is shown to her brother, who then writes the authoritative life, and Æthelthryth’s translation scene, where Cynefrith identifies the abbess’ body, are striking. The scars authenticate the corpses, even as they provide concrete proof of God’s intervention and thus of the holiness of these women. In Bede’s narrative, the scar reminds us that the corpse, which seems phantasmal, is a material body; Æthelthryth is human and her body is imperfect. The scar is a sign of the miraculous preservation of the body, which has been healed not by man but by the divine. There had been an open wound when she was buried, but after a sixteen-year interment that fissure is closed and marked only by the vestiges of a scar. The mark then becomes a sign of the body’s containment, its perfection. The noxious fluid is gone, there is no swelling, there is no opening. The body has been protected from the corruption of the grave, and while this preservation is evident when the corpse is exposed, the scar illustrates that some other action has been performed on the body: the site of entry has been closed while the body was hidden away. It seems, therefore, that the body has, in truth, been cleansed of its disease, in some way purified. Metaphorically, as a sign of purity, the scar also operates as an indication that Æthelthryth’s body is sealed, that the vaginal opening is forever closed. When Æthelthryth refused sexual congress, she denied others access to her body. Yet, as Bede indicates, it is difficult to believe that she could live with not one but two husbands and not have sex. While the incorrupt body is read as a sign of Æthelthryth’s purity, the scar too becomes a sign of her continued virginity, of what cannot be seen (or what should not be revealed). Those around the corpse are sensitive to the abbess’ modesty, and her entire body is not uncovered. In effect, the scar renders visible what cannot be discerned otherwise. Cynefrith does not make this association directly, but Bede, as the observer, indicates that the preserved body provides the proof, and if the scar is a sign of that preservation, then it becomes the visual sign of Æthelthryth’s virginal status. Literally, it becomes the site of investigation and ultimately the evidence for the abbess’ purity.
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The translation scene, as it is presented by Bede, makes visible Cynefrith’s experience and allows us to see Æthelthryth’s bodily purity and her incorruption. Immediately following this anecdote, the hagiographer employs the same tactic, including another story in which Æthelthryth herself assigns meaning to the scar on her neck: Ferunt autem quia, cum praefato tumore ac dolore maxillae siue colli premeretur, multum delectata sit hoc genere infirmitatis, ac solita dicere: “Scio certissime quia merito in collo pondus languoris porto, in quo iuuenculam me memini superuacua moniliorum pondera portare; et credo quod ideo me superna pietas dolore colli uoluit grauari, ut sic absoluar reatu superuacuae leuitatis, dum mihi nunc pro auro et margaretis de collo rubor tumoris ardorque promineat.” (It is also related that when she was afflicted with this tumour and by the pain in her neck and jaw, she gladly welcomed this sort of pain and used to say, “I know well enough that I deserve to bear the weight of this affliction in my neck, for I remember that when I was a young girl I used to wear an unnecessary weight of necklaces; I believe that God in His goodness would have me endure this pain in my neck in order that I may thus be absolved from the guilt of my needless vanity. So, instead of gold and pearls, a fiery red tumour now stands out upon my neck.”)63 This speech, which is appended after the translation narrative, reads as a moral lesson on female vanity. Here, Æthelthryth confesses her sin—pride in her appearance—and indicates that the tumor is the appropriate punishment or penance she must endure for her enchantment with material adornments. As with Cynefrith, the tumor is a sign of locational memory for the abbess, allowing her to remember that she used to wear necklaces and offering us another means of understanding Æthelthryth’s move from the secular life to the cloister. Æthelthryth, whose name means “noble pride,” illustrates that the swelling under her jaw is a mark of her youthful pride, a sign of her excessiveness in wearing the “unnecessary weight of necklaces.” In her speech, Æthelthryth adopts the discourse of feminine pride, taking upon herself the responsibility for naming and interpreting her sin. Aldhelm provides the key to understanding the abbess’ words when he differentiates between married women and virgins: 63. Bede, EH, 394 –97.
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Ista collum lunulis et lacertos dextralibus ornari ac gemmiferis digitorum anulis comi concupiscit, illa pulcherrimo fulgentis pudicitiae cultu splendescere et auratis virtutum monilibus rutilare simulque candidis meritorum margaretis decorari desiderat. ([A married woman] strives that her neck be decorated with necklaces and her arms with bracelets and that she be adorned with gem-studded rings on her fingers; [a virgin] desires to be radiant with the most beautiful adornment of shining modesty and to gleam with golden necklaces of virtues and at the same time to be decked out with the dazzling pearls of her merits.)64 The distinction noted here between the vanity of married women and the appropriate pride of virginal women explicitly illustrates the lesson in Æthelthryth’s confession. She revels in her disfigurement because of her previous vanity. What is more, the abbess uses the language of guilt and absolution to account for the disease, as she takes great pride in the new adornment as a punishment for her excess. Her words recall the punishment assigned to the double house at Coldingham, which was purged by fire for the extravagances of its members, according to Bede.65 The meaning, according to Æthelthryth, is that one should happily exchange the vanities of this world for bodily punishments; the reward, she implies, is God’s forgiveness. That the wound is lanced and then miraculously healed while the body is interred suggests that Æthelthryth does receive God’s forgiveness. The scar, then, becomes the mark of God’s understanding.66 The source for Æthelthryth’s words goes unrecorded. Bede uses the verb ferunt (“they also relate”). The referent is unclear but could possibly be Wilfrid and Cynefrith, or even Seaxburh and her nuns. The absence of a named subject suggests that this part of the narrative does not require a named source as the previous section had. Æthelthryth’s suffering (indeed, her happiness at the turn of events) expiates her sin and accords with Bede’s description of the abbess’ ascetic practices (for example, wearing woolen clothing, taking cold baths, fasting, and praying all night). That he follows 64. Aldhelm, Aldhelmi Opera Omnia, 246. Lapidge and Herren, Aldhelm: The Prose Works, 73. 65. Bede, EH, 420 –23. 66. An expanded version of this scene is included in a vita copied into BL, ms Cotton Faustina b.III. This text, which was written in English ca. 1420, emphasizes Æthelthryth’s pride as the reason for the wound. The interpretation of the wound, however, is given not by Æthelthryth herself in this version but by an angel who explains that her penance is a result of her youthful vanity. In Altenglische Legenden, ed. Carl. Horstmann (Heilbronn: Verlag von Gebr. Henninger, 1881), 295.
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this speech with the miracles that occurred when people touched Æthelthryth’s clothes and coffin, as well as with a description of how perfectly the stone coffin fit her body, suggests that Bede is simply recording the details seen by others at Ely, yet the meaning of the scar is carefully controlled by his presentation. In effect, Bede creates a narrative in which his authority as a historian is bolstered by the reports of Wilfrid and Cynefrith. In allowing Cynefrith and Æthelthryth to determine the meaning of her bodily signs, the incorrupted corpse and the scar, Bede appears to avoid making his own assessments. Indeed, he sets himself up as the one who seeks out and records the truth, which comes from others who were present.67 Through the testimony of the two male witnesses, Bede establishes his own authority as writer and biographer of a woman he knew only through others’ accounts. Bede says that, in addition to Wilfrid, there were others who knew about the purity of the body and testified to it. Yet these witnesses go unnamed. The entire monastery was involved in the translation of her body: the monks brought a new coffin; the nuns washed the body and wrapped it in new linens; and Seaxburh, Æthelthryth’s sister and successor as abbess, presided over the translation of the body.68 It is odd that Bede does not document the testimony of Æthelthryth’s female contemporaries. Seaxburh’s daughter, Eorcengota, trained at Ely under Æthelthryth and might have served as abbess at Ely following Seaxburh’s death, if the twelfth-century Liber Eliensis is a credible account of abbatial succession. Even if Seaxburh was the only family member to succeed Æthelthryth, it seems unlikely that the monastery did not preserve some written account of Æthelthryth’s life.69 If the monastery was originally established as an ecclesiastical branch of royal control, it would be in the interests of her family to 67. Bede, EH, 390 –93. 68. Thacker, “Making of a Local Saint,” 68, says that Seaxburh has the predominant role in the Ely translation ritual and that Wilfrid is noticeably inactive, yet I find that Æthelthryth’s sister is provided a role only through Cynefrith’s narrative, and even there she is not the focus; Cynefrith’s view of the events takes center stage. 69. In Royal Saints, 179, Ridyard suggests that the abbatial inheritance among female members of the royal family seems to have been vitally important to the Ely cults. Still, Bede recorded only Seaxburh’s succession, but the monastic chronicle claims that the succession of abbesses at Ely stayed within Æthelthryth’s immediate family, going first to Eormenhild, Seaxburh’s daughter, and then to Wærburh, Eormenhild’s daughter. Bede indicates that Eormenhild received the veil from Æthelthryth and trained under her at Ely. The reasons behind this training could be numerous, but one possibility is Æthelthryth’s expectation that her nieces would succeed her because she had no children of her own. For the monastic chronicle, see Liber Eliensis, ed. E. O. Blake (London: Royal Historical Society, 1962), 51–52.
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document the life, even as the cult center itself would benefit by documenting God’s favor for its patron. In any case, the only authoritative testimony Bede presents is given by Wilfrid and Cynefrith. As singularly male accounts, they provide Bede with the authority to document this life, and together the three men establish Æthelthryth’s sanctity. Bede’s authority, therefore, comes through the words of others, even as he uses their words to establish an account of Æthelthryth’s preserved body. Moreover, he develops a narrative in which Æthelthryth speaks about her regard for ornamentation in her youth and the resulting tumor, which she reads as punishment for that vanity. Elaine Scarry observes that “[h]uman responsibility for the ‘materiality’ of language has often been portrayed by directly tying language to the body itself, as when Sartre, echoing Marx, described the writer’s voice as a ‘prolongation of the body.’”70 The result is a fusion of the material body and a materialized voice. In this case, Bede provides the voice for the incorrupted body he materializes through his words. The textual body that he presents replaces the physical body enshrined at Ely and obscured from view; it becomes a physical voice that defines female sanctity. In effect, it provides an opportunity to distinguish appropriate locutions for the saint. According to this hagiographical voice, the punishment for woman’s vanity is disease, for which women should be grateful. Bede’s discussion of Æthelthryth’s tumor provides a focal point in his narrative when he suggests that the abbess regarded her affliction as God’s punishment. Most probably, the monk never visited Ely, spoke with Æthelthryth, or consulted any of the family members.71 If Bede had an Ely life, as J. M. Wallace-Hadrill suggests, the speech might have been recorded there.72 It is possible that Cynefrith or Wilfrid relayed the speech. Also reasonable is a fabrication by Bede of the event, created from hagiographic tradition. Though the origins of the speech are unknown, one aspect remains clear; the words present Æthelthryth’s singular statement on vanity and punishment, which can be read only in terms that Bede presents. His 70. Elaine Scarry, ed., Literature and the Body: Essays on Populations and Persons (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), xiv. 71. D. H. Farmer, in Ecclesiastical History of the English People, rev. ed., trans. Leo Sherley-Price (New York: Penguin, 1990), 34 –35. 72. J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People: A Historical Commentary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 159. His contention is supported by the textual traditions established at many double monasteries in the seventh century. See Barbara Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (London: Seaby, 1990), 58; and Rollason, “Hagiography and Politics in Early Northumbria.”
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intentions throughout the Life of Æthelthryth are clearly defined: to present an appropriate model of virginity for his audience. So, what might he intend by the image of a woman disfigured for her vanity? By representing her in this way, he provides a rhetorical construct in which the woman materializes herself; Æthelthryth becomes “real” by voicing a gendered discourse made available to women (especially royal women, to whom such extravagances would be accessible) through various patristic texts. Judith Butler argues that the internal self often writes itself onto the surface of the body in “fabrications manufactured and sustained through corporeal signs and other discursive means.”73 In this process, the exterior performance creates an illusory interior desire. She continues: That the gendered body is performative suggests that it has no ontological status apart from the various acts which constitute its reality, and if that reality is fabricated as an interior essence, that very interiority is a function of a decidedly public and social discourse, the public regulation of fantasy through the surface politics of the body. In other words, acts and gestures articulate and enacted desires create the illusion of an interior and organizing gender core, an illusion discursively maintained for the purposes of the regulation of sexuality.74 Butler’s theoretical position offers an engaging critique of hagiographic practice. In this instance, Bede reports Æthelthryth’s speech directly, and we see how she establishes what a woman’s interiority should be and how it should be reflected on the exterior of a woman’s body, a traditional commentary on women in hagiographical texts. In making Æthelthryth’s body visible and in making her voice audible, Bede has adopted an orthodox representation of women’s excesses and suggests that women who acknowledge their faults and correct them are worthy. Æthelthryth’s statement on her vanity, a discursive position that Bede articulates as appropriate, is indeed a “decidedly public and social discourse” about the politics of the female body, which iconically is perceived as corrupt and in need of God’s transformative power. This speech shows how Æthelthryth’s innate behavior is punished and how her penitent resolve is rewarded by God, who then seals the body and keeps it incorrupted post mortem. 73. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990), 136. 74. Butler, Gender Trouble, 136.
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The translation scene, therefore, illustrates the body’s perfection: it has been healed with only a scar to recall the sin of pride. This one imperfection reflects the corporeality of that body, even as it specifies a gendered understanding of sanctity; despite her holiness, Æthelthryth is a woman, sexed because of her excessive pride not because of her sexual excess. Bede creates her ontological status when he represents her as a religious woman cognizant of her corporal limitations; her foreknowledge of death, which is a topos of hagiographical texts and a marker of spiritual elevation, reveals Æthelthryth’s understanding of her imperfection as a woman. The reason for this malaise appears evident, for Bede attributes to her the gift of prophecy: Sunt etiam qui dicant, quia per prophetiae spiritum et pestilentiam, qua ipsa esset moritura, praedixerit, et numerum quoque eorum qui de suo monasterio hac essent de mundo rapiendi palam cunctis praesentibus intimauerit. (There are indeed some who say that, by the spirit of prophecy, she not only foretold the plague that was to be the cause of her death but also openly declared, in the presence of all, the number of those of the monastery who were to be taken from the world by the same pestilence.)75 According to patristic thought, a woman’s natural impurity must be exorcised so that spiritual perfection is possible.76 Rosemary Radford Ruether has discussed the necessity of bodily transformation for women. Citing De Civitate Dei, Ruether concludes that in Augustine’s spiritual realm “the female is allowed into the Christian Heaven only by having the specifically female parts of her body ‘transformed’ from their old ‘uses’ in sex and childbearing to ‘a new beauty.’ . . . As such, she can then represent that spiritual feminine of the resurrected body.”77 Bede closes his prose life with the idea that in death Æthelthryth exchanged “dolorem omnem ac mortem 75. Bede, EH, 392 –93. 76. Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987), 217. 77. Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology (1983; reprint, Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), 249. I am grateful to Helene Scheck, who suggested the scar’s symbolic nature as a vaginal opening and brought the references to Augustine and to Ruether to my attention. See also R. Howard Bloch, Medieval Misogyny and the Invention of Western Romantic Love (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), esp. 93 –112.
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perpetua salute ac uita” (pain and death for everlasting health and life).78 This sacramental exchange is revealed only at the translation of the body, when the doctor finds the incision healed with only the traces of a scar. Through death, Æthelthryth achieves the highest perfection. The exorcism of her physical body, which eliminated the noxious fluids, prepares the body for its transformation into spiritual perfection. The body, post mortem, is healed so that the symbolic vaginal opening remains forever closed, though a slight scar continues to mark the transformation performed (by a male physician and by the male God) on the female body. The concept of the female body as a site of rupture is not limited to Bede. Karma Lochrie demonstrates that the abject female body is patristically described as one that, according to Julia Kristeva, “‘does not respect borders, positions, rules’”—a body that is in dire need of closure to protect the boundaries of the soul from internal defilement.79 Lochrie notes, in the life of mystic Angela of Foligno (1248 –1309), Angela’s rejection of the “masochistic internalization of the religious ideal, which valorizes the enclosure and the sealed body.”80 Yet Æthelthryth, Angela’s predecessor by six hundred years, does not have the agency Angela demonstrates in her firsthand testimony, and her religious conversion undermines Bede’s replication of Æthelthryth’s agency. The scar on Æthelthryth’s neck is the reason for Æthelthryth’s speech, but the lancing of her throat symbolically silences her. Once healed, the scar symbolizes the closed flesh: “The sealed body, then, becomes the sign not only of virginity, but of the integritas of all the senses, particularly speech and sight. When virgins are then instructed not to break that which seals them together with God and with themselves, they are being called to enclosure at many levels. The unbroken flesh ultimately means bodily closure and silence.”81 After the discovery of the intact corpse, Æthelthryth never speaks or appears to perform posthumous miracles in Bede’s text. The body now enclosed by a stone sarcophagus signifies the sealed virginal body, a place of pilgrimage for others to become cleansed: “Contigit autem tactu indumentorum eorundem et daemonia ab obsessis effugata corporibus et infirmitates alias aliquoties esse curatas” (It happened also that, by the touch of the linen clothes, devils were expelled from the bodies of those who were possessed by them, and other diseases were 78. Bede, EH, 394 –95. 79. Karma Lochrie, “The Language of Transgression: Body, Flesh, and Word in Mystical Discourse,” in Speaking Two Languages: Traditional Disciplines and Contemporary Theory in Medieval Studies, ed. Allen J. Frantzen (Albany: SUNY Press, 1991), 115 –40 at 128. 80. Lochrie, “Language of Transgression,” 130. 81. Lochrie, “Language of Transgression,” 125 –26.
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healed from time to time).82 The miracles wrought by her perfection occur because penitents touch the linen cloths or the coffin in which Æthelthryth is buried. It is not she herself who performs the miracles, and therefore the miracles do not disclose her sanctity so much as they support it. The last part of Bede’s narrative provides another detail about the incorrupt corpse’s perfection. The sarcophagus in which she was to be buried, found near Grantacæster (Cambridge) by the walls of a deserted Roman fortress, was made of white marble with a close-fitting lid. Bede reports: “Mirum uero in modum ita aptum corpori uirginis sarcofagum inuentum est, ac si ei specialiter praeparatum fuisset, et locus quoque capitis seorsum fabrefactus ad mensuram capitis illius aptissime figuratus apparuit” (This sarcophagus was found to fit the virgin’s body in a wonderful way, as if it had been specially prepared for her; and the place for the head, which was cut out separately, seemed to be exactly shaped to its size).83 One implication of the miraculous fit is that, as the healed scar alludes, Æthelthryth’s body has been shaped to perfection by a means that was possible only after her death.84 In this hagiographical account, Bede materializes the corporeal body through the words of Cynefrith. As the author of this text, Bede initializes the production and determines female types worthy of veneration; the lives of Hild and Æthelthryth operate as maternal and virginal types that correspond to such early archetypes as Helen, Constantine’s mother, and Agatha, a tortured virgin martyr. Though they recall this earlier tradition, the representations of Hild and Æthelthryth illustrate a new hagiographic paradigm made textually visible in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. It is worth noting here that Bede’s authority was so persuasive that his account was the basis for all subsequent renditions of Æthelthryth’s vita, especially the epitomes included in late medieval legendaries. His imagery of the royal abbess and her scar prompted artists to represent the saint as a Benedictine abbess holding a book (an emblem of teaching) and her crozier 82. Bede, EH, 396 –97. 83. Bede, EH, 396 –97. 84. Bede, EH, 396 – 97, says: “Lauerunt igitur uirgines corpus, et nouis indutum uestibus intulerunt in ecclesiam, atque in eo quod adlatum erat sarcofago posuerunt, ubi usque hodie in magna ueneratione habetur.” Worth noting is that the women who wash the body also carry the body, not the coffin, into the church. This act would demonstrate the continued physicality of the body to others within the community and, by extension, to the audience of oral and written stories. Bede says “it” is held in great veneration, presumably referring to the body. But by now the body is associated with the sarcophagus and its perfect fit. The sarcophagus becomes an extension of the body worthy of veneration. In his declaration, he admits that some cult activity has begun, but he does not indicate whether the veneration is done solely by the community or by others.
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Image not available
Fig. 1. Detail, pictorial cycle painted on retable, Translation of Æthelthryth. Ely Cathedral, 1455
(an emblem of her ecclesiastical office). This image became the standard in medieval iconography, though there is one variation on this presentation: occasionally, the wimple is removed so that the scar on the abbess’ neck is prominent. In fact, the revelation of the scar was a scene used repeatedly in narrative programs: once in a carved capital in Ely Cathedral (1325 –45), a second time in an alabaster panel (1450 –1500), and a third, on a painted retable (1455) that likely adorned the altar at Ely (fig. 1). The latter is striking in that the attendants are gathered around, and one nun points directly at the red line on Æthelthryth’s neck. Even though the body is clearly intact, the scar is the relevatory sign of incorruption in this image. Two other representations feature the scar, but these are stand-alone images in
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Image not available
Fig. 2. Alabaster panel of virgin saints, Æthelthryth back row, center. St. Peter Mancroft, Norwich, Norfolk, 1450 –1500
which Æthelthryth is shown wearing royal robes with the neck exposed. The first is an alabaster panel found in the graveyard of Saint Peter Mancroft, Norwich (fig. 2); the second is a wall painting at Willingham in Cambridgeshire. The repetition of this imagery in late medieval iconography demonstrates the import attributed to the scar as a signifier of virginity. In the alabaster panel, which is dated to the fifteenth century, Æthelthryth appears in a grouping of virgin martyrs, many of whom wear gold necklaces with elaborate pendants. The Ely abbess wears her crown and an ermine robe, and the exposed scar on her neck replicates the necklaces of the other virgins. The alabaster explicitly recalls her speech regarding personal adornments and female vanity. Presented here, the tumor has been replaced by the scar as a mark of her penance, and her inclusion among the virgin martyrs illustrates that she has been welcomed into their company as a kind of
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pseudo-martyr.85 Bede’s story, then, of the native saint who bears a strong likeness to the virgin martyrs is manifested in this image, and we see how clearly it was received by a fifteenth-century audience.86 What had begun as a mark of locational memory for the doctor and for the abbess became a mark of ritualized memory in iconographic imagery.
Bede’s Song of Chastity In keeping with an established tradition of composing a life in both prose and verse, Bede closes his account of Æthelthryth’s life with a hymn extolling the honor of her virginity. In the preface, he indicates that the prose life, which precedes the metrical life in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, was written after he had produced the verse panegyric: Videtur oportunum huic historiae etiam hymnum uirginitatis inserere, quem ante annos plurimos in laudem ac praeconium eiusdem reginae ac sponsae Christi, et ideo ueraciter reginae quia sponsae Christi, elegiaco metro conposuimus, et imitari morem sacrae scripturae, cuius historiae carmina plurima indita et haec metro ac uersibus constat esse conposita. (It seems fitting to insert in this history a hymn on the subject of virginity which I composed many years ago in elegiac metre in honour of this queen and bride of Christ, and therefore truly a queen because the bride of Christ; imitating the method of holy Scripture in which many songs are inserted into the history and, as is well known, these are composed in metre and verse.)87 85. In the late medieval morality play Mankind, Neu Gyse attempts to hang himself, but when the rope breaks he keeps the noose around his neck and claims to be wearing “Sent Audrys holy bende” because he has “a lytyll dyshes.” This blasphemous reference would have been all too familiar (and perhaps quite funny) to an audience acquainted with the tradition of the laces sold at fairs on Æthelthryth’s feast day, to be worn as a memory of the miracle of the saint’s scar. The Macro Plays: The Castle of Perserverance, Wisdom, Mankind, ed. Mark Eccles (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), lines 607–30. 86. Although I have opted not to discuss the martyrdom implicit in the doctor’s incision and his marking of the body, these elements of the discourse of martyrdom are certainly present in Bede’s narrative. 87. Bede, EH, 396 –97. See Szarmach’s discussion of the hymn in “Æ2eldreda in the OE Bede.”
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This detail indicates that Bede heard the story, wrote the hymn praising Æthelthryth, and was questioned about its veracity. He then spoke to Wilfrid and wrote the narrative afterward. Unlike the prose version, which lays out the story in great detail, the construction of the hymn illustrates that Bede anticipated an audience knowledgeable about the saint, for it provides only a few key events from her life: Æthelthryth’s royalty, her twelve-year marriage, her life as a nun, the incorruption of her body, and the miracles associated with her shroud. Not included are the central male figures (her father, her husbands, Wilfrid, and Cynefrith), and there is no reference to her foundation at Ely. Each of the biographical details is subsumed by the more important theme of virginity. The purpose of the piece is to illustrate that Æthelthryth merits membership in the virgin choir of heaven. Bede does not strain to prove the story; he simply asserts her worthiness. The hymn complements the prose account of Æthelthryth’s life, and the history explicates rather oblique references.88 In the hymn, Bede’s salutation to God precedes a catalog of virgins who have set a chaste example for Christians. Based on the form of torture each experiences, he pairs several of the most important universal saints: Agatha and Eulalia; Thecla and Euphemia; Agnes and Cecilia.89 The Virgin Mary heads this list, and her role as mother of God and as the inspiration for the purity of others is praised. The poet states at the outset that he will sing only about divine gifts, not about the themes of classical antiquity, such as Helen’s rape and the subsequent Trojan siege. The greatest of these divine gifts, he contends, is Mary’s womb, a porta (or gate) from which Christ springs. Bede 88. Gernot Wieland has shown that such Anglo-Latin authors as Aldhelm, Bede, and Alcuin followed the literary custom of such writers as Prudentius, Juvencus, Arator, and Venantius Fortunatus, who turned existing verse into prose. Wieland’s conclusions about the generic form of Bede’s hagiographical texts also proves viable for the two accounts of Æthelthryth. In “Geminus Stilus: Studies in Anglo-Latin Hagiography,” in Insular Latin Studies: Papers on Latin Texts and Manuscripts of the British Isles, 550 –1066, ed. Michael W. Herren (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1981), 113 –33 at 125. See also Peter Godman’s discussion of this genre in Alcuin: The Bishops, Kings, and Saints of York (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), lxxviii–lxxxviii; and in his “Anglo-Latin Opus Geminatum: From Aldhelm to Alcuin,” Medium Ævum 50 (1981): 215 –29. 89. Bede mentions only one virgin not included in Aldhelm’s list: Euphemia. Some scholars have taken it to mean that Bede did not know Aldhelm’s De Virginitate, yet Bede himself says in book 5 of the EH, 514 –15, that Aldhelm “[s]cripsit et de uirginitate librum eximium, quem in exemplum Sedulii geminato opere et uersibus exametris et prosa conposuit.” Godman shows, lxxxii, that Bede was aware of Aldhelm’s debt to Caelius Sedulius and distinguishes “the parts of an opus geminatum as two halves of a single whole rather than as the distinct libelli which they had remained for Sedulius.”
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indicates that Mary is also the mother of the virgins, for her chaste example generates more children, the virgin flowers (uirgineos flores), whose martyrdoms he then references.90 The implication is that each time a martyr stands the test of flame or sword, Mary receives another daughter in her virgin chorus. Just as she nurtured Christ, Mary now nurtures the spiritual growth of all pure women. The insertion of Æthelthryth, an insular saint, among those venerated by the universal church indicates God’s continued presence in Bede’s community. In the prose life, Bede expressed his admiration for an Anglo-Saxon woman’s sanctity; the hymn provides a complementary expression of joy that a local virgin has achieved this status. The queen is proof, therefore, that sanctity is not an achievement of the distant past. Unlike the prose account, the hymn does not describe Æthelthryth’s lineage or husbands. Bede does indicate, however, that before pledging herself to the cloister Æthelthryth reigned as queen for twelve years. The honor of her royal status, he contends, has been exchanged for the true honor of eternal life.91 Bede then addresses Æthelthryth directly, wondering how the virgin could ever have sought an earthly husband when she had chosen Christ as her spouse.92 He continues, saying that, devoted to God, Æthelthryth has the opportunity to be like Mary, a mother to the king of heaven and in effect queen of heaven herself. Bede then proclaims that it is the power of Christ who keeps her enshrined body inviolate because she has devoted herself to him.93 Joyful at the virgin’s triumph, Bede continues by illustrating that Æthelthryth conquers the enemy who had overcome Eve: “Zelus in hoste furit, quondam uicerat Euam; / uirgo triumphat ouans, zelus in hoste furit” (Zeal frenzied tears the foe that conquered Eve; / Triumphs the saint, zeal frenzied tears the foe).94 With this reference, the poetic chronology of women is now complete. Bede began with Helen, the world’s most beautiful and 90. Bede, EH, 398 – 99, lines 11–16. Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk, 167, shows that Eve’s womb is the antithesis of Mary’s gate when she quotes Tertullian, who charges Eve with being the devil’s gateway. 91. Bede, EH, 398 –99, lines 27–30. 92. Bede, EH, 398 –99, lines 31–32. Bede suggests that it was Æthelthryth’s choice to marry or that she could have avoided the problem by refusing to marry, but in the prose narrative, he avoided the question of her will by simply stating that she had been married to Tondberht and that Ecgfrith married her. For a discussion of the christus sponsus, see Stephen Morrison, “The Figure of Christus Sponsus in Old English Prose,” in Liebe-Ehe-Ehebruch in der Literatur des Mittelalters, ed. Xenja von Ertzdorff and Marianne Wynn (Giessen: Wilhelm Schmitz Verlag, 1984), 5 –15. 93. Bede, EH, 398 –99, lines 41–42. 94. Bede, EH, 400 –401, lines 45 –46.
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desirable woman, whose faithless impurity is the foil for Mary, whose perfection redeems womankind and also produces more brides for her son. The virgin martyrs come next, those who resisted the sins of the world and imitated Mary’s behavior. Æthelthryth follows these figures as a new incarnation of female virginity. The poem refers then to Eve, a woman who succumbed to temptation. Bede suggests that Æthelthryth’s determination to maintain her purity vanquishes the enemy that ensnared Eve. The parallel drawn between Æthelthryth and Eve, however, is an odd one. The usual dichotomy of the good woman/bad woman in patristic thought is that of Mary/Eve. Bede changes this connection and suggests that the virgins of heaven continue the battle against sin, and in so doing he denotes a higher price for Eve’s fall; Christ’s suffering redeems mankind, but it takes more than the generation of Christ for Mary to redeem women. Mary must continue to “birth” more virginal daughters who negate the enemy’s power over women, and Æthelthryth’s role as teacher of virgins at Ely illustrates how she has shared in the mothering of new virgins.95 Bede’s narrative shows that women’s struggle with sin remains forever present but that it is possible to overcome sin by following Æthelthryth’s virginal example and by becoming a bride of Christ. Bede begins his prose life focusing on Æthelthryth in relation to her father and husbands, then shows her association with Wilfrid and Cynefrith and ends the verse life highlighting her relationship to God and Christ. Bede, therefore, completely frames the story of Æthelthryth using male authority, effectively constraining her story and reproducing it as part of his historical program. In surrounding her with men who marry, examine, verify, preserve, and document her, Bede is able to prove the incredible story of Æthelthryth’s virginity. Bede demonstrates that while she was given in marriage Christ kept her pure, a reward Bede celebrates in the hymn: Aspice, nupta Deo, quae sit tibi gloria terris; quae maneat caelis aspice, nupta Deo. Munera laeta capis, festiuis fulgida taedis; ecce uenit sponsus, munera laeta capis. Et noua dulcisono modularis carmina plectro, sponsa hymno exultas et noua dulcisono. Nullus ab altithroni comitatu segregat Agni, quam affectu tulerat nullus ab altithroni. 95. Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk, 142 –43.
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(Affianced to the Lamb, now famed on earth! / Soon famed in heaven, affianced to the Lamb! / Many thy wedding gifts while torches blaze. / The Bridegroom comes; many thy wedding gifts. / Ever on sweetest harp thou sing’st new songs. / Hymning thy Spouse ever on sweetest harp; / Ne’er parted from the Lamb’s high company, / Whom earthly love ne’er parted from the Lamb.)96 Æthelthryth’s reward for behaving well is a special place in Christ’s virginal choir. Leaving her spouse may have been socially acceptable to the Germanic community, but leaving her spouse for Christ is, for Bede, a spiritual choice that results in salvation and veneration, as his concluding verse illustrates. Unlike his presentation of other saints’ deaths in the Ecclesiastical History, Bede does not use the motif of angels taking her soul to heaven. Instead, he presents Æthelthryth as a member of the celestial choir, saying that she continually plays the harp and sings for Christ. We are not given Æthelthryth’s song; instead, we are reminded at the outset of the poem that Bede is singing: Bella Maro resonet; nos pacis dona canamus, munera nos Christi; bella Maro resonet. Carmina casta mihi, fedae non raptus Helenae; luxus erit lubricis, carmina casta mihi. Dona superna loquar, miserae non proelia Troiae; terra quibus gaudet, dona superna loquar. (Battle be Maro’s theme, sweet peace be mine; / Christ’s gifts for me, battle be Maro’s theme. / Chaste is my song, not wanton Helen’s rape. / Leave lewdness to the lewd! Chaste is my song. / Divine the gifts I tell, not Troy’s sad siege; / Source of earth’s joys, divine the gifts I tell.)97 The importance of the metaphysical reference lies in its reminder that Bede is composing and that he is making deliberate choices about his subject. He is a trained poet, one who understands meter and the appropriate use of verse for specific audiences.98 When contrasted with his story of Cædmon, 96. Bede, EH, 400 –401, 47–54. 97. Bede, EH, 398 –99, lines 3 – 8. By contrasting himself with Virgil, Bede sets himself up in the long literary tradition of writing verse but differentiates his poem from classical forms, which focus on battle. 98. Wieland, “Geminus Stilus: Studies in Anglo-Latin Hagiography,” 116.
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Bede is the trained writer who has learned to sing in the monastery at Wearmouth-Jarrow; the simple cowherd of Whitby is taught to sing by God. It would seem that Bede would find more honor in the latter, but in fact he takes great pride in his own accomplishments—so much so that he includes his hymn because “it seems fitting.” As a result, his song to virginity provides a narrative double to Cædmon’s song of praise. The two poems are separated by only four chapters in book four. Like Æthelthryth, who stands in opposition to Hild within this section of the Ecclesiastical History, Bede’s hymn opposes the reference to Cædmon’s poem in Old English. Book four documents those who have contributed to the church’s development in the second half of the seventh century (664 –98): Archbishop Theodore; Bishops Colman, Chad, Wilfrid, and others appointed by Theodore, such as Eorcenwald, Æthelburh, and the nuns of Barking; King Sebbi of the East Saxons (who left his wife for the monastic life and thus is the male opposite of the Ely abbess); Hild; Cædmon; Adamnan; Æthelthryth; and Cuthbert, who epitomized the perfect male model of sanctity for Bede. Interspersed within these accounts are two important canonical meetings of the 670s: the Synod of Hertford and the Synod of Hatfield. Looking at this catalog of subjects, we see that book four of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History is less a story of the abbesses than a story of Christian development, a narrative in which several important women played a role.99 This section of the history is the envelope for the two hymns of praise he recounts as having been composed long ago: Cædmon’s and Bede’s. Cædmon worships God in Old English, but Bede includes only a Latin summary of this most important song.100 By contrast, Bede includes his entire hymn on virginity. The insertion, he claims, is appropriate because it follows scriptural practice, and here Bede seems to suggest that as the one who is recording the sacred events of his time, he should emulate those who have written on similar topics in the past. When Bede entreats God’s blessing on his work, he employs the imperative “adnue iam coeptis” (bless this work), which communicates both a supplication and a demand for God’s approval.101 Bede continues confidently, knowing that he writes an important history and within it has provided the narratives of those worthy of veneration. The hymn, which so highly honors Æthelthryth, shows Bede’s gift of poetry, and the reference to himself as 99. Foot, Veiled Women, 1:22, argues that women are significant in this group, demonstrating that one-third of the chapters are about women. 100. Bede, EH, 416 –17. 101. Bede, EH, 396 –97, lines 1–2.
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singer situates Bede at an important cultural crossroads. He presents himself as the moral teacher for his audience, and while he relies on others, such as Wilfrid and Cynefrith, to document aspects of the history of Æthelthryth, Bede is the final authority on the sacred events of his day. When offering his work to others, he adopts a pose of humilitas initially, and at the end he seems to boast of his work. In the preface, he indicates that “quod uera lex historiae est, simpliciter ea quae fama uulgante collegiumus ad instructionem posteritatis litteris mandare studuimus” (for, in accordance with the principles of true history, I have simply sought to commit to writing what I have collected from common report, for the instruction of posterity).102 Here, Bede presents himself as the recorder of events, the observer who has simply collected the information. This parallels his self-presentation in the Life of Æthelthryth, where he poses as the one who interrogates Wilfrid about Æthelthryth’s virginity. Adopting this position makes it seem as though he is not making deliberate choices about the presentation (shaping, editing, deleting); indeed, the stories he tells are facts that can be substantiated by others. By contrast, Bede concludes the Ecclesiastical History with an autograph that illustrates how proud he is of the work he has produced: Haec de historia ecclesiastica Brittaniarum, et maxime / gentis Anglorum, prout uel ex litteris antiquorum uel ex traditione maiorum uel ex mea ipse cognitione scire potui, Domino adiuuante digessi Baeda famulus Christi et presbyter monasterii beatorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli, quod est ad Uiuraemuda et Ingyruum. . . . Ex quo tempore accepti presbyteratus usque ad annum aetatis meae LVIIII haec in Scripturam sanctam meae meorumque necessitati ex opusculis uenerabilium patrum breuiter adnotare, siue etiam ad formam sensus et interpretationis eorum superadicere curaui . . . (I, Bede, servant of Christ and priest of the monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul which is at Wearmouth and Jarrow, have with the help of God and to the best of my ability, put together this account of the history of the Church of Britain and of the English people in particular, gleaned either from ancient documents or from tradition or from my own knowledge. . . . From the time I became a 102. Bede, EH, 6 –7.
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priest until the fifty-ninth year of my life I have made it my business, for my own benefit and that of my brothers, to make brief extracts from the works of the venerable fathers on the holy Scriptures, or to add notes of my own to clarify their sense and interpretation. These are the books. . . . )103 Bede adds to this a list of books he has glossed or translated. What is significant here is that he presents himself as the chronicler of “our island and our race” (nostrae insulae ac gentis), as one knowledgeable about meter (writing a book on the art), and as a diligent researcher of hagiography (compiling a martyrology). His list of texts demonstrates how productive he has been, and the range of material is impressive. The choice of including the stories of Hild of Whitby and Æthelthryth of Ely, as well as Æthelburh of Barking (who is also presented as the mother of her community), alongside major male figures indicates how important these women were to the institutional church. The miracles associated with each place are details that legitimize them as sacred spaces. Bede’s treatment of Æthelthryth, however, stands out. Where he focuses on the male ecclesiasts who came from Whitby and on the foundation of Barking and its success as a female house, Bede uses these elements to frame Hild and Æthelburh’s sanctity. By contrast, the story of Æthelthryth is fixated on her perfection, on her virginal status, and on the scar as a marker of this status. The accompanying hymn stigmatizes Æthelthryth further. It is an exemplary poem, indeed, a “remarkable rhetorical display.”104 Together, the prose life and the hymn place Æthelthryth in an important position in Bede’s account. Situated among the most celebrated ecclesiastical figures, such as Hild and Cuthbert, Æthelthryth becomes one of the most significant symbols of early Anglo-Saxon Christianity. Bede’s presentation distinguishes her further: by inserting the hymn alongside the prose account, Bede offers an opus geminatum, a traditional form for venerating saints, yet this is the only one included directly within the Ecclesiastical History. While surely Bede intended to emphasize Æthelthryth’s singularity, he also benefits by presenting his own work in a selfconscious fashion. Here, Bede’s hymn supersedes Cædmon’s, which is not recounted in full (much less in the vernacular), and we see through his rhetorical practice and the careful framework of book four that Bede has positioned himself at the origins of insular literacy. 103. Bede, EH, 566 – 67. 104. Szarmach, “Æ2eldreda in the OE Bede.”
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two Æ2eldry2 wolde 2a ealle woruld-4incg forlætan: The Ideology of Chastity and Monastic Reform (ca. 970 – ca. 998)
Et qui eius integritatem per imputrible corpus post obitum manifeste designauit signisque miraculorum ineffabiliter ostendit uos in sanctis operibus castos fideliter usque ad uitae terminum perseuerare concedat. Amen. Quatinus ab huius recidiui saeculi cupiditate remoti, uirtutum omnium lampadibus adornati, eius in caelis mereamini habere consortium quae terreni regis caritatiue contempsit thalamum, spretaque lata terrenae cupiditatis uia artam monasticae conuersationis eligere uoluit uitam, ac hodierna die uoti compos caelestem aeterni regis intrare promeruit aulam. Amen. (And may he who clearly revealed her purity through her incorruptible body after death and who revealed her ineffably through miracles grant you the ability to persevere committedly chaste in good works until the end of your life. Amen. So that, remote from desire for this transient world, adorned with the lamps of all virtues, you may deserve to have in heaven the fellowship of [Æthelthryth] who through divine love scorned the bridal bed of an earthly king and, having rejected the wide highway of earthly lust, wished to choose the narrow way of monastic life, and on this day, obtaining her wish, deserved to enter the celestial hall of the eternal king. Amen.)1
Bede’s authority had firmly established a hagiographical narrative about Æthelthryth’s virginal sanctity, and the circulation of the Ecclesiastical History among insular and continental audiences led to widespread clerical knowledge about the saint. Later writers drew on this account to situate Æthelthryth as a cultural symbol— one that specifically represented the politics of 1. This passage reflects the last of a three-part blessing composed for Æthelthryth’s feast day and included in the BSE. The edition and translation quoted here is from Wulfstan’s Life of St. Æthelwold, ed. Michael Lapidge and Michael Winterbottom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), lxxxii. Another edition is found in the Corpus Benedictionum Pontificalium, ed. E. Moeller, no. 1805; and Robert Deshman offers a translation in his Benedictional of St. Æthelwold (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 122. A facsimile of the manuscript is available as The Benedictional of St. Æthelwold: A Masterpiece of Anglo-Saxon Art (London: British Library 2002).
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chastity and monasticism during the tenth-century Benedictine Reform.2 The cult activity in this period is proved by liturgy that has been linked directly to Winchester as a major site of the monastic reform, and while these texts demonstrate a concern with marital chastity as the preeminent theme of Æthelthryth’s life, that message is coupled with an emphasis on the saint’s monastic career. The epigraph, which is from the benedictional of Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester, is an extract from the blessing composed in honor of Æthelthryth’s feast. It explains that Æthelthryth avoided “earthly lust” by choosing “the narrow way of monastic life,” and because the Northumbrian queen had renounced her elite position in the secular world in favor of a life of chastity and enclosure, she received a celestial reward. The prayer, which may have been composed by Æthelwold himself for recitation during the mass, promises a similar end to those who adopt Æthelthryth’s life choices.3 In effect, the image of the chaste queen as abbess is invoked here not only to prompt clerical veneration of a local virgin who maintained her will in the face of secular demands but also to provide a symbol to encourage laity to adopt a monastic career under Æthelwold’s guidance. Before turning to the evidence of Æthelthryth as a cultural symbol of chaste monasticism, however, it is necessary to survey the historical context for the revitalization of this cult. What happened at Ely between the time of Bede and the activities of Æthelwold remains a mystery, because no records 2. For a brief survey of the monastic reform, see Pauline A. Stafford, “Church and Society in the Age of Aelfric,” in The Old English Homily and Its Backgrounds, ed. Paul E. Szarmach and Bernard F. Huppé (Albany: SUNY Press, 1978), 11–42. For the reform programs and the relationships among royal power, the episcopate, and secular landholders, see also Stafford’s Unification and Conquest: A Political and Social History of England in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (London: Edward Arnold, 1989); Tenth-Century Studies: Essays in Commemoration of the Millennium of the Council of Winchester and “Regularis Concordia,” ed. David Parsons (London: Phillimore, 1975); and Blair, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society. For a survey of political and royal issues leading to the reform, see David N. Dumville, Wessex and England from Alfred to Edgar: Six Essays on Political, Cultural, and Ecclesiastical Revival (Woodbridge, Suff.: Boydell Press, 1992). Also useful is Mechthild Gretsch, The Intellectual Foundations of the English Benedictine Reform (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), which situates the reform as beginning much earlier than previously thought. The three major reformers have been discussed in Bishop Æthelwold: His Career and Influence, ed. Barbara Yorke (Woodbridge, Suff.: Boydell Press, 1988); Nigel Ramsay et al., eds., St. Dunstan: His Life, Times, and Influence (Woodbridge, Suff.: Boydell Press, 1992); and Nicholas Brooks and Catherine Cubitt, eds., St. Oswald of Worcester: Life and Influence (London: Leicester University Press, 1996). 3. Michael Lapidge observes that such benedictions were the special provenance of bishops and included in the mass following the Pater noster, immediately preceding communion. See his introduction to Wulfstan of Winchester’s Life of St. Æthelwold, ed. Lapidge and Winterbottom, xxix.
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survive. If the Liber Eliensis is to be believed, the monastery was overrun during the Danish invasions, and the house was destroyed and its members killed.4 While some have accepted this account without question—in part because of the Viking raids in East Anglia in the late 860s—Simon Keynes asserts that during this period “there is no hard evidence for whatever may have happened at Ely.”5 That changes ca. 970, when Æthelwold refounded the monastery at Ely, an action that coincides with his organization of other defunct communities in the fenlands, including Peterborough and Thorney.6 When Æthelwold left his post as abbot of Abingdon, he took members of his community to Winchester, where as bishop he expelled the lay priests and founded a monastery and a nunnery and replaced them with Abingdon monks. When the bishop refounded the fenland houses, he replicated this practice; in effect, he extended the monastic program he had begun in Wessex by populating East Anglian houses with monks from St. Swithun’s in Winchester. In this way, Æthelwold organized a network of monks who, because they took their Winchester traditions with them to their new homes in East Anglia, were able to support the bishop’s reform efforts in various locations.7 Æthelthryth’s foundation at Ely was one of the houses chosen by Æthelwold, and it became, in no small part because of his economic support, one of the most prominent of foundations in late AngloSaxon England. By the time of the Domesday reckoning, it was second only to Glastonbury in terms of wealth.8 Ely’s stature as a wealthy and powerful institution developed as a direct result of Æthelwold’s policies, and the cult of Æthelthryth burgeoned in this authorized institution of reform. 4. LE, 54 –55. It is unclear what occurred at Ely, but the LE suggests that the church was spared and that the tomb of Æthelthryth remained intact. Blair indicates that minsters were already on the decline as the Viking raids began. Despite the disruptions caused by these raids, particularly in eastern counties, Blair finds some evidence of continuity in early minsters through the tenth-century reforms, suggesting that they became more secularized over time. See The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society, 295 –354. 5. Simon Keynes, “Ely Abbey 672 –1109,” in A History of Ely Cathedral, ed. Peter Meadows and Nigel Ramsay (Woodbridge, Suff.: Boydell Press, 2003), 2 –75 at 14. 6. Ridyard, Royal Saints, 189. See also Eric John, “The King and Monks in the TenthCentury Reformation,” in his collection of essays, Orbis Britanniae and Other Studies (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1966), 154 – 80. 7. The Chartulary of St. Swithin’s, Winchester (BL, Add. ms 29436) shows that Old Minster enjoyed a confraternity with a number of houses, including Ely. The cartulary has been edited by Walter de Gray Birch as Liber Vitae: Register and Martyrology of New Minster and Hyde Abbey, Winchester (London: Simpkin, 1892), 49. 8. David Knowles, The Monastic Order in England: A History of Its Development from the Times of St. Dunstan to the Fourth Lateran Council, 943 –1216, 2d ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 102.
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How Æthelwold came into the guardianship of Ely is hinted at in several documents. At some point between Bede’s writing and the late tenth century, the Isle of Ely had reverted to the king’s possession,9 and if an eleventh-century copy of a charter is to be believed, King Edgar gave the property to Æthelwold in exchange for sixty hides at Harting and a payment of one hundred pounds in the form of a gold cross, because, as the charter reads, the relics at Ely merited it.10 Furthermore, a description of the refoundation and the endowments offered by Æthelwold and King Edgar are provided in two important sources, the Libellus Æthelwoldi episcopi, an account based on an earlier vernacular record of Æthelwold’s activities at Ely, and Wulfstan of Winchester’s Life of Æthelwold, which was written by one of Æthelwold’s students only a few years after his death.11 The Libellus, which was copied into the monastic chronicle Liber Eliensis, records that, in addition to repopulating the house and placing Byrhtnoth as abbot, Æthelwold and Edgar both donated a large number of gifts to support the new foundation at Ely.12 The Libellus, as the official monastic register, lists 9. Blair, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society, 323 –41, demonstrates that secular control of minster lands and sites was increasingly common as the endowments for minsters declined before and during the Viking raids. For a discussion of the royal estate following the Danish invasion, see Robin Fleming, “Monastic Lands and England’s Defence in the Viking Age,” English Historical Review 100 (1985): 247– 65. 10. See Keynes’s discussion of the charters associated with this transaction in “Ely Abbey,” 21–22. 11. The Libellus Æthelwoldi episcopi was incorporated into the LE, but as Keynes notes, it also survives in two manuscripts (Trinity College Cambridge, ms O.2.41, and BL, ms Cotton Vespasian A.xix). See his remarks in “Ely Abbey 672 –1109,” 7 and 17–27. The only printed edition is Libellus Æthelwoldi Episcopi in Thomas Gale, ed., Historiae Britannicae, Saxonicae, Anglo-Danicae Scriptores, no. 15 (Oxford: Sheldon Theatre, 1691), but a second edition and translation of the Libellus is in preparation: The Book of Bishop Æthelwold (“Libellus Æthelwoldi episcopi”), on the Refoundation and Endowment of Ely Abbey in the 970s, ed. S. Keynes and A. Kennedy (forthcoming). I would like to express my sincere appreciation to Professor Keynes, who so graciously shared a draft of this work in progress. 12. See, e.g., the list of books donated to Peterborough, which Michael Lapidge catalogs in his “Surviving Booklists from Anglo-Saxon England,” in Learning and Literature in AngloSaxon England, ed. Michael Lapidge and Helmut Gneuss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 33 – 89 at 52 –55. No Ely booklist survives the Conquest, but the LE includes three inventories. The first accounting followed the death of Abbot Theodwine and is dated between 1075 and 1081. It mentions twelve gospel books and book covers for two gospel books but does not identify the source of these books. The second inventory was performed by Ranulf Flambard, possibly in 1087 or 1093, when Ranulf took custody of the abbey. His much-enlarged list includes fourteen gospel books, but Bishop Nigel’s inventory in 1134 is the only list that assigns benefactors and owners to the objects listed, and it mentions seventeen gospel books, one given by King Edgar. No one book is associated with Æthelwold or clearly given by him as a gift; instead, he endowed the abbey with land and stock, according to the Libellus.
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Æthelwold’s gifts to the Isle, including purchases of land made specifically for the monastic house, such as Stretham, Linden, Witcham, and Wilburton. The many prayers contained in the Libellus remember Æthelwold as founder and provider of these gifts, and as Keynes makes clear, the text is a “commemoration of St. Æthelwold” as patron.13 Certainly, the Ely account is biased in favor of Æthelwold as the house’s benefactor, and we might well expect such a narrative to make much of the gifts that generated income to support the house, even as we should not be surprised at the claims to monastic ownership that are inherent in the recounting of these gifts. While there may well be some hyperbole in the Libellus regarding Æthelwold’s largesse, the details of specific translations suggest that the account is, in large part, an accurate rendering of the monastery’s holdings, and thus the Libellus provides an important record of the economic exchanges that were needed to support a large monastic operation.14 Wulfstan of Winchester’s account of Æthelwold’s life complements the foundation narrative created by the Libellus, even as the biographer indicates his awareness of the importance of the relics at Ely. When recounting his teacher’s reform activities, Wulfstan described the transaction between Æthelwold and Edgar, as well as the lavish appointments made to Ely’s monastic buildings: Nec solum in finibus Occidentalium Saxonum uerum etiam in remotis Britanniae partibus sanctus antistes Ætheluuoldus ad Dei omnipotentis seruitium monachos adgregare curauit. Est enim quaedam regio famosa in prouincia Orientalium Anglorum sita, paludibus et aquis in modum insulae circumdata, unde et a copia anguillarum quae in eisdem paludibus capiuntur Ælig nomen accepit. In qua regione locus omni ueneratione dignus habetur, magnificatus nimium reliquiis et miraculis sanctae Æthelthrythae reginae et perpetuae uirginis ac sororum eius; sed in ipso tempore erat destitutus et regali fisco deditus. Hunc ergo locum famulus Christi pro dilectione tantarum uirginum magnopere uenerari coepit, datoque precio non modicae pecuniae emit eum a rege Eadgaro, constituens in eo monachorum gregem non minimum. 13. The famous Byrhtnoth, leader in the defeat at the Battle of Maldon, was one of the great patrons of Ely. See part 4, titled “Byrhtnoth and Ely,” in The Battle of Maldon, A.D. 991, ed. Donald Scragg (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), 253 –93. 14. Keynes, in “Ely Abbey 672 –1109,” 7, notes the importance of the Libellus, which was based on now-lost vernacular documents.
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Quibus ordinauit abbatem Byrhtnodum praepositum suum, et eiusdem loci situm monasterialibus aedificiis decentissime renouauit, eumque terrarum possessionibus affluentissime locupletatum et aeternae libertatis priuilegio confirmatum omnipotenti Domino commendauit. (The holy bishop Æthelwold was concerned to bring monks together in the service of Almighty God not only within Wessex but also in remote parts of Britain. There is a well-known spot in East Anglia, surrounded like an island by swamps and water. From the quantity of eels taken in these marshes it has been given the name Ely. Here there is a place held to deserve all reverence, for it is made glorious by the relics and miracles of St. Æthelthryth, queen and perpetual virgin, and her sisters. But at this time it was abandoned and pertained to the royal fisc. The servant of Christ [Æthelwold] began to reverence this place greatly, out of his love for the distinguished virgins [buried there], and he paid a large sum of money to buy it from King Edgar. In it he established a large group of monks, ordaining his prior Byrhtnoth as abbot. He renovated the place as it deserved, giving it monastery buildings, and enriched it lavishly with possessions in land. He confirmed this grant with a privilege conferring perpetual liberty; and dedicated it to the Almighty Lord.)15 Here, Wulfstan emphasizes Æthelwold’s devotion to the virgin saints and indicates that the bishop’s regard for them is what led him to spend significant personal resources to support the house. The description of a large group of monks, the conferral of a perpetual liberty, and the reference to the cost of the donations suggest Wulfstan’s personal admiration for Æthelwold’s generosity and that he is trying to inspire awe in his audience for his teacher’s work. The assertion that this place deserves “all reverence” suggests that by the time Wulfstan was writing, Ely’s reputation as a holy site had been well established. Wulfstan mentions the relics, the miracles, and Æthelthryth’s sisters, and he refers to Æthelthryth as the “queen and perpetual virgin.” This phrasing is quite similar to a description in Æthelwold’s benedictional that calls Æthelthryth both “abbess and perpetual virgin,” which seems to indicate that the reference to Æthelthryth’s marital purity 15. Wulfstan, Life of St. Æthelwold, ed. Lapidge and Winterbottom, 38 –41.
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was a repeated phrase in this period. In any case, Wulfstan’s account illustrates that within a few years of Æthelwold’s death in 984, the Ely cult was well established and continued to be supported by Æthelwold’s disciples as a place of due reverence. That Wulfstan attributes Æthelwold’s reform agenda in the fenlands as a manifestation of his personal devotion to the local saints buried there is significant, for it justifies Æthelwold’s extravagant expenditures associated with the refoundation of Ely and deflects attention from what may well have been a political attempt by bishop and king to exercise more control over the fenlands. Together, the Life of Æthelwold, as an account of Ely’s benefactor, and the Libellus, as a historical accounting of its patron’s largesse, establish a complete narrative (if not a historically accurate one) that situates Æthelwold’s commitment to the cult of Æthelthryth. These accounts are supported by the documentary evidence of an Ely refoundation charter, BL, Stowe Ch. 31 (S 779), the veracity of which has been discussed time and again. It dates the financial transaction between Edgar and Æthelwold to 970 and illustrates the details of the agreement. In addition, the charter stresses that it was at Æthelwold’s insistence that Edgar authorized the refoundation of Ely to honor Æthelthryth:16 Unde frequentes monitus venerabilis Atheuuoldi episcopi cordetenus pertractans cupio honorare . hoc privilegio rebusque copiosis monasterium quod in regione ELIG situm dinoscitur antiquitus . ac Sancti Petri apostolorum principis honore dedicatum . decoratumque reliquiis et miraculis almæ virginis Etheldredæ cujus vita venerabilis nobis modernis historia Anglorum promitur quæ etiam incorruptibili corpore hactenus condita mausoleo marmoreo albo perdurat. . . . 16. One term in particular points directly to Bede’s text; his use of the words “marmore albo” to describe the stone sarcophagus used at the translation of Æthelthryth is echoed in the Latin charter: “mausoleo marmoreo albo.” Surviving manuscript evidence also supports the notion that Bede is the only source by which Æthelwold and Ælfric knew the life of Æthelthryth. Patrick H. Zettel has demonstrated that the collection of lives called the CottonCorpus Legendary contains all the saints Ælfric included in both the Catholic Homilies and his Lives of Saints, except for his representations of English saints, including Cuthbert, Alban, Æthelthryth, Swithun, Oswald, and Edmund. See Zettel, “Saints’ Lives in Old English: Latin Manuscripts and Vernacular Accounts: Ælfric,” Peritia 1 (1982): 17–37. Peter Jackson and Michael Lapidge indicate that the legendary does include the English saint Guthlac, but because this life is not named in the scribe’s list of contents, they conjecture that it was “an ad hoc scribal addition,” in “The Contents of the Cotton-Corpus Legendary,” in Holy Men and Holy Women. ed. Szarmach, 131–46.
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(With the frequent urgings of the venerable Bishop Æthelwold influencing me, I [Edgar] desire to embellish, by this privilege and with copious gifts, the monastery which is distinguished from ancient times and is situated in the Ely region, to be dedicated in honor of Saint Peter, the first of the Apostles, and to be adorned with the relics and miracles of the bountiful virgin Æthelthryth, whose venerable life is revealed to us modern ones by the history of the English people, and who endures even now, her body still incorruptible, buried in a white marble tomb. . . . )17 Signed at the Witenagemot at Wulfamere (Woolmer, Hants.) by Edgar, Archbishop Dunstan, Bishop Æthelwold, Queen Ælfthryth, and others, the Stowe charter includes this endorsement: “Hæc est carta regis Eadgari de institutione abbatiæ Eliensis : et duplicatur.”18 Many scholars have asserted that it cannot be the original charter signed by Edgar.19 In fact, Keynes has indicated that this might be a charter designed by Ely retrospectively, in part because there is evidence that the foundation was established well before 970, though the donations seem to have begun in earnest around that date.20 The repetition of details in the charter regarding Æthelwold’s activities at Ely and his great love of the local saints suggests that it was in the monks’ best interest to provide a legal document to illustrate the veracity of the developing narrative. Producing a charter and distributing multiple copies would have provided Ely with diplomatic evidence of the narrative being established by the Libellus and the Life of Æthelwold. The charter, which may well have been produced long after Ely’s refoundation, would have provided episcopal sanction and protection legitimized by the Winchester bishop’s authority as a reformer.21 It seems, 17. Walter de Gray Birch, ed., Cartularium Saxonicum: A Collection of Charters Relating to Anglo-Saxon History, A.D. 948 –975 (London: Whiting, 1885), 3:557. The translation provided here is mine. 18. Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, 3:560. 19. Peter H. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography (London: Royal Historical Association, 1968), 248 –49. 20. Keynes, “Ely Abbey 672 –1109,” 22. For a complete listing of the charter manuscripts, as well as an abbreviated commentary from each critic on the original Latin charter, see Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters, 247–48. 21. The Latin text of Stowe Charter 31 is coupled with a vernacular copy, which Angus McIntosh attributed to Ælfric, Æthelwold’s other student from Winchester. If Pope is correct in his attribution, and most remain unconvinced that he is, it would indicate a further connection between the Winchester development of the cult and the establishment of Ely as a major monastic center. See John Pope, “Ælfric and the Old English Version of the Ely Privilege,” in England Before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources Presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. Peter Clemoes and Kathleen Hughes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 85 –113.
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therefore, that the documents associated with the refoundation all serve to catalog the monastery’s holdings, to stress its independent authority, granted by the king and one of his most important counselors, and to document the reason for this largesse as being a result of the devotion of these two figures to the Ely saints. This personal devotion is manifested in liturgical texts associated with Æthelwold, with his school at Winchester, and with the reform policies that emanated from this school. Although a full discussion of the English Benedictine Reform lies outside the scope of this discussion, attention to a few important details will help to elucidate the importance of the Ely cult to Æthelwold’s reform agenda. Part of this effort was to subsume the power of lay patrons and secular priests under monastic control, where celibacy was demanded. While the monastic reform encouraged laity and secular clerks to enter monastic life, reformers were also intent on separating monasteries from lay control, enforcing the requirement of celibacy, and demanding accountability by the minsters.22 The delineation between secular and monastic space demanded a deliberate promotion of strict monastic rules. As part of this initiative, Æthelwold translated the Benedictine Rule into English and made available the requirements of separation and enclosure decreed therein.23 Some of the political moves that supported this ideology involved an aggressive policy of extending monastic land rights, the reduction of lay-tenant status within the churches, and the expulsion or cloistering of the (mostly aristocratic) married clerks. All these activities created problems among the landholders, some of whom resisted the ecclesiastical reorganization.24 Others seem to have supported the reforms and became lay patrons of the monastic centers, so it appears that the reformers sought to control the institutions, even as they encouraged lay patronage of these houses and their patron saints. 22. Milton McC. Gatch, “The Office in Late Anglo-Saxon Monasticism,” in Learning and Literature, ed. Lapidge and Gneuss, 341– 62 at 342. 23. The separation of the monasteries from lay control was one of the main tenets of the Regularis Concordia: Anglicae Nationis Monachorum Sanctimonialiumque, ed. and trans. Thomas Symons (London: Thomas Nelson, 1953), 7. The most recent edition is Lucia Kornexl, Die “Regularis Concordia” und Ihre Altenglische Interlinearversion mit Einleitung und Kommentar (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1993). On the separation of monks and laity, especially King Edgar’s mandate that fences be erected between the laity and the three monastic houses in Winchester, see Martin Biddle, “Felix Urbs Winthonia: Winchester in the Age of Monastic Reform,” in Tenth-Century Studies, ed. Parsons, 123 –40. 24. Eric John, “The World of Abbot Aelfric,” in Ideal and Reality in Frankish and AngloSaxon Society: Studies Present to J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, ed. Patrick Wormald (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983), 300 –316 at 302.
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As part of this initiative, Æthelwold actively celebrated the early AngloSaxon saints, and he seems to have developed a special regard for Æthelthryth, as patron of Ely, and for Swithun as the patron of his newly organized monastery at Winchester.25 A discussion of Æthelwold’s investment in the cult of Swithun has been undertaken by Lapidge, who has demonstrated that Æthelwold “began to promote Swithun’s previously obscure cult so that the saint’s unexpected rise to prominence and his subsequent flurry of miracles would appear as signs of heavenly approval for the bishop’s policy of monastic reform.”26 Where the cult of Swithun was utilized to sanction the reform, the story of Æthelthryth, the queen who had lived for twelve years in chastity, provided an important message, particularly as Æthelwold was denouncing the status of lay priests (who were often married or who had concubines) in the communities where he was reorganizing the monasteries. Yet, as the epigraph demonstrates, it was not only Æthelthryth’s marital chastity but also her role as abbess that rendered her an important cultural symbol to the reformer. The development of Æthelthryth as a cultural symbol is manifested in the liturgical texts associated with Bishop Æthelwold or with his school at Winchester. As noted above, the most significant of these is the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, which includes not only the blessing for the saint’s feast but also an elaborate full-page miniature of the saint as abbess, a picture inscribed with her identity, her vocation, and her sexual status. The ornate manuscript, which was produced 971– 984, provides strong evidence of Æthelwold’s regard for Æthelthryth, even as it illustrates the bishop’s investment in situating her as the premier female saint of the Benedictine Reform. Other liturgical texts illustrate Æthelwold’s success in revitalizing this cult, particularly the late Saxon litanies, or prayers that include lists of saints deemed to be the most significant. Many of the litanies stem from Æthelwold’s Winchester school, and in them Æthelthryth appears as one of the most widely celebrated saints in the insular tradition and as the most revered native female. The prayers, which were copied into a number of different manuscripts, are witness to the production and dissemination of Æthelthryth’s name even as they provide concrete evidence of the veneration of the Ely saint. The Winchester provenance of the benedictional, and the close ties many of the litanies have with Winchester, suggests that the earliest liturgical 25. Clayton provides an overview of Æthelwold’s cult activities and also describes the recent scholarship on native cults, in her “Centralism and Uniformity,” 95 –106. 26. Lapidge, Cult of St. Swithun, 182.
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documents of the cult were composed under Æthelwold’s direction or are a direct result of his influence. Also associated with the Winchester school is a prose translation of Bede’s account of Æthelthryth’s life composed by Æthelwold’s student Ælfric of Eynsham.27 As a translator, Ælfric remains faithful to Bede’s narrative, but he also offers a coda in which a thegn exchanges his secular life of chastity for a monastic career, and thus Ælfric provides readers with a gloss to understand the life of this native abbess. The presentation of the thegn’s celestial reward demonstrates that Æthelwold’s student too emphasized the reform policy of chaste monasticism espoused in the bishop’s benedictional.28 The three types of liturgical evidence discussed below therefore demonstrate the development of the Etheldredan cult in the late tenth century, and together they illustrate how the imagery of the virgin abbess was used by Æthelwold to address his ecclesiastical and political concerns.29 It is significant that the imagery of the benedictional, both textual and visual, in conjunction 27. A significant discussion of this life is offered by Peter Jackson, “Ælfric and the Purpose of Christian Marriage: A Reconsideration of the Life of Æthelthryth, lines 120 –30,” Anglo-Saxon England 29 (2001): 235 – 60. 28. The collection was dedicated to Æthelweard, whose last attestation of a charter is in 998, which is no. 895 in Sawyer. See Michael Lapidge, “Ælfric’s Sanctorale,” in Holy Men and Holy Women, ed. Szarmach 115 –29. 29. Several other pieces of Winchester liturgy, written to honor Æthelthryth, survive, including a mass in Le Havre, Bibliothèque Municipale, ms 330, known as the New Minster Missal (ca. 1120), ed. D. H. Turner, The Missal of the New Minster, Winchester (Leighton Buzzard: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1962). Æthelthryth also appears in the litany that begins the New Minster manuscript. A sacramentary known as the Missal of Robert of Jumièges (1013 –1017), also called Rouen, Public Library, Y6, contains a slightly longer version of this same mass and has been edited by H. A. Wilson, The Missal of Robert of Jumièges (1896; reprint, Woodbridge, Suff.: Boydell Press, 1994). The elaborate codex was probably written at Winchester, though possibly at Ely or Peterborough. The mass for Æthelthryth focuses on her marital virginity, which gives her the power to keep sinners out of heaven. I am indebted to Nicholas Orchard, who provided me with a list of liturgical references about Æthelthryth. His list includes the calendars of the Leofric Missal (Oxford, Bodl. ms 579) and the Bosworth Psalter (BL, Add. ms 37517), which position Æthelthryth as an important saint. Orchard also identifies a record of the office sung in honor of Æthelthryth’s feast day, which is included in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, ms 391, edited by Anselm Hughes as The Portiforium of Saint Wulstan (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, ms 391), vol. 1 (Leighton Buzzard: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1956), 128 –29 and 140. Simon Keynes also notes that a chant in Æthelthryth’s honor “with semi-diastematic central French neumes was written in an eleventhcentury hand across the top of 42v and 41r (as originally ordered),” in Cambridge, Trinity College O. 2. 31: “alma uirgo ae4eldry2a hac que die plena suscepit celestia / In sanctitate fulgida et plena felicitate compleuit dies suos gaudia. Pulcra facie.” Keynes concurs with M. R. James’s view that the manuscript was written at Christ Church, Canterbury but suggests that the text may have later gone to Ely. See Keynes, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Trinity College, Old English Newsletter, Subsidia, no. 18 (Binghamton, N.Y.: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1992), 26 –27. For a larger discussion of liturgical forms, see Gatch,
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with the frame provided by Ælfric’s vernacular account, established Æthelthryth not only as a symbol of chaste marriage but also as a symbol of monastic service. The iconography of the saint is therefore a significant aspect of this discussion. Iconography, in this case, takes several textual forms, including the physical representation of the saint’s body in an episcopal service book and blessings and litanies in which Æthelthryth is honored. Liturgical readings are invariably spoken aloud to an audience of the faithful, and in this way the saint’s physical reality becomes known, and, more significant for this study, the saint’s physical body is crafted within language. Indeed, textual representations replace the saint’s physical body as malleable signs that allow the body to be adapted to fit the needs of the reformers. Where Bede had provided a narrative in which Æthelthryth’s body was physically revealed to public view and in which a layman named Cynefrith authenticated the body as incorrupt, the liturgical texts associated with the Benedictine Reform situate the body differently. Æthelwold does not hold a translation ceremony at Ely when he refounds the monastery; instead, his production of liturgical texts, including his blessing in honor of Æthelthryth’s feast, serves as the means by which the body is made manifest. As the following demonstrates, the reformers use language and image to constitute Æthelthryth’s body, to render it up for public consumption. In a series of repeated acts, the narrative of Æthelthryth’s life is discontinued and her incorrupt body is presented symbolically in such a way that the texts themselves become bodily performances that situate Æthelthryth’s body as chaste and monastic.30 Richard Gameson writes that the artistic response to “representing spiritual meaning was to replace narrative with (or, perhaps better, to sublimate it into) an icon—a single, hieratic image that indicated spirituality and could be taken to allude to the recorded sequence of events.”31 As I examine the representations of Æthelthryth, particularly her miniature in Æthelwold’s benedictional, I shall refer to the textual representations as iconic, but I am not examining the saint’s attributes to determine a pattern of representation. Instead, I intend to show how an image “makes meaning for its practitioners and interlocutors”32 even as that meaning is “The Office in Anglo-Saxon Monasticism,” and Richard W. Pfaff, ed. The Liturgical Books of Anglo-Saxon England (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute, 1995). 30. My reading here is largely informed by Butler’s discussion of performative gender and her definition that “Gender is an identity tenuously constituted in time, instituted in an exterior space through a stylized repetition of acts.” See Gender Trouble, 140. 31. Richard Gameson, The Role of Art in the Late Anglo-Saxon Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 137. 32. Beckwith, Christ’s Body, 3.
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being constituted in the acts of production and recitation of liturgical texts. As Sarah Beckwith argues, symbols are intrinsically linked to the production of culture, and culture is linked to the production of its symbols. Therefore, if we regard “religious culture in terms of the categories of symbol, practice, and use, it may be possible to envision not so much the internal logic of such symbolism but at least some kind of restoration of its practical necessity in the real conditions of its genesis.”33 In this case, I am particularly concerned with examining how the story of Æthelthryth was necessary for the promotion of monasticism. When a male saint, such as Swithun, might have provided a less confusing example, Æthelwold chose to emphasize Æthelthryth’s monastic career as one to imitate. Certainly, the details of Swithun’s life were obscure enough to allow a narrative to be invented describing Swithun as a chaste monk, and because it is clear that the miracle stories about Swithun’s support of the Benedictine monastery at Winchester emerged exactly as Æthelwold began his reforms, we know that invention was a part of Æthelwold’s program for Winchester.34 Furthermore, because the bishop had articulated the separation between male and female houses in his translation of the Benedictine Rule, he could easily have situated Swithun as the icon for a male audience, and Æthelthryth as the representative saint for women, just as he set up the king as the head of the monasteries, and the queen as head of the female communities. Still, Æthelwold chose to honor Æthelthryth as the symbol of monastic chastity, one that according to the blessing for her feast was directed at an audience composed primarily of men who might be induced to embrace the monastic life. As an aristocratic abbess who had renounced her royal position in favor of a religious career, and as one who had successfully maintained her chastity within the confines of the cloister, Æthelthryth, as we shall see, provided an ideal image, an iconic symbol, for imitation by those who resisted, and indeed for those who supported, the systematic organization of the English clergy.
Bishop Æthelwold’s Benedictional In one of the most elaborate service books to survive from the reform period, The Benedictional of St. Æthelwold (BSE), the Bishop of Winchester demonstrated his investment in the cult of Æthelthryth. The manuscript 33. Beckwith, Christ’s Body, 6. 34. Lapidge, Cult of St. Swithun, 3 –7 and 66 –73.
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includes two visual representations and a benediction for Æthelthryth’s feast day, all of which seem to have been composed expressly for this text. The codex has been dated between 971, when Æthelwold was elected bishop, and 984, the date of Æthelwold’s death, but Robert Deshman has narrowed that range to ca. 973.35 In his introduction to Wulfstan’s Life of St. Æthelwold, Lapidge discusses the service book in relation to the continental reform centered in the Frankish church, where he contends that the benedictions found in Æthelwold’s benedictional, which do not occur elsewhere, “were composed at Winchester for Æthelwold’s personal use—if not by Æthelwold himself, at least under his supervision.”36 Of primary importance to this study are the benedictions for Saints Swithun and Æthelthryth, prayers for which no previous source has been found. Æthelwold’s benedictional includes illuminated miniatures of only two Anglo-Saxon saints, again Æthelthryth and Swithun, who appear to have received Æthelwold’s special devotion (fol. 90v and fol. 97v). The appearance of visual and textual material about these two saints is not coincidental to the reform program; instead, clear evidence supports the contention that Æthelwold actively promoted the two cults as models of Anglo-Saxon sanctity. The distinctions between this manuscript and other episcopal service books demonstrate the deliberate nature of Æthelwold’s support of Swithun and Æthelthryth. Late Anglo-Saxon episcopal service books, on the whole, were highly personalized texts. At times commissioned specifically for an episcopal consecration, such personalization often reveals ownership as well as individual investment. But higher ecclesiastics often gave their books to lower bishops, so the provenance of a given text is important in uncovering episcopal associations. David Dumville suggests that some of the volumes might have been transmitted by bequest, but the evidence suggests that a newly consecrated bishop might commission a service book for himself; more than likely, the archbishop could “expect a new and at least elegant, if not splendid, episcopal service-book to be crafted for him.”37 Whereas the production of service books complements the elevated status of the Canterbury archbishops, the production of texts for each new episcopal house seems extreme, because the previous bishop’s service books would not necessarily 35. Deshman, Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, 213 –14 and 260 – 61. 36. Wulfstan, Life of St. Æthelwold, ed. Lapidge and Winterbottom, lxxix–lxxxiii at lxxxi. 37. David N. Dumville, Liturgy and the Ecclesiastical History of Late Anglo-Saxon England: Four Studies (Woodbridge, Suff.: Boydell Press, 1992), 94.
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be discarded in favor of new ones. Thus, Æthelwold’s production of a benedictional, the like of which was unknown heretofore, distinguishes his reform participation and his position as Bishop of Winchester, even as it suggests the limitations of previous books for his purpose. Æthelwold’s illuminated text is exemplary in several ways. First, it is one of the most lavish manuscripts produced by the Winchester school, and certainly the most elaborate service book surviving from that time.38 In addition to a large number of threefold blessings, which follow the precedent set by Isidore of Seville,39 Æthelwold’s benedictional includes twenty-nine fullpage miniatures that distinguish feast days in the liturgical calendar. Moreover, Andrew Prescott has demonstrated that this sophisticated text uniquely blends Gregorian and Gallican blessings and that on major feasts both forms are given. He adds that Æthelwold “also includes a number of blessings which occur only in English manuscripts or those closely related to English traditions.”40 Striking about the composition and use of this book is that such precommunion blessings originated in early eastern liturgy, where they were widely used. The English forms of service, brought by Augustine from Rome, did not include such benedictions, and when Boniface encountered them on the Continent, he questioned their acceptance in the Frankish church, where they were denounced by papal authority.41 During the eighth century, Roman practice influenced Gallican liturgy that produced the Gelasian sacramentaries, but “[n]one of these Roman books made provision for precommunion blessings.”42 Prescott notes that, despite Roman disapproval of the practice, the tradition of precommunion blessings spread to England during the ninth-century importation of Frankish service books, which led to the production of the Leofric 38. Lapidge in Wulfstan’s Life of St. Æthelwold, ed. Lapidge and Winterbottom, lxxx. For a full description of the manuscript illumination and text, see Deshman’s Benedictional of St. Æthelwold. See also Francis Wormald, Studies in Medieval Art from the Sixth to the Twelfth Centuries, vol. 1 of Collected Writings (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 85 –100; and J. J. G. Alexander, “The Benedictional of St. Æthelwold and Anglo-Saxon Illumination of the Reform Period,” in Tenth-Century Studies, ed. Parsons, 169 – 83 at 169. A historical discussion of the BSE is provided by Mechthild Gretsch, Aelfric and the Cult of Saints in Late Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 7–20. 39. Andrew Prescott observes that the episcopal benedictions follow the tripartite form that Moses was told to use in Numbers 6:22 –26, in his “Text of the Benedictional of St. Aethelwold,” in Bishop Æthelwold, ed. Yorke, 122. 40. Prescott, “Text of the Benedictional,” 127. 41. Prescott, “Text of the Benedictional,” 126. 42. Prescott provides a complete survey of the use of precommunion blessings that led to the construction of the BSE. See “Text of the Benedictional,” 123.
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Missal (Oxford, Bodl. ms 579), the oldest complete English benedictional to survive.43 As Prescott observes, Æthelwold’s benedictional differs markedly from the Leofric Missal; Æthelwold’s text is much longer and has more than triple the number of blessings, including alternative forms for major feasts. Its singular form, combining the Gregorian and Gallican traditions, completely distinguishes it from other benedictionals.44 In his analysis of the manuscript, Deshman notes that the special monastic significance of blessing must have been a critical factor in Æthelwold’s decision to commission the manuscript in the first place. Until then the sacramentary and the Gospel lectionary had been the two principal types of illuminated Latin books with liturgically arranged texts. Æthelwold, however, broke with this tradition and chose instead to make a benedictional, hitherto a relatively uncommon and modest type of liturgical book, the object of lavish decoration and illustration—in all probability for the very first time.45 Deshman suggests that the reason for this break in tradition resides in the “reformers’ symbolic association of benediction with Benedictine monasticism.” In other words, each time Æthelwold blessed the communicants from this luxurious text, he affirmed the establishment of the monastic rule in England.46 Many have noted the dual nature of Bishop Æthelwold: his severity as a reformer, especially the stern dismissal of married secular clerics from Abingdon and Old Minster, among others, and his gentle rebukes for monks of his own house, which recall the imagery of the shepherd leading chaste lambs back to the fold. As Deshman observes, the benedictions in Æthelwold’s benedictional illustrate a man exhorting the faithful to heaven and indicating the path to righteousness through stories of exemplary sanctity. 43. Prescott finds similarities between the so-called Ramsey Benedictional (Paris, BN, ms lat. 987) and the BSE and suggests that Ramsey was Æthelwold’s source text for the BSE. See “Text of the Benedictional,” 134 –35, and for a discussion of Æthelwold’s liturgical practices and the continental reforms, see Lapidge’s introduction to Wulfstan, Life of St. Æthelwold, ed. Lapidge and Winterbottom, lxi–lxxxvi. 44. Prescott, “Text of the Benedictional,” 127. 45. Deshman, Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, 191. See also Alexander, “Benedictional of St. Æthelwold and Anglo-Saxon Illumination,” 181, for a discussion of the singularity of the illuminations in the BSE. 46. Deshman, Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, 191.
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Æthelwold’s benedictional includes an illustration of Cuthbert in the confessor’s choir as well as miniatures for both Swithun and Æthelthryth, but of the three native saints included in this codex, only Æthelthryth is depicted twice, once in the virgin choir and again in a miniature adjacent to the benediction for her feast. As many art historians agree, the miniature for Æthelthryth’s feast is the most elaborate in the benedictional, but Æthelthryth’s position as a leader in the virgin chorus also signals her special status among the saints (fol. 1v and fol. 2r).47 Like the Æthelstan Psalter, the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold begins with choir pictorials— one for confessors and one for virgins. George Warner notes that at least two leaves are missing from the beginning and that the original manuscript probably had miniatures depicting the confessor and martyr choirs and, possibly, miniatures illustrating choirs of angels and prophets. Such an arrangement is found in the Æthelstan Psalter, preserved at Winchester and most likely known to the BSE artist.48 Be that as it may, the two-page illustration of the virgin chorus distinguishes Æthelthryth alongside Mary Magdalene.49 On the first page, each of the unidentified virgins wears a gold crown with a blue nimbus behind. In the facing-page miniature, Mary Magdalene stands above five other women, with Æthelthryth at the right and positioned slightly lower but still above the rest of the unidentified women. The virgins here wear gold crowns without nimbi, while Magdalene and Æthelthryth are singled out by their large golden halos instead of crowns. Deshman argues 47. The Virgin Mary alone is more revered than Æthelthryth in this codex, a detail that emphasizes the native saint’s relative importance to the premier woman of the Christian tradition. For a full discussion of this figure, see Clayton, Cult of the Virgin Mary, 40 –47 and 61– 89. Clayton also argues that the native cults competed with the Marian cult of AngloSaxon England and finds that eventually their popularity exceeded Mary’s, in her “Centralism and Uniformity,” 95 –106. 48. George F. Warner and H. A. Wilson, eds., The Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester, 963 –984 (Oxford: Roxburghe Club, 1910), xv. Deshman suggests that the lost miniature for the confessors’ chorus almost certainly portrayed Swithun so that, like Æthelthryth, Swithun warranted two illuminations. See Deshman, Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, 138. The Æthelstan Psalter is BL, ms Cotton Galba A.xviii. 49. Scholars do not agree on the identification of the central figure, on whether she is the Virgin Mary or the Magdalene. John Gage read the inscription as Sancta Maria Magdalena, in “A Dissertation on St. Æthelwold’s Benedictional, An Illuminated ms of the Tenth Century, in the Library of His Grace the Duke of Devonshire,” Archaeologia 24 (1832): 1–136. George Warner noted, however, that there was no feast in the BSE for Mary Magdalene and thought the words should read Mater Christi (xv). J. B. L. Tolhurst follows this suggestion in “An Examination of Two Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts of the Winchester School: The Missal of Robert of Jumièges, and the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold,” Archaeologia 83 (1933): 27–44 at 42. The most recent examination of the manuscript is by Deshman, who settles on the Magdalene at 150 –51.
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that Æthelthryth’s presence in the choir emulates the Virgin Mary’s role as bride of Christ, a parallel to Bede’s description of Æthelthryth as both mother of Christ and sponsa christi. The message for Æthelthryth’s feast day duplicates this theme, as discussed below. In this position, Æthelthryth might be expected to wear a crown, the attribute associated with the Virgin Mary and her reward of eternal life. Alternatively, an Anglo-Saxon audience might expect her to wear a symbol of her position as a queen of Northumbria and a member of the royal house of East Anglia. Instead, she wears a golden halo, which Deshman argues placed Æthelthryth and the Magdalene “in a special relation to the Virgin Mary at the Incarnation and suggested that their preeminence among the virgins resulted from their particularly faithful emulation of the virgo virginum.”50 There might be another way to read this scene as well: the preference of Æthelthryth’s sanctity over her royalty coordinates with the reformers systematic monachization of the secular priests.51 The festival blessing attributes Æthelthryth’s perfect marital virginity to her religious devotion to God—an image duplicated for Mary Magdalene, whose prostitution is redeemed through Christ’s love and her body made whole.52 Likewise, God has preserved the Virgin Mary as a woman without the sexual stain of marriage and maintained Æthelthryth’s virginity in two marriages. The three women make a unique trio; each is associated with men but remains virginal through God’s intervention. The second depiction of Æthelthryth in the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold illustrates why Æthelthryth is so highly honored within the virgin choir. The benedictional celebrates Æthelthryth’s feast day, 23 June, with the most highly decorated miniature in the codex as well as with the longest blessing (fol. 90v) (fig. 3). The miniature uniquely faces the only historiated initial page, which begins her feast day blessing with an image of Christ in Majesty (fol. 91r) (fig. 4). Deshman remarks that no other feast has both a full-page miniature and an initial page. Other text pages that face miniatures have 50. Deshman, Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, 151. 51. Yorke indicates that few queens of the late Anglo-Saxon period became abbesses; in fact, the stronger political role that queens had, thanks in large part to Æthelwold’s intercession, caused them to retain their status and regnal power even if they were living in a nunnery, in Nunneries and the Anglo-Saxon Royal Houses, 82 – 83 and 192. 52. In The Making of the Magdalen: Preaching and Popular Devotion in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 239 –42, Katherine Ludwig Jansen demonstrates how this image of the redeemed Mary Magdalene was developed by the patristics but became a standard presentation in late medieval England. That the BSE presents the Magdalene in this way is suggestive about how much earlier this attribution began. For more on the late medieval cult, see Theresa Coletti, Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints: Theater, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004).
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only an undecorated initial and a frame, so that even in the construction of the manuscript the text signals Æthelthryth’s singularity as a saint, as well as her special relationship to Christ in the facing-page arrangement.53 By reading the text against the images of Æthelthryth on the verso page and Christ on the recto, Deshman concludes that the images work to illustrate Æthelthryth’s celestial marriage to Christ as bride to the bridegroom.54 This imagery, he argues, complements the “high-flown language” of the benediction for Æthelthryth’s feast, which is quoted in full here:55 a. Omnipotens unus et aeternus Deus, pater et filius et spiritus sanctus, qui beatae Æ2el2ry2e animum septiformis gratiae ubertate ita succensum solidauit, ut duorum coniugum thalamis asscita immunis euaderet castamque sibi piissimus sponsam perpetim adoptaret, uos ab incentiua libidinum concupiscentia muniendo submoueat et sui amoris igne succendat. Amen. b. Et qui eius integritatem per imputribile corpus post obitum manifeste designauit signisque miraculorum ineffabiliter ostendit, uos in sanctis operibus castos fideliter usque ad uitae terminum perseuerare concedat. Amen. c. Quatinus ab huius recidiui saeculi cupiditate remoti, uirtutum omnium lampadibus adornati, eius in caelis mereamini habere consortium quae terreni regis caritatiue contempsit thalamum, spretaque lata terrenae cupiditatis uia artam monasticae conuersationis eligere uoluit uitam, ac hodierna die uoti compos caelestem aeterni regis intrare promeruit aulam. Amen. (a. May almighty God, one and eternal, Father and Son and Holy Ghost, who set alight and strengthened the conviction of St. Æthelthryth with the bounty of sevenfold grace so that, summoned to the bridal chambers of two husbands, she was able to escape scot-free and that the Holy Bridegroom was able to adopt her as his chaste spouse in perpetuity, remove you from the provocative concupiscence of lust and ignite you with the fire of his love. Amen. 53. Deshman, Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, 122 and 148, where he notes that Æthelwold commanded the book to be made with miniatures with decorated arches. Most of the miniatures have arched frames, yet Æthelthryth’s is a rectangular frame. 54. Deshman, Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, 122. 55. Prescott indicates that the language of the blessing for Æthelthryth’s feast is much more elaborate than that used for others, in “Text of the Benedictional,” 133.
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Fig. 3. Æthelthryth’s feast day, Benedictional of St. Æthelwold. British Library, Add. ms 49598, fol. 90v, ca. 973
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Fig. 4. Christ in majesty, Benedictional of St. Æthelwold. British Library, Add. ms 49598, fol. 91r, ca. 973
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b. And may he who clearly revealed her purity through her incorruptible body after death and who revealed her ineffably through miracles grant you the ability to persevere committedly chaste in good works until the end of your life. Amen. c. So that, remote from desire for this transient world, adorned with the lamps of all virtues, you may deserve to have in heaven the fellowship of her who through divine love scorned the bridal bed of an earthly king and, having rejected the wide highway of earthly lust, wished to choose the narrow way of monastic life, and on this day, obtaining her wish, deserved to enter the celestial hall of the eternal king. Amen.)56 The three parts of the blessing develop a narrative that outlines the basic elements of Æthelthryth’s life. The blessing explains how Æthelthryth’s virginal behavior within marriage placed her in the desired position as Christ’s bride and companion, that through good works she remained chaste throughout her life, and that she abdicated her throne in favor of a monastic career. Her actions made her deserving of an eternal reward. The illustration of the saint visually repeats these textual claims, and, more significant, the saint’s figure rivals that of Christ within the manuscript, suggesting not her temporal power but her spiritual power. A comparison of the figures of Æthelthryth and Christ illustrates the images’ equivalency. Each miniature has the same highly decorated rectangular frame unlike any other in the manuscript. Instead of the backgrounds common in other miniatures, both are plain, with inscriptions. Like the blessing for her feast day, the inscription surrounding the saint focuses specifically on her virginity and on her position with monasticism: “Imago sanctae Æ4eldry4ae abbatissae ac perpetuae virginis” (The image of Saint Æthelthryth, abbess and perpetual virgin). The lettering around Christ is the beginning of the blessing for Æthelthryth’s feast day: “Omnipotens unus et aeternus deus.” While an image of Christ begins the benediction, the text of the blessing refers the reader back to the image of Æthelthryth’s bodily sanctity, and as Gameson observes, the gold uncials used in the lettering 56. Wulfstan, Life of St. Æthelwold, ed. Lapidge and Winterbottom, lxxxii. Other editions of the Latin text can be found in the Corpus Benedictionum Pontificalium, ed. Moeller, no. 1805; Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, ed. Warner and Wilson, 37; and Gage, “A Dissertation on St. Æthelwold’s Benedictional,” 102 –3. In addition to the following translation by Lapidge and Winterbottom, Life of St. Æthelwold, lxxxii, Deshman has also translated the passage in his Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, 122.
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of both pages serve to connect them visually.57 The balance illustrated between the frames of the two pages is carried out in the figural representations as well. Though Christ looks forward out of the miniature and Æthelthryth turns to her left to face him, the images mirror each other. Christ is seated and Æthelthryth stands, yet their hand positions are mirrored. In his left hand, Christ holds a closed golden book, and his right hand is raised in a twofingered benediction. A near opposite, Æthelthryth holds an open golden book in her right hand and raises her left hand, which holds a two-headed golden lily, a symbol of virginity. This is the only time this emblem is attributed to her in medieval iconography, and a close examination of the decorative knots that form eight crosses around her shows that lilies adorn the intricate foliage that surrounds her. Indeed, the imagery of flowering abundance is manifested in the pictorial frame that contains her body and in the inscription that surrounds her body. The lily, then, becomes an important emblem, and because of the duplication of the image in the frame, viewers are encouraged to focus on this emblem, as it is juxtaposed with Christ’s hand. As a woman, Æthelthryth is not allowed to participate in the liturgical benediction—a message made clear to women who were deprived of their participation in the mass during the tenth-century reforms—but the twoheaded lily imitates Christ’s benediction, an important gesture to the benedictional’s purpose: a book through which Æthelwold’s spiritual exhortations will lead the faithful to Æthelthryth’s (and Christ’s) company. Matching nimbi accentuate the mirrored figures; the decoration ringing Æthelthryth’s nimbus exactly matches Christ’s, and no other halo in the manuscript shares this specific detail. Here, even as Æthelthryth has imitated Christ’s chaste behavior on earth, she imitates his pictorial gestures. Elsewhere, he has a different nimbus, his images are surrounded by arched frames, and the backgrounds are without inscriptions.58 The corresponding frames and details of these two pages situate Æthelthryth in relation to Christ and emphasize her monastic profession and her marital chastity.59 Pictorially, the two images represent Æthelthryth’s third chaste marriage; she is positioned as sponsa christi here, even as the text reminds the communicants 57. Gameson, Role of Art, 98. 58. I am indebted to Shari Horner for this observation. Benedict has the most complex illustration, with a square frame like Æthelthryth’s, a decorated background, and an inscription. 59. It is worth noting that while the inscriptions are mirrored images, the page depicting Christ is a palimpsest with the lines of Æthelthryth’s blessing bleeding through and across his body. By contrast, the background behind Æthelthryth is pristine.
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that this reward was achieved through her constancy in her earthly marriages. The three-part blessing for Æthelthryth’s feast day first describes the God-given will through which she maintained her chastity, followed by the bishop’s request that God provide the same steadfastness for his congregation by replacing carnal lust with spiritual love. The second part of the blessing recalls the revelation of the incorruptible body in Bede’s narrative, Æthelthryth’s reward for militant chastity, and requires that God guide the communicants in continued holy service and chastity until death. The blessing ends with the promise of heavenly reward for those who imitate Æthelthryth’s monastic chastity. Implicit in this reward is Christ’s company, yet the blessing explicitly states that those who follow her example will merit her fellowship in heaven. Æthelthryth’s company, not Christ’s directly, provides the reward for a chaste, monastic life, and this reward reiterates her heavenly partnership.60 The paired presentation of Æthelthryth and Christ demonstrates to the monks who hear the blessing that they can anticipate a chaste marriage with Æthelthryth as their reward for chastity on earth, even as nuns anticipate a chaste marriage with Christ. The audience for this blessing included monks and, if the final miniature in the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold is any indication, lay men and lay women. One miniature in the manuscript shows a bishop (probably intended to be Æthelwold) blessing his congregation from his holy book (fol. 118v) (fig. 5). Immediately in front of him are two Benedictine monks, who are tonsured. The ecclesiastical garb of the other three men suggest that they are Benedictine novices because their hair is unshorn. One monk kneels and reaches forward, as if to receive both the book and its blessings, which might be an indication that some communicants were allowed to see the manuscript’s miniatures. If so, we can imagine that when the blessing for Æthelthryth’s feast was recited, the image of the saint may have been displayed for the monks to see. A screen, however, 60. A comparison of this language with the mass found in The Missal of Robert of Jumièges is intriguing: “Pro cuius dilectione beata uirgo aetheldrytha. contempsit gaudia mundana et lucrata est caelestia regna. Quae duorum spretis regum thalamis. copula perpetuae castitatis ac desiderio gloriae perhennis. unigenito tuo domino iesu christo meruit sociari. Cuius misericordiam humiliter deprecamur. ut eiusdem uirginis intercessionibus fragilis uitae expulsis criminibus caelestis patriae hereditatem sumere mereamur. . . . Protégé quesumus benignissime deus famulos. tuae dicioni sincera deuotione subditos. et per gloriosa sanctae uirginis merita cuius annuam caelebramus festum. dignare propria nobis laxare crimina. et neuo facinorum expulso. ad illam caelestis patriae reuocare beatitudinem unde existendi traximus originem. Per.” The details of the mass focus on Æthelthryth’s perpetual chastity (not virginity) and her heavenly reward, but there is little emphasis on her monastic career, as in Æthelwold’s blessing. See Wilson’s edition of The Missal, 181– 82.
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separates the consecrated mass altar from the assembled congregation, which includes a woman and several lay men. The laity can be seen above the screen, but it is not clear that they can see over the partition to view the benedictional or whether they can only hear the mass. The bishop faces the group of religious men and directs his blessing toward them, not at those behind the screen. Does this image, which suggests a religious male audience for the benedictions, also suggest that all the BSE blessings were intended specifically for a monastic audience, though the laity was not entirely excluded from the cathedral mass and may well have had access to the theology behind the iconography of Æthelthryth, if not a direct line of sight to the miniature in which she is featured? John Blair’s discussion of royal endowments and secular engagement in the minsters suggests that interaction between monastic and secular continued to some extent, and one wonders if the portrait of the screen is meant solely to illustrate the separation of monastic and lay spheres.61 The screen provides an impenetrable barrier between laity and monks, but it also suggests a gendered division between religious men and all women, both lay and religious, a division that replicates the physical separation between male and female houses at Winchester. The veiled female figure’s vocation is ambiguous; she might be Edgar’s queen, Ælfthryth, who in the Regularis Concordia is given jurisdiction over all the nuns; or she may be the abbess of Nunnaminster, the female house that adjoined New Minster. Her position as the single female among the male laity, however, suggests that she is not a nun, for she is not separated from the lay men as might be expected, given the regulations of enclosure. In either case, the screen clearly separates lay men and all women from the monastic circle, providing a visual demarcation between the special provenance of the Benedictine monks, who under Æthelwold’s reform directives were cloistered and chaste. The express purpose of benedictionals—for episcopal use within a cathedral church — suggests a limited male audience, which is supported here by the image of the bishop blessing the religious men. Certainly, Æthelwold had an audience in need of a model by which his followers might maintain chastity in their monastic profession. The 61. Blair, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society, 341– 67. Barbara Raw argues, however, that liturgical books in Latin were for those with the training and theological understanding to view them, that the illiterate would have had no opportunity to view them. See this discussion in two of Raw’s publications: “Pictures: The Books of the Unlearned?” in The Christian Tradition in Anglo-Saxon England: Approaches to Current Scholarship and Teaching, ed. Paul Cavill (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2004), 103 –19; and Anglo-Saxon Crucifixion Iconography and the Art of the Monastic Revival (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 23 –39.
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Fig. 5. Bishop blessing the congregation, Benedictional of St. Æthelwold. British Library, Add. ms 49598, fol. 118v, ca. 973
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benedictional’s cryptic illumination of a bishop blessing the congregants offers substantive evidence for determining this audience, even as the screen delineates appropriate lines of sight for the text. The laity appear to look on from the side, and while they are situated pictorially above the benedictional, the screen suggests their separation from the liturgical book. The location of the book, within reach of the monks, argues that it remains their unique province. While the lay audience in this miniature might well hear the episcopal blessings of this manuscript, the pictorial representations are reserved specifically for those men who choose monasticism. If I am correct that the veiled woman is a member of the laity, the benedictional’s miniature seems to suggest that the laity—male and female—are to be invited into monasticism, even as it reminds the monks of the divisions between lay and monastic life. One implication of reading the unknown woman as a lay member is that it would then illustrate that no religious women attend this mass. The visual omission of religious women could then signal the complete separation between male and female monasticism, as well as a focus on an audience of male religious for these episcopal blessings. Æthelwold’s representations of Æthelthryth seem directed at a male audience, both monastic and lay, a contention reinforced by later liturgical veneration of the saint by Winchester monks at both New Minster and Old Minster, as will be discussed below.62 At Nunnaminster, the female house established by Æthelwold in Winchester, there is no clear evidence of liturgical veneration of this saint, however.63 Lapidge suggests that the one manuscript previously assigned to Nunnaminster, BL, ms Cotton Galba A.xiv, which includes Æthelthryth in the litanies, is not from that house but from 62. The Register of New Minster illustrates its confraternal bond with Abingdon, its parent house, and Ely. See Tolhurst, “An Examination of Two Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts of the Winchester School,” 37–38. There are many other connections between Ely and the Winchester house, including that the Missal of Robert of Jumièges was probably written there and contains feast days for all the Ely saints (Æthelthryth’s are marked in gold letters) in its calendar as well as masses for both Æthelthryth and Eormenhild. Wilson argues that the manuscript was not made at Ely but may have been intended for use there or at Peterborough at xxvi–xl. 63. Unfortunately, the Winchester house for women is seriously under-studied, considering its association with Old Minster and New Minster. As above, the one significant manuscript associated with nuns is the Benedictine Rule, which Mechthild Gretsch argues may have been in use in Anglo-Saxon nunneries as early as the tenth century, in “Æthelwold’s Translation of the Regula Sancti Benedicti and Its Latin Exemplar,” Anglo-Saxon England 3 (1974): 125 –51. For discussions of women’s houses pre-Conquest, see Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, “Women’s Monastic Communities, 500 –1100: Patterns of Expansion and Decline,” Signs 14 (1989): 261–92; Foot, Veiled Women, 1:85 –110; and Yorke, Nunneries and the AngloSaxon Royal Houses.
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another Winchester nunnery, such as Shaftsbury. Lapidge assigns none of the litanies he studied to the female house at Winchester.64 Tenth-century women’s houses were important to Æthelwold, yet they seem to suffer a liturgical deficit by comparison with male houses, and it becomes difficult to ascertain whether his promotion of Æthelthryth was directed at men and women alike. So it seems that Æthelwold’s emphasis in the benedictional is to encourage chaste monasticism. As a visual marker of sanctity, tangible only to the monks alone, the inscription of Æthelthryth within his benedictional makes her an allegorical symbol of chastity for male religious, even as her story provides an inducement to lay men that they too can follow her example. Unlike Bede’s audience, which included aristocratic women who could literally imitate her chastity within marriage, Æthelwold’s presentation of this saint situates her as a symbol suitable for imitation by the monks he placed at the monasteries of Abingdon, Winchester, Ely, and Peterborough, among others. His blessing does not so much explain Æthelthryth’s chaste marriages as demonstrate that she spurned earthly marriage for spiritual marriage, that she eschewed royalty for spirituality — the themes so crucial to his reform plans. And in this, he suggests, anyone can imitate the saint’s choices. In presenting her life liturgically, Æthelwold, like Bede, represents Æthelthryth as a textual body whose sanctity others can imitate.65 The liturgical text complements the pictorial representations of the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold; the iconography of Æthelthryth’s body in this text reiterates her life choices regarding her vocation and her sexual status. Her clothing, which replicates the drapery of other women and even of other men in the 64. Cotton Galba A.xiv has no clearly definable provenance, but because it includes prayers to several saints, including Nunnaminster’s patron, Eadburh, Edmund Bishop suspected it was a manuscript of that nunnery. See Edmund Bishop, Liturgica Historica: Papers on the Liturgy and Religious Life of the Western Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), 390. If so, then, it provides the first evidence of Æthelthryth in a Nunnaminster manuscript, for she appears in one of the book’s two litanies. David N. Bell follows this assignment in his What Nuns Read: Books and Libraries in Medieval English Nunneries (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1995), 214 –16, but Michael Lapidge suspects that Shaftesbury might be a better assignation, in Anglo-Saxon Litanies (Woodbridge, Suff.: Boydell Press, 1991), 69 –70. 65. Catherine E. Karkov contends that the body of Æthelthryth is a fetishistic object, in “The Body of St. Æthelthryth: Desire, Conversion, and Reform in Anglo-Saxon England,” in The Cross Goes North: Processes of Conversion in Northern Europe, A.D. 300 –1300, ed. Martin Carver (York: York Medieval Press, 2004), 397–411. Leonie Viljoen also discusses Æthelthryth’s body in “Victorious Virgin, Accursed Appetites: The Wages of Scopo-philia in the Lives of St. Etheldreda of Ely,” South African Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 12 (2002): 15 –28.
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manuscript, suggests her religious vocation as abbess, but she does not hold a crozier, which, as a sign of ecclesiastical authority, later became a standard emblem for her. The lily indicates her virginity but does not make clear her conjugal chastity. Instead, the inscription describes attributes not evident visually; it first underscores her abbatial position, then indicates her perpetual virginity: “Imago sanctae Æ4eldry4ae abbatissae ac perpetuae virginis.” Here, the written text restates what is suggested by the visual text: the halo illustrates Æthelthryth’s sanctity; the habit and book, her abbatial position; and the lily, her virginity. Clearly, the miniature represents a saint, but the inscription is needed to designate the correct holy figure. The only aspect of Æthelthryth’s life that cannot be rendered visually is the saint’s perpetual virginity, and therefore the inscription becomes necessary to affirm not only Æthelthryth’s identity but also the reason for her sanctity. By using the inscription, the illuminator draws attention to the saint’s continued virginity, and the image, then, recalls the story of Æthelthryth’s two marriages, her conjugal chastity, and her decision to abandon secular power for an abbatial position, which is made clear in the blessing. The word “perpetual” is essential only for a woman whose virginity has been threatened in some way; here, the adjective stresses that Æthelthryth had endured the test of marriage and remained a virgin. The inscription, therefore, is essential to a representation of conjugal chastity, just as an identification was important for distinguishing this saint from other virgins, indeed other saints, within the codex. In the confessor choir, Gregory, Benedict, and Cuthbert are identified for the reader by the vertical inscription of their names on their robes, but few figures in the miniatures have an identification. The only other miniature inscribed with a similar background is the illumination for Benedict’s feast day (fol. 99v), which reads “Sanctus Benedictus abbat.” The textual association wrought between these two miniatures by their inscriptions suggests that if Benedict is “father” to Benedictine monasticism, then Æthelthryth, as abbatissa, figures here as a type of symbolic monastic “mother.” The pairing of Benedict and Æthelthryth, as male and female monastic models, makes clear sense in the manuscript, but the phrasing of the inscriptions makes Æthelthryth’s more puzzling. Unlike the identifications for Benedict or even the Virgin Mary in the illustration of the annunciation (fol. 5v), Æthelthryth is not named in the nominative case. Instead, the inscription singles out the word imago by placing it in the nominative and emphasizing that this miniature is only a representation of the holy Æthelthryth, an image of the abbess and perpetual virgin. The word emphasizes
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the symbolic representation of the saint, a point that seems to be evident but that is neglected because it is so obvious. By inscribing the pictorial with the word imago, the illuminator stresses the metaphysical reference to the iconography of the virgin/abbess. The singularity of this occurrence in the manuscript might suggest that the artist had no textual models from which to illustrate an abbess or to individuate a virgin. Indeed, the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold does not offer illustrations of other female saints, only images of the Virgin Mary (for which many sources were available) and the virgin chorus, which are static pictorials of women. This representation of Æthelthryth might indicate that images of individual women were uncommon and that identification was necessary to separate the local saint from the Virgin Mary, especially because Æthelthryth shares so many of Mary’s attributes, including the golden book and halo. The word imago indicates an awareness of the separation between a textual body of the saint and a physical one, or, as Catherine Karkov observes, the word serves to “[distance] the figure on the page from the historical woman it is meant to represent.”66 Indeed, the image and inscription represent what Æthelthryth’s closed tomb at Ely could not. Yet, the visual body does represent the physical body, and, as Shari Horner argues, the miniature emphasizes the saint’s physical enclosure within the frame and the inscription, as well as the womb’s enclosure, by the drapery of her clothing: “Her head is framed by a nimbus, and the detailed folds of her garments encircle her womb. The strong diagonal lines of the page’s frame uniformly direct the eye to this central image, and the circular motifs of the foliated border that surrounds the saint echo the visual focus on her womb.”67 Horner finds that the visual enclosure is indicative of the social and political enclosures of medieval women in the late Anglo-Saxon period. Whereas the early AngloSaxon church was supported by double monasteries under the jurisdiction of abbesses, the reformers did not continue this practice and effectively separated religious men and women. Although Æthelwold supported the foundation of some nunneries, they were physically separate from monasteries, 66. Karkov, “Body of St. Æthelthryth,” 404. Karkov provides a convincing argument about the absence of the saint’s body and the miniature as the sign of that body, at 410 –11, a discussion to which Clare A. Lees has also contributed: “Anglo-Saxon writing captures the paradox whereby the passage of the body into writing, into culture, is a passage into signification that renders the material body absent. But Anglo-Saxon culture does not emphasize only the reconstruction of the body in language; it insists both on its cultural significance and on its materiality.” See Lees, “Engendering Religious Desire,” 39. 67. Shari L. Horner, The Discourse of Enclosure: Representing Women in Old English Literature (Albany: SUNY Press, 2001), 4.
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and even at Winchester, where Æthelwold reformed Nunnaminster, the nuns did not share the same liturgical texts with the Old or New Minsters.68 The use of a chaste female image for a male audience, however, is highly problematic. Why not emphasize the chaste lives of confessors, especially a saint like Cuthbert, who epitomized monastic devotion and chastity and whose cult was already so firmly established? The benedictional does illustrate Cuthbert within the choir of confessors but does not have a separate miniature for his feast day, and this omission suggests that a cult already fully formed did not offer the latitude for adaptation that others might. Swithun’s life, developed and promoted by Æthelwold, as Lapidge has shown, might have been ideal, but little is known about his life, including whether he was a monk or whether he had practiced celibacy. By contrast, Bede’s account of Æthelthryth leaves no doubt about her pure physicality. The visual focus on Æthelthryth’s womb emphasizes this fact, but it makes the identification between male viewer and female icon seem problematic. If Æthelthryth is a symbol for exclusively male monastic chastity, why does the miniature emphasize her enclosed womb if not to emphasize her chastity as a woman? The visual detail argues against reading Æthelthryth’s body as an asexual marker of chastity, for here she is decidedly sexualized, chastely sexual, and sexually chaste. Because the text describes her physical perfection to an audience of mainly men, we might expect the drapery of her clothing to emphasize the enclosure of the female womb, itself a symbol of carnality and human frailty. Yet all of the Benedictional’s representations of the chaste—male or female—have the same type of drapery about their middle, a detail that emphasizes their corporal purity. In the various miniatures in which Christ is depicted, his drapery swirls in the same way, enclosing the middle part of his body. The representations of the Virgin and the Magdalene share this attribute, as do those for Benedict and Swithun.69 The implications of this shared imagery suggest that gender is leveled within the iconographic text when male and female are both chaste and monastic. Therefore, Æthelthryth becomes like Christ, Benedict, or Swithun in her perfection, and they become like her. This idea recalls the apostle Paul’s promise in Galatians 3:28, where he claimed that in Christ there was neither male nor female. Paul contends that sex, like ethnicity and class, is erased, an assertion underscored by the illuminator’s use of the same face for Æthelthryth that 68. Foot, Veiled Women, 1:85 –110. 69. Deshman, Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, 219.
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he uses for many of the male saints.70 This visual equivalence, however, does not indicate that Æthelthryth is not seen as female; indeed, the opposite is true. The text positions her in relation to Christ and others so that we see that she is distinctly female, monastic, and virginal, a gender-specific counterpoint to the text’s illustrations of chaste male bodies. In an overview of the late antique and medieval construction of the virago, Barbara Newman asserts that the egalitarian rhetoric of Galatians 3:28 did not “empty these categories of significance: they were far too heavily laden with psychic and social meaning to wither away.”71 Her assessment illustrates that the social understanding of gender, even in relation to the saint’s life, could not be erased or exorcised, no matter what level of sanctity a woman achieved. To identify a woman as a virgin, she has to be a woman, and to be a bride of Christ, she has to embody Christ’s alterity.72
The Dissemination of Liturgical Evidence Judging by the dates of the liturgical evidence that celebrates Æthelthryth, Æthelwold’s personal devotion, as evident in his service book, had a decided influence on the development of the Ely cult. Before the production of the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, Æthelthryth’s name appeared in few calendars, litanies, or martyrologies, but after the refoundation of Ely, Æthelthryth’s feast day, 23 June, appeared regularly. Leslie A. Donovan indicates that Æthelthryth is named in seven early martyrologies, or catalogs of saints, and the repetition in them can be traced to a notation in Bede’s early eighthcentury martyrology.73 Because this early catalog so profoundly influenced 70. Gameson notes that there are two basic head-types in the BSE, one bearded and dignified, the other beardless, banal, and ugly. The latter, inexpressive face was used for several illustrations, including the visages of Æthelthryth, Thomas, the angel at the sepulcher, Christ entering Jerusalem, the bishop depicted using the benedictional, both the maid and the Virgin Mary in the Nativity scene, and the Virgin, Peter, another apostle, and four angels in the Ascension scene. It is curious that this face is used interchangeably for females and males but only for certain women—perhaps linking their virginity to the virginity of Christ, the apostles, and the angels. See Gameson, Role of Art, 138. 71. Barbara Newman, From Virile Woman to WomanChrist: Studies in Medieval Religion and Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 3. 72. Caroline Walker Bynum observes that late medieval writers argued that monks were women. That ideology, however, does not seem present in Æthelwold’s representations of Æthelthryth or in Ælfric’s depiction of the saint. See Bynum’s Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion (New York: Zone, 1992), 36. 73. Leslie A. Donovan, Women Saints’ Lives in Old English Prose (Woodbridge, Suff.: Boydell & Brewer, 1999), 32. The martyrologies include those written by Ado, Bede, Florus, Hrabanus, Lyons, and Usuard, as well as the anonymous Old English Martyrology. Bede’s
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later ones, it is difficult to see how the cult may have waxed and waned. The evidence from early calendars, or records of feast days, however, is more explicit. Rebecca Rushforth demonstrates that the saint’s natal feast appears in twenty-two of the twenty-seven known Anglo-Saxon calendars, and Michael Lapidge finds that Æthelthryth is honored in only one of the four metrical calendars, which is attributed to Ramsey.74 Furthermore, Æthelthryth appears in only one calendar dated before the late tenth-century, an eighth-century fragment that is linked to Northumbria or to one of the English missions on the Continent (and hence linked to Bede’s promotion of the saint).75 The other twenty-one calendars that feature Æthelthryth are dated to the time of Æthelwold or later, and the majority of them are eleventh-century texts.76 What is more, the feast for Æthelthryth’s translation, 17 October, is celebrated in only twelve of these early calendars, all of which are dated in the eleventh century, well after Ely was refounded. The provenance of these calendars suggests, moreover, the connections between Æthelwold’s promotion of the saint and the dissemination of the cult. As
martyrology reads: “sanctae Aedilthrydae virginis et reginae, in Brittania, cuius corpus cum sedecim annis esset sepultum, in corruptum inventum est.” See Jacques Dubois and Geneviève Renaud, eds., Edition Practique des Martyrologes de Bede, de L’anonyme Lyonnais, et de Florus (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1976), 113. I am particularly grateful to John McCulloh, who shared with me his knowledge on early martyrologies. 74. Rebecca Rushforth, An Atlas of Saints in Anglo-Saxon Calendars (Cambridge: Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic at the University of Cambridge, 2002); and Michael Lapidge, “A Tenth-Century Metrical Calendar from Ramsey,” in Anglo-Latin Literature, 900 –1066, ed. Michael Lapidge (London: Hambledon Press, 1993), 343 – 86. 75. This manuscript is Munich, Hauptstaatsarchiv, Raritäten-Selekt 108 (identified by Gneuss as no. 855.5). The fragment, which consists of a single partial leaf, is now lost but was recorded in E. A. Lowe, Codices Latini Antiquiores, 2d ed., vol. 9 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 1236. See Rushforth, Atlas of Saints, 14 –15. 76. Oddly enough, Æthelthryth does not appear in the Calendar of Saint Willibrord (which was the personal calendar of one of Wilfrid’s students who would have been in a position to know well the story of Æthelthryth) or the Junius calendar, a model of English liturgical reform. Christine Fell has identified a “fragment of an eighth-century calendar from the Diocese of York which includes Ecfridi regis on 20 May also includes depositio aethiltrudis for 23 June, the husband’s death in battle and saintly wife’s death-date both commemorated.” See Fell, “Saint Æ2el4ry2,” 33. Fell also argues that the positioning and context of the three occurrences of the name “E2il2ryth” or the one “Edildryth” in the Durham Liber Vitae negate an identification with the Northumbrian queen, yet one cannot state confidently that the names do not apply to her. Æthelthryth’s feast does appear in the ninth-century calendar of the Sacramentary of Amiens, which suggests Bede’s influence on the Continent despite the lack of evidence for an Anglo-Saxon cult in the same period. See Leopold Delisle, Memoire sur d’Anciens Sacramentaires (Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1886), 57–424. For details on the Junius calendar, see Dumville, Liturgy and the Ecclesiastical History of Late Anglo-Saxon England, 26, and for a discussion of the problems of early calendars and how they might be an indicator of an active cult, see Cubitt, “Universal and Local Saints,” 423 –53.
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Rosalind C. Love notes, the feast of Æthelthryth is included in manuscripts associated with Winchester, Sherborne, Worcester, and the eastern monasteries of Bury St. Edmunds and Crowland.77 The veneration in southwest England might well be attributed to the Ramsey monks who left East Anglia to populate the newly formed monastery at Worcester.78 Thus, given Æthelwold’s organizational method of using monks from one house to populate a new foundation, it is reasonable to see the spread of the liturgical cult from Winchester to East Anglia to southwest England, though it is just as possible that a more direct transmission of liturgy occurred. As yet, not enough work has been done to illustrate the connections between the Winchester production and the surviving Anglo-Saxon calendars, but the overall indication is that Æthelwold’s support of the Ely cult is largely responsible for the developing devotion to Æthelthryth. As with the calendars, the litanies in Anglo-Saxon service books indicate that Æthelthryth became an important saint as a result of promotion during the reforms. Litanies, or incantatory recitals of saints’ names, were liturgical prayers used by the Anglo-Saxon monastic church for a variety of purposes: church dedications, monastic offices and ordinations, visitations of sick and dying monks, acts of personal devotion or penitence, and Holy Saturday services.79 The formulaic appeal usually began with a prayer to Christ or the Trinity, followed by a supplication to Mary. Thereafter, the faithful called on the most favored saints in categorical order: archangels, apostles, martyrs, confessors, and virgins. Because these lists were used in a variety of ways to pray to the saints, litanies often indicate how powerful a saint was perceived to be as an intercessor, as well as the level of popularity that saint had in a given community. Late Saxon lists show that Æthelthryth was esteemed highly, for they follow Bede in equating the Ely saint with martyr virgins such as Thecla and Agnes. Æthelthryth’s popularity, in fact, exceeds that of any other English virgin, as demonstrated in the sixty-one separate lists edited by Michael Lapidge in his Anglo-Saxon Litanies of the Saints. Table 3 illustrates the number of times a saint is named in these lists, and the repetitions indicate a saint’s popularity with late Saxon writers. Perpetua appears 46 times; Scholastica and Cecilia, 45; Agnes and Mary Magdalene, 43; Eugenia and Thecla, 23; and Eulalia, 21. Æthelthryth, who is named in 25 separate lists, is aligned 77. Rosalind C. Love, ed. and trans., in Goscelin of Saint-Bertin: The Hagiography of the Female Saints of Ely (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004), xxiv. 78. Rushforth, Atlas of Saints, 30 –31. 79. Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Litanies, 43 –49.
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with the martyr saints, and this position distinguishes her from other AngloSaxon women, who appear only sparingly among and usually further down in the lists: Æthelthryth’s sister, Seaxburh, at 11; her niece Eormenhild at 8; Osyth at 4; and Frideswith at one. Among men, with the exception of the apostles, who merit a place in the majority of these litanies, the highest in rank include Benedict at 52, Gregory and Laurence at 49, and Martin at 48. English males figure more prominently than their female contemporaries: Dunstan, Guthlac, and Swithun, for instance, have 20; Edmund has 19. Well-known writers of the early Anglo-Saxon period, such as Aldhelm at three listings and Bede and Boniface at one each, rank much lower in status, however. Only one English saint, Cuthbert, exceeds Æthelthryth’s popularity, named in 27 lists, where Æthelthryth’s counterpart in Æthelwold’s benedictional, Swithun, appears 20 times. As discussed above, Æthelwold generated a large cult for Swithun at the same time he developed Æthelthryth’s cult. These two saints hold the special distinction of being the only English figures who merit a full-page miniature in the Winchester benedictional. Cuthbert, who is listed more times than Æthelthryth in the litanies, appears only in the confessors’ chorus, indicating that Æthelthryth and Swithun held special significance as emerging icons in Æthelwold’s reform efforts.80 This documentation of litanic practice provides a comparative register of cult veneration in late Anglo-Saxon England, and from it we can assess Æthelthryth’s popularity in the monasteries. Looking more specifically at each individual litany, we find that Æthelthryth is often the sole English woman cataloged in early litanies, and occasionally she is the only Saxon saint honored.81 When Æthelthryth is listed as the only native virgin, she surfaces in the company of early church women; when other native females are included, Æthelthryth is often positioned between the women of the early church and her contemporaries, perhaps operating as the symbolic link Bede intended between early church martyrs and later Anglo-Saxon women. Richard Pfaff suggests that a saint’s position in the list explains her importance: the saints appearing at the top of the list are the most popular or powerful, while those at the bottom are less so.82 Æthelthryth regularly 80. It is possible that a miniature for Cuthbert’s feast day was originally included. For a discussion of the missing folios, see George Warner’s facsimile and Deshman’s study of the benedictional. 81. See Lapidge’s discussion of Æthelthryth’s singularity in Anglo-Saxon Litanies, 77–79. In Oxford, Bodl., Bodley 718, the litany (fols. 16r –17r) contains only one English saint, Æthelthryth. Oxford, Bodl., Laud misc. 482 is a penitential handbook containing several native male saints as well as Æthelthryth. 82. A private communication.
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Table 3. Popular saints in Anglo-Saxon litanies. Collated from Michael Lapidge, AngloSaxon Litanies of the Saints Female Saints
Male Saints
46 45
52 49
43 40 27 26 25 23 21 18
13 11 8
Perpetua Scholastica Felicitas Cecilia Agnes Mary Magdalene Lucia Brigida Anastasia Juliana ÆTHELTHRYTH * Eugenia Thecla Petronella Eulalia Cristina Euphemia Mildrith * Columba Seaxburh * Eadburh * Radegund Eormenhild *
48
Benedict Gregory Laurence Martin
34
Hilarius
27
Cuthbert *
20
15 14 11
Dunstan * Guthlac * Swithun * Edmund * Alban Ælfheah * Oswald * Edward * Kenelm * Æthelwold *
8
Eorcenwald *
19 18 16
appears in the bottom half of the virgin catalog in the litanies, which indicates that in relation to early church virgins Æthelthryth was always less important. When each list adds Anglo-Saxon virgins, however, she is routinely the first English saint named, and in some very short registers Æthelthryth is often included to the exclusion of more well-known virgins, such as Thecla and Perpetua.83 One litany distinguishes Æthelthryth’s importance among the early church women and among Ely saints: the Ely abbess’ name is recorded on two separate lines. In BL, Arundel 60, the scribe has (perhaps inadvertently) listed Æthelthryth at line 131 among virgins such as Lucia, Agnes, Cecilia, and Agatha, but she also appears at line 156, following the other notable 83. See esp. Bodley 718, where only Mary, Cecilia, Agnes, Agatha, and Æthelthryth are named; and Rouen, Bibliothèque municipale, 369, where only Agnes, Agatha, Cecilia, Scholastica, and Æthelthryth appear.
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Table 3. (cont’d) Popular saints in Anglo-Saxon litanies. Collated from Michael Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Litanies of the Saints Female Saints 7
Male Saints
Helena Foy Eadgyth * Wihtburh * Ælfgifu * Balthildis * Æthelflæd *
7
Felix Botwulf *
6 5
4
Æthelburh * Osyth *
4
3 2
Milburh * Wærburh * Cyneburh * Cyneswith * Mildgith * Wenefrid * Frideswith * Cuthburh * Tibba * Toua *
3
Æthelberht * Wilfrid * Isidore Fursey Chad * Beornstan * Ecgwine * Aidan * Aldhelm * Gildas Æthelred *
6 5
1
1
Æthelmod * Bede * Boniface * Æthelwine *
NOTE: This is not an exhaustive list of all the saints in the Anglo-Saxon litanies, but rather a sampling of the most popular and a few of the less venerated. The asterisk (*) denotes Anglo-Saxon saints, and the numbers indicate the frequency of a particular saint’s appearances in the litanies.
saints of her family: Seaxburh, Wihtburh, and Eormenhild.84 The only other Anglo-Saxon saint listed so highly is Eadgyth, whose name is often included following Æthelthryth’s in the litanies. One reason for the double appearance in the Arundel litany is that the scribe might have been compiling two lists together, a shorter one that includes only Æthelthryth and Eadgyth, and another that includes Æthelthryth among all the Ely saints. It is significant that Æthelthryth’s name follows Seaxburh, Eadburh, Wihtburh, and Eormenhild in Arundel 60, suggesting that the scribe thought Æthelthryth had been omitted from the Ely list and, recalling the entire Ely family as he records her sisters and niece, adds her name to the list a second time. This duplication suggests that Æthelthryth was considered in relation both to early virgins and to contemporary Anglo-Saxon saints. 84. Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Litanies, 8 and 145.
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Æthelthryth’s dominance in these lists indicates a high level of veneration, at least among a monastic audience. This regard might help to distinguish the unknown names in one damaged manuscript and perhaps show Æthelthryth’s inclusion in yet another list. In Worcester Cathedral Library, F 173, the litany shows evidence that several virgins, whose names are now partially gone, followed Felicitas, Perpetua, Scholastica, Mary Magdalene, and Agnes. In the list of virgins, the initial “Æ” at line 59 indicates that at least one Anglo-Saxon virgin was listed. Other than Æthelthryth, the only women in the sixty-one litanies whose names begin with an “æsc” are Ælfgifu, who merits seven lists, Æthelflæd, in five, and Æthelburh, who appears four times. It seems likely that, in this abbreviated litany where only thirteen virgins are listed and the only surviving names are virgin martyrs, Æthelthryth would be the name included, given her popularity and the consistent naming of her with early church women. Likewise, only three other Anglo-Saxon saints are in this list: Æthelwold, Swithun, and Birinus, also a Winchester saint. The Worcester manuscript originated at Old Minster, Winchester, during the eleventh century, and the litany forms part of the office for the Visitation of the Sick and Dying.85 Æthelwold’s affection for Æthelthryth lends additional support to this speculation, and it appears that many of the Winchester communities favored Æthelthryth and venerated her in their litanies as a result of this regard. Because the provenance of the Worcester litany allows us to suggest Æthelthryth’s inclusion in the damaged list of virgins, we can also invert this practice and deduce the provenance of some litanies based on the inclusion of particular saints. For instance, a list from the Winchester house, Old Minster, would include their patron saint, Swithun, in a petition to benefit the monastery. This paradigm allows us to study the provenance of each litany in which Æthelthryth is named, to see where these litanic supplications were composed and to plot where her cult was most widely celebrated. It is not surprising that Æthelthryth appears almost exclusively in the litanies of manuscripts associated with Winchester, Canterbury, and East Anglia, the provincial location of Ely. Her name surfaces in only six manuscripts in which the monastic provenance cannot be confidently assigned; one of these six, however, is linked directly to Winchester, and another to Ramsey in East Anglia.86 The earliest litanies in which she is named, dating from 970 85. Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Litanies, 85. 86. For detailed information of each of these litanies, see Lapidge’s descriptions in AngloSaxon Litanies, 62 – 85; his commentaries on the relevant litanies are included here and the
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to the year 1000, include two manuscripts originating at Winchester, one in use at either Ely, Peterborough, Canterbury, or Winchester, and the other possibly from Sherborne.87 Each of these manuscripts is a highly elaborate, illuminated service book associated with an English bishop. Bodley 718 appears to have been used by Archbishop Wulfstan (d. 1023), while Harley 2904 is linked to Archbishop Oswald of Worcester and York (d. 992). Rouen, Bibliothèque Municipale, 369 (Y.7), belonged to either Robert of Jumièges, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1051–52, or to Robert, Archbishop of Rouen, 990 –1037. Rouen, Bibliothèque Municipale, 274 (Y.6), is the richly decorated sacramentary once owned by Robert of Jumièges.88 The extravagance of these manuscripts signifies their use by the episcopate, and the similarities between these books suggest a connection to Æthelwold’s production of his own elaborate service book, BL, Add. ms 49598.89 Each of these manuscripts contains litanies that link them to Winchester, the site of the renewal of Æthelthryth’s cult. Thus, the provenance of these tenth-century litanies suggests that the liturgical cult of Æthelthryth was centered in Winchester and spread to East Anglia during Æthelwold’s reform of the fenland monasteries, even as these litanies were transmitted to the archbishopric at Canterbury by virtue of the connections among first- and second-generation reformers. It is significant that the three Winchester litanies that do not include Æthelthryth contain no distinctive succeeding note: Cotton Vitellius A.vii possibly originated at Exeter, but Lapidge notes that N. R. Ker argues for Ramsey, which is one of Æthelwold’s refoundations in East Anglia, near Ely. Harley 863 is a psalter written at Exeter that includes a large list of native saints. Lambeth Palace Library, 427, includes a litany dated to the fifteenth century but is quite possibly based on an earlier model. Bodley 718 is a tenth-century manuscript, possibly from Sherborne; Æthelthryth is the only native saint. Laud misc. 482, a penitential handbook, contains a litany in which Æthelthryth is included with male English saints. Salisbury, Cathedral Library, 150, is a tenth-century Gallican psalter written in southwestern England, possibly at Shaftesbury, and the original litany has been erased. 87. Bodley 718, as noted above, is associated with Sherborne. Harley 2904 is a Gallican psalter associated with Winchester or Ramsey. Rouen, Bibliothèque Municipale, 369 (Y.7), datable to the 980s, is the lavish pontifical also known as “The Benedictional of Archbishop Robert.” It was written at Winchester and probably used at New Minster. Rouen, Bibliothèque Municipale, 274 (Y.6), also known as the Missal of Robert of Jumièges, is a richly decorated sacramentary. Its place of origin is disputed, but the holy women included are the Ely saints Æthelthryth, Seaxburh, Wihtburh, and Eormenhild and the Peterborough saints Cyneburh, Cyneswith, and Tibba. 88. Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Litanies, 62 – 85. 89. Æthelwold’s benedictional affected the production of later liturgical texts. See, e.g., The Canterbury Benedictional (British Museum, Harl. MS. 2892), ed. Reginald M. Woolley (London, 1917).
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English saints, intimating that when English saints figured in Winchester litanies, Æthelthryth was included.90 The liturgical evidence, in sum, offers evidence of Æthelwold’s presentation of Æthelthryth as a favored saint, and the dissemination of these texts indicates that her cult became significant among the most powerful leaders of the English Benedictine Reform. While litanies containing Æthelthryth’s name could be overhead by any laity attending a mass, the specificity of their usage for monastic offices (visitations, church dedications, private devotion, and so on) indicates that the liturgy about Æthelthryth was developed specifically for a monastic audience and, from the evidence about provenances, a male audience. Calendars and martyrologies provided documentation as well as a reminder to observe the feast of the Ely saint, while the recitation of litanies demonstrates that devotees called on the saint for intervention. That the cult was supported by the monastic enterprise is confirmed by Ælfric, Æthelwold’s student and biographer. In the preface to his collection of saints’ lives, which includes a translation of Bede’s narrative, Ælfric states that he is presenting to his patrons the lives celebrated by monks but not honored among the laity: Hunc quoque codicem transtulimus de Latinitate ad usitatam Anglicam sermocinationem, studentes aliis prodesse edificando ad fidem lectione huius narrationis, quibuscumque placuerit huic operi operam dare, sive legendo, seu audiendo, quia estimo non esse ingratum fidelibus. Nam memini me in duobus anterioribus libris posuisse passiones vel vitas sanctorum ipsorum quos gens ista caelebre colit cum veneratione festi diei, et placuit nobis in isto codicello ordinare passiones etiam vel vitas sanctorum illorum quos non vulgus sed coenobite officiis venerantur. (We have also translated this book from Latin into the ordinary English language, desiring, by edifying in the faith through the reading of this narrative, to profit any others whom it pleases to 90. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 146 is an episcopal pontifical and benedictional that contains two litanies that form part of a church dedication service, with no localizable features. Cotton Tiberius C.vi is principally a Gallican psalter and is likely from Old Minster. It contains no English saints. Bodley 775, one of the Winchester Tropers, was written at Old Minster in the mid-eleventh century. The manuscript’s litany is unique in that its form is the sevenfold-fivefold-threefold litany, but it does not contain English saints.
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give their attention to this work either by reading or listening, for I do not reckon it to be disagreeable to the faithful. For I remember having set forth in two previous books the passions and lives of those saints which this people commonly honour with the veneration of a feast day and it has pleased us in this little book to arrange the passions and lives of those saints which the monks and not the laity honour with offices.)91 Ælfric’s assertion that the lives in his collection were celebrated by the religious, rather than by the laity, is an important statement, for it marks an important moment in the development of Æthelthryth’s cult. The relative paucity of textual evidence about Æthelthryth before the refoundation of Ely ca. 970, combined with the flourishing of liturgical evidence after that year, shows that the cult was developed expressly during the crucial period of reform. Furthermore, Æthelwold’s blessing in which he encourages hearers to adopt “the narrow path of monasticism” indicates how this saint was invoked to support the reform agenda. What is more, Ælfric’s statement confirms exactly what the liturgical evidence suggests: that the cult was well established in the religious institutions. Ælfric’s translation of Bede’s account, however, indicates a shift in audience, which in turn required a change in textual presentation. As the following demonstrates, making the saint available to the laity required a gloss so that Æthelthryth’s life of chastity would not be misunderstood.
Ælfric’s Life of Æthelthryth In his Lives of Saints, Ælfric includes a translation of Bede’s narrative, but because he is writing in a much different cultural milieu, the discourse of virginity changes.92 Where Bede wrote for a developing church and addressed an audience both monastic and lay, female and male, Ælfric rewrites the life to accord with the monastic restructuring of the Anglo91. Ælfric’s Prefaces, ed. Jonathan Wilcox (Durham: Durham Medieval Texts, 1994), 119 –20 and 131–32. For another edition and translation, see Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, ed. Walter W. Skeat, vol. 1, o.s., 76 and 82 (1881, 1185; reprint, 2 vols. in 1, London: Oxford University Press, 1966), 3 –5. 92. James Hurt provides a biographical discussion of Ælfric and his writings in Ælfric (Boston: Twayne, 1972).
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Saxon church and places the story of Æthelthryth within a completely masculinized context.93 His collection of saints’ lives establishes a direct connection between monastic and lay communities, for within it he presented several stories in which lay men find salvation by choosing a monastic career.94 Two of these stories are included in narratives about native saints, which suggests that Æthelwold’s student is making a more localized commentary. Ælfric recounts no examples in which lay women have the same opportunities, offering Æthelthryth’s story as his only evidence about native holy women, either religious or lay.95 As we shall see, the vernacular Life of Æthelthryth exists, then, as a curious counterpoint to the native male saints Ælfric presents to his distinctly lay audience. Ælfric’s concentration on the religious life of men reflects a historical shift in Anglo-Saxon England. In the early Christian Insular tradition, women participated regularly in the foundation and leadership of monastic communities. By the tenth century, this paradigm seems to have been substantively dissolved, a fact that is reflected in the education of men and women.96 Bede’s text addressed his audience in Latin, and while no coherent monastic system existed with established schools during the first phase of Christian conversion, we know that some of the monasteries, including those governed by abbesses, had educational programs for both girls and boys. The Danish invasions eradicated many of the monasteries, and Latin learning had decreased considerably, much to King Alfred’s chagrin.97 The ninth-century king wanted to sponsor a community of learned Latinists in the hope of reclaiming the level of high scholarship exhibited by seventh93. Wilcox provides an excellent overview of Ælfric’s writing career, his association with Æthelwold, and his lay patrons. See Ælfric’s Prefaces, 1– 85. Christopher A. Jones offers a more focused discussion of Ælfric and his appointment to the new foundation of Eynsham in his introduction to Ælfric’s Letter to the Monks of Eynsham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 1–17. 94. Robert K. Upchurch has discussed Ælfric’s lay audience for the Lives of the Saints in “For Pastoral Care and Political Gain: Ælfric of Eynsham’s Preaching on Marital Celibacy,” Traditio 59 (2004): 39 –78. 95. Ruth Waterhouse makes a similar observation about Ælfric’s use of the term claennyss, yet she does not identify the specific lay audience for whom Ælfric writes, in “Discourse and Hypersignification in Two of Ælfric’s Saints’ Lives,” in Holy Men and Holy Women, ed. Szarmach, 333 –52 at 342. 96. See Schulenburg’s “Women’s Monastic Communities”; Marc A. Meyer, “Women and the Tenth-Century English Monastic Reform,” Revue Benedictine 87 (1977): 34 – 61; Schneider, “Anglo-Saxon Women in the Religious Life”; and Garrison, “Lives of Ætheldreda.” 97. Mary Bateson, “Rules for Monks and Secular Canons After the Revival Under King Edgar,” English Historical Review 9 (1894): 690 –708 at 692. See also C. E. Hohler, “Some ServiceBooks of the Later Anglo-Saxon Church,” in Tenth-Century Studies, ed. Parsons, 60 – 83 at 74.
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and eighth-century Northumbrian writers, but by Ælfric’s time there is no evidence that Alfred succeeded on a large scale; Latin training for men or women was not extensive in the tenth century before the Benedictine reforms. Without an organized educational system, men’s learning had decreased, and there is little evidence that women had fared much better.98 The social and political changes enacted by the reforms included an emphasis on scholastics, but this appears to be true mostly in the male houses. Religious women were no longer elected to lead double monasteries; they were prohibited from participation in the mass, enclosed within femaleonly institutions, restricted in their leadership roles, and separated from educational centers, which reduced their access to Latin texts and, as the paucity of surviving manuscripts from nunneries shows, to vernacular texts.99 Religious men, by contrast, were assuming leadership roles in monasteries, carefully regulating the church’s rituals, monitoring the separation of male and female houses, extending their control over the lay community, and producing books of various types, service books in particular. One of the goals of the Benedictine reform was to reestablish monastic centers of learning, and Æthelwold’s famous school at Winchester suggests how strongly he supported monastic education. Despite this initiative, the decline in Latin training necessitated English translations so that religious texts could be transmitted to both monks and lay men alike. By Ælfric’s time, this was less true, though he met the pressure to provide texts for lay consumption against his will, for he feared that laity might misunderstand the spiritual meaning within Latin texts: Nec tamen plura promitto me scripturum hac lingua, quia nec convenit huic sermocinationi plura inseri, ne forte despectui habeantur margarite Christi. Ideoque reticemus de libro Vita 98. Before Æthelwold established Old Minster, “Nam actenus in gente Anglorum ea tempestate non habebantur monachi nisi in Glastonia et Abundonia,” in Life of Æthelwold, ed. Lapidge and Winterbottom, 23. 99. The most prolific scholar on Anglo-Saxon women’s communities is Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg. Three of her articles are most useful here: “Women’s Monastic Communities”; “Strict Active Enclosure”; and “Sexism and the Celestial Gynaeceum from 500 to 1200,” Journal of Medieval History 4 (1978): 117 –33. See also Foot, Veiled Women; Sarah Foot, “Unveiling Anglo-Saxon Nuns,” in Women and Religion in Medieval England, ed. Diana Wood (Oxford: Oxbow, 2003), 13 –31; Hollis, Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church; Shari Horner, “Spiritual Truth and Sexual Violence: The Old English Juliana, Anglo-Saxon Nuns, and the Discourse of Female Monastic Enclosure,” Signs 19 (1994): 658 – 75; and Barbara Yorke, “‘Sisters Under the Skin’? Anglo-Saxon Nuns and Nunneries in Southern England,” Reading Medieval Studies 15 (1989): 95 –117.
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Patrum, in quo multa subtilia habentur, que˛ non conveniunt aperiri laicis, nec nos ipsi ea quimus implere. (Nevertheless, I promise not to write more in this language because it is not fitting to introduce more in this language, lest, perhaps, the pearls of Christ be held in disrespect. And so we remain silent concerning the book Vitas Patrum in which many subtleties are found which are not suitable to be shown to the laity and which we ourselves are not able to fulfill.)100 Like Bede, Ælfric provides examples worthy of emulation, but his fear that the laity might not perceive the depth of meaning in many Latin lives is underscored by his knowledge that even many monks could not read the Latin lives of the fathers.101 To his chagrin, Ælfric had to portray meritorious lives to those who did not have the necessary training to comprehend the depth of meaning in patristic texts. Thus, his purpose in translating the lives of the saints was to illustrate appropriate models of Christian behavior to lay men, but only texts that could be clearly and easily understood by the less learned.102 In choosing appropriate saints, Ælfric selected only five native figures for his hagiographic collection: Alban, Oswald, Edmund, Swithun, and Æthelthryth.103 Alban was a Christian convert, among the many martyred before the Anglo-Saxons came to England. Oswald, another early convert, was a 100. Wilcox, in Ælfric’s Prefaces, 119 and 131. 101. See Milton McC. Gatch, Preaching and Theology in Anglo-Saxon England: Ælfric and Wulfstan (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), 13, for a discussion of Ælfric’s preface to his translation of Genesis, where Ælfric fears the laity will misunderstand the Old Testament and think they can live under the old law. 102. Scholars note that Ælfric’s Lives of Saints is not, technically, a collection of liturgical texts, but I include them within the liturgical rubric because of Ælfric’s assertion that these were lives read to the monks in their offices before he translated them. As vernacular translations, they cannot be part of the mass, which makes them distinctly available for private devotion only, according to Gregory Dix, The Shape of Liturgy (reprint; 1945, Westminster: Dacre Press, 1954), 12 –35. Sarah Larratt Keefer, however, has found evidence for liturgical forms written in Old English, which she presented in a paper at the Thirty-First International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University (1996), entitled, “Does God Speak Old English? The Enigma of the Vernacular in Private Liturgical Prayer.” Her conclusions suggest that the divide between Latin liturgy designed for public worship versus vernacular liturgy designed for private devotion might not be as wide as is currently believed. 103. In his Catholic Homilies, Ælfric also provided the life of Cuthbert. The distinction between the Catholic Homilies and the Lives of Saints is that Ælfric makes clear that the saints included in the Catholic Homilies are honored in public festivals, whereas those in the Lives of Saints are venerated only in monasteries. As he says in his life of Edmund, truly important to Ælfric is that “[n]is angel-cynn bedæled drihtnes halgena . 4onne on engla-landa licga4 swilce
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Northumbrian king who became a preaching bishop. Edmund’s life contains themes similar to both the life of Oswald and the life of Alban, in that Edmund was a Christian king martyred by the Danes in the ninth century. About Swithun, little is known but that he was a Winchester bishop associated with the royal court of Æthelwulf, which made him an ideal local saint for the Winchester reform program because that relationship was mirrored by the reformers’ close ties to the West Saxon royal house.104 Swithun exemplified episcopal service, and the location of his grave at Old Minster, Winchester, provided a key opportunity to establish the primacy of Winchester and the importance of episcopal leadership, both ideas that legitimated Æthelwold’s position as Bishop of Winchester.105 The four lives of native male saints collectively demonstrate the long and arduous conversion of England to Christianity. The stories of Alban and Oswald represent the coming of Christianity, first to laity and later to royalty. By Edmund’s time, Christianity was firmly established in England, despite the many trials believers endured in its infancy. His story depicts the testing of an English king’s steadfastness, whereas Swithun’s episcopacy documents the continuation of Christian leadership in the obscurity of the recent past, even as his miracles illustrate his approval of the reform agenda.106 Swithun’s account is especially important because it not only reiterates the favor Æthelwold gave him in the benedictional but also demonstrates how a monastic life is possible for secular priests. One miracle story in particular supports Æthelwold’s monastic recruitment scheme; it illustrates the life of a priest who redeems himself by joining Æthelwold’s community at Old Minster.107 In the narrative, Swithun appears posthumously to a blacksmith halgan swylce 4æs halga cyning is and cu4berht se eadiga . and sancte æ4eldry2 on elig . and eac hire swustor ansunde on lichaman geleafan to trymminge . Synd eac fela o2re on angelcynne halgan 4e fela wundra wyrca2 . swa swa hit wide is cu2. . . .” See Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, ed. Skeat, vol. 2, o.s., 94 and 114 (reprint; 1890 and 1900, 2 vols. in 1, London: Oxford University Press, 1966), 332 –35. 104. See James R. Hurt, “Ælfric and the English Saints” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1965), 115, where he explains that Swithun was a secular clerk at the court of Edgbert, who made him tutor to his heir Æthelwulf. Swithun was Bishop of Winchester from 852 to 862. 105. See Lapidge, Cult of St. Swithun, 3 –24. 106. Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, 1:440 –43. 107. Eadsige may well have been part of an established rule, but it was most certainly not the Rule of Chrodegang or the Rule of Aachen, which developed a following only in the 1050s, according to Julia Barrow (via Blair, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society, 361). In any case, Ælfric’s account suggests that only Benedictine monasticism could provide the means through which a secular priest might attain heaven. See Chrodegang of Metz, The Old English Version of the Enlarged Rule of Chrodegang, Together with the Latin Original, ed. Arthur S. Napier (London, 1916).
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and orders the smith to have his kinsman, a local priest named Eadsige, translate his bones. In this way, Swithun tries to force Eadsige to amend his bad behavior as a priest, for he “wæs of ealdan mynstre mid 2am o2rum preostum adræfed for heora un4eawum 4urh a2elwold bisceop” (with the other priests, was driven out of the old monastery by Bishop Æthelwold, for their misconduct).108 Ælfric explains that, because of this insult, Eadsige shunned Æthelwold and his monks, and he refused Swithun’s command to open his grave. Ælfric’s disapproval of the irreverent behavior of the secular clerics is less biting than his fierce denunciation of them in his Life of Æthelwold: Erant autem tunc in Veteri Monasterio, ubi cathedra episcopalis habetur, male morigerati clerici, elatione et insolentia ac luxuria preuenti, adeo ut nonnulli eorum dedignarentur missas suo ordine celebrare, repudiantes uxores quas inlicite duxerant et alias accipientes, gulae et ebrietati iugiter dediti. Quod minime ferens uir sanctus Atheluuoldus, data licentia a rege Eadgaro, expulit citissime nefandos blasphematores Dei de monasterio, et adducens monachos de Abundonia locauit illic, quibus ipse abbas et episcopus extitit. (Now at that time in the Old Minster, where the episcopal seat is situated, there were evil-living clerics, possessed by pride, insolence and wanton behaviour, to such an extent that several of them scorned to celebrate Mass in their turn; they repudiated wives whom they had married unlawfully, and took others, and were continually given over to gluttony and drunkenness. The holy man Æthelwold by no means put up with this, but when King Edgar’s permission had been given, he very quickly expelled the impious blasphemers of God from the minster, and bringing monks from Abingdon, placed them there, being himself both their abbot and bishop.)109 Ælfric’s support for Æthelwold’s reforms is evident in his portrayal of the secular priests as Æthelwold’s enemies. Both stories describe the power struggle between monks and lay priests, even as the miracle story situates the Life of Swithun directly within the sociohistorical context of the reforms. 108. Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, 1:442 –43. 109. The edited text of Ælfric’s life is in Wulfstan, Life of Æthelwold, ed. Lapidge and Winterbottom, 75, and the translation is English Historical Documents, c. 500 –1042, vol. 1, ed. Dorothy Whitelock (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 907.
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Ælfric’s message behind the narrative of Eadsige clearly indicates that dutiful monks deserve God’s grace, whereas lay priests, who are not as separate from worldly concerns, are subject to sin. One of the unspoken implications of this miracle is that the priest was married or had a concubine. Entering the monastery meant observing a celibate life, especially because Æthelwold had so severely censured the wantonness of the secular clerics’ behavior. Eadsige’s resistance to the reforms most likely were many, but in this period the focus on chastity and carnality suggests Eadsige’s refusal arises over this issue. Swithun’s message to Eadsige, delivered by the blacksmith, is that the lay priest reform his life according to God’s will “and efste anmodlice to 4am ecan life” (and hasten with single mind to the eternal life).110 This directive caused Eadsige to join Æthelwold’s monastery and to remain there throughout his life. The clear moral here is that by entering monastic life the priest’s unnamed misconduct is redeemed, for as Ælfric exclaims: Geblætsod is se ealmihtiga god 4e ge-eadmed 4one modigan . and 2a eadmodan ahæf2 to healicum ge2inc4um . and gerihtlæc2 4a synfullan . and symle hylt 2a godan 4e on hine hihta2 for2an 4e he hælend is. (Blessed is the Almighty God, Who humbleth the proud, / and exalteth the humble in high estate, / and correcteth the sinful, and ever preserveth the good / who hope in Him, forasmuch as He is the Saviour.)111 As the story of Eadsige suggests, Ælfric focuses the Life of Swithun on the miracles that the saint performs and the manner in which he brings others to the faith, particularly into the regulatory space of the monastery. When considered alongside the other native male saints that Ælfric included in his collection —Alban, Oswald, and Edmund — the story of Swithun is the final part in a history of the Christianization of England, from the conversion stories of Alban and Oswald, to the attacks on Christianity as detailed in the life of Edmund, to the tenth-century reform of the monastic church. Grouped together, the four narratives provide a collective reminder that England has a history of conversion and martyrdom, as well as an established 110. Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, 1:444 –45. 111. Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, 1:446 –47.
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tradition of monasticism. The one omission would be an exemplar of the so-called golden age of monasticism, but this part of the story is offered in the Life of Æthelthryth, the only life of a native female included in Æflric’s collection. The former Northumbrian queen and princess of the East Anglian royal house was one of the many royal women who founded a monastery during the seventh century, according to Bede’s history. In recounting Æthelthryth’s deeds, Ælfric deleted her direct participation in building the Ely community, saying only that she was elected abbess there. Thus, it seems that Ælfric did not include Æthelthryth to illustrate how she contributed to the narrative of Anglo-Saxon Christianity.112 Instead, the vernacular account of Æthelthryth is focused on the saint’s virginity and chastity within marriage, and it appears to be included to demonstrate the plausibility of conjugal chastity. Peter Jackson argues that Æthelthryth is included to illustrate “a quiet reassertion of the Augustinian ideal of a Christian marriage.”113 In his discussion, Jackson draws on various texts included in the Catholic Homilies to illustrate Æflric’s orthodox view of marriage and clerical celibacy, that is, “the ‘chastity’ appropriate to the laity — intercourse within marriage for the purpose of procreation—and the quite different and incompatible ‘chastity,’ lifelong abstinence, that is the preserve of priests and religious.”114 This strict division, however, would seem to necessitate not translating Bede’s account of Æthelthryth’s life, especially because Ælfric was concerned to provide lives in which the meaning could not be misconstrued by the laity. As Robert K. Upchurch has shown, Ælfric was interested in conjugal chastity, for the Lives of Saints also features two exemplars of conjugal chastity that are in keeping with the separation of men and women religious as is established in Æthelwold’s translation of the Benedictine Rule.115 These 112. Gwen Griffiths also makes this observation in her “Reading Ælfric’s Saint Æthelthryth as a Woman,” Parergon, n.s., 10 (1992): 35 –49 at 42 –44. 113. Jackson, “Ælfric and the Purpose of Christian Marriage,” 260. Gretsch distinguishes the changes Ælfric made to Bede’s text, in Aelfric and the Cult of Saints, 218 –21, and argues that the narrative of the thegn and his wife makes the text more appropriate to married couples. 114. Jackson, “Ælfric and the Purpose of Christian Marriage,” 246. On Æflric’s sermons about marital chastity, see also Upchurch, “For Pastoral Care and Political Gain,” 43 – 60. 115. Robert K. Upchurch, “The Legend of Chrysanthus and Daria in Ælfric’s Lives of Saints,” Studies in Philology 101.3 (2004): 250 – 69. For a discussion of Ælfric’s conception of the male and female as one body, see Dorothy Patricia Wallace, “Religious Women and Their Men: Images of the Feminine in Anglo-Saxon Literature” (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1994), 151– 81.
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two narratives are the story of Chrysanthus and Daria and the account of Julian and Basilissa, two couples who demonstrate conjugal chastity and spiritual devotion. Both accounts, which are similar to the better-known story of Cecilia, where the focus rests on her sanctity and her ability to bring others to Christian service, invert the dynamic and emphasize the husband as the central figure, even though the wives are also accorded Ælfric’s praise for their steadfastness. The first account details how Chrysanthus uses direct speech to overcome Daria’s rhetoric and convert her to Christianity, after which the pair lived together “in the appearance of marriage.” What is perhaps most significant is that Chrysanthus then instructs men to renounce marriage, while Daria does the same for women, which seems to work against the narrative of conjugal chastity.116 Furthermore, Chrysanthus becomes a monk but Daria does not take the veil, an important aspect of the story that is changed from the Latin source.117 The story of Julian and Basilissa is even more direct in its moral message regarding marital sexuality. Despite his devotion to God, Julian is forced to marry, but his desperate prayers on the wedding night bring Christ’s intervention, and he is able to convince his bride of the wisdom of his choice. Julian and Basilissa agree then to live together chastely, and when they inherit their parents’ wealth, Julian establishes a monastery for himself and a nunnery for Basilissa so that he “wear2 4a fæder ofer fæla muneca . / and basilissa modor ofer manega mynecena” (became a father over many monks, / and Basilissa a mother over many nuns).118 In both of these narratives, the wives follow their husbands’ choice for marital chastity, and the men’s devotion is underscored. The central position afforded the men suggests that Ælfric wanted to illustrate how husbands can effectively initiate and maintain a chaste marriage, even as each of the four work to further sexual purity through Christian ministry. Ælfric’s account of Æthelthryth follows this model by emphasizing God’s protection of her virginity through not one but two marriages. Translating from Bede, Ælfric stresses God’s power, as he did in his account of Julian and Basilissa, saying that he “heold hi on clænnysse / for2an 4e he is ælmihtig god and mæg don eall 4æt he wile . / and on manegum wisum his 116. Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, 2:385. 117. Upchurch, “Legend of Chrysanthus and Daria,” 264. Upchurch suggests that Ælfric alters the story line because he is writing for the laity, though this contention does not hold for the presentation of the thegn and his wife in Æflric’s account of Æthelthryth (see below). 118. Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, 1:94 –95.
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mihte geswutela2” (preserved [Æthelthryth] in continence, / because He is God Almighty and can do all that He will, / and in divers ways showeth His might).119 By drawing this connection, Ælfric recalls the husband/wife pairs of the early church and echoes Bede when he suggests that, by God’s grace, Æthelthryth’s chastity was preserved. As a result, others can trust God to do the same for them. Perhaps because of Æthelwold’s regard for the saint, or perhaps because her story provided the closest contemporary analog regarding chastity for his audience, Ælfric elected to translate the life of a local saint whose story complements the accounts of the husband/wife pairs.120 I contend, however, that Ælfric chose this story precisely because Æthelthryth illustrated a native saint who first chose a life of conjugal chastity and then abandoned that life for the regulation of the cloister. The Ely abbess provided a model for leadership within monasticism, a role as an appointed teacher who could motivate others who had chosen a religious career. Although Ælfric had included several Anglo-Saxon male saints, all were unmarried; as monks/confessors, bishops, and nonmarried king/martyrs, they did not provide a model text by which the reformers sought to recruit noncelibate priests and married aristocrats into the monastic communities. By his selection, we know that Ælfric thought that Æthelthryth’s life, among all the Anglo-Saxon virgins, would provide the clearest message about sexual purity and complete monastic separation from lay concerns, even as it would demonstrate the necessity of choice in becoming a member of a monastic community. 119. Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, 1:432 –33. 120. Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The Second Series, ed. Malcolm Godden (London, 1979), 185: “ac gif hí æne togá2. hí sceolon eft gegadrian. o22e si22an wunian. symle buton hæ´mede; Twæming is alyfed. 4am 2e lufia2 swi2or. 2a healican clænnysse. 4onne 2a hóhfullan galnysse; Eac hí magon on sinscipe. hí sylfe bedyglian. and hæmed forgán. gif him swa god gewissa2. . . . Ne gesceop se ælmihtiga god. men for galnysse. ac 4æt hí gestrynon. mid gesceade heora team. and eft on heora ylde. mid ealle 4æt forlæton. 2onne 2æs wifes inno2. unwæstmbære bi2 gehæfd.” For a translation, see The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church: The First Part, Containing the Sermones Catholici, or Homilies of Ælfric, ed. Benjamin Thorpe, vol. 2 (1844 –46, reprint, London: The Ælfric Society, 1971), 324. Here, as in other lives, Ælfric follows Christian doctrine on marriage established by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:3 –5. In the life of Thomas the apostle, which was specifically requested by Ælfric’s patron Æthelweard, the saint tells King Mazdai, “‘3æt wif moste 4a swa hire wer forlætan for-4an-4e he hæ4en wæs . and hetol ehtere . ac canones swa-4eah cwe2a4 . and beoda2 4æt nan wif ne sceole hire wer forlætan swilce for eawfæstnysse . buton him bam swa gelicige. . . .’” See Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, 2:422 –23. It is tempting to think that because of the emphasis on marital chastity in the lives of Thomas, Swithun, and Æthelthryth (among others), Ælfric’s patron requested lives that include this theme, or that chastity was foremost in Ælfric’s propagandistic plan, as it was in Æthelwold’s.
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In Ælfric’s depiction of Julian and Basilissa’s marriage, the two live and teach in separate spaces, which are defined by sex: Julian with the males, and Basilissa with the females. This gendered separation in education reflects the historical segregation of men and women in late Anglo-Saxon monasticism, and this sociohistorical feature is present in Ælfric’s account, which alters Bede’s narrative in a few significant ways. In the Ecclesiastical History, Bede recounts that Æthelthryth founded a double house at Ely and presided over it as abbess. Ælfric says instead that “heo sy22an wear2 gehadod / eft to abudissan on elig mynstre . / ofer manega mynecena . and heo hi modorlice heold / mid godum gebysnungum to 4am gastlican life” (she was [afterward] instituted / as abbess in the monastery of Ely, / and [set] [sic] over many nuns, whom she trained as a mother / by her good example in the religious life).121 In his translation, Ælfric omits her role as founder of a double house, redefines the house as a nunnery, and effectively erases her leadership over both men and women. Furthermore, the phrasing suggests that Ely was an already established nunnery to which Æthelthryth was appointed. Her agency therefore, as well as her economical and spiritual support as Ely’s founder, are neglected in Ælfric’s narrative, and these omissions demonstrate the sociohistorical realities of late Saxon monastic paradigms.122 Whereas double houses had previously been ruled by an abbess, Æthelwold established a number of monasteries for men only and separated female and male religious houses. Nuns were regulated within strict boundaries of newly established houses where they were excluded from church leadership. So, the illustration of Æthelthryth as an abbatial leader for women and for men could well have clouded the distinctions the reformers were drawing between the sexes. When translating Bede’s life, Ælfric emphasizes not so much Æthelthryth’s virginity as her chastity within marriage. Ælfric’s hagiographic text recalls Æthelwold’s blessing for Æthelthryth’s feast day, which seems designed to inspire monastic devotion and male emulation of the virginal woman’s marriage, for he includes a vignette whereby the laity who read or hear this text read cannot possibly misunderstand the message, or the “margarite christi,” that Ælfric provides. Whereas Bede had ended his account by describing the geography of Ely, Ælfric closes his life with another narrative 121. Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, 1:434 –35. In Skeat’s translation, by translating “eft” as “again” (she was then again instituted as abbess) he suggests that Æthelthryth is made abbess a second time. I have emended his translation to “afterwards,” which seems more likely. 122. Garrison, “Lives of St. Aetheldreda,” 110.
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that complements his theme of conjugal purity by extending it to those who are already married. In the lives of Chrysanthus and of Julian, Ælfric described how each man had insisted on marital chastity from the beginning of his marriage. While this is certainly true in his depiction of Æthelthryth and her marriages, his vignette provides a gloss that demonstrates how married lay men could initiate a chaste marriage with their wives following the production of children: Oft woruld-menn eac heoldon swa swa us bec secga2 heora clænnysse on synscipe for cristes lufe swa swa we mihton reccan gif ge rohton hit to gehyrenne . We secga2 swa-2eah be sumum 2egne . se wæs 4ryttig geara mid his wife on clænnysse . 4ry suna he gestrynde . and hi si22an buta 2rittig geara wæron wunigende butan hæmede . and fela ælmyssan worhton . o2 4æt se wer ferde to munuclicere drohtnunge . and drihtnes englas comon eft on his for2-si2e . and feredon his sawle mid sange to heofonum . swa swa us secga2 bec . Manega bysna synd on bocum be swylcum . hu oft weras and wíf wundorlice drohtnodon . and on clænnysse wunodon . to wuldre 4am hælende . 4e 4a clænnysse astealde . crist ure hælend . 4am is á wur2mynt . and wuldor on ecnysse . Amen . (In like manner have laymen also, as books tell us, / preserved often their chastity in the marriage-state, for the love of Christ, / as we might relate if ye cared to hear it. / However, we will tell you of a certain thane, / who lived thirty years with his wife in continence; / he begat three sons, and thenceforward they both lived / for thirty years without cohabitation, / giving much alms, until the husband / entered the monastic life, and God’s angels / came just at his death, and carried his soul / with song to heaven, as the books tell us. / Many examples of such are there in books, / how oftentimes men and their wives have lived wondrously, / and dwelt in chastity, to the glory of Jesus, / who consecrated virginity, even Christ our Saviour; / to whom be honour and glory for ever. Amen.)123 123. Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, 1:440 –41.
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Throughout his narrative about Æthelthryth, Ælfric details how “se lareow beda” provides an authoritative source for his account. At the close of the life, Ælfric stresses that his addition is one of numerous accounts of lay men who have lived chastely with their wives and that these stories have been recorded in books.124 Here, the writer reminds his audience that he is carefully choosing the most appropriate and authoritative lessons for them, and thus his inclusion of the thegn’s chaste marriage looms large as a narrative exemplum. Æthelthryth herself is worthy of admiration and veneration, but it is the thegn who deserves imitation by the laity, for his story ends the life and illustrates how her example can be copied by contemporary lay men, men who may indeed fear the social implications of lifelong virginity. If men were to enter into chaste marriages like Æthelthryth’s, or even Julian’s or Chrysanthus’s, where the spouses choose chastity from the outset, the lay men would never father children and provide heirs.125 In presenting the thegn’s life as a spiritual model, Ælfric provides a way for lay men, who might by circumstance be required to marry and sire children, to imagine their lives as worthy, provided that they practice abstinence and at life’s end retire in a monastery. Thus, the inclusion of the thegn’s story redirects Bede’s presentation of female virginity and emphasizes male chastity following the begetting of children.126 Ælfric indicates, moreover, that a move to monastic chastity is possible for all men, virginal or paternal. This suggestion is in accord with Aldhelm’s description of the chaste widow who receives a lesser reward in heaven than the virgin but a reward nonetheless. Still, in juxtaposing Æthelthryth’s continuous virginity with the thegn’s marital chastity, Ælfric does not differentiate between Æthelthryth’s standing in heaven and the thegn’s. This comparison implies acceptance of male chastity following the production of children, while it appears that an expectation of absolute purity continues for women.127 The portrayal of this thegn illustrates how he achieves a spiritual reward for his chaste life; Æthelthryth, by contrast, has two chaste 124. Both Jackson and Gordon Whatley have identified the source of this addendum: Historia monachorum in Aegypto by Rufinus of Aquileia. See Jackson, “Ælfric and the Purpose of Christian Marriage,” 238. 125. I am indebted to Stephanie Hollis, who read this chapter and offered several useful comments, including this one about male procreation anxiety. 126. See Waterhouse, “Discourse and Hypersignification,” who makes a similar observation about the bias against women in Holy Men and Holy Women, ed. Szarmach, 339. 127. In Spiritual Marriage: Sexual Abstinence in Medieval Wedlock (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 94 –131, Elliott explains how clerical marriage was rejected by eleventh-century reformers and the chastity of men was extolled over the chastity of women.
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marriages but retains her virginity and refuses the social expectation of motherhood. It seems, then, that male chastity warrants rewards akin to those for Æthelthryth’s virginity, and one wonders whether the same could be true for female chastity within marriage. The thegn’s wife, who is often ignored in discussions of this passage, suggests otherwise. The wife also is chaste for thirty years, but she does not receive any reward. In his homilies, Ælfric contends that both the husband and the wife had to agree to remain chaste within marriage, yet the writer ignores the wife’s participation in the anecdote, and, in truth, she disappears from the narrative, which is focused on her husband. Essentially, the wife exists only in relation to her husband, and while Ælfric is simply following the narrative of his source—a head man who lives in chastity for thirty years with his wife before becoming a monk—it seems that he might easily have made changes to this account, as he did with Bede’s version of Æthelthryth’s life. That is, he could have indicated what value there is for the wife. Ignoring the wife’s contribution to the chaste marriage is odd when compared with Ælfric’s narratives about Daria and Basilissa. Even though both narratives focus more on the husbands’ spiritual decisions, both women are accorded some favor for their chastity. The wife in the narrative coda to the Life of Æthelthryth, however, is not. Once the thegn’s sexual relationship is terminated, Ælfric ignores the wife’s part in agreeing to their conjugal chastity and presents the thegn as being like the holy female saint. The depictions of Æthelthryth and of the unknown wife reveal their inequality; the wife ranks lower in Aldhlem’s hierarchy of women—virgin, chaste, widow, and married—because she has conceived children, but here she seems unworthy of Ælfric’s regard and thus unworthy of consideration.128 Ælfric portrays the wife living chastely as her husband did, yet no angels fetch her to heaven. 128. Ælfric included this hierarchy in his homily “In Purificatione S. Mariæ,” in Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The First Series, ed. Peter Clemoes (Oxford, 1997), 255: “3ry hadas syndon . 4e cy2don gecy2nesse be criste. 4æt is mæg2had 7 wydewan had. 7 riht sinscype. . . . [3]as 4ry hadas sindon gode gecweme. gif hi rihtlice lybba2. Mæig2had is æg2er ge on wæpmannum ge on wimmannum; 3a habba2 rihtne mæig2had. 4a 2e fram cyldhade wunia2 on clænnysse: 7 ealle galnyssa on him sylfum forseo2. æig2er ge modes ge lichaman. 4urh godes fultum; 4onne habba2 hi æt gode hundfealde me˛de. on 4am e˛can life; Wudewan beo2 4a 2e æfter heora gemacan on clænnysse wunia2. for godes lufon: hi habba2 4onne sixtifealde mede. æt gode. hyra geswinces; 1a 4e rihtlice healda2 hyra eawe. 7 on alyfedum timan for bearnes gestreone hæme2 bega2: Hi habba2 / 4rittigfealde mede: for hyra gesceadwisnisse.” For a translation, see Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church, ed. Thorpe, vol. 1. See also John, “World of Abbot Aelfric,” 308.
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Sexual congress is not, however, the only differentiation Ælfric makes between the thegn and his wife, between Æthelthryth and the wife. Æthelwold’s student illustrates that monastic devotion is necessary to gain a heavenly reward; indeed, he chose an analog from the Historia monachorum in Aegypto to demonstrate the possibility of chaste marriage. In selecting this story, he offers an alternate means of understanding Æthelthryth’s life choices. Æthelthryth’s extraordinary sanctity is a difficult state to attain, yet this vignette demonstrates how her life can be appropriated by men, and specifically by those considering a monastic vocation or those come lately to the reform movement after years of conjugal living. By excluding the wife from the narrative, Ælfric negates her participation in the chaste marriage, and by extension he suggests that, as a lay woman and a mother, she has no association with the virginal Æthelthryth. As a lay woman, moreover, she does not warrant a position in the saint’s celestial company simply because she did not become a nun. The implication is that had the wife chosen the monastic life her end would be different, yet Ælfric provides no narratives in which married women of their own accord seek chastity, then monasticism. The omission of the wife suggests that Ælfric is not encouraging aristocratic lay women, especially those who have been married and borne children, to enter the monasteries but is instead focusing solely on how men, particularly lay men who are fathers, might successfully imitate Æthelthryth’s life choices. Jackson suggests that the threefold reward for chastity is where Ælfric’s interest lies, and if this were true, why would he neglect the thegn’s wife? Ælfric could easily have followed Aldhelm or Augustine and indicated what reward the wife deserved, even as he could have indicated women who, like Æthelthryth, have chosen monastic careers after marriage—such women as Ælfgifu, Edmund’s queen, who founded Shaftesbury and is also honored among the native virgins in Anglo-Saxon litanies.129 Instead, the hagiographer elects to distinguish between the thegn and his wife, suggesting that laity who become religious are rewarded in ways that others are not. What is more, Ælfric’s delineation between the thegn’s chastity and his wife’s promotes an example of appropriate sexual behavior for a specific audience, focusing on chastity practiced within monasticism as a tenth-century equivalent for Æthelthryth’s ascetic behavior. Furthermore, his portrayal of Æthelthryth as the abbess of Ely, not the founder, ignores her participation 129. John Blair, “A Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Saints,” in Local Saints and Local Churches, ed. Thacker and Sharpe, 495 –565 at 503.
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in the newly emerging English church. Ælfric reserves this role for his teacher, Æthelwold. Establishing monasteries remained the province of the paternal Æthelwold, while Æthelthryth served as abbess. In this capacity, she is again situated as the maternal double of Benedict, father of monasticism. As in the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, where Æthelthryth and Christ are mirrored, this configuration balances the father figure, Benedict, with an image of the maternal abbess and reflects the historical appointment of King Edgar as father to the monasteries and Queen Ælfthryth as mother, balancing the separation between these gendered spaces.130 At the same time, Æthelthryth’s position as virginal bride of Christ negates the maternal. The paradox of these two roles is well formulated, for it correlates with the paradoxical image of the Virgin Mother, an affinity that again elevates this native virgin to a seemingly unattainable level for women. The historical context of the Benedictine Reform does not constitute the only evidence of a male audience for Ælfric’s Lives of Saints. In his preface, he explains that this collection was written for his aristocratic lay patrons, Æthelweard and Æthelmær, who requested a book designed for personal devotions:131 Ælfric gret eadmodlice Æ2elwerd ealdorman, and ic secge 4e, leof, 4æt ic hæbbe nu gegaderod on 4yssere bec 4æra halgena 4rowunga, 4e me to onhagode on Englisc to awendene, for 4an 4e 2u, leof swi2ost, and Æ2elmær swylcera gewrita me bædon, and of handum gelæhton, eowerne geleafan to getrymmenne mid 4ære gerecednysse, 4e ge on eowrum gereorde næfdon ær. 3u wast, leof, 4æt we awendon on 4am twam ærrum bocum 4æra halgena 4rowunga and lif 4e Angelcynn mid freolsdagum wur4a2. Nu gewear2 us, 4æt we 4as boc be 4æra halgena 2rowungum and life gedihton 4e mynstermenn mid heora 4enungum betwux him wur2ia2. 130. Symons, trans., Regularis Concordia, 2: “coniugique suae Ælfthrithae sanctimonialium mandras ut impauidi more custodis defenderet cautissime praecepit; ut uidelicet mas maribus, femina feminis, sine ullo suspecionis scrupulo subueniret.” For a discussion of the reorganization of nunneries, see Yorke, “‘Sisters Under the Skin.’” 131. Yorke notes that Æthelmær came from a leading noble family that supported the monastic reforms, in Nunneries and the Anglo-Saxon Royal Houses, 75. Gatch finds a precedent for lay piety in Gerald of Aurillac, in Preaching and Theology in Anglo-Saxon England, 48 –49. Joyce Hill also discusses Ælfric’s patrons and his hagiographical collection and notes that the Lives of Saints was composed mainly for reading, whereas the Catholic Homilies was for speaking to a lay congregation. In Hill, “The Preservation and Transmission of Ælfric’s Saints’ Lives: Reader-Response in the Early Middle Ages,” Studies in Medieval Culture 40 (1997): 405 –30.
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(Ælfric humbly greeteth alderman Æthelwerd, and I tell thee, beloved, that I have now collected in this book such Passions of the Saints as I have had leisure to translate into English, because that thou, beloved, and Æthelmær earnestly prayed me for such writings, and received them at my hands for the confirmation of your faith by means of this history, which ye never had in your language before. Thou knowest, beloved, that we translated in the two former books the Passions and Lives of the saints which the English nation honoureth with festivals; now it has seemed good to us that we should write this book concerning the sufferings and lives of the Saints whom monks in their offices honour amongst themselves.)132 This preface illustrates that two devout men had asked specifically for texts that monks study so that they could supplement their own private devotions. Jon Wilcox notes that the Lives of Saints “had a considerably slighter circulation than Catholic Homilies” with only four surviving collections.133 The limited dissemination indicates that the Lives of Saints was not intended to become (and did not succeed in becoming) a standard text read by the laity. From all accounts, then, it appears that the Life of Æthelthryth was presented to Æflric’s patrons simply as a devotional text. The addition of the vignette seems appropriate to this male audience, and we might consider that Ælfric’s description of the chaste thegn who enters the monastic life serves a dual purpose. As Æthelwold’s student, Ælfric supports the reform mission while he provides moral incentive for his lay patrons, and in one way Æthelthryth is not the model for imitation that the thegn has become for the lay audience. The appointment of Ælfric to the abbacy at Eynsham appears to have been at the request of Æthelmær, the man who founded Eynsham and Cerne Abbas and for whom Ælfric wrote the collection of saints’ lives. We know that Eynsham was established in part as a home for Æthelmær, who elected to live out his days there, seemingly as a lay man but perhaps as a monk.134 In his accounts of Æthelthryth and Swithun, Ælfric suggests that a man who had lived many years in the world before entering the contemplative 132. Wilcox, in Ælfric’s Prefaces, 120. Translation in Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, 1:4 –5. 133. Wilcox, in Ælfric’s Prefaces, 80. 134. In Preaching and Theology, Gatch indicates that in the Eynsham charter, Æthelmær writes, “‘and ic me sylfe wylle mid 2ære geferrædne gemænelice libban, and 2ære áre mid him notian 2a hwile 2e mín lif bi2’” at 174 and 203. See also Wilcox, in Ælfric’s Prefaces, 2 –15; and Jones, in Ælfric’s Letter to the Monks of Eynsham, 5 –17.
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life could achieve heaven in the afterlife simply by choosing to be celibate. It is tempting to think that these stories prompted Æthelmær’s foundation at Eynsham and his monastic seclusion there under Ælfric’s abbatial leadership. In any case, Ælfric’s story of Eadsige in the Life of Swithun and his account of the chaste thegn in the Life of Æthelthryth encourage male readers to enter the monastic tradition and join others in observing the Benedictine rules; Æthelthryth’s story represents the perfect execution of the Rule, and the stories of the thegn and Eadsige complement her perfection by illustrating the redemption of man’s sin through monastic living.135
Æthelthryth’s Body as Symbol Some scholars have mistakenly argued that saints’ cults always emerge from public veneration and the pressure exerted by pilgrims, and it has been suggested that a second translation of Æthelthryth’s body occurred in 970 as evidence that the spectacle of the exposed body invigorated the defunct Ely cult.136 Certainly, the translation of a saint’s body was often the occasion for public rituals, whereby the laity came to know the saint’s legend and the miracles associated with the relics.137 That it was important to the reform movement is indicated by the exhumation of Swithun’s bones, which were washed and reinterred as part of the development of a cult.138 Yet, two sources, one overtly and the other by omission, suggest that Æthelwold did 135. This imagery supplements Ælfric’s vision of the Last Judgment, where he illustrates monks being honored above bishops for following the rule to perfection, in Gatch, “The Office in Late Anglo-Saxon Monasticism,” 104. 136. See Islwyn Geoffrey Thomas, “The Cult of Saints’ Relics in Medieval England” (Ph.D. diss., University of London, 1974), 88; and Griffiths, “Reading Ælfric’s Saint Æthelthryth as a Woman,” 48. 137. David Rollason indicates that the presence of relics and their enshrinement was an essential part of the consecration of a church, in Two Anglo-Saxon Rituals: The Dedication of a Church and The Judicial Ordeal (Leicester: University of Leicester, 1988), 9 –12. Æthelwold’s discovery of Æthelthryth’s shrine, already enclosed, recalls the antiquity of the place and the church’s former consecration. By translating Wihtburh’s body (see below) into the refurbished Saxon church, the processional could operate in the manner Rollason describes without disturbing Æthelthryth’s shrine. Throughout the Norman history at Ely (and many other houses as well), the translation of Æthelthryth’s body often accompanied the completion of a major building program as in 1106 and 1252, but pre-Conquest the history is less sure. I suspect that the tenth-century Ely dedication was more concerned with the translation of Wihtburh to fulfill the Anglo-Saxon ritual of the church’s dedication than to focus on the cult of Æthelthryth alone. 138. John Crook, “The Enshrinement of Local Saints in Francia and England,” in Local Saints and Local Churches, ed. Thacker and Sharpe, 189 –224 at 209.
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not open the enclosed tomb he found in the ruins of the Ely church: the Liber Eliensis and Ælfric’s Life of Swithun. The latter illustrates that when Æthelwold participated in Swithun’s translation in 971, great spectacle accompanied that ceremony. Much was made of the placement of the tomb and of the miracles surrounding its removal to a new location. Thus, alongside the production of liturgy and miracles to support the cult of Swithun, there is evidence that Æthelwold was actively promoting Winchester as a site for people to venerate the relics of Swithun, and Ælfric describes this activity in his account.139 Yet, Ælfric retells Bede’s account of the first bodily translation of Æthelthryth but does not mention a second— one that would have been a contemporary event and highly important to the late Saxon church as it attempted to establish its power in monastic centers. Most likely, Ælfric was present during the Winchester ceremonies surrounding Swithun’s elevation and translation, which can account for his prolific details about them. His reliance on Bede, however, for a description of Æthelthryth’s incorruptibility could only be heightened by a narrative describing Æthelwold’s discovery of the body, which had remained incorrupt since the time of Bede. Ælfric’s silence suggests that a second translation did not occur at Æthelwold’s refoundation of Ely, or that the tomb had been opened and the body could not be displayed because it had decayed. Locally, there must have been some traditions among the laity at Ely, but these do not appear widespread before, or even after, Æthelwold’s refoundation.140 The editor of the Liber Eliensis has determined that a passage 139. For a discussion of the Winchester building program and the two translations of Swithun that led to a pilgrimage cult, see Martin Biddle, “Archaeology, Architecture, and the Cult of Saints in Anglo-Saxon England,” in The Anglo-Saxon Church: Papers on History, Architecture, and Archaeology, ed. L. A. S. Butler and R. K. Morris (London: Dorset Press, 1986), 1–31 at 22 –25, as well as his “Felix Urbis Winthonia.” See also Hurt, Ælfric. 115 –22; Deshman, Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, 182 –90; Rollason, Saints and Relics; and Lapidge, Cult of St. Swithun, 8 –24 and 217– 609. Lapidge includes the miracles recorded by Lantfred, the life presented by Wulfstan, and a discussion of Ælfric’s epitome. 140. The LE records a grant of land at Stapleford, Cambridgeshire, from King Eadred to Ely Abbey, a donation that was likely anachronistically documented. For further discussion, see Sawyer’s Anglo-Saxon Charters, where Hart calls it authentic, no. 572, but Edward Miller doubts this conclusion, in his The Abbey and Bishopric of Ely: The Social History of an Ecclesiastical Estate from the Tenth Century to the Early Fourteenth Century (1951, reprint, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 15. Another charter, no. 646, also in Sawyer, records King Eadwig’s grant of land at Helig to Archbishop Oda. Miller argues, 15, that this gift of forty “manses” was temporary and was returned to the royal estate. In Cotton Tiberius b.v, f. 74, which is a gospel book that once belonged to the Ely abbey, a deed appears that confirms a guild in Æthelthryth’s honor. There is no indication exactly when the guild began, but the secular confraternity signals lay (yet aristocratic) patronage at Ely. For this deed, see
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describing Æthelwold’s discovery of Æthelthryth’s tomb is abridged from a later chapter in the chronicle, one that describes the second translation of Æthelthryth’s body in 1106 when the Norman apse was finished and Abbot Richard was promoting the establishment of an Ely episcopacy.141 While the chronicle records Æthelwold’s discovery, it does not indicate that the body was removed from the tomb, inspected, or translated into a new coffin. It is likely that the compiler of the Liber Eliensis, lacking a spectacle during the 970 refoundation and any information about Æthelwold’s discovery of the tomb, extrapolated this passage to imply the continued existence of Æthelthryth’s intact body. The assertion that Æthelthryth’s body was not examined by Æthelwold therefore indicates some interest in promoting a liturgical cult over a relic cult, perhaps to emphasize Æthelthryth as a symbol rather than as a physical relic. A local cult must have existed, but it seems that whatever devotion was expressed by laity on the Isle of Ely, Æthelwold’s liturgical cult seems to have obscured it rather than exploited it. In not translating the body of Æthelthryth, Æthelwold did not create a public site at Ely for spectacle and pilgrimage; indeed, that came later as the body of Wihtburh was moved to Ely from East Dereham. Instead, the surviving documents suggest that, at Ely, Æthelwold encouraged aristocratic patronage, perhaps what David Rollason calls the establishment of a cult to demonstrate royal policy.142 By establishing Ely as a site of royal refoundation, Æthelwold A Collection of English Charters, from the Reign of King Æthelberht of Kent, A.D. DC. V. to that of William the Conqueror, ed. and trans. Benjamin Thorpe (London: Macmillan, 1865), 610 –13. 141. LE, 120. As noted above, the chronicle is based on earlier Ely texts, and its details of Bishop Æthelwold’s activities are supported by other tenth-century documents. The chronicle claims that Æthelwold found Æthelthryth’s tomb but did not disturb it because an early miracle illustrated the death of a Dane who had persisted in peeking into the sarcophagus. The author of the LE, who often used such opportunities to embellish the legends of Æthelthryth, did not create a fabulous account of the discovery of Æthelthryth’s tomb or of any translation that would likely take place to prove the continued incorruptibility of her body. Instead, he included a presentation of the incorrupt body of Wihtburh, Æthelthryth’s sister. See a discussion of this spectacle in my essay titled “King Anna’s Daughters: Genealogical Narrative and Cult Formation in the Liber Eliensis,” Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques 30.1 (2004): 127–49. 142. David Rollason, “Relic-Cults as an Instrument of Royal Policy, c. 900 – c. 1050,” Anglo-Saxon England 15 (1986): 91–103 at 101. Rollason has also discussed this issue in “The Shrines of Saints in Later Anglo-Saxon England: Distribution and Significance,” in The Anglo-Saxon Church, ed. Butler and Morris, 32 –43. Biddle, “Felix Urbis Winthonia,” at 133, discusses the geography of tenth-century Winchester and finds that the distance between the seat of secular power at the royal palace and the cathedral of Old Minster, the center of Æthelwold’s reforms, was less than forty meters. See also M. A. Meyer, “Patronage of the West Saxon Royal Nunneries in Late Anglo-Saxon England,” Revue Benedictine 91 (1981): 332 –58; Clayton, “Centralism and Uniformity”; and Ridyard, Royal Saints, 195 –96.
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demonstrated support for Edgar’s political policies, even as the king financed Æthelwold’s attempt to build a monastic empire.143 By encouraging aristocratic lay men to join the monastic life of celibacy, Æthelwold could not only enlarge membership in religious houses but also could increase monastic landholdings with the entrance gifts offered by new monks and stretch monastic power into lay spaces. This dynamic served Edgar’s interests as well. His position as monastic shepherd, established in Æthelwold’s translation of the Benedictine Rule, afforded Edgar authority over the obedient monks, who were increasing their social and political power on both sides of the monastery walls and helping to extend his policies as king. Ælfric’s contention that the lives included in his collection were unknown to the laity indicates that the cult continued to be supported by liturgical veneration in the monasteries, more so than by active pilgrimage.144 In constructing the tenth-century cult of Æthelthryth, Æthelwold focused on monastic conversion under royal decree. Instead of developing a public cult, it was limited to monks, who celebrated Æthelthryth’s feast day through the elaborate liturgy produced at Winchester, and to aristocratic men, who might be induced to enter the monastic life and follow the Benedictine Rule. Æthelwold’s selectivity offered a textual imago, not the physically enshrined body, for monastic worship and veneration. In effect, the twice-married virgin who became a nun/abbess provided a symbol of a woman whose behavioral signs aristocratic lay men could read and imitate. In addition, the singularity of Æthelthryth’s virginity and the venerable experience attributed to her by these strong male leaders distinguished the incredible difference between the thegn’s forgotten wife and the most important female saint. These liturgical texts deny women’s secular chastity, as they construct a narrative that claims that the lay female body must be erased, in the case of the thegn’s wife, or reconstructed as a monastic emblem of singular perfection, in the case of Æthelthryth.145 One other text supplements the idea that the cult of Æthelthryth remained largely liturgical. The text, Secgan be 4am Godes sanctum 4e on 143. Robert Deshman argues that Æthelthryth is the ideal symbol of the monastic reforms, in “The Iconography of the Full-Page Miniatures of the Benedictional of Æthelwold” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1969), 235. 144. Tolhurst cites the calendars of the Bosworth Psalter and Arundel mss 60 and 155 to show that Æthelthryth’s feast day, 23 June, was regularly celebrated, but her translation date, 17 October, does not appear in these calendars. See his “Examination of Two Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts of the Winchester School,” 39. 145. By relying on only an abstract of my dissertation chapter, Phillip Pulsiano misread my argument about the erasure of the female body. See “Blessed Bodies,” 38 –40.
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Engla lande ærost reston, lists the resting places of eighty-nine saints and is the only list of its type to have survived from Anglo-Saxon England.146 In the Secgan, the monasteries in which Æthelwold took a personal interest are included, with the exception of Ely: Thorney, Old Minster, Ramsey, Abingdon, the New Minster, Nunnaminster, and Peterborough.147 It is significant that the saints at all these refoundations are listed with the exception of those at Ely, a decidedly odd finding because Ely was, arguably, the second most important house after Glastonbury and certainly the second in terms of economic wealth. To be sure, the list is not focused on East Anglia, but it does contain information on two houses in that area, Bury and St. Neots. On the other hand, a complementary list called the “Kentish Royal Legend” lists the saints of the royal Kentish and East Anglian dynasties, including Æthelthryth, but here she is listed as part of the extended royal family of Kent.148 The focus, then, is on Ely not as the resting place of Æthelthryth, Seaxburh, Wihtburh, and Eormenhild but as an extension of the Kentish dynasty. In contrast to the litanies, where Æthelthryth’s name often evokes the naming of her sororal family, she appears peripherally among the Kentish saints, and we begin to see the limitations of Æthelwold’s liturgical cult of Æthelthryth. The absence of Æthelthryth in the Secgan, and her peripheral existence in the “Kentish Royal Legend,” suggests that if a vibrant, regional cult had developed following Æthelwold’s refoundation of Ely, it was limited in geographic scope. The omission of her name from the list of England’s most popular saints 146. Stephanie Hollis suggested this idea to me in a private communication, for it had seemed curious to both of us that the premier English virgin was not included in this list. David Rollason explains that the list is essentially in two parts, divided geographically: the first half details mostly Northumbrian saints, with some from Mercia and Bury, which is the only East Anglian site; the second half lists predominantly the saints of Wessex but also has Mercian and Kentish saints. The only East Anglian site in the last half is St. Neots, and, as Rollason observes, the important feature of the last half is the prominence afforded monasteries linked to the reform movement, including Thorney and Old Minster, Winchester, which makes the omission of Æthelthryth more puzzling because her cult was promoted at Winchester. The list survives in two manuscripts, one dated to ca. 1000 –1050, the other ca. 1050. See Rollason’s “List of Saints’ Resting-Places in Anglo-Saxon England,” Anglo-Saxon England 7 (1978): 61–93. 147. Simon Coates indicates that the reformers were particularly interested in reclaiming the past and intentionally refounded the cults of Æthethryth, Swithun, Wilfrid, and others. In Coates, “Perceptions of the Anglo-Saxon Past in the Tenth-Century Monastic Reform Movement,” Studies in Church History 33 (1997): 61–74. 148. The “Kentish Royal Legend” appears with the Secgan in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 201, and in BL, Stowe 944. The third copy of the Secgan appeared in BL, Cotton Vitellius D. xvii, which was partially destroyed in the 1731 fire. The “Kentish Royal Legend” was not included in this manuscript. See Rollason, “Lists of Saints’ Resting-Places,” 61.
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supports this possibility. Furthermore, the omission of Æthelthryth in the Secgan suggests that the physical relic of Æthelthryth —her body —was not important to the cultic practices. In effect, her body does not appear to exist outside the church’s liturgical texts or outside the tightly drawn Winchester circle. The physically enshrined body was replaced by the textual representations of the cult, and it seems that the translation of the body was not important.149 Æthelthryth’s body is not taken from the shrine and examined, nor is there any evidence that the physical body was an important element in claiming its virginity, as it was with Bede. The surviving tenth-century calendars do not list Æthelthryth’s translation day, 17 October, while her feast day is recorded in all the English calendars produced after Ely was refounded in 970. Only in the late eleventh century do the calendars begin to mark Æthelthryth’s translation day, which is curious.150 The evidence illustrates that the translation feast was celebrated in Anglo-Saxon England before the second translation of 1106. Perhaps, then, we have the date of the translation of Wihtburh to Ely, a date that becomes traditional for celebrating the Ely saints. As products of the Winchester school, the disseminated liturgy offered multiple texts whereby monks could hear the story of Æthelthryth. The liturgical words, which were shaped to fit Æthelwold’s reform plans, symbolize and contain the absent body. He had refused to reveal the body in a public spectacle, choosing instead to generate the cult at Winchester, far from the saint’s tomb. In effect, he disassociated the saint from her resting place, indicating that she was a symbol that met a larger audience. Certainly, Æthelwold’s private benedictional was a visual text for a very limited group. Whereas pilgrims would be encouraged to view the saint’s shrine (but not Æthelthryth’s body), gazing on Æthelwold’s benedictional would be limited to a few.151 The bishop and only select others would have the privileged 149. According to the LE, Æthelwold insisted that Æthelthryth’s relics had been preserved throughout the invasions, but the preservation of a physical body was less important than a representation of that body, or the existence of an iconic body. A static visual image, as provided in the BSE and other liturgical texts, offered the monks an image of chaste perfection— an image they too could imitate. For a discussion of the importance of relics to a community, see Peter Brown, The Cult of Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 88. 150. See Francis Wormald, English Kalendars After A.D. 1100, 2 vols. (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1939, 1946); and English Kalendars Before A.D. 1100 (1934, reprint; Woodbridge, Suff.: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1988). 151. The benedictional’s preface includes Godeman’s request for prayers from “all who look upon this book”— the implication being that the viewers will be members of the monastic order. For a full translation of the preface, see Deshman, Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, 148. The facsimile is edited by Warner and Wilson, who also provide a translation, 1.
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position of looking into the book, where the saintly body was inscribed as an icon of monastic chastity.152 In offering the blessing to a congregation, therefore, Æthelwold made the body known. In effect, the liturgical texts stand in for Æthelthryth’s body; they became the discursive body that speaks to the audience about chastity and monasticism, just as Æthelwold’s highly ornamented miniature stands in for the shrine containing the mysteries of this perpetual virgin. Ælfric followed his teacher and produced a narrative for a very specific group of lay devotees. The liturgical presentation of the body demonstrates a conscious act they perform, one that controls the production and reception of the saint as symbol. The interdependence of Ælfric’s political message and Æthelwold’s propagandistic enthusiasm for monastic centralization, therefore, rests on a carefully constructed image of Æthelthryth, one that focuses male attention on chaste monasticism, not on female bodies. In carefully presenting the image and in the dissemination of the image, the reformers also controlled access to the body. The result is that words of the reformers become the inscriptions through which the virginal body is known. The refoundation of Ely reclaims the religious heritage established by this Anglo-Saxon queen, yet the representations produced control the understanding of how she participated in the developing Anglo-Saxon church, even as they indicate the limits religious women faced within the reform movement. The gendered demarcation between monastery and nunnery reflected these anxieties. The narratives of Julian, Chrysanthus, and the married thegn reveal that if lay women were to choose chastity they would threaten the social order the reforms had established. The power to choose between procreation and chastity, therefore, had to rest with the husband, and the images given in Ælfric’s Lives of Saints underscore the reform’s placement of men in leadership roles. If men choose chastity, they dictate the social order by controlling procreation. More important, the ideology of the reforms indicated that if lay men choose monasticism they would enter into the powerful structure that was refashioning church ritual, political ideology, and social paradigms. The image of Æthelthryth’s chastity, therefore, seems not to have been constructed for women. If aristocratic or lay women had insisted on chaste marriages, as Æthelthryth had, it would disrupt the sociopolitical order the reforms intended. Her life was balanced instead by several images of masculine chastity: the thegn, who chose monasticism; 152. Griffiths provides a good discussion of the gaze in relation to Æthelthryth’s shrine and her physical body, in her “Reading Ælfric’s Saint Æthelthryth,” 45 –48.
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Swithun, who illustrated the native episcopal ideal; Benedict, who had founded Benedictine monasticism; and Christ, whose gestures Æthelthryth imitates in the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold. Surrounded by these images of masculine control, the liturgical representations of Æthelthryth suggest that women do have a place in God’s social order, but only extraordinary monastic women who have managed to imitate the Virgin Mary. The presentations of Æthelthryth limit her to the symbolic; she represents the abdication of secular life (marriage, sex, and elite status), which, as we are assured, is the means to achieving a spiritual life. As Ælfric says, Æ2eldry2 wolde 2a ealle woruld-4incg forlætan . and bæd georne 4one cynincg 4æt heo criste moste 4eowian . on mynsterlicre drohtnunge swa hir mod hire to-speon . (Æthelthryth desired to forsake all worldly things, / and earnestly besought the king that she might serve Christ / in the monastic life, as her disposition prompted her.)153
153. Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, 1:434 –35.
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three Tota integra, tota incorrupta: The Inviolable Body and Ely’s Monastic Identity (1066 – ca. 1133)
Ibi est unum feretrum sub quo clauditur vas marmoreum continens sancte Æ2eldre2e corpus virgineum, versus altare proprium, sicut precellens domina, tota integra, tota incorrupta, quiescit in tumulo, quod Dei iussione angelicis ei, ut credimus, parabatur manibus. . . . (There is one shrine, within which the marble sarcophagus containing the virgin body of Saint Æthelthryth is enclosed, turned in the direction of her own altar, just as the exalted lady, entirely whole, entirely uncorrupted, rests in the tomb which, we believe, had been prepared for her at God’s command by the hands of angels. . . . )1
Where Bede had presented the first account of Æthelthryth’s life and located her resting place at Ely, his text was produced in Northumbria at the monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow. In like manner, Æthelwold’s liturgical program was centered at Winchester, far from the resting place of the saint. Wallace-Hadrill contends that Bede’s account was likely based on one that was produced at Ely, although, as the first chapter indicates, Bede appears to be the one authorizing this cult.2 There are no survivals from early AngloSaxon Ely to demonstrate how the cult was initiated or sustained, if at all. Whatever cultic activities had occurred there between Æthelthryth’s translation in 695 and the tenth-century refoundation of the monastery remain obscure. Following Æthelwold’s promotion of Æthelthryth’s cult, however, there is a marked shift in presenting Ely as a sacred space. The evidence we have from the late Saxon through the early Angevin period comes from the twelfth-century Latin chronicle Liber Eliensis (LE), which was produced at Ely and serves as the first documentation of how the monks wanted to represent their patron and their monastery as the cult center. 1. LE, 289. Translations of the LE are my own. For reference, see Janet Fairweather, Liber Eliensis: A History of the Isle of Ely from the Seventh to the Twelfth Century (Woodbridge, Suff.: Boydell Press, 2005). 2. Wallace-Hadrill, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, 159.
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The Liber Eliensis is much more than a straightforward monastic history; it is a compilation of deeds, charters, privileges, and estate litigation designed to secure Ely’s independence from royal and episcopal intervention. This chronicle begins with a book-length vita of Æthelthryth, and it features, interspersed throughout the collected documents, a number of miracle stories associated with the twice-married virgin and her shrine.3 Indeed, the shrine itself is described in an inventory list assembled in 1134. The description highlights the silver plate and costly jewels that adorned it, and, as the epigraph indicates, the writer of the inventory stresses the body’s enclosure within the sarcophagus and shrine. The story of Æthelthryth’s life and of the entombment of her incorruptible corpse figure largely in the monastic narrative, for the shrine—as a material extension of the founder’s preserved corporeality—is invoked as the organizing symbol for the community’s identity. In describing the shrine as an enclosure, one that protects the incorrupted body of the saint and one over which the monks swear oaths of allegiance (and thus form a collective body), the chronicle indirectly associates the shrine with the architectural space of the monastery, even as it suggests the imagery of enclosure for the spiritual body represented by the group of monks. As a symbol of permanence and purity, the dead saint’s corporeality is manifested in the materiality of her resting place, for the box carries the multivalent attributes associated with the woman’s life — she is royal, chaste, monastic, abbatial, sovereign — and the values directly tied to her physicality post mortem: the body is pure, virginal, incorruptible, inviolable, impenetrable, immutable. Drawing on the work of cultural anthropologists, Sarah Beckwith has argued forcefully for an understanding of how symbols are culturally contingent, “signifying devices which provide the communiciative [sic] context through which social worlds are imagined, invented and changed.”4 Her analysis of the ambiguity of meaning associated with Christ’s body in the late medieval period provides a theoretical framework for investigating how Æthelthryth’s incorrupted corpse is situated as a prominent symbol in the Liber Eliensis. As Beckwith illustrates, symbols help us to understand how social relations are embedded in texts. In the Ely narrative, the monastic 3. Three Ely cartularies have also survived, and each was inserted into a codex containing the LE. In his introduction to the edition, xxxix–xli, Blake indicates that Manuscript G demonstrates the most overlap between chronicle and cartulary. Still, the three cartularies are often redundant catalogs of the evidence marshaled together in the LE. 4. Beckwith, Christ’s Body, 2.
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community utilizes the image of Æthelthryth’s royal and abbatial position to define itself as a sovereign body. In repeatedly underscoring the elements of royalty, chastity, inviolability, and immutability, the chronicle’s description of the enshrined body establishes a recurring symbol of power through which the monks assert their sovereignty over the Isle of Ely and their autonomy in the monastery’s governance. Using this imagery, the monks challenge anyone who might take advantage of them, a warning that suggests a significant monastic anxiety about the community’s vulnerability. Thus, the construction of the chronicle not only draws on the institution’s traditions to present an image of the Anglo-Saxon saint in which the monks glory, but also illustrates how the monks want themselves to be understood. At times, they indicate that the saint risks violation because of her purity; at others, they illustrate how her sovereignty affords her the right to defend her properties, even through violence. By aligning themselves with the royal saint, whether she is imagined as a victim or as an aggressor, the monks present a careful rhetorical record of their institution, a record that allows them to assert their own victimization and aggression in the face of any external threat. As the second wealthiest monastery at the time of the Conquest, Ely had every reason to be concerned about its future under a Norman administration.5 In order to legitimize the monastery’s representation of its history, the text draws largely on Bede’s account, though the compiler indicates he is using documents long held by the community.6 The twelfth-century monastic chronicle augments Bede’s eighth-century narrative to illustrate the events following the founder’s death and translation. Book two of the Liber Eliensis indicates that although the monastery at Ely was destroyed during the Danish invasions, Æthelthryth’s corporeal purity remained undisturbed within the sanctity of her sarcophagus. When King Edgar and Bishop Æthelwold refounded Ely in 970, expelling the clerics living there 5. See Knowles, Monastic Order in England, 102. 6. In her foreward to Blake’s edition of the LE, ix–xviii, Dorothy Whitelock indicates that the documentation of Æthelwold’s refoundation comes from the Libellus quorundam insignium operum beati Æthelwoldi episcopi, which was translated from vernacular documents. Many of these vernacular sources are no longer extant, but it is clear from surviving documents at other communities that much of what is included in the LE was originally written in Old English. The vita, however, is based on Bede’s account and on a Latin collection of miracles written by Ælfhelm, Liber miraculorum beate virginis. There is no indication that the compiler had access to Ælfric’s life, for the description of the thegn who imitates Æthelthryth is not included. See also Blake’s discussion of sources in LE, xxviii–xlii and xlix–lviii, and Keynes’s assessment of the worth of these documents, “Ely Abbey, 672 –1109,” 7–27.
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and repopulating it with Benedictine monks, the Liber Eliensis indicates that the tomb was intact and that “nemo inspicere presumpsit” (no one dared to inspect it).7 Apparently based on now-lost vernacular documents, the chronicle illustrates that Æthelwold carefully orchestrated the Anglo-Saxon refoundation, for alongside his many gifts to the house, he rebuilt the complex and with great ceremony enshrined Æthelthryth’s sarcophagus within the church, placing alongside it the relics of her sisters: Wihtburh, abbess of her own foundation at East Dereham, and Seaxburh, Queen of Kent and founder/abbess of Minster-in-Sheppey. In addition, Æthelwold enshrined there the relics of Seaxburh’s daughter, Eormenhild, Queen of Mercia and mother to Wærburh, who in turn was nun of Ely and later, founder of several monasteries and patron of Chester. While no contemporary record about Ely survives after the seventh-century translation of Æthelthryth’s corpse, the twelfth-century chronicle indicates that Eormenhild and Wærburh succeeded Seaxburh as abbess of Ely. Likewise, another element is added to the Liber Eliensis that suggests how the gathering of the sororal family was important to the establishment of this cult center. The chronicle describes how Wihtburh’s relics were brought by stealth from the monastery at East Dereham and that, when inspected, they too were found incorrupted.8 Christine Fell has demonstrated that Wihtburh’s identity is likely a fabrication, because no records of her life survive before the tenth century.9 It appears, then, that during the translation ceremony honoring this East Anglian royal family a visual demonstration of incorruptibility was necessary. Because the community did not dare to examine Æthelthryth’s body for fear of compromising its purity, Wihtburh’s corporeality is substituted.10 The demonstration of her incorruptibility increases the magnificence of Ely’s holy family; in effect, a sister’s corporeal purity lends authenticity to the narrative claim that Æthelthryth’s preserved body continues to rest within the sarcophagus.11 The result is that the tombs of the four royal women — two virgins and two 7. LE, 229. 8. LE, 120 –23. 9. Fell, “Saint Æ2el4ry2,” 32. 10. For a fuller discussion of this idea, see my “King Anna’s Daughters,” 127–49. 11. In a private communication, Stephanie Hollis first suggested to me that the translation of Wihtburh’s relics demonstrates Ely’s concern with material bodies. Her comment points to the monastic desire to use the bodies in a highly ceremonial demonstration of power. Wihtburh’s identity as Æthelthryth’s sister, though likely specious, recalls Bede’s description of this family in the EH, where he describes the body of another sister—Æthelburh— which was found incorrupted. See Bede, EH, 238 –39.
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mothers who produced yet more nuns for this royal house—form a nexus of royal and abbatial power demonstrated through their multiple roles as princesses of the East Anglian kingdom: they are queens, founders, abbesses, and, most significant, monastic patrons. In fact, royal position and abbatial service are highlighted here as the dominant elements leading to the sanctity of these Anglo-Saxon women, and they are important to the claim of sovereignty made by the twelfth-century monks. What is more, the narrative of the Liber Eliensis illustrates these events as a deliberate staging of power, showcasing how gender, wealth, position, and authority converge to demarcate Ely as a distinctly royal, feminized monastic space, where their founder, as both Anglo-Saxon queen and abbess, is independently sovereign and where her body and shrine collectively symbolize her authority over the institution. Material objects— objects that can be seen, inspected, touched, venerated—are essential to Ely’s monastic identity; these objects, the shrine and the sarcophagus and even Wihtburh’s body, are the means by which the saint’s potency can be demonstrated. As Judith Butler illustrates, “signs work by appearing (visibly, aurally), and appearing through material means.”12 If the corpse cannot be displayed, it cannot signify. These material objects, therefore, operate as a remapping of the virgin’s post mortem corporeality, and they are encoded with the meanings associated with the virgin’s body. The result is that the material goods are conflated with the saint’s body and become interchangeable signs in the monastic narrative. Indeed, the chronicle endeavors to establish the presence of the body through these objects, even as the material goods simultaneously render the visualized corpse unnecessary. Through these tangible signs, the body is merely an ideal that can be invoked when needed. The convergence of corporeality and materiality imagined in the body/shrine conflation was first introduced in the Liber Eliensis, but the idea draws on Bede’s description of the sarcophagus as a complement to the saint’s physical perfection. The translation of the saint in 695, as he relates in the Ecclesiastical History, revealed three miraculous aspects of her body: the corpse was incorrupt; the tumor on her neck that had caused her death had been healed by a small scar; and the Roman sarcophagus found nearby perfectly fit the contours of the saint’s remains.13 Bede’s account stresses that the 12. Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (New York: Routledge, 1993), 68. 13. Bede, EH, 394 –97.
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sarcophagus was made expressly to fit her body, although its manufacture predates Æthelthryth’s life. This miraculous revelation begins the discourse of the body’s association with an architectural enclosure, but only in the Liber Eliensis is this connection made explicit. As the epigraph specifies, the monks believe God ordered the sarcophagus made for Æthelthryth’s body, an assertion that lends legitimacy to the imagery of enclosure in the text. The enclosures presented, moreover, are multiple in that the sarcophagus holds the body, the shrine contains the sarcophagus, the church surrounds the shrine, and the monastic close envelops the church. Ely, an island in the East Anglian fenlands, was at that time completely surrounded by marshes. Thus, the body, which Bede had characterized as sealed off by God, is described in the Liber Eliensis as being enclosed by a number of architectural and geographic elements. The narrative capitalizes on this imagery to suggest that just as the body of the saint is paralleled by the monastic body, the multiple enclosures of her body are symbols for the institution’s boundaries, both architectural and geographical. Enveloped within the fenland waters, the monastery on the Isle of Ely is represented as a bounded space protected by God.14 In imagining this sacred space, the twelfth-century Ely monks present themselves as an integral part of this ancient, holy body. Following established devotional practice, the gifts offered to Æthelthryth were called her possessions. In her extensive examination of pre-Conquest cult rituals, Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg finds that threatened female communities often supported the belief that their founding “abbess/saints” were formidable protectors and that their bodily residence within the monasteries allowed them to watch over and protect their properties.15 Adopting this ideology, the Ely monks describe themselves as custodians of Æthelthryth’s estates on her behalf, and as such they see themselves as responsible for maintaining her holdings, which had accrued in no small part through Æthelwold’s generosity. Susan Ridyard has shown that a number of Anglo-Saxon monasteries envisioned themselves as caretakers of a patron saint and that at Ely Æthelthryth’s incorrupt body symbolized the institution’s legitimate and permanent privileges so that “‘guardianship’ of her relics conferred ‘guardianship’ of the same church and lands.”16 Drawing on the scholarship of the chronicle’s 14. Blair indicates that enclosed spaces, particularly ones bounded by water, were especially valued by those who laid out minsters in the early Anglo-Saxon period. See The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society, 191–204. 15. Schulenburg, “Female Sanctity,” 113. 16. Ridyard, Royal Saints, 191. See also her discussion of the Norman appropriation of Anglo-Saxon cults, in “Condigna Veneratio: Post-Conquest Attitudes to the Saints of the Anglo-Saxons,” Anglo-Norman Studies 9 (1986): 179 –206.
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editor, E. O. Blake, Ridyard uses her analysis of guardianship to demonstrate the monks’ rationale for their presentation: the loss of lands and wealth associated with the emergence of the diocese in the early twelfth century and the civil strife experienced as Stephen and Matilda struggled for the throne.17 While Ridyard’s analysis of Ely’s twelfth-century history is compelling and undoubtedly part of the rationale behind the discursive practices of the Liber Eliensis, I would like to suggest that the constructed narrative serves also as a rhetorical maneuver by which the community defines its identity as a sovereign and autonomous political entity. The monks deliberately rewrite their situation, illustrating their community as a physical part of the saint’s corporate body in order to appear to be the victims of aggression during the Norman invasion. This stance allows them to produce a history that reflects their needs as an institution, positions them to claim their liberty from external governance as an ancient and abiding one, and establishes an identity of sovereign authority over the Isle of Ely. This authority is clearly vulnerable, as Monika Otter finds. In discussing a symbolic rape of the saint’s shrine, Otter examines the monks’ relationship to a female “communal body,” suggesting that the female body enclosed within a male house sets up a sexualized tension between the monks and their female patron, one that renders the virginal body a tangible, rapable woman.18 She demonstrates that the writer of the Liber Eliensis allegorizes this tension when a Danish invader foolishly makes an opening in the saint’s sarcophagus and places a stick inside. The consequence of this highly transgressive act (the man is blinded) provides a definitive moral for the audience of monks: “noli me inspicere” (do not look at me). As Otter asserts, living daily alongside the sarcophagus would create a strong temptation to examine the saint’s uncorrupted body, but the monks insist that they have not, a claim that “allows the community continually to stage its own purity.”19 Certainly, the imagery detailed in the narrative confirms the transgression 17. In his edition of the LE, Blake was the first to posit these anxieties as being tied to the civil war between Stephen and Matilda, a civil dispute during which a large portion of the LE was produced. The chronicle focuses specifically on the ways in which the Ely bishop abused the monastery by taking its properties and stripping the shrine’s ornaments to pay fines for his support of Matilda over Stephen. This argument has become standard for understanding the chronicle’s production. See LE, xlix. 18. Monika Otter, “The Temptation of St. Æthelthryth,” Exemplaria 9 (1997): 139 – 63 at 161. See LE, 55 –56 and 229, for the episode she describes, which is recounted twice in the chronicle. 19. Otter, “Temptation of St. Æthelthryth,” 163.
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of rape, but what Otter does not consider is the context presented in the Liber Eliensis for this event or the rhetorical nature of the narrative. The Liber Eliensis admits to a direct assault on the marble sarcophagus and suggests that only during the Danish invasions, when clerics guarded the tomb, could such a violation be perpetrated. The episode seems to indicate that, before Æthelwold’s refoundation of Ely in 970 and the enclosure of the tomb within the shrine, the sarcophagus (and thus the saint’s corporeality) was vulnerable to violation. This detail underscores the importance of the shrine’s protection by a legitimate monastic community. After the clerics are expelled and the monastery is repopulated with Benedictine monks, the community envelops the sarcophagus within a shrine. All the while, the monks insist that the saint’s body remained “intentata et inconspecta” (intact and unseen).20 A neat rhetorical move, the suggestion of poor guardianship allows the monastic community to assert that the saint had not been violated on their watch and that their stewardship led to further protections for their patron’s continued purity. Their assertion indicates that a true rape would include a visual violation of the physical body, not an assault on the sarcophagus as a material extension of that body. Because there is no ocular transgression, the saint’s corporeal purity is maintained. The identification of looking as transgressive behavior indicates how dependent the narrative is on the saint’s preserved corporeality. If the body were to be discovered corrupted, the symbolic system constructed within the chronicle would break apart, so the narrative must reflect the importance of defending the body from intrusion and punishing those who transgress. Thus, the violator is blinded, a fitting punishment for his attempted infringement, and the monks adamantly refuse to open the sarcophagus of their patron. The imagery of the safeguarded body, therefore, leads to the ideology of the body at risk, and physical violence against the saint is recast in other episodes not considered by Otter, episodes that illustrate how the monastic writers are playing with the rhetorical imagery of purity and rape, victim and aggressor, and in so doing they demonstrate an awareness of the multiple meanings available when the body/shrine conflation is invoked. Specifically, the assertion that the saint’s body remained unexamined was repeated throughout subsequent periods of political unrest, most notably when recounting the events of the Norman siege at Ely, when the shrine begins 20. LE, 229.
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to symbolize the inviolability of the body. Indeed, the shrine takes on specific values related to the monastery’s desire for independence, sovereignty, and impenetrability. As the corporate extension of the saint’s body, the monastic community could imagine itself threatened by invasion, just as a virgin’s purity might be threatened by an overzealous suitor. Yet, as in all hagiographical narratives, the virgin is never compromised by rape, which suggests the monks’ belief that the monastery can never be desecrated if the Isle of Ely is cast as a virginal space. Using these images, the Liber Eliensis details several episodes of violence against the saint’s physical and material bodies; each time, the narrative carefully negotiates the difficult line between inviolability and invasion, whether it be a transgression against the shrine or against the patron’s holdings. Certainly, the description of sexual violation places Æthelthryth in a decidedly useful position as victim, for it calls on early hagiographical narratives of the virgin martyr who successfully evades a tyrant’s ardent advances. The monks’ use of this image suggests that if the purity of their patron is compromised, so too is their autonomy as guardians of her body and of her holdings. Therefore, the narrative illustrates these transgressions against the saint as potential rapes, but the text repeatedly denies that the saint is violated physically, even if the shrine itself undergoes attack. The alignment of the monastic body with the saint’s body appears at moments of crisis throughout the Liber Eliensis, and while Ridyard’s analysis of the political tensions at twelfth-century Ely, and Otter’s critique of the monks’ anxiety regarding their patron, provide important groundwork for the present study, neither identifies the Liber Eliensis as a rhetorical document that establishes the saint’s body and shrine as multivalent symbols designed to elucidate the monks’ situation. Indeed, Otter assumes a critical position of examining the narrative as an authentic report of the monks’ lived experience with the body of a female in their midst. While the proximity of the female body might indeed be a cause for sexual tension for the monks, I posit that the chronicle is actually a construction that illustrates monastic anxieties in the midst of a major political and cultural shift. While the Norman administration had been in place for some sixty years before the chronicle was begun and the monastery had been populated with both Anglo and Norman monks, there must have been a continued sense of their Anglo-Saxon history and the monastery’s heritage of independence from regnal control, especially when the new Diocese of Ely was formed in 1109 and when the war between Stephen and Matilda developed. Most important,
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the chronicle seems to indicate that the monastery was concerned about its political and economic fortunes, which could rest on the new king’s favor and, as Ridyard suggests, on the benevolence of their new bishop. By invoking the hagiographical trope of the rape narrative and by positioning the saint’s body as rapable, the monks are able to capitalize on the important terms established by the image of an inviolable, impenetrable body. In effect, they are able to imagine themselves as victims of royal rapaciousness during the Norman invasion, especially when the monastery’s lands had been unjustly seized by the king’s officials after the Conquest and again during the formation of the diocese. This strategy is particularly useful for asserting their rights to estates lost through encroachment. The monks identify the monastic holdings with the body of the Anglo-Saxon saint, and thus their narrative situates the erotic body as an economic body that can be plundered by those who are not Saxon. In effect, Æthelthryth’s enshrined corporeality represents the economic wealth of the institution, and thus violation does not destroy sexual purity per se but instead threatens the monastery’s economic sovereignty. As the images of purity and sovereignty become coterminous, the narrative issues a direct challenge to anyone who attempts to compromise the monastic holdings. By placing this narrative during the Norman invasion, moreover, the monks avoid a risky direct accusation about the current political tensions, rewriting their past history in terms that support their present concerns. The description of retribution exacted from invaders, whether Danish or Norman, poses an indirect but clear warning to those who threaten the monastic space at Ely. The remainder of this chapter, then, explores the chronicle’s representations of sexualized violence against the saint’s body, against the shrine, and against the monastery, to illustrate how the monks handled their anxieties by positioning themselves as Anglo-Saxons within a female-gendered space and by imagining themselves as economic victims of the Norman invaders. But before turning to a consideration of these rhetorical constructions, I want to distinguish the narrative strategies by which the Liber Eliensis is fabricated as a vehicle for preserving the monastery’s economic rights. Using not only traditional documents of history, such as charters, deeds, and records of estate litigation, but also hagiographical elements, such as a book-length vita and miracle stories, the monastic community signals its desire to create a rhetorical narrative in which the imagery invoked by Æthelthryth’s incorrupted body is integral to the monks’ economic and political existence. A brief discussion of the structural elements in the Liber
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Eliensis positions us to understand more fully how the episodes of violence, which are miracles staged as historical acts, are written to legitimize monastic autonomy and to protect the institution from significant economic loss. Each of the three episodes of violence discussed thereafter depicts a physical assault on the monastery by royal power; by positioning the aggression as royal, each story reminds us of the hagiographical tradition invoked by the imagery used, for the violation of a virgin who had dedicated herself to God warranted a bad end for the tyrant kings depicted in early martyr narratives, but the violation of a royal virgin whose miracles prove her sanctity escalates the nature of the assault. In effect, the narrative situates the powerful imagery of a royal saint against the secular powers exercised by a monarch, even as it amplifies the punishment that a king might receive for interfering with this divinely sanctioned body politic.
History and Hagiography as Rhetorical Hybrid The Liber Eliensis demonstrates how a monastery’s historical documents can be successfully interwoven with a hagiographical narrative, and likewise how hagiography supports the historical tradition of a monastic institution.21 The text is drawn from a collection of vernacular and Latin documents that were compiled between 1131 and 1174 following the formation of the Ely diocese. This reorganization from Benedictine abbey to cathedral church, which included a division of properties between bishop and monks, reflects the monastery’s need to identify itself as a distinct political and economic entity.22 As a response to the apportionment of revenues by a new 21. Despite the many insights the text offers into pre- and post-Conquest England and the availability of Blake’s edition, the LE has received little attention. In addition to Ridyard’s work, the following discuss Ely’s productions in the tenth and eleventh centuries: Henry Wharton, ed., Anglia Sacra, vol. 1 (London, 1591); James Bentham, The History and Antiquities of the Conventual and Cathedral Church of Ely: From the Foundation of the Monastery, A.D. 673, to the Year 1771 (1771; reprint, Cambridge, 1812); William Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum: A History of the Abbies and Other Monasteries, Hospitals, Frieries, and Cathedral and Collegiate Churches with Their Dependencies in England and Wales, 2d ed. (London: Longman, 1849); The Victoria History of the Counties of England, Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely, vols. 1– 4, ed. L. F. Salzman et al. (1930 –59; reprint, London: Dawsons, 1967); Miller, Abbey and Bishopric of Ely; and Edward Miller, “The Ely Land Pleas in the Reign of William I,” English Historical Review 62 (1947): 438 –56. 22. For a discussion of the problems between monastery and bishop precipitated by the creation of the Ely diocese, see Miller, Abbey and Bishopric of Ely; S. J. A. Evans, The Medieval Estate of the Cathedral Priory of Ely: A Preliminary Survey (Ely: Dean and Chapter of Ely, 1973);
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bishop and as a legitimation of their own autonomy, the monastic community compiled records that detailed the rights given them by their founder. One privilege in particular is highlighted: Æthelthryth’s royal status meant that the institution was exempt from external influence or control.23 This assertion is supported by Edward the Confessor’s royal charter and by papal bull.24 Following the Norman invasion, such documentation was imperative, particularly because a monastery could legitimately argue for the same privileges it had previously enjoyed under the Saxon kings.25 The monastic chronicle relies heavily on Ely’s historical tradition to qualify its position: it includes a significantly augmented life of Æthelthryth to illustrate the house’s original foundation in the seventh century (book one); it incorporates a history of the monastery from the time of its refoundation in the tenth century until its reorganization as an episcopal see in the early eleventh century (book two); and it details the reigns of the first two bishops of Ely (book three). Interspersed throughout the second and third portions of this narrative are charters, documents of estate litigation, and several miracle stories illustrating Æthelthryth’s personal intercession on behalf of the house. Compared with more traditional Anglo-Latin libelli designed to honor a saint (which usually comprise a passio and a collection of miracles associated with a patron that are not necessarily appended to a chronicle manuscript), the Liber Eliensis differs somewhat in that it not only includes the life of the saint as an integral part of the chronicle but also features miracle narratives about the saint’s benefaction alongside the documents of historical record in books two and three.26 The result is a rhetorical narrative designed to lend historical authority to the saint’s ancient legend, even as the saint’s posture as intercessor provides a direct warning against encroachment, Everett U. Crosby, Bishop and Chapter in Twelfth-Century England: A Study of the “Mensa Episcopalis” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 151–74; and E. G. Wood, “On the Formation of the Ancient Diocese of Ely,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, n.s., 7 (1893): 157– 68. While the entirety of book 3 discusses these problems, the relevant passages in the LE are chapters 25 and 26. A contemporary account of these events is Eadmer’s Historia Novorum in Anglia, ed. Martin Rule (1884; reprint, Vaduz: Kraus, 1965), 195 –96. 23. LE, 72 –76. 24. LE, 161– 64. 25. Miller has written prolifically about Ely’s difficulties and the monastery’s response to them, in “The Liberty of Ely,” in VCH, Cambridgeshire, 4:1–27; “Ely Land Pleas”; and in his Abbey and Bishopric of Ely. 26. LE, 210 –17 and 263 – 83. Cynthia Hahn provides a useful description of libelli and their use, in Portrayed on the Heart: Narrative Effect in Pictorial Lives of Saints from the Tenth Through the Thirteenth Century (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001), 18 –28.
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should the validity of the historical documents be doubted. Granted, this hybridization of historical and hagiographical matter is one made by writers at other institutions, but few seem to have interlaced the documents of record with miracle stories in the manner described here.27 Because the miracles included in the Liber Eliensis are distributed among charters and descriptions of lawsuits (rather than collected in a separate libellus), they figure prominently among the royal, episcopal, and papal charters of privilege as a counterpoint to the authority of these documents. The compilation of historical and hagiographical material suggests that we are to read the life and miracles of Æthelthryth as historical events and to regard them, therefore, in the same light as we might a charter, a papal privilege, or a record of estate litigation. The assertion of Æthelthryth’s governance of the isle, then, becomes a legitimate foundation scene, one that underscores her patronage and her intercession as the original owner of the ancient property. Indeed, this claim is highlighted in the narrative, for it is the introduction to the vita that emphasizes that Æthelthryth held the Isle of Ely through her first marriage: “accepta iure dotis insula a Tonberto primo sponso suo, postquam illic mansionem elegit, prope fluentis alveum in loco eminentiore habitacula posuit” (having accepted the isle by right of dower from her first husband Tonbert, she selected a house there, and afterward, she put a more distinguished dwelling in the place near the bed of the river).28 This claim carefully defines Ely’s ancient sovereignty, and, 27. For a contemporary monastic chronicle, see Hugh of Poitiers, The Vézelay Chronicle, ed. John Scott and John O. Ward (Binghamton, N.Y.: Pegasus, 1992). The Vézelay chronicle is distinctly separate from the monastic cartulary and the accompanying passio for Mary Magdalene, but the chronicle, like the LE, is written to document the political strife of the house. Similarly, a thirteenth-century English chronicle produced at Bury St. Edmunds is distinct from its cartulary in that it is laid out much like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: information is presented for each year, and not all data is specific to the institution. See The Chronicle of Bury St. Edmunds, 1212 –1301, ed. Antonia Gransden (London: Thomas Nelson, 1964). A chronicle more similar in style to the LE is Chronicle of Battle Abbey, ed. and trans. Eleanor Searle (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980). Like the LE, it is a twelfth-century document written by the Normans to document ownership of land, but unlike the LE it does not foreground hagiographical data. By contrast, Ely’s geographical neighbors, Croyland Abbey and Ramsey Abbey, share a common history, and the chronicles produced there in the twelfth century are much like the LE, blending cartulary and monastic history. See Ingulph’s Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland, trans. Henry T. Riley (London, 1854); and Chronicon Abbatiæ Rameseiensis, ed. W. Dunn Macray (London, 1886). 28. LE, 4. This passage comes from the introduction to book 1, which comprises the vita. In the saint’s life proper, 32, the monk is explicit about Tonbert’s dower gift and Æthelthryth’s perpetual ownership of the isle after their marriage.
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positioned at the beginning of this long monastic narrative, it becomes the basis for the house’s claim of independence after the Norman invasion.29 The convention of showing a saint’s favor for a house was a well-established part of twelfth-century hagiographic discourse, especially during this time of fierce competition between monasteries. As Ridyard indicates, this rhetorical move was an important one to the post-Conquest monastic communities, such as at the female houses of Nunnaminster and Wilton.30 Yet no other Anglo-Saxon institution describes a resistance to Norman control. Even at St. Edmund’s Abbey at Bury, which is located within the same contested region and which suffered under the appropriation of lands described by the Ely chronicler, the house’s pre-Conquest regard for the Normans ensured that the cult of Saint Edmund was a favored one after the Saxon defeat. Indeed, many of the royal English cults were supported by building programs and newly produced hagiographical narratives designed to introduce unknown Anglo-Saxon saints to the country’s new inhabitants.31 In spite of its resistance, the Ely community also benefited from Norman support after its submission. In fact, a Norman monk is likely responsible for rewriting the history of the invasion and for describing the position of the Saxon monks. By drawing on the narrative strategies so common in the period, therefore, he establishes a rhetorical instrument that juxtaposes miracle story and land grant through which the Ely monastery can claim its independent sovereignty.32 This posture suggests that the Norman monks placed at Ely after the Conquest quickly came to share the Saxon allegiance to the institution and were invested in presenting its traditions in ways that benefited the house economically. The structural and material evidence of the Liber Eliensis suggests further that the compilation provided both a defensive and an offensive strategy for the twelfth-century community. By positioning themselves within the sanctity of an ancient Anglo-Saxon foundation, the monks use this monastic history to lay claim to an older tradition 29. Blake, in LE, xxviii–xlii. 30. Yet, few female-centered cults were highly promoted after the Conquest, and some saints faded into oblivion until Anglo-Norman hagiography took an interest in Anglo-Saxon virgins. For this discussion, see Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, “‘Clerc u lai, muïne u dame’: Women and Anglo-Norman Hagiography in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” in Women and Literature in Britain, 1150 –1500, ed. Carol M. Meale (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 61– 85. 31. Ridyard’s careful analysis of these royal cults is fascinating, particularly her final chapter, which illustrates how a patron saint was used to define a monastery’s governance and its interactions with external authorities. See Royal Saints, 234 –52. 32. See Blake’s description of the LE, xlvi–xlix.
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of institutional liberty, and in so doing they place themselves securely within that privilege by defining the institution and its holdings as a body politic.33 Akin to the idea of the king’s body as a symbol of the secular polity he governs, the Liber Eliensis presents the royal founder’s body as a symbol of the monastic polity she founded and governed as abbess.34 The monks’ responsibility as guardians of the dead woman’s body and her domain situates them as active participants in this polity who carefully encode the saint’s body with meaning. As they create their narrative, they are defining the body’s parameters and illustrating how the multivalent meanings encoded in that body are highly deliberate communications based on their history and their present circumstances. The saint’s body, then, also comes to represent not just a set of ideological ideals but also a physical space: the virgin’s corpse denotes the monastic holdings, landed estates, and revenues associated with the body politic. Furthermore, as the monks create a narrative that describes the multiple enclosures of their patron’s corporeal body and their participation as stewards of that body, they purposefully define this body politic as a space of virginal inviolability that has remained pure since Æthelthryth’s translation in 695. As members of this house, their posture allows them to assert their vulnerability, as well as their authority. Indeed, the monks imagine themselves as enveloped within the sanctity of this royal saint’s body politic, and they demarcate a physical boundary that encloses them within the figurative protection of the virgin’s shrine. By illustrating their subsumption within this inviolable female space, the narrative indicates that they have the authority to thwart intrusion into their affairs on her behalf. The monks’ location within the specifically female-gendered space of Ely might seem incongruous, but as we have seen in the previous chapter, Æthelwold encouraged monks to identify with the chastity of Æthelthryth, to adopt her life of 33. LE, ed. Blake, 3 –4, 32 –34. 34. The imagery of the body politic was often used to describe the relationship between the king and his kingdom in the secular world, as well as to describe the position of Christ’s body in the spiritual world. Several scholars have remarked on this ideology, including Beckwith, Christ’s Body, 22 –44; and Michael Camille, “The Image and the Self: Unwriting Late Medieval Bodies,” in Framing Medieval Bodies, ed. Sarah Kay and Miri Rubin (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), 62 –99. See also Louise Olga Fradenburg, “Introduction: Rethinking Queenship,” in Women and Sovereignty, ed. Fradenburg, 1–13; Wogan-Browne, “Queens, Virgins, and Mothers,” 14 –35; and Peggy McCracken, “The Body Politic and the Queen’s Adulterous Body in French Romance,” in Feminist Approaches to the Body in Medieval Literature, ed. Linda Lomperis and Sarah Stanbury (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), 38 – 64.
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monastic chastity and to become, like her, “brides of christ.” The Liber Eliensis indicates that Æthelwold’s exhortations have been heard and followed. The saint’s representative purity here, then, provides a performative image that carefully defines her guardians as independent of external authorities, simply by virtue of the fact that they are part of her inviolability and share in her sovereignty over the isle. These self-representations are rhetorical conventions of miracle-writing worthy of close textual examination. In their discussion of the miracles of Saint Foy, Ashley and Sheingorn suggest that a collection of miracles can have multivalent significations and that we must attend to them as deliberate rhetorical structures designed to evoke history and purpose.35 Examining how and where miracle stories are presented in the Liber Eliensis positions us to scrutinize how a pseudo-history is created to represent the house’s conception of itself and its traditions. The chronicle employs the miraculous in its account of the Norman invasion explicitly to document Æthelthryth’s continued purity, her powerful protection of the monastic properties against royal interference, and her vengeance on those who appropriate her lands. These stories of physical violence indicate a strong rationale for the monks’ identification with this distinctly female space: having re-created Ely’s pre-Conquest history, the chronicle asserts the monks’ liberty by establishing the power of virginity in the face of potential rape. Whether it be a violation of the virginal body or of the monastic properties, the community defines economic violation as a physical, a spiritual, and most certainly a political mistake. Yet, because the monks are encoding the body with meaning, the imagery can be shifted as needed. The miracles in the chronicle also indicate that the saint is a forceful protector whose vengeance should be avoided—which is a none too subtle warning for any who might interfere in the monastery’s sovereignty.
The Saint’s Body as Inviolable Symbol The first narrative to be considered is a miracle story that describes the conjugal conflict between Æthelthryth and her second husband, King Ecgfrith of Northumbria. Using the imagery of rape, the Ely monk employs a conventional topos of medieval hagiography, yet the depictions of violence in 35. Ashley and Sheingorn, Writing Faith, 20.
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the Liber Eliensis do not follow the idealized pattern of saints, such as Agatha, who endure the tortuous cruelty of non-Christian rulers.36 Typically, hagiographical representations of rape exist solely in relation to the ideal of integritas— complete chastity for a woman in imitation of both Christ and the Virgin Mary.37 The essential plot of a female saint’s life consists of the following: a pagan man desires a Christian virgin, he attempts to violate the virgin, God saves the pious woman from the impurities of sex and from pollution by the non-Christian, and thus both carnality and paganism are defeated by the virgin.38 The repetition of this theme shows that attempted rape is the test by which many female religious enter the community of faith; surviving this trial becomes a type of initiation rite, a rite of passage into true purity.39 Following a hagiographical tradition that demanded that a virgin’s purity be tested, the Liber Eliensis amplifies Bede’s account of the conjugal conflict between Æthelthryth and Ecgfrith with a story of sexualized violence. This narrative describes the attempted rape of Æthelthryth by her second husband, a representation that situates the strength of the virgin in relation to temporal power. In describing the events leading to their divorce, Bede says that the king unsuccessfully pressed Æthelthryth to submit to his conjugal demands, even trying to gain the York bishop’s support by offering him money and lands; but when Wilfrid refused the bribe, the king agreed that Æthelthryth could become a nun.40 In the Anglo-Saxon source, Bede does not present a rape scene, only Ecgfrith’s bribe and his resistance to the separation, a presentation Ælfric follows.41 The Ely chronicle, by contrast, enlarges this scenario and describes Ecgfrith’s attempted abduction of his wife from Coldingham, a royal Northumbrian monastery under the governance of the king’s aunt, Abbess Æbbe. The Liber Eliensis adds that, after allowing Æthelthryth to leave, Ecgfrith regretted the separation and “de monasterio illam, licet iam sanctitatis velamine obtectam, eripere 36. Kathryn Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens: Writing Rape in Medieval French Literature and Law (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991), 22. 37. See Bloch, Medieval Misogyny. 38. Winstead, Virgin Martyrs, 5 –10. 39. Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, “The Heroics of Virginity: Brides of Christ and Sacrificial Mutilation,” in Women in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. Mary Beth Rose (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1986), 29 –72 at 31. 40. Bede, EH, 390 –93. 41. Bede, EH, 398 –99, provides only one allusion to rape when he claims that Æthelthryth’s story is not like the rape of Helen.
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conabatur. Nec mora, ad monasterium ubi virgo sancta degebat cum furore et fremitu festinanter ascendit” (tried to abduct her from the monastery, although she was now covered by the veil of sanctity. And without delay, he went up quickly, with fury and clamor, to the monastery where the holy virgin was living).42 The strength of this passage illustrates the power of the husband: he plans to seize (eripere) her, and he comes in a rage to get her. His anger here foreshadows the intended sexual violence, yet the king’s angry determination to keep his wife is juxtaposed with God’s determination that she elude her husband. According to the story, Æbbe warned Æthelthryth of her nephew’s intent, and the saint fled south: Instat enim rex, in matrimonio cupiens eam resumere, non omittens persequi, si forte valeat comprehendere. . . . cum duabus Dei ancillis Sewenna et Sewara collem eminentem prope, qui Coldeburcheshevet, quod Latine caput Coldeburci dicitur, adiit et ascendit. Sed Deus, qui ventis et mari imperat et obediunt ei, non derelinquit sperantes in se, illius iussu credimus fieri, quod mare, suum alveum egrediens nunc aquas multipliciter effundens, locum in quem sacre virgines ascenderant circumdedit et . . . per septem continuos dies sine cibo et potu in oratione consistentes eas occuluit et . . . quamdiu rex illic aut penes locum morabatur. (The king persistently chased her, desiring to take her back in marriage, not omitting to pursue her, if by chance he might be able to take hold of her. . . . with the two handmaidens of God, Sewenna and Sewara, she approached and ascended a prominent hill nearby, one Coldeburcheshevet that is called in Latin the head of Coldeburchus. But God, who commands the winds and the sea and they obey him, did not abandon those hopeful in him, the sea—which we believe was made at the command of that one—surrounded the place onto which the holy virgins had ascended and . . . forgetting its customary ebbing, it hid them for seven continuous days while they remained steadfast in prayer without food or drink . . . as long as the king remained there or near the place.)43 42. LE, 27. 43. LE, 27.
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Here, God offers Æthelthryth sanction, and the Liber Eliensis makes clear that the preservation of her purity is God’s will, in spite of the requirement that marital separation be mutual if one spouse is to join a monastery.44 Because Æthelthryth chose virginity, she becomes the object of potential rape; because she embraced monasticism, her husband’s desire becomes sacrilegious, a crime not only against a virgin but also against God. As a story of Æthelthryth’s resistance, this miracle demonstrates, though somewhat ambiguously, the king’s intent. This passage can be rendered mildly or be translated with expressions of violence, but each meaning suggests a threat to Æthelthryth’s monastic vow and, potentially, to her chastity. The verb eripere can be rendered in several ways: the king wanted “to pursue” or “to threaten” her, “to take vengeance on” or “to chase after” her, “to snatch her away with violence” or “to free” her. The term’s multiple meanings, couched in violence, come from rapere (ex + rapio), which is “to seize and carry off,” “to snatch,” “to tear,” “to wrench off.” In both eripere and rapere, the idea of pursuit merged with violence is represented by the terms of capture. Kathryn Gravdal observes that early translations of rapere implied only seizure, not necessarily sexual violence, but by the twelfth century, when this miracle scene was inserted into the chronicle, abduction was so often followed by intercourse that the two concepts had become nearly linguistically synonymous: “Some of the more common meanings of rapere are to carry off or seize; to snatch, pluck, or drag off; to hurry, impel, hasten; to rob, plunder; and, finally, to abduct (a virgin). . . . But as early as 1155, the Latin raptus in the sense of abduction brings about the shift toward a sexual meaning: rap (ca. 1155) or rat (ca. 1235) designates abduction by violence or by seduction, for the purposes of forced coitus.”45 Furthermore, Christopher Cannon’s discussion of rape illustrates that in the twelfth century English law made a careful distinction between abduction and forcible sex so that “in Glanvill (ca. 1187– 89) raptus was defined as forced coitus.”46 Despite a clear distinction between the two twelfth-century legal terms, the Ely monk did 44. On conjugal chastity, see Elliott, Spiritual Marriage. 45. Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens, 4. See also James A. Brundage, “Rape and Seduction in the Medieval Canon Law,” in Sexual Practices and the Medieval Church, ed. Vern L. Bullough and James Brundage (New York: Prometheus Books, 1982), 141–48. 46. Christopher Cannon, “Raptus in the Champagne Release and a Newly Discovered Document Concerning the Life of Geoffrey Chaucer,” Speculum 68 (1993): 74 –94 at 79. Carolyn Dinshaw has also described the changing value of raptus in fourteenth-century England, in Chaucer’s Sexual Poetics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 7–14.
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not use a noun when describing this attempt, preferring instead an infinitiveplus-verb construction: eripere conabatur. By choosing the infinitive construction, the writer establishes a gap between the king’s desire for his wife and the act of seizing her, which would be a specific act of rape. In so doing, the chronicle establishes an elision between the idea of rape and the execution of the act. As Gravdal observes, this elision is characteristic of rape terminology; it “favors periphrasis, metaphor, and slippery lexematic exchanges, as opposed to a clear and unambiguous signifier of sexual assault.”47 The Ely chronicler provides only one word in this story to hint at the intended sexual violence; otherwise, the images are marked by an indirect phrasing that leaves no doubt that the intended threat was averted. This circumlocution allows the monks to present the dangers of royal aggression without identifying the king as one who has enacted violence. The chronicler’s decision to utilize more elusive language suggests too that the assault is intentionally metaphoric and that direct terminologies of rape cannot be used to describe the king’s act. In her discussion of rape and power, Brenda Silver draws on the work of Gerard Genette to define periphrasis “as a figure that both opens up and exists in a gap or space between sign and meaning.”48 The periphrastic representation of rape in the Liber Eliensis does not state clearly that the king is a rapist, but this indirect language allows the monastic community to critique royal aggression without the reprisal that a direct accusation might have. Periphrastic language also positions the virgin’s symbolic body as a site of potential (but not realized) violence. In other words, the rape is attempted but not completed, which is an essential element of this story: the monks must position themselves so that the shrine remains sanctified and the saint remains a virgin, and in so doing they underscore the continuing process of potentiality.49 As long as the saint remains virginal, there is the possibility of violation; by positioning themselves within this gendered space, they illustrate how the isle continues as a protected site that is always threatened by pollution.50 47. Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens, 2. 48. Brenda R. Silver, “Periphrasis, Power, and Rape in A Passage to India,” in Rape and Representation, ed. Lynn A. Higgins and Brenda R. Silver (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 115 –37 at 115. 49. Otter highlights this continued potentiality in “Temptation of St. Æthelthryth,” 163. 50. Linda Woodbridge, “Palisading the Elizabethan Body Politic,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 33 (1991): 327 –54 at 331. See also Judith Williamson, “Woman Is an Island: Femininity and Colonization,” in Studies in Entertainment: Critical Approaches to Mass Culture, ed. Tania Modleski (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 99 –118.
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While Ecgfrith’s sexual intentions are not clearly articulated, he does come after his then-veiled wife with the plan of returning her to his household. But unlike the heathen suitors depicted in virgin martyr narratives, the king is no tyrant threatening torture and bodily mutilation should she not submit to his demands of marriage. As her husband, rather, his normative conjugal claims are understandable, and we, the audience, might sympathize with him, just as we might feel sorry for Margery Kempe’s husband, who had little say when she forcefully negotiated for a chaste marriage. In this episode, periphrastic language captures the tension between his rights as a husband and the virgin’s autonomy: we, as readers, are supposed to root for the virgin in this narrative, just as we are to champion Judith over Holofernes, or Agatha over Quintianus, yet Ecgfrith is not described in evil terms as many men are in similar narratives. Here, Ecgfrith is positioned more as a rejected husband who, when he cannot persuade his wife to return, takes another bride and effectively ends the dispute.51 We might, therefore, read this passage as Ecgfrith’s attempt to reestablish their chaste marriage, which would allow us to consider how power relations between king and monastery are demonstrated here. The entire narrative is designed to highlight Æthelthryth’s resistance to a royal imperative; the anecdote establishes Æthelthryth’s break from royal authority and her alliance with God, the supreme authority who clearly supports her desire for the monastic life and who overrules both spousal and temporal authority. The rising water illustrates God’s intervention and demarcates the physical boundary over which Ecgfrith must not cross. The king cannot come near her, and he risks death if he tries to navigate it. Furthermore, the protective water remains as long as the king stays near, and this image signals her endurance against any physical threat through God’s protection. The implication here is that whenever temporal authorities threaten the saint, they also risk God’s disfavor. This assertion gives the monks a rhetorical edge in any negotiation because they can claim God’s assistance in refusing temporal demands. The narrative emphasizes how nature will support them; the saint’s ability to withstand physical assault is emphasized further by the passage’s detailed description of natural elements: the women remain on the hill, surrounded by water without food or drink. Holding a vigil, the women pray for their deliverance. Their vulnerability is highlighted here in that they 51. LE, 28.
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have no weapons, and their only defense is to request assistance from God. The imagery clearly illustrates that stalwart belief in God leads to his intervention and that those who join the monastic life not only remove themselves from the regulations of the temporal world but also remain protected by its natural elements. Enclosed by the rising waters, the isle on which the women kneel is created and sanctified by God, and it is a geographical space that protects the saint and renders her inviolable.52 Previous hagiographical narratives about Æthelthryth had always intimated that her conjugal chastity made her a closed vessel, but here the Liber Eliensis expands this theme to show that, encapsulated by the waters, she and her properties, as extensions of her chaste body, are completely protected from penetration. As physical and metaphorical points of entry, bodily orifices are sites of potential pollution; the women, therefore, do not ingest anything, which suggests that their bodies remained closed off from the danger of an external authority. This imagery of purification by God is particularly compelling when it is extended to represent the monastic community as a selfgoverned and divinely protected space. In Purity and Danger, a widely cited anthropological study, Mary Douglas has argued that society is often symbolized by the body, “a model which can stand for any bounded system. Its boundaries can represent any boundaries which are threatened or precarious.”53 Ingestion within the social unit symbolized by the body can lead to political absorption or pollution, and because bodily orifices “represent points of entry or exit to social units . . . bodily perfection can symbolise an ideal theocracy.”54 Douglas’s analysis is suggestive about the motives behind the monastic narrative. As a public declaration, the hagiographically laden Liber Eliensis offers a distinctly personal representation 52. This imagery foreshadows the forms of self-enclosure enacted by medieval women mystics, as the following have demonstrated: Elizabeth Robertson, “Medieval Medical Views of Women and Female Spirituality in the Ancrene Wisse and Julian of Norwich’s Showings,” in Feminist Approaches to the Body, ed. Lomperis and Stanbury, 142 – 67; Elizabeth Robertson, Early English Devotional Prose and the Female Audience (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990); and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, “Chaste Bodies: Frames and Experiences,” in Framing Medieval Bodies, ed. Kay and Rubin, 24 –41. 53. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, 2d ed. (New York: Praeger, 1970), 115. Another anthropological discussion of spatial institutions is Daphne Spain, Gendered Spaces (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992). See also Medieval Practices of Space, ed. Barbara A. Hanawalt and Michael Kobialka (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000); and Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn, “Discordia et lis: Negotiating Power, Property, and Performance in Medieval Sélestat,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 26 (1996): 419 –46. 54. Douglas, Purity and Danger, 4.
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of a community that envisioned itself as a threatened space that was protected by its patron and by the fenland water that so clearly demarcates its boundaries. The metaphor of the body, moreover, has double force; not only is this female body virginal and sanctified, it is also royal. As such, the royal body allows the monks to imagine Ely as a theocratic space. Æthelthryth’s status as royal founder suggests that the monastic polity enjoyed special privileges separate from the secular polity, even as her status as a member of the East Anglian royal house challenged the power of any king who tried to assert his authority over her holdings. Furthermore, her status as a royal saint links the divine and the secular, suggesting that God sanctioned Æthelthryth’s governance of Ely as well as the community’s independence from external jurisdiction. In other words, the monks illustrate God’s direct protection of Æthelthryth’s purity and so argue that God approves of the special protections afforded them as members of this purified space. Anthropological research like Douglas’s has provided an avenue for scholars to examine medieval bodies as metaphoric or symbolic spaces. Important recent work on gender and enclosure in medieval studies has pointed to the ways that ideologies of the body mirror the social and political uses of architectural space.55 As Roberta Gilchrist illustrates, “Space forms the arena in which social relationships are negotiated, expressed through the construction of landscapes, architecture and boundaries. The resulting spatial maps represent discourses of power based in the body.”56 Architectural space as an extension of the body is a valuable framework within which to explore the social relationship between the monastery of Ely and its patron saint. Each of the spatial enclosures that enveloped the incorrupt virgin symbolizes the perfection of the contained female body. This representation became a symbol of political power relations in the twelfth century, not only as a way to characterize the monks’ historical past 55. See Sarah Beckwith, “Passionate Regulation: Enclosure, Ascesis, and the Feminist Imaginary,” South Atlantic Quarterly 93 (1994): 803 –24; Roberta Gilchrist, “Medieval Bodies in the Material World: Gender, Stigma, and the Body,” in Framing Medieval Bodies, ed. Kay and Rubin, 43 – 61; Schulenburg, “Strict Active Enclosure,” 51– 86; Horner, Discourse of Enclosure; and Horner, “Spiritual Truth and Sexual Violence,” 658 –75. 56. Roberta Gilchrist, “Medieval Bodies in the Material World: Gender, Stigma, and the Body,” in Framing Medieval Bodies, ed. Kay and Rubin, 43 – 61, and Gilchrist, Gender and Material Culture: The Archaeology of Religious Women (London: Routledge, 1994), 43. The connection between female bodies and landed bodies has also been discussed by Margaret Brose, who demonstrates how Petrarch’s poem “Italia mia” fetishizes Italy as a female body; see “Petrarch’s Beloved Body: ‘Italia mia,’” in Feminist Approaches to the Body, ed. Lomperis and Stanbury, 1–20.
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but also as a way to insist on their independence at any future moment when they might feel threatened. Whenever necessary, the monks invoked the discourse of power through which the community articulated its political position in relation to royal authority. For instance, the twelfth-century miracle story, which so clearly articulates Æthelthryth’s continued purity in the face of aggression, is recalled when a much later pictorial cycle was carved onto the eight stone supports that enclosed the monks’ choir.57 Added to the cathedral fabric two centuries after the Liber Eliensis was written—and clearly drawing on its presentation of Æthelthryth, because two miracles that first appear in the LE are included in the narrative cycle—this grouping includes a representation of the miracle of the rising waters (fig. 6), and the sculpture that so carefully visualizes the saint’s purity demonstrates not only that the chronicle continued to be a useful documentary text to later generations of monks but also that this hagiographical image endured as a symbol of monastic sovereignty. The meaning behind the textual anecdote is made manifest in this visual representation, which recreates Ecgfrith’s attempt to abduct his wife. While the Liber Eliensis couches the violence in periphrastic terms, the carved capital overtly depicts the intended harm. The three women —Æthelthryth and her two servants, Sewenna and Sewara—kneel on a hill surrounded by churning waters. Æthelthryth is at the center, crowned, with her hands clasped and raised high in prayer. Her servants raise their hands as if to ward 57. The cycle includes eight scenes from the LE, carved on columns that support the cathedral octagon at the crossing. Carved in high relief, this visual cycle illustrates the important moments in the life, including several miracles that attest to her power as saint: (1) Æthelthryth’s marriage to Ecgfrith; (2) her acceptance into the monastery at Coldingham; (3) her escape from Ecgfrith; (4) the miracle of her budding staff while she sleeps; (5) her consecration as abbess of Ely by Bishop Wilfrid; (6) her death and burial; (7) her translation; and (8) the posthumous miracle of Brystan. Several art and architectural historians have discussed this cycle, including D. J. Stewart, On the Architectural History of Ely Cathedral (London, 1868), 127–28; T. D. Atkinson, An Architectural History of the Benedictine Monastery of Saint Etheldreda at Ely (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933); Anne Rudloff Stanton, “On the Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral” (M. A. thesis., University of Texas at Austin, 1987); Phillip Lindley, “The Imagery of the Octagon at Ely,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 139 (1986): 75 –99; and Nicola Coldstream, “Ely Cathedral: The Fourteenth-Century Work,” in Medieval Art and Architecture at Ely Cathedral, ed. Nicola Coldstream and Peter Draper (Leeds: British Archaeological Association, 1979), 28 –46. Each of these scenes has been sketched in Bentham’s Cathedral Church of Ely, but his depictions of the pictorial cycle are inaccurate. In the eighteenth-century presentation of this miracle, for instance, the engraving shows all the nuns in prayer and one of the men with a naked torso, and three others with their hands upraised as if afraid of Æthelthryth’s power. Bentham’s engraving, which removes the swords, removes the intended sexual and temporal threat, suggesting the king is instead awed and overcome by her piety.
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Image not available
Fig. 6. Pictorial cycle, capital in octagon, miracle of Æthelthryth being saved from Ecgfrith. Ely Cathedral, 1325 –45
off the attack of the five men who surround them, four on horseback. All are kept back by the rolling waves, but the two on the left are shown threatening the women: one holds a small axe and stands next to the other, who holds his upraised sword pointing at the head of one of the nuns. The three on the left are shown controlling their mounts, which are stamping and prancing, as if the raging waters have surprised them. Two men face away, but the third, crowned, is Ecgfrith, and he faces his wife, seemingly intent on taking her from the small island. The intended violence is illustrated by the men who threaten the women with their weapons, and this violence is sexualized in that the sword is an emblem of penetration. Yet this scene, which carefully notes the protection of Æthelthryth’s virginity, illustrates that later monks interpreted this miracle as emblematic of the saint’s sovereignty: the threat posed by royal authority to this sovereignty is expressed visually in the sword, which is a gendered form of male aggression and strength. The women, by contrast, are shown in quiet repose, their resistance passive and spiritual. By locating the image specifically in the choir at Ely, where the monks gathered ritually to pray, this scene illustrates their self-perception within the body politic of the saint: the water-surrounded hill is analogous to the Isle of Ely encompassed by the marshes and fenlands with the virginal Æthelthryth at
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the center. Safe on their island hill, with Æthelthryth’s shrine at its core, the monks are protected by the saint’s intercessory prayer, by their own prayers for deliverance, and ultimately by the fenlands as a strategic defense. There will be no raptus of this virgin by her king, nor will any king seize the lands she protects. The Liber Eliensis attests, “Taliter ancilla Christi munita presidio, evasit minas regis nec sensit quandoque lesionem ab eo” (In this way the handmaiden of Christ, protected in that citadel, evaded the threats of the king, and not at any time did she suffer harm from him).58 In effect, this pictorial scene illustrates God’s intervention between monastery and king. She kneels on the island, which becomes a physical extension of her chaste body as the locus of sanctity. This image of the female saint’s body as sacred space extends the familiar topos of the feminized personification of Ecclesia or Mother Church. Yet, in this case, Æthelthryth is presented specifically as virginal, not maternal, a categorization that changes the ecclesiastical discourse about the church and locates it specifically within the Isle of Ely and its monastic institution. The turbulent water around the shrine provides a geographic boundary of defense and a demarcation of symbolic sanctity, a cultural sign that was inscribed on the central supports of the cathedral crossing. Textually and geographically, the water operates as a defense against violation; it protects the newly professed nun from her husband, and in geographic space it provides the metaphor by which Ely’s sovereignty is connoted, especially in relation to the royal power exercised here by King Ecgfrith. The image strongly suggests that Æthelthryth, as founder and ruler of her monastic church, will remain independent of royal control and that through God’s sanction her monastery will be protected by the same privilege. The metaphoric violence illustrated in this miracle scene is suggestive about the problems the Ely monastery encountered just as the Liber Eliensis was compiled in the mid-twelfth century. The turbulence of Stephen and Matilda’s war sets the stage for understanding the reasons behind the illustration of this miracle, particularly because the Ely bishop used the shrine’s decorations to support Matilda initially and, after switching sides, to pay his fine of contrition to Stephen.59 Yet, the chronicle also apportions a significant number of chapters to the political problems associated with the Norman invasion, and in the context of William’s conquest the compiler argues for Æthelthryth’s continued sovereignty. Specifically, the Liber Eliensis uses 58. LE, 27. 59. LE, 321–35.
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the imagery of this miracle story when it records William’s siege at the Isle of Ely and the monks’ resistance to him.
Historicizing Ely’s Resistance to the Norman Conquest If we examine the account of the Norman Conquest chronicled in book two of the Liber Eliensis, we find clear echoes of the writer’s presentation of Æthelthryth’s resistance to royal aggression in book one. It seems as if the chronicler is intentionally drawing parallels between the two parts of his narrative and asking his reader to remember the monastery’s position in relation to royal power. Specifically, the narrative describes Ely as the site of a seven-year resistance against William’s forces led by several Anglo-Saxon noblemen and the famed Hereward.60 In 1071, as the new king attempted to bring more of England under his control, the monastic community sided with the Saxon rebels in repudiating William’s attempts to invade the fenlands. The justification for their resistance lay in the ancient monastic privilege known as the “Liberty of Ely.”61 As detailed above, the monks’ liberty was based on Æthelthryth’s royal position as the original proprietor of the Anglo-Saxon isle. This declaration is coupled in book one with their insistence that they are free of external episcopal authority, an important claim following the division of the abbey lands between bishop and monastery: “Ab omnium namque iudicio et potestate insula admodum libera est, quo neque episcopus neque alicuius exactionis minister sine advocatione fratrum se intromittat vel rem sancte inquietare presumat” (For indeed, the isle is quite free from all jurisdictional power and control, into which neither bishop nor any agent of supervision will be allowed to pass without a brother’s support for him nor will he presume to disturb the holy property).62 This claim is enlarged in book two when the chronicle describes the Norman siege at Ely, saying all will be denied entrance, including secular officials: “sine aliqua exceptione secularis vel ecclesiastice iustitie” (without any exception for secular or ecclesiastical authority).63 The monk clarifies the ambiguous “neque alicuius exactionis minister” of the preceding passage, 60. Blake discusses the representation of the siege in relation to other historical accounts and finds that it adds much detail and generally is unreliable. See LE, liv–lviii. 61. LE, 173 –95. Miller describes the “Liberty of Ely” as giving the monastery immunity from a sheriff ’s intervention. See “Liberty of Ely,” 6. 62. LE, 4. 63. LE, 181.
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specifically affixing a reference to secular authority. Inserted directly within the narrative of William’s offenses against the monastery, this embellishment permits the monks to stage their position within this conflict: here, they are the victims of the Norman king’s unjust attempt to subdue them. This posture makes the allusions to the miracle story more direct, reminding the reader that God’s benefaction for Æthelthryth’s sovereignty extends to their guardianship of the isle. According to the chronicle, the Ely community resists two attempts by the Conqueror to build a causeway over the fenlands, whereby his troops might enter the isle; both times the rebels destroy the bridge, and Norman soldiers drown in the marshes. The defenders refuse admittance to anyone who has not demonstrated allegiance to their patron: “Sed neque aliquem in suo contubernio admittebant, nisi prius fidelitatem supra corpus sacratissime virginis Æ2eldre2e iureiurando” (But by no means did they admit anyone into their band of retainers, without his first having sworn an oath over the body of the most holy virgin Æthelthryth).64 The oath identifies the giver’s position in relation to the body politic symbolized by the saint’s corpse: spoken at the shrine, it unites monks and rebels within the spatial confines of the place; sworn over the material manifestation of the saint’s body, the oath honors her as the symbol of their inviolability and invokes the ideological meanings encoded in her body. This ritualistic oath is complemented by a description of Ely’s natural defenses, which have been strengthened through God’s providence so that the rebels are able to fight “pro defensione et libertate patrie” (for the defense and liberty of the country) in a strongly fortified fortress.65 The isle is described as abundant, flourishing, magnificent, and natural, and the Normans’ attack on it is staged in imagery that recalls the language used to describe Ecgfrith’s thwarted attempt to seize Æthelthryth, especially when the isle is described as being protected “aquis magnis et paludibus latis velud muro forti obsita” (by great waters and wide marshes like a fortified wall having been locked).66 Herein, the chronicle is explicit in portraying Ely as a place of strategic defense, one so strongly protected that it can withstand an assault far better than a castle. Implicit in this description is the idea that the boundaries of defense are natural, as if created by God expressly for the monastery’s protection. The accolades for this defensive barrier suggest that 64. LE, 176. 65. LE, 179. 66. LE, 180.
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the fenland waters maintain the separation between monastery and king in a way that no manufactured structure ever could.67 The two episodes, one hagiographical and one historical, illustrate how hagiographical tropes are used to write the monastery’s version of events during the siege. Using allusions to the miracle scene allows the monastic community to assert that, even though the narrative events differ considerably, the monks will challenge invaders because an assault on the isle is a transgression against the saint and her body politic. As a symbol of immutability, the saint’s body recalls the previous narratives of aggression, including the violation of the Danish soldier who so foolishly inserted a stick into the sarcophagus. Furthermore, the invocation of the body at this moment demonstrates that whenever the monks feel threatened this symbol of their autonomy will be presented. While it is known that all England eventually came under Norman rule by force, the Liber Eliensis maintains that the Isle of Ely was never overrun, reporting that the monks negotiated for peace only when, after seven years, their food reserves were depleted.68 The text then details the agreement made with the king, a result that differs considerably from the miracle of the rising waters: Æthelthryth never submits to Ecgfrith. Indeed, God makes it possible that she need never subject herself to him by providing a fortification for her. The narrative description of the Norman advance into the Isle of Ely, however, seems to suggest that the monks are forced into submission. Still, the chronicle writer carefully specifies that William comes to Ely to meet with the abbot only because they have invited him to do so. Using this assertion, the community can continue to insist that the sacred 67. Though only hinted at here, this suggestion is realized in another twelfth-century text, the Gesta Herewardi. Written by the same monk who wrote the LE, the Gesta provides an expanded record of Hereward’s deeds, recording that the hero bests William by destroying his war machines and killing a number of Norman soldiers. When released, a hostage describes to William the idyllic life on the isle enjoyed by both rebel and monk, reporting that the island, “so well fortified by waters and swamp, [is] much stronger than any castle surrounded by walls.” See Gesta Herwardi Incliti Exulis et Militis in Lestoire des Engles Solum La Translacion Maistre Geffrei Gaimar, ed. T. D. Huffy and C. T. Martin, vol. 1 (London, 1888), 381– 82; Michael Swanton, trans., Three Lives of the Last Englishmen (New York: Garland, 1984), 73; and Trevor A. Bevis, ed., Hereward: The Siege of the Isle of Ely and Involvement of Peterborough and Ely Monasteries, Together with “De Gestis Herewardi Saxonis” (March, Cambridgeshire: Westrydale Press, 1982), 27. For a contemporary description of Ely, see Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum: The History of the English People, ed. and trans. Diana Greenway (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996). It is significant that Wogan-Browne illustrates how the Ancrene Wisse similarly employs the imagery of the body as a “wall around a castle.” See Wogan-Browne, “Chaste Bodies,” 27. 68. LE, 189.
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space of the isle has not been penetrated and that their saint has not been compromised. In effect, because the abbot sponsors the king’s entrance, William is a legitimate guest. Thus, the Liber Eliensis, as a document produced by Norman monks about their countryman’s entrée into England and eventually into the monastery of Ely, must record changes in secular and monastic administration and must account for William’s success in subduing the rebellion. Situating that success as contingent on the monks’ invitation permits the community at Ely to assert their control over the situation and maintain some semblance of authority and agency. By comparison, the Gesta Herewardi, also written by the compiler of the Liber Eliensis, illuminates a different reason for the community’s submission.69 In describing the deeds of Hereward, the Gesta Herewardi presents the siege in much different terms, maintaining the monks’ prowess as soldiers and explaining that surrender came only when William allowed his noblemen to seize many of the Ely properties that lay outside the Isle of Ely.70 This document admits what the Liber Eliensis cannot: through force, the community was subjected to the king’s command because Ely was economically threatened. The difference, then, between the two texts is understandable. The small changes in the narrative make it possible for the monks to suggest their passive resistance to aggressive force; only hunger draws them out. As a document of their privileges, moreover, the Liber Eliensis must provide evidence of what the community holds, not what it has lost. Given that the land has become coterminous with the body of the saint, the loss of land through force would also imply that their symbol of inviolability had been compromised. Making the Saxon-Norman agreement a result of their own initiative, therefore, gives the community a position of strength. Although the two stories differ regarding the reason for the monks’ capitulation (starvation versus land seizure), both accounts of the siege maintain that the monks invite William into their community. The invitation is significant because it sanctions his access, which is in keeping with their claim that none will enter the isle without a brother’s approbation, and it negates the imagery of violation. Having issued the invitation, the Liber Eliensis explains that the monks’ willingness to negotiate peace rests on the condition that William recognize their Anglo-Saxon patron, her 69. See Blake’s comparison of the two texts, including his identification of the author/compiler, LE, xxxiv–xxxvi and liv–lviii. 70. Ibid., xxxv. See also LE, 191–93; Gesta Herewardi in Swanton, Three Lives of the Last Englishmen, 79; and Huffy, Gesta Herewardi, 390 –91.
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authoritative position, and the liberty she provides them, as well as the authority she has over the endowments she has been given. To illustrate that this demand has been met, the narrative adds a crucial element to the agreement; it records that when William arrived, he entered the church to visit Æthelthryth’s shrine, and the king’s behavior there indicates his knowledge of the saint’s power: Ad monasterium denique veniens, longe a sancto corpore virginis stans, marcham auri super altare proiecit, propius accedere non ausus; verebatur sibi a Deo iudicium inferri pro malis que sui in loco patrarunt. (Finally, having come to the monastery and standing a distance from the holy body of the virgin, he threw a mark of gold onto the altar, not daring to come nearer; he feared judgment from God to be brought upon him because of the evils that they had perpetrated in that place.)71 This description of the king’s subjection to the shrine allows the monks to assert that William recognizes Æthelthryth’s authority when he offers patronage to the saint. The narrative insinuates that the king must submit to the symbol of their strength or risk losing the support of those who swore an oath over her shrine. As the monks insist, no one may enter without showing allegiance to the saint in a public ritual, and in their depiction of the surrender, William fulfills this requirement. The description of his fear is suggestive, too, because it underscores the thematic thread running throughout the chronicle: royal authority must bow before Æthelthryth’s authority or risk her retribution. The monetary gift, moreover, is included to indicate his recognition of the saint’s sovereignty at Ely, even as it suggests that the alliance has been created between the monks and king over the virgin’s body. The gift to the shrine, depicted as a grudgingly ungracious gesture on the part of the vanquished king, also connotes the community’s new compact with him. Drawing on Gayle Rubin’s well-known essay “The Traffic in Women,” Margaret Brose has demonstrated that the “profound implication of [women’s cultural position as a commodity] . . . is that the fundamental alliances in culture are those that unite or bond male to 71. LE, 194.
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male—alliances in which the female is coined as the lucre to purchase such alliances.”72 The imagery here suggests that William has debased himself before Æthelthryth, yet his public demonstration shows that an economic agreement has been made over her body. We can read this scene as William’s acknowledgment of Æthelthryth’s sovereignty, but we can also see that, in the exchange, he has symbolically paid for the land seized outside the isle. In essence, the economic exchange rights the wrong done to the monastic community without the monks ever admitting officially that their properties have been appropriated or that they have been abused. This gesture at the shrine also creates a binding alliance between king and monastery, and in this presentation the monks can assume the position of negotiators who charitably embrace the king after reprimanding him for his economic aggression. The account of the surrender, as represented in the Liber Eliensis, suggests that the monks are able to force some degree of submission from William and that the alliance does not come totally at their expense. Other historical accounts recount the rebellion differently. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that William handily subjugated the Ely community within a year.73 Florence of Worcester includes a more detailed account in which William’s flotilla encircles the Isle of Ely and ends the siege quickly.74 In contrast to these independent accounts, the Gesta Herewardi shows that, after a long and difficult siege in which the rebels and monks always maintain the upper hand, William forced the monks to capitulate, not through military force but through estate seizure. By rewriting the history of the rebellion in the Liber Eliensis, an account that does not tally with the reports of other narratives, the monks could continue to assert the isle’s purity as a direct extension of Æthelthryth’s chastity, while suggesting that their invitation to William and his gift to the shrine demonstrates his subjection to their patron. This rhetorical move protects the virgin’s integritas and saves face for the monks, even as it once again illustrates how important it was to the community to provide a record of how a potential threat could be successfully averted. 72. Brose, “Petrarch’s Beloved Body,” 16. See also Gayle Rubin, “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex,” in Toward an Anthropology of Women, ed. Rayna R. Reiter (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1975), 157–210. 73. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. George Garmonsway (London: Dent, 1954), 206. 74. Florence of Worcester, The Chronicle of Florence of Worcester, trans. Thomas Forester (London, 1854), 177.
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When William entered Ely, he may have paid tribute to Æthelthryth’s shrine, but the Liber Eliensis also details the king’s vengeance over the community’s resistance: he fined the monks one thousand silver marks, controlled the succession of abbots, and insisted that the monastery house and maintain forty Norman knights.75 These economic terms illustrate that the king had the upper hand and that because the monks could not forfeit their monastic properties, they compromised by making William and his men members of the body politic—a position they suggest the king desires and one that also allows them to present his veneration at Æthelthryth’s shrine. The narrative indicates, then, that William could not displace the saint or destroy the shrine that had been the unifying symbol of the revolt; instead, he was required to support the monks and their patron saint, which he did by ordering the Normans to return the confiscated Ely properties. This royal command is carefully documented in the Liber Eliensis, as is William’s charter reaffirming the liberties Ely enjoyed under Edward the Confessor.76 Yet, the Ely land pleas of 1081 show that the alliance did not force the return of all their properties.77 Instead, William’s punitive conditions quickly subordinated the monastery to his colonization, and the monastery was left to sort out its property disputes. While the Liber Eliensis describes the monks’ subordination as an economic transgression, it glosses over the violation by hiding the terms of the surrender. In warfare, rape is often the final subjugation of a people.78 It destroys family relationships, and if the result of sexual violence is children, a race of people can be assimilated into the conquering one. The community of monks, however, is significantly different. The rebels within the isle are specifically gendered as male—monks and soldiers—within a female space. 75. LE, 193 –95. 76. LE, 199 –208. 77. Following the invasion, estate disputes were common between ecclesiastical communities and the Conqueror’s knights. When the Ely community complained that its properties were being unlawfully held, William’s response was divided: the king expressed outward support for the monks’ claims but did not evict his Norman followers from properties awarded for their service. This attitude forced the monks to negotiate for estates improperly seized, but the estate problems detailed in the LE suggest that recovering alienated property was far more difficult than it appeared. Their complaints, then, were included in the LE as a document of the wrongs done against their holdings. See Blake’s discussion of these events in his introduction, LE, xlix–liv; and Marjorie Chibnall’s discussion of William’s decisions, in Anglo-Norman England, 1066 –1166 (1986; reprint, Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), esp. 30 –31. 78. Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1975), 38.
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No women exist to be raped, except the virginal patron, but by identifying with the saint’s vulnerability, the rebels could envision themselves as a community capable of being victimized by the king.79 The appropriation of the saint’s properties eventually ensured monastic subjugation, and if the metaphor were to be played out, the Normans did rape (seize and penetrate) the Isle of Ely. The subordination of monastic liberties to royal power might also suggest the loss of the virgin’s integritas, but the community’s carefully documented record reconfigures the scene as the king’s subjection to the saint. As a revisionist history, the Liber Eliensis acknowledges the surrender of the isle, if not its violation. The exchange of money for land, however, refocuses the settlement and makes the community members part of an economic exchange among men, not victims of the king’s aggression. Perhaps initially designed to conceal any form of violation, the episode closely mirrors the first image of violent transgression in the chronicle: the three virgins are protected from Ecgfrith, who lays siege to the isle on which they pray for seven days. Seven days in the miracle scene is amplified to seven years in the description of the Norman siege, but it is clear why the hagiographical record insisted that Æthelthryth was accompanied by Sewenna and Sewara: the servants symbolize the community yet to be established at Ely, and as virgins they literally participate in the threat against their leader. Likewise, then, the monks can position themselves as virginal followers of Æthelthryth, threatened by the king’s assault. In both narratives, therefore, the besieged endure starvation but are protected from seizure by the watery enclosure. The similarities between these accounts also suggest that the two were written at the same time, for if we ignore the information provided by the Gesta Herewardi, we see that the monks wanted their surrender to be read as a result of starvation, not of rape or by military conquest. By adding the detail of William’s subjection, the chronicle reestablishes the monks’ position as authoritative agents on behalf of the saint, even though they use Æthelthryth’s shrine in the transaction. The Liber Eliensis, therefore, glosses over the subjugation of Ely, but the narrative acknowledges that part of the properties must be compromised in order to satisfy William’s anger. This forfeiture is illustrated in a highly 79. John Boswell indicates that Roman soldiers were known to exploit the males under their power, and rape was a common act of aggression. While it is not clear that Norman soldiers raped Anglo-Saxon men during the Conquest, Boswell’s findings are suggestive about the metaphoric image through which power relations are demonstrated in the LE. See Boswell, Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe (New York: Villard Books, 1994), 54.
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visual way: instead of the loss of land, “imagines sanctarum virginum multo ornatu auri et argenti” (images of holy virgins ornamented in gold and silver) are stripped of their treasure to pay William’s fine.80 Material figures that stand in for the body of Ely’s patron are uncovered and humiliated in place of the seizure of the estates. The chronicle describes several statues, including “imaginem sancte Marie cum puero suo” (an image of holy Maria and her son) being disfigured to pay this fine.81 It is telling that the statue of Mary is specifically identified as depicting the holy mother, whereas the other figures are not distinguished; they are simply “images of the holy virgins” who bear the brunt of the assault against the abbey. While these statues are not specified as representing Ely saints, the four women enshrined at Ely (Æthelthryth, her sisters Seaxburh and Wihtburh, and her niece, Eormenhild) figure largely throughout the Liber Eliensis, and their collective shrines made Ely an important pilgrimage site. The saints’ local popularity lends credence to the identification of the statues with the Ely women.82 Even if the humiliated statues were representations of these virgins specifically, the careful distinction between statue and shrine leaves a small opening through which the monks can continue to assert Æthelthryth’s purity. In essence, the enshrined body, and all that it represents, is venerated by William, while the representative bodies are humiliated to resolve the king’s anger. The narrative history of Æthelthryth’s chaste body, then, operates as a continued justification of the monastery’s intact liberties, and therein the monks create a fissure between physical bodies and symbolic ones. As Butler indicates, “the production of texts can be one way of reconfiguring what will count as the world.”83 Where the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold had provided an image of the saint that would encourage monks to remain chaste, the monastic community later allowed for the humiliation of representations of physical bodies. This distancing allows them to allude to the imagery of rape, even as they intimate that the saint and her monastic properties remain unmolested. The monks disguise their defeat by inviting William in, and their narrative conceals the metaphoric image of rape signaled by the king’s domination; by suggesting that an image of the saint’s body had been substituted to bear the force of the king’s wrath, they effectively displace the imagery. The exchange of figurative 80. 81. 82. 83.
LE, 195. LE, 195. Ridyard, “Condigna Veneratio,” 180 – 81. Butler, Bodies That Matter, 19.
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bodies for physical bodies of land, therefore, allowed the Ely community to insist that the physical body of the virgin remained intact within its shrine and, as a consequence, that her symbolic bodies—their liberties and properties— would also remain unmolested. After peace was made between William and the monks, the king placed Norman soldiers and monks at Ely and eventually appointed a Norman abbot. Whatever nervousness the Anglo-Saxon monks might have felt about their new inhabitants appears in the Liber Eliensis to be unfounded. In the chronicle, the new members are described as strong advocates for Ely, which leads to a close relationship between Saxons and Normans in this united community.84 Hereafter, the Liber Eliensis illustrates a marked difference in the way the saint is depicted; her symbolic value as the inviolable, passive virgin shifts starkly. Once the Normans are depicted as the authoritative guardians of Ely, the chronicle then begins to illustrate Æthelthryth as a virago, a masculinized fighter who wreaks vengeance on those who abuse her properties. This shift makes the saint (and by consequence, the monks) immune to the threat of sexual violence because, as the next section demonstrates, she becomes the perpetrator of violence and vengeance against those who appropriate her properties.
The Saint as Virago Because the Normans recognized the saint’s authoritative power as Ely’s monastic patron, it is not surprising that they supported this ideological tradition rhetorically, especially in response to lay encroachment on their properties. The Norman monks adopted Ely’s patron saint, the same protector who had been William’s enemy during the siege, and they employed the symbol of purity in a continued effort to protect the Ely properties. Yet under a Norman administration, the monks altered the portraiture of the inviolable virgin to an image of an indomitable virago capable of defending her properties through force, an image played out in a series of miracle stories. One episode recounts that a Norman named Gervase, a servant of the county sheriff, Picot, seized some of the monastery’s properties during the invasion but had not returned them as William had ordered.85 The Ely land 84. See Ridyard’s discussion of amelioration, “Condigna Veneratio,” 186 – 87. 85. LE, 195. Ridyard discusses this episode and several others in which violators die as a result of Æthelthryth’s protection of monastic properties. See Royal Saints, 198 –210.
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pleas illustrate that, despite William’s ruling in favor of the churches, individuals could petition to keep their estates.86 Following the king’s decree, therefore, Gervase initiates a lawsuit against Ely in 1081, but the day before the court litigation is to be heard, the Liber Eliensis records that Æthelthryth, along with her sisters, appears to him, saying: “Tune es ille, qui homines meos, quorum patrona sum ego, me contempta totiens vexasti nec adhuc ab ecclesie mec inquietatione desistis? Habebis igitur istud pro mercede, ut alii per te discant familiam Christi non vexare.” Tulitque baculum quem gerebat graviterque aculeum eius loco cordis, tanquam eum perfossurus, inseruit. Deinde sorores eius sancta Withburga et sancta Sexburga, que simul cum ipsa venerant, duris baculorum suorum stimulis eum pupugerunt. (“Are you not he who, in contempt of me, has so many times vexed my men whose patron I am, and who has not yet desisted from troubling my church? Therefore you will have this for a reward, so that others through you will learn not to vex the household of Christ.” And she brandished the staff she carried and violently implanted the point of it into the place of his heart as if it was about to pierce him. Then her holy sisters Wihtburh and Seaxburh who had come together with her stung him with hard pricks of their own staffs.)87 Gervase then cries out, and when others come running he barely has enough time to describe his vision before dying. Other accounts, by contrast, suggest that Gervase expired from a heart attack before the court date.88 At his death, the monastery was awarded the disputed properties. Whatever the cause of his demise, the litigation ended, and the experience afforded an excellent opportunity for the community to comment on the 86. Picot is often identified in the chronicle as the enemy, particularly for appropriating Ely properties and not returning them. The LE records that, when pressured to forfeit the lands of Æthelthryth, he insulted the saint by denying knowledge of her. Eventually, Picot did acknowledge that “he held of the abbot and convent by knight service” in exchange for the Ely properties even if he continued not to recognize their patron. See LE, 210 –11, and also VCH, Cambridgeshire, 2:202. 87. LE, 212. 88. LE, 212 –13; Ridyard, “Condigna Veneratio,” 206.
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illegality of the seizure of monastic properties. The community presents this situation in the Liber Eliensis as a new form of patronal protection, one in which the victim becomes an aggressor who can handily defend her people and one in which the Norman monks possess a degree of agency not afforded to the Saxon monks before this point. If read in the light of the siege account, the story of Gervase’s transgression illustrates that laity did encroach on the body politic and did compromise its integrity. Because that position is an untenable one for the community, the monks redefine their position by providing an alternative signification for Æthelthryth’s body. This miracle story not only shows the force with which the Ely women defend their holdings but also demonstrates the importance of visualizing the saint’s body. She appears to Gervase, along with her sisters; because he sees her physicality and witnesses her action, he dies. The report of his vision shows that the monks are deliberately reconfiguring the terms by which the saint’s body is understood. Instead of focusing on the shrine as a material body that keeps the corpse from view, the narrative now imagines the saint’s corporeality as viable, active matter. Presented here standing and speaking, attacking and defending, the miracle confirms what the chronicle continues to claim: the saint’s body is intact. Visualized as living and active, Æthelthryth leads the defense of her monastic community. Because this scene engenders the saint as a masculinized warrior, it redirects the description of the monks’ agency and masculinity: if Æthelthryth is a virago, they can leave off their identification with the passive female body and adopt a masculinist stance of aggression. In describing Ely’s patron saint as a symbol of military power, the chronicler invokes a different topos of hagiographic discourse, the miles Christi.89 The image of the militant saint is an old tradition in hagiographic texts, especially those about virgin saints. Specifically, the rape plot is consistently used to glorify virginity by making the literary motif of the miles Christi available to females, as Gravdal argues: “Under physical assault, the female saint becomes a soldier of Christ in the early days of Christian militancy. The threat of rape thus opens a space for female heroism.”90 While this heroic space brings women into important positions within the church hierarchy, their identification as chaste limits the notion of female heroism: 89. Bede, EH, 400 –401, includes this image in his hymn in Æthelthryth’s honor. 90. Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens, 23. For a broader discussion of virginity and the miles Christi, see John Bugge, Virginitas: An Essay in the History of a Medieval Ideal (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975), esp. 47–58. See also Newman, From Virile Woman to WomanChrist.
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the category of “woman” is excluded from the community of faith in favor of the virgin who is saved from “her inferior female nature only by renouncing sexuality and becoming like a man, vir, through virginity.”91 Regendering the saint, furthermore, erases the tension Otter describes between the monks and their female patron; it allows them to assert their own masculinity as soldier/monks. Æthelthryth’s agency as a protector saint contrasts markedly with the passive pose illustrated in the vigil scene above. Instead of praying to God for deliverance, she now takes up the sign of her abbatial office and uses it against her enemies. Where her body had been under attack, she is now the attacker; where she had been enclosed spatially by the tomb, she now vacates the tomb to assert her authority. The chronicle sharply delineates this characterization, recording that she will protect her properties “manfully” or, as the text reads, viriliter: Fit timor sancte per omnes vicinos multoque tempore nullus procerum, iudicum, ministrorum et cuiuscumque potestatis hominum quicquam audebat preripere in Elyensem possessionem, sancta virgine res suas viriliter ubique protegente. (Fear of the saint spread through all the neighbors and for a long time not one of the nobles, judges, servants, and powerful men dared to seize anything within Ely’s possession, the holy virgin manfully protecting her properties everywhere.)92 In describing the saint’s masculinity, the writer employs here the same root word used in his description of Ecgfrith’s attack on Æthelthryth: preripere. Perhaps designed as an intentional reversal, the invocation of the word redirects the potential threat. The virago now attacks those who had seized her estates through force. In this instance, the word is used directly to describe the appropriation of property, whereas before it had referred to the attack on the saint’s virginity. The monastery’s official discourse, therefore, reimagined Æthelthryth’s gendered position, a shift that allowed the Anglo-Norman community to reimagine their association within the body politic. By changing Æthelthryth into a virago, they could more easily identify with the 91. Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens, 22. 92. LE, 213. In “Female Sanctity,” 114, Schulenburg observes that women were often praised “for acting non mulieriter sed viriliter” in public church roles.
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now-masculinized saint, and without anxiety they could assert their identity as masculine aggressors who, alongside her, diligently guard the Ely estates.93 In this gendered shift, the masculinized body erases the potentiality of rape, situating Ely as an aggressive, dangerous geographical space. One implication of this shift in identification is that as the Anglo-Norman monks stopped professing their victimization they also adjusted their representation of William as king: he is no longer represented as a rapacious aggressor, though his followers are at times foolish and greedy. At the same point in the Liber Eliensis, William’s charters attesting to Ely’s privileges are inserted into the narrative. The change in Æthelthryth’s signification also relocated Ely’s monastic identity from a corporate body under siege to an institutional power whose privileges were diligently recorded and militantly defended. This posturing shows why it was necessary to bring Ely’s hagiographical tradition to bear on its historical documentation: without Æthelthryth’s legacy as an AngloSaxon princess, queen, and virgin, the monks had no authoritative position in the midst of upheaval in the twelfth century. Certification of privileges and ownership must have seemed a shaky protection for Ely’s temporalities, especially when we know that some of the pivotal charters are forgeries. The compilation of the Liber Eliensis and the inclusion of vengeance miracles speak to the anxiety over documentation and suggest the necessity of miracles in bolstering Ely’s historical narrative.94 As Schulenburg has found, “vitae served as propaganda for the expansion or promotion of the cult of the saint and the exaltation of a religious center.”95 The expanded vita of Æthelthryth and the series of miracle stories illustrate that twelfth-century Ely was actively promoting its saint as a symbol of ancient sovereignty for very specific reasons. In providing a narrative history of the foundation and its liberties, tota integra, tota incorrupta, the monastery could stage a rhetorical defense against encroachment that would be useful in estate litigation and at the same time broaden the awareness of Ely as the cult center, as 93. Pauline Thompson and Elizabeth Stevens have observed a similar representation of Æthelthryth’s role as avenger in Gregory of Ely’s verse life (1116 –1131), which prefigures the account in the LE (1131–1174) and is more vehement in its claims about Æthelthryth’s vengeance on those who appropriate the monastery’s lands. Gregory’s representation of the isle as an enclosed space that protects the monks from their enemies is striking. See Thompson and Stevens, “Gregory of Ely’s Verse Life and Miracles of St. Æthelthryth,” Analecta Bollandiana 106 (1988): 333 –90. 94. On the authority of the documents, see Blake, LE, xlix–liv. 95. Schulenburg, “Saints’ Lives as a Source,” 287.
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opposed to Winchester, as the site of the reforms. The compilation of materials, moreover, provided a discourse through which the monks could critique contemporary forms of violation, such as Bishop Nigel’s stripping of the shrine to pay his fines to King Stephen. Hagiographical accounts, when intertwined with historical narratives, could therefore become important rhetorical instruments of communication and in this case were imperative to the composite monastic record as a challenge to king, bishop, and laity. Though texts like the Ely chronicle are often critiqued for their fantastical elements, they are invaluable sources for historical study. The Liber Eliensis, for one, illustrates its inestimable value as a record of the monastery’s need to define itself as an autonomous body.
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four La gloriuse seint Audree / Une noble eglise a fundee: Chastity, Widowhood, and Aristocratic Patronage (ca. 1189 –1416)
La gloriuse seinte Audree Une noble eglise a fundee En le honorance saint Andreu, Augustaldeus noment ce liu. Sainte Audree genz assembla, Homes et femmes, si les mena Ensemble ou li a cele eglise Pur establir la Deu servise. (The glorious Saint Audrey / Founded a noble church / In honour of Saint Andrew. / The place was called Hexham. / Saint Audrey assembled people, / Both men and women, and brought them there, / Together with her to the church / To establish the service of God.)1
Early narratives about Æthelthryth had been produced in direct consequence of explicitly clerical concerns—first as an inducement to Christian conversion according to Bede, later as part of the Benedictine Reforms associated with Æthelwold, and finally as a means to establish Ely’s importance as an episcopal center—but accounts of the saint’s life produced after 1200 c.e. illustrate different motivations and a shift from monastic production and reception. As these final two chapters demonstrate, the textual cult of 1. Marie, La Vie Seinte Audrée: Poème Anglo-Normand du XIIIe Siècle, ed. Östen Södergård (Uppsala: A.-B. Lundequistska Bokhandeln, 1955), lines 883 –90. Hereafter, all citations to the VSA will be to Södergård’s edition by line number, and all translations of quotes (unless noted otherwise) were kindly provided by Jane Zatta before her death. This translation is The Lives of Three Anglo-Norman Women Saints (New York: Boydell & Brewer, forthcoming). A new edition and translation by June Hall McCash and Judith Barban appeared just as this book was going to press. I am very grateful to the editors who shared page proofs with me prior to the publication of their edition. While it was too late to include their work or provide commentary based on their translation, I do thank them for their generosity and their shared enthusiasm for this vie. Their new publication corrects several points of Södergård’s, and their translation will make this very important text available to both scholars and students. See A Life of Saint Audrey: A Text by Marie de France, ed. June Hall McCash and Judith Barban ( Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2006).
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Æthelthryth changed as it was adopted by those not pursuing agendas to establish ecclesiastical authority. Certainly, there are generic differences between early and late English hagiographical accounts, but thematic changes in these texts illustrate a concerted effort to help the audience connect with Æthelthryth as a person with lived experience; specifically, the narrative of her life was developed to balance the numerous miracles that occurred after Æthelthryth’s death and her intercessory powers emphasized heretofore. This is particularly true in an Anglo-Norman poem titled La Vie Seinte Audrée (VSA), which is a significantly altered translation of the vita included in the Liber Eliensis. Written by a woman who identifies herself only as “Marie,” the vie provides an expanded version of Æthelthryth’s secular life and focuses in particular on her role as a patron of religious institutions. The emphasis on the saint’s position as founder of churches and monasteries is complemented by Marie’s embellishments regarding Æthelthryth’s marriages and by a series of proverbial statements that speak to women’s experiences in marriage.2 The result is a narrative that seems directed at women whose life experiences were similar to the Anglo-Saxon queen’s. In effect, the Vie Seinte Audrée seems to be crafted specially to induce aristocratic patronage by women who had the means to imitate Æthelthryth’s governance of her wealth and the social position to adopt the authority that underscores acts of religious patronage. The emergence of this vernacular poem during a period in which lay ecclesiastical stratification increased the church’s political and social power is significant. The vie reflects a social standard that required wealthy lay patrons to demonstrate their spiritual devotion through endowment, for it not only emphasizes that Æthelthryth paid for sacred spaces but also demonstrates that she offered spiritual guidance and instruction for the members of these communities. In effect, the vie capitalizes on the depiction of Æthelthryth as founder in the Liber Eliensis, but instead of presenting her as the sponsa christi as in Bede’s hymn, or as the virago in the monastic chronicle, Marie affords Æthelthryth agency as a founder and patron. Between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, aristocratic lay patronage flourished, and while originally a popular activity for aristocratic men and married couples, increasingly noble women alone used their resources, often after the death of their spouses, to establish or to support female communities.3 2. See my “Pour danter sa char et destreindre / La covint en martire maindre”: Sexual Desire, Marital Chastity, and Self-Martyrdom in La Vie Seinte Audrée,” paper presented at the 117th Annual Modern Language Association meeting in New Orleans, 2001. 3. Sally Thompson has shown that a number of women, often listed with their husbands, founded and supported nunneries, in Women Religious: The Founding of English Nunneries After
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Legal documents reveal that aristocratic widows enjoyed a changed social status that allowed them to move more independently in political and economic arenas, and many used their extraordinary wealth to found their own houses or become patrons of religious institutions associated with their families.4 Patronage might be seen as a way to control single women and their resources, but it also seems clear that widows were demonstrating their social power through these religious practices, even as they were participating in an approved form of piety and distribution of wealth.5 the Norman Conquest (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 161–210. See also Sharon K. Elkins, Holy Women of Twelfth-Century England (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988); Eckenstein, Women Under Monasticism; Eileen Power, Medieval English Nunneries ca. 1275 to 1535 (New York: Biblo & Tannen, 1964); Gilchrist and Oliva, Religious Women in Medieval East Anglia; Yorke, Nunneries and the Anglo-Saxon Royal Houses; and Nancy Bradley Warren, Spiritual Economies: Female Monasticism in Later Medieval England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001). 4. Sue Sheridan Walker provides several discussions of widowhood and the social and economic positions of women in medieval England: “Feudal Constraint and Free Consent in the Making of Marriages in Medieval England: Widows in the King’s Gift,” in Historical Papers Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Historical Association (Ottawa, 1979), 97–109; “Free Consent and Marriage of Feudal Wards in Medieval England,” Journal of Medieval History 8 (1982): 123 –34; “The Marrying of Feudal Wards in Medieval England,” Studies in Medieval Culture 4 (1974): 209 –24; and Wife and Widow in Medieval England, ed. Sue Sheridan Walker (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993). Other important studies include Linda E. Mitchell, “Widowhood in Medieval England: Baronial Dowagers of the Thirteenth-Century Welsh Marches” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1991); Linda E. Mitchell, Portraits of Medieval Women: Family, Marriage, and Social Relationships in ThirteenthCentury England (New York: Palgrave, 2003); Upon My Husband’s Death: Widows in the Literature and Histories of Medieval Europe, ed. Louise Mirrer (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992); Janet Senderowitz Loengard, “‘Of the Gift of Her Husband’: English Dower and Its Consequences in the Year 1200,” in Women of the Medieval World, ed. Julius Kirshner and Suzanne F. Wemple (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), 215 –55; Rowena E. Archer, “Rich Old Ladies: The Problem of Late Medieval Dowagers,” in Property and Politics: Essays in Later Medieval English History, ed. Tony Pollard (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984), 15 –35; Joel T. Rosenthal, “Aristocratic Widows in Fifteenth-Century England,” in Women and the Structure of Society: Selected Research from the Fifth Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, ed. Barbara J. Harris and JoAnn K. McNamara (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1984), 36 –47; Medieval London Widows, 1300 –1500, ed. Caroline M. Barron and Anne F. Sutton (London: Hambledon Press, 1994); Margaret Hallissy, Clean Maids, True Wives, Steadfast Widows: Chaucer’s Women and Medieval Codes of Conduct (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993); Henrietta Leyser, Medieval Women: A Social History of Women in England, 450 –1500 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995); Matrons and Marginal Women in Medieval Society, ed. Robert R. Edwards and Vickie Ziegler (Woodbridge, Suff.: Boydell Press, 1995); Michael M. Sheehan, Marriage, Family, and Law in Medieval Europe: Collected Studies (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996); and R. H. Helmholz, Marriage Litigation in Medieval England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974). 5. June Hall McCash, The Cultural Patronage of Medieval Women (Albany: University of Georgia Press, 1996).
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La Vie Seinte Audrée demonstrates the importance of gift-giving not as an activity for saints per se but as one in which noble people should engage, for Marie presents Æthelthryth’s patronage as a significant aspect of her life, extending from the period in which she was the Queen of Northumbria to her later vocation as a nun.6 As the epigraph indicates, Æthelthryth (here Audrée) is given full credit for founding the church at Hexham, which was an estate in the kingdom of Northumbria. Where Bede had largely ignored Æthelthryth’s foundation of Ely and had not recorded any details about the establishment of Hexham, Marie draws on the chronicle’s assertion that she was the benefactor.7 The original source for this claim is Stephen of Ripon’s Life of Bishop Wilfrid, in which Wilfrid is given credit for establishing the church at Hexham on an estate given to him by Æthelthryth.8 Ely’s monastic chronicle follows Stephen in describing the foundation but makes little of Æthelthryth’s support.9 As the epigraph shows, however, Marie completely obscures Wilfrid’s role and attributes the initiative to Æthelthryth, indicating that she chose the dedication to Saint Andrew, that she actively gathered congregants, and that she led them to do service to God. What is more, she appointed her servant, Owine, to govern the new house: Owine, une home mut sené Et de mut grant auctorité, Amena la roine ou ly. . . . . . . . . . . Cestui fist seinte Audree mestre De cele eglise et de cel estre. (The queen brought with her / Owine, a very wise man / Of very great authority. . . . / Saint Audrey made him master / Of the church and of that place.)10 6. Garrison briefly intimates the importance of Æthelthryth’s patronage but focuses her discussion on Æthelthryth’s renunciation of secular values and on the ways in which Marie’s text conforms to representations of religious women in contemporary vitae. See Garrison, “Lives of St. Ætheldreda,” 181–303, esp. 282 – 88. 7. This was a highly important donation, and one would therefore expect Bede to have included it in the EH. The fact that it is not raises the possibility that it is historically inaccurate. 8. Stephen of Ripon, Life of Bishop Wilfrid, 44 –47. 9. LE, 21–22. 10. VSA, lines 891–93 and 897–98.
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Where the Liber Eliensis had noted that Hexham was peopled with members of Æthelthryth’s East Anglian entourage, in Marie’s narrative Æthelthryth, as the benefactor to Hexham, has the authority to elect the leader of the abbey, and by extolling Owine’s virtues in a lengthy passage, Marie demonstrates the worthiness of Æthelthryth’s judgment. The queen’s active engagement with the house and her administration of affairs demonstrate further that while Owine is the master, Æthelthryth’s authority exceeds his and any other’s. In eliminating Bishop Wilfrid from this foundation narrative, moreover, Marie attributes great ecclesiastical authority to Æthelthryth as a lay patron, suggesting the queen’s initiative and resources are what afford her this power, not her virginity or her role as abbess. The example of Hexham demonstrates how Marie draws on her source but embellishes it heavily to attribute complete authority to Æthelthryth as patron. Translating from the monastic chronicle, Marie uses much of the same material regarding the life and miracles, but she provides several passages about building programs organized and funded by Æthelthryth before she established the minster at Ely. La Vie Seinte Audrée therefore not only highlights the saint’s chastity within marriage as previous narratives had done—and therefore focuses more particularly on Æthelthryth’s life and not her sanctity —but also emphasizes the importance of Æthelthryth’s social and economic status; it demonstrates her overt participation in the creation of religious centers; and it celebrates her position as founder, abbess, and mother of Ely. Marie’s interest in Æthelthryth’s activities as a patron effectively removes the localized focus of the Liber Eliensis and situates La Vie Seinte Audrée to appeal to a larger audience that would be concerned with the issues of inheritance, dower rights, aristocratic privilege, and patronage, which are major themes of the translation. With this presentation, therefore, Marie establishes for her audience a series of social expressions appropriate for aristocratic women, which is a marked change from the presentations in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, Ælfric’s life, and the Liber Eliensis. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne has investigated hagiographic texts as a way of interpreting the historical and social importance of female patronage and the disposal of marital properties.11 She indicates that La Vie Seinte Audrée depicts Æthelthryth in an iconographic model of patronage, one that emphasizes her use of dower properties in building or supporting 11. Wogan-Browne, Saints’ Lives and Women’s Literary Culture.
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female houses.12 Given that the text was written by a woman seemingly for an audience with a profile like Æthelthryth’s, the emphasis on the royal saint’s economic and physical support of ecclesiastical institutions suggests that endowment was significant to the writer’s audience.13 We might even consider that La Vie Seinte Audrée is written for a patron, possibly the patron of a religious house (Marie’s own?), which would make it an entirely appropriate gift. By establishing a larger context in which women could choose to be like Æthelthryth, regardless of their position as wives, mothers, or widows, Marie’s text appeals to a female audience even as it establishes behavioral codes for aristocratic lay and religious women.14 Effectively, Marie situates the saint, who was identified as a chaste wife, a widow, a divorcée, and a vowed nun, within a rubric that Felicity Riddy has called “the ideology of 12. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, “Rerouting the Dower: The Anglo-Norman Life of St. Audrey by Marie (of Chatteris?),” in Power of the Weak: Studies on Medieval Women, ed. Jennifer Carpenter and Sally-Beth MacLean (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 27–56. 13. In the VSA, as in the LE, Marie mentions several of the pre-Conquest fenland houses that enjoyed royal patronage, including Chatteris, Ramsey, and Thorney. With the exception of Chatteris, the houses named by Marie were strong monastic centers, whereas the nunnery of Chatteris never became a very wealthy house; in fact, all the Benedictine’s women’s houses associated with Ely remained relatively poor institutions, according to VCH, Suffolk, vol. 2, ed. William Page (London: Archibald, 1907), 112 –15. Established just after Æthelwold’s refoundation of the Ely monastic house, Chatteris was first associated with Ramsey but before 1131 was given by Henry I to Ely and was one of its daughter houses until the dissolution. Because Chatteris is the only women’s house named in Marie’s text, and because of its proximity and close connection to Ely, Wogan-Browne has suggested that Marie was a nun there. Certainly the close relationship shared by the two institutions would have ensured Marie’s knowledge of the oral stories surrounding the Etheldredan cult, and their connection would explain Marie’s access to the cathedral library and the monastic chronicle from which she translates. For this discussion on Marie’s identity, see Wogan-Browne, “Rerouting the Dower,” 31–32. 14. Several scholars have already contextualized Anglo-Norman hagiography and female patronage, authorship, and readership, particularly Wogan-Browne, whose scholarship is at the forefront of Anglo-Norman studies. In addition to the work cited above, she has published two other articles that speak directly to these issues: “Wreaths of Thyme: The Female Translator in Anglo-Norman Hagiography,” Medieval Translator 4 (1994): 46 – 65; and “‘Clerc u lai, muïne u dame.’” Other pertinent scholarship includes William MacBain, “Anglo-Norman Women Hagiographers,” in Anglo-Norman Anniversary Essays, ed. Ian Short (London: AngloNorman Text Society, 1993), 235 –50; Roberta Krueger, Women Readers and the Ideology of Gender in Old French Verse Romance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); and several discussions by M. Dominica Legge: “Anglo-Norman Hagiography and the Romances,” in Medievalia et Humanistica: Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Culture, n.s., no. 6 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 41–49; Anglo-Norman in the Cloisters: The Influence of the Orders upon Anglo-Norman Literature (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1950); and Anglo-Norman Literature and Its Background (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963). Also particularly useful are the articles in Women and Literature, ed. Meale.
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virginity,” within which recluses, nuns, vowesses, and chaste widows belong.15 The association of Æthelthryth with women from each of these categories is apt, for an audience known to have read Marie’s Vie Seinte Audrée included women whose lives fit these various categories: the nuns and their guests at Campsey Ash Priory, an Augustinian foundation in Suffolk. As the latter half of this chapter indicates, Campsey was a boardinghouse for aristocratic women, both lay and religious, and its patron, Isabella Beauchamp Ufford, is a perfect example of the wealthy women Marie seems to be addressing.16 Isabella, Countess of Suffolk and daughter of the Earl of Warwick, was a very privileged widow who took a vow of chastity in the priory’s church and who had an active part in the life of the nuns, even as she continued to administer the expansive dower estates she held from both of her marriages. Before turning to Marie’s audience and the connections between the Ely cult and the patron and nuns of Campsey Ash, this chapter first examines Marie’s presentation of the economic rewards of chaste political marriage, which provided Æthelthryth with the resources to sponsor church-building, and it considers how Marie established the saint as a model for ecclesiastical endowment, so much so that an image of the saint in the Campsey codex illustrates Æthelthryth as an icon for religious patronage.
Æthelthryth as Patron of Religious Spaces La Vie Seinte Audrée is an Anglo-Norman poem of 4,620 lines. Written in octosyllabic couplets, it was composed in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century but is preserved only in an early fourteenth-century codex associated with the priory at Campsey Ash.17 The author, who identifies herself in 15. Felicity Riddy, “‘Women Talking About the Things of God’: A Late Medieval SubCulture,” in Women and Literature, 104 –27 at 112. 16. Wogan-Browne has also considered the potential audiences for this life, and she identifies several women as examples “of the kind of audience whose interests were well met by, and who had at least the possibility of connection with, the vernacular life.” “Rerouting the Dower,” 56. 17. Wogan-Browne has addressed the date of the poem and the possible authorship in “Rerouting the Dower,” 27–56, as has June Hall McCash in “La vie seinte Audrée: A Fourth Text by Marie de France?” Speculum 77 (2002): 744 –77. McCash notes that the text was originally written in continental French but that the scribe knew Anglo-Norman. Delbert Russell has provided a rich discussion of all aspects of this codex in “The Campsey Collection of Old French Saints’ Lives: A Re-Examination of Its Structure and Provenance,” Scriptorium 57 (2003): 51– 83. For an additional bibliography of scholarship on the VSA, see Ruth Dean, Anglo-Norman Literature: A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1999), 312 –13.
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the final lines, asks that she be remembered for her devotion to Audrée.18 Based on the similarity of signatures, word choice, and the repetition of themes between the vie and the works attributed to Marie de France, June Hall McCash contends that we should assign La Vie Seinte Audrée to the same woman who wrote the Lais, the Fables, and the hagiographical narrative known as L’Espurgatoire Seint Patriz.19 While we know very little about Marie de France, we do have indications that her audience was an aristocratic, French-speaking audience associated with the Anglo-Norman court of Henry II.20 Whereas the Lais and the Fables present stories that might appeal equally to an audience of aristocratic men and women, L’Espurgatoire illustrates how laity can seek their own salvation by imitating the spiritual journey the knight undertakes.21 La Vie Seinte Audrée, by contrast, is largely concerned with issues related to women’s experience and religious identity. If McCash is correct in identifying the author of La Vie Seinte Audrée as Marie de France (and I am persuaded by her argument), the vie fits within a larger corpus in which Marie comments directly on the social expectations of aristocratic life, even as it provides a hagiographical narrative for women that complements the male-centered L’Espurgatoire. Whether or not the author of La Vie Seinte Audrée is Marie de France, the Lais, the Fables, and L’Espurgatoire together offer a context in which to read the vie, as McCash has demonstrated. A comparison with the source text, the Liber Eliensis, provides another set of data for examining Marie’s audience. Blake, who has discussed the relationships among the manuscripts containing the chronicle, indicates that there is a subgroup that includes only selected parts of books one and two of the tripartite monastic history. Of these, BL, ms Cotton Domitian XV shows evidence of being descended from the source from which Marie would have been working. This late thirteenthor early fourteenth-century manuscript was copied well after Marie translated her narrative, but its abbreviated form shares common elements with La Vie Seinte Audrée, including book one (containing the vita and the 18. VSA, lines 4618 –20. 19. McCash discusses the textual parallels between the VSA and writings by Marie de France in “La vie seinte Audrée,” 744 –77. 20. R. Howard Bloch provides a comprehensive review of scholarship focused on Marie’s identity in The Anonymous Marie de France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 1–24. While Bloch questions the scholarly assumptions about the author’s identity, he does place Marie within the “sphere of influence” of Henry II’s court. See Bloch, Anonymous Marie de France, 314. 21. Bonnie H. Leonard, “The Inscription of a New Audience: Marie de France’s Espurgatoire Saint Patriz,” Romance Languages Annual 5 (1993): 57– 62.
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destruction of the monastic community during the Danish invasions) and miracles from book two (omitting the charters and abbreviating the refoundation narrative about Æthelwold and his gifts to the abbey), as well as “a booklet on the second translation of St. Etheldreda in 1106 and a book of miracles” inserted between the two parts.22 Given the prominence of the vita and the miracle collection in Cotton Domitian XV, it is likely that a lost original dating to the time of the translation is the source for Marie’s text. Marie’s poem demonstrates that the Ely chronicle circulated outside the monastic community, but not widely, for, as the author asserts, she translates the life so that no one would forget the miracles of Æthelthryth.23 Where the Latin chronicle would have had a particularly limited circulation, mostly among clerical audiences, Marie’s act of translation into French indicates that she thought the life important for an aristocratic audience, one that might have been religious or lay. The narrow monastic audience and the subject matter of the chronicle confirm that in some way Marie was connected with the Ely community.24 She might have been a nun in one of 22. LE, xxv. Some of these miracles have been edited and translated by Love in Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, 94 –131. 23. VSA, lines 4606 –11. 24. In a series of articles on the Welbeck manuscript, A. T. Baker suggests that the manuscript has an East Anglian origin. In “An Anglo-French Life of St. Osith,” Modern Language Review 6 (1911): 476 –502, he notes that seven of the thirteen lives are about British saints and that, as he finds elsewhere, most are from East Anglia or Essex. The manuscript is written in three different hands, and each life helps to date the parts. He shows that the Saint Osyth vie dates to about 1260 –70, while Modwenna’s vie probably belongs to the second half of the thirteenth century but after the life of Osyth. He argues that the order of the lives and the dates to which they can be assigned shows that the earliest lives belong to the earliest part of the manuscript and those written later in the thirteenth century make up the latter section. Marie’s life (1189 –1250) is eighth in the manuscript, just before Saint Osyth, suggesting that the text was copied into the Campsey manuscript not long after it was written. In his discussion “Vie anglo-normande de Sainte Foy par Simon de Walsingham,” Romania 66 (1940/1): 49 – 84, Baker indicates that Simon was a monk of Bury St. Edmunds and that the life of Saint Modwenna was probably composed at Burton by the prior, Richard de L’Isle, who later was precentor under Hugh de Northwold, abbot of Bury St. Edmunds. De L’Isle himself became abbot of Bury when Hugh de Northwold became Bishop of Ely (1229 –54). Bishop Hugh had a particular interest in the two most important East Anglian saints, Edmund and Æthelthryth. On his tombstone, Edmund is shown on one side and Æthelthryth on the other, and Hugh’s patronage of Æthelthryth’s cult included an addition to the Ely cathedral’s east end, designed as a presbytery for her tomb. The project cost him more than £5,000, and on 17 September 1252 he translated Æthelthryth’s shrine into this elaborate retro-choir. See my “Building a Presbytery for St. Æthelthryth: Bishop Hugh de Northwold and the Politics of Cult Production in Thirteenth-Century England,” in Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles, ed. Sarah Blick and Rita Tekippe (Leiden: E. J. Brill Press, 2004), 535 – 61. Bishop Hugh’s highly enthusiastic regard for Æthelthryth
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the monastery’s daughter houses25 or a noble woman who visited relatives or friends at Ely, for she clearly worked directly from a copy of the Liber Eliensis.26 It is possible that Marie had direct access to the Ely library and either visited the monastery or was loaned a copy of the Ely chronicle.27 Her Latin is particularly accomplished in that she read and translated the often difficult prose of the Ely chronicler, and she knew his text well enough to extract the miracle stories interspersed among grants, prayers, and estate litigation in books two and three of the chronicle. occurs near the time Marie translated the LE life into Anglo-Norman verse, though if McCash is correct in her identification of Marie, the VSA would have circulated well before Bishop Hugh’s building project at Ely. Still, the connections between the writers of several of the lives in the Welbeck manuscript suggest that it was copied at Ely or Bury but certainly after Bishop Hugh’s election to Ely. See especially The Chronicle of the Election of Hugh, Abbot of Bury St. Edmunds and Later Bishop of Ely, ed. and trans. R. M. Thomson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974); and Peter Draper, “Bishop Northwold and the Cult of St. Etheldreda,”in Medieval Art and Architecture at Ely Cathedral, ed. Nicola Coldstream and Peter Draper (Leeds: British Archaeological Association, 1979), 8 –27. There is a strong possibility that Barking is the home of the mysterious Marie or that her text was copied there. The Bishop of Ely held a manor there, and one of the Barking abbesses was connected to the Ufford family through William Ufford’s first wife, Joan (see the last section of this chapter for details about this family); another abbess was sister to Thomas Arundel, Bishop of Ely. 25. The Benedictine nunneries associated with Ely in the late medieval period include Chatteris; St. Radegund’s, Cambridge; Swaffham Bulbeck; and Ickleton. Chatteris is the only one named in Marie’s translation. 26. It is encouraging to find evidence of women’s access to the Ely monastery and its materials in the fourteenth century. Various building programs indicate an association with women and their concerns: rebuilding the octagon and placing a pictorial cycle of Æthelthryth’s life on the capitals; refurbishing the queen’s apartments and providing a pew for her overlooking the monks’ choir; the building of the Lady Chapel; and the construction of an odd building for the reception of female guests within the infirmary. The latter is a two-story house that was constructed for the “sisters,” though it is not clear whether these were nuns or some of the monks’ relatives. Like Campsey Ash, fourteenth-century Ely had a number of visitors, including female ones within the monastic close. The episcopal visitation records repeatedly require that the monks not converse with women and that women should be excluded from the cloister, refectory, dormitory, infirmary, and especially the choir, except for special occasions. The visitation in 1403 indicates that when the prior’s hall is full, relatives and friends of the monks are to be housed in the hostelry or the guest chamber, according to their status. Given the interactions between the monks and women indicated by this evidence, perhaps we might accept that select women were welcome to use the books in the monastic library at Ely, which is how Marie may have had access to the LE. For the episcopal admonitions, see Ely Chapter Ordinances and Visitation Records, 1241–1515, ed. S. J. A. Evans (London, 1940). The expenses for this guest chamber (called the camera) are recorded in the sacrist roll of Alan de Walsingham, who built the chamber. See Sacrist Rolls of Ely, 2 vols., ed. F. R. Chapman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1907), app. B, pt. 2, 138 –47. 27. For evidence that manuscripts from the Ely cathedral library were lent out, see Historical Manuscripts Commission, 6th report, pt. 1, app. (1877; reprint, London: Kraus, 1979), 290 and 296.
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That said, there are a number of differences between La Vie Seinte Audrée and the Liber Eliensis that reveal that Marie developed her own narrative. She eliminated the monastic land claims and disregarded the details about the second translation in 1106 in favor of an expanded life story. The chronicler too had provided a much larger narrative about Æthelthryth’s childhood, her family, and her marriage to Ecgfrith. What is completely original in La Vie Seinte Audrée is a presentation of Æthelthryth’s personal desires regarding virginity and the religious life, a description of Æthelthryth’s sexual desire for Tonberht, an account of Æthelthryth’s daily life while married to both husbands, and a series of narrative interruptions in which Marie comments on Æthelthryth’s experiences.28 For instance, Marie indicates that Æthelthryth and Tonberht have a very amicable and peaceful marriage29 and that because Æthelthryth and Ecgfrith share the royal bed there comes an occasion when the queen must physically resist her husband’s advances.30 These details do not appear in the Liber Eliensis or in any other account before Marie’s translation. Thus, we can see that Marie made deliberate choices in presenting her vernacular life, choices that focused more on the queen’s daily behavior in maintaining her religious convictions and less on her miraculous virginity post mortem. In essence, Marie offsets the large number of miracles that comprise the second half of the vie with an extended narrative that is as focused on the queen’s secular life as on her religious life. Throughout this presentation, moreover, Marie emphasizes Æthelthryth’s role as a patron of religious space, an emphasis that is thematically situated from the beginning of the vie.31 Similar to the ways in which Marie de France addresses her readers in her prologues, the author of La Vie Seinte Audrée speaks directly to the audience in her opening, reminding them of the importance of using one’s resources well. In immediately addressing her theme, Marie not only offers a justification for writing but also guides the reader in understanding Æthelthryth’s gifts of patronage: Poy vaut a home ses tresors, Puis ke l’ame se part del cors, 28. For this discussion, see my “Pour danter sa char et destreindre.” Also, Garrison has briefly discussed the importance of bodily renunciation, in “Lives of St. Ætheldreda,” 261– 68. 29. VSA, lines 335 – 64. 30. VSA, lines 931– 80. 31. With the exception of a few miracles that are inserted in book 1 of the LE and which Marie retains as part of the narrative of Æthelthryth’s life, the VSA is divided into two sections: the first is the vie, which concludes at line 2781; the second half features the miracles.
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S’il ne l’ha por Deu departi Et en sa vie deservi, Ke ses biens venquent ses malices, Son orguil, ses mauveises vices. Gariz est ki desert en vie La Deu grace e sa compaignie. (Little use to a man are his treasures / When the soul departs the body, / If he has not shared them for God’s sake / And used them in his life / In such a way that his good works outweigh his sins, / His pride, his evil vices. / He is saved who in this life deserves / The grace of God and his company.)32 Beginning with this admonishment, Marie frames how readers should understand the choices Æthelthryth makes, for she follows this opening adage with the line “Ce fist la virge saint Audrée” (Thus lived the virgin saint Audrey).33 This introduction effectively establishes the terms of Marie’s narrative and indicates that she will be concerned with demonstrating how Æthelthryth has used her resources well, how she has used them for God’s sake and warranted his company in heaven. Like Marie de France’s, this prologue allows the author to stress that she too is putting her talents as a writer to good use by translating the vita for a new audience. Her commentary is not simply self-serving; instead, it serves as a reminder that her readers also have an obligation to use their resources in God’s service. Warming to the subject of patronage, Marie describes the benevolent gestures of several East Anglian noblemen, including Lingtinges’s foundation at Soham in honor of Felix, Bishop of East Anglia,34 and the multiple gifts of Anna, King of East Anglia and father to Æthelthryth. According to Marie, “Grant devocion out li [Anna] ber / De Deu servir et cotiver / Et de eglises edefier, / Plusors fist aparaillier” (This noble man had a great devotion / To serving and worshipping God / And to building churches. / He had a great number made).35 In identifying the king’s contributions (which Marie does twice within the first five hundred lines of the poem), the author illustrates that Æthelthryth learned how to be a benefactor from her 32. 33. 34. 35.
VSA, lines 9 –16. VSA, line 17. VSA, lines 471– 82. VSA, lines 513 –16.
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father, who was a loyal guardian of the community.36 This assertion demonstrates that Marie sees patronage as an aristocratic obligation, that those who are endowed with the resources are required to support the poor, the widows, and those in need who live in their communities. As an introduction to aristocratic patronage, the description of Anna’s activities helps the reader to understand the extent of Æthelthryth’s benevolence. In effect, King Anna’s actions become a narrative gloss on his daughter’s gifts of patronage, illustrating Æthelthryth’s obligation as a royal daughter and as a queen to imitate her father’s largesse. Marie makes it clear, however, that the daughter exceeds the father when she turns to a description of the donations Æthelthryth made while she was Queen of Northumbria, recounting the organization of Hexham and listing vestments and plate offered to Cuthbert while he was Bishop of Durham.37 Æthelthryth’s religious devotion is manifested in several activities, including prayer and fasting, but along with admiration for Æthelthryth’s chastity within marriage, the queen’s support of Hexham and Durham is where Marie focuses her attention. The author elaborates on the queen’s ability to withstand the pangs of physical desire and on her generous donation at Hexham and relegates forms of asceticism to the background. It seems, therefore, that Marie is most attuned to the public aspects of Æthelthryth’s piety—that she lives separately and chastely from her husbands and that she gives generously to the church. She attributes complete agency to Æthelthryth for this behavior, saying that Æthelthryth founded Hexham and that she alone . . . mit son poer, Tote sa entente et son voler Ke ensure pout en sa vie Nostre dame sainte Marie Ke Joseph out en mariage E fu virge tout son aage. ( . . . placed her strength, / And all her intent and her will / To follow the life of / Our lady St. Mary / Who married Joseph / And was virgin all her life).38 36. VSA, lines 145 –48 and 517–27. 37. VSA, lines 1093 –106. 38. VSA, lines 335 –41.
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Marie’s focus on gift-giving continues as she describes Æthelthryth’s life after she joined the royal convent at Coldingham, which was governed by Ecgfrith’s aunt, Æbbe. There, Æthelthryth continued her acts of largesse by using her royal vestments to pay for improvements to the house (which seems appropriate, given that these resources are used to support a community associated with the Northumbrian royal family), and during her time there Æthelthryth established another monastery and church nearby.39 Marie indicates that the new foundation at Coldingham was planned ahead, for Æthelthryth brought with her members of the Hexham community to people the house and again charged Owine with leading it. In populating the house with Hexham members, Æthelthryth linked the Coldingham house directly to her first foundation; in describing this detail, Marie reminds her audience of the queen’s previous generosity and success. Implicitly, the author demonstrates that the Hexham foundation was so well established that it would continue without Æthelthryth’s direct oversight (or without Owine’s, for that matter), so that the queen was free to direct her energies elsewhere. Marie suggests that Æthelthryth’s role as a patron should not be understood as limited in scope; rather, the audience should see that she was building a network of communities dedicated to God. Marie then explains that when Æthelthryth left Coldingham for Ely, she took two nuns with her to establish her third monastic community. In effect, Marie demonstrates how a patron can build on the success of previous donations and expand her ecclesiastical authority by linking the various institutions that she sponsors. This presentation also assigns Æthelthryth complete agency for these institutions, suggesting that she planned these foundations carefully and supported them by selecting effective leaders to guide them. Where the monastic centers seem to have been made with much forethought, the establishment of parish churches appears to have occurred as a form of impromptu thanksgiving. Like the Liber Eliensis, Marie records the miracle of the rising waters that protect Æthelthryth from Ecgfrith’s attempt to abduct her from Coldingham. Following this event, La Vie Seinte Audrée indicates that Æthelthryth founded two churches, one at West Halton, just after she crossed south of the Humber (and presumably into safety as she leaves her husband’s kingdom), and another farther along at Etheldredstowe, the site of a second miracle. The story recounts that, 39. VSA, lines 1217–22 and 1710 –12.
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needing rest, the party paused, and Æthelthryth stuck her staff in the ground. While she slept, it flowered into a tree.40 Both of these foundations mark the two major miracles that occurred before the saint’s death, and both indicate the complete separation of the queen from her secular life as wife and widow. Where Æthelthryth had exhibited appropriate benevolence as a queen, Marie indicates that only after she had abandoned her authority as queen do the miracles occur. She suggests, moreover, that only then is Æthelthryth able to take on the responsibility of governing her own house. Marie does not claim that the establishment of Hexham is the initial break between Æthelthryth and Ecgfrith, but she does indicate that patronage is an independent activity for women, indeed, that whatever their marital circumstances, lay women themselves have an obligation to support sacred spaces. Marie also demonstrates that Æthelthryth’s insistence on living a religious life led directly to a career as a monastic sponsor, that her active resistance to Ecgfrith’s demands resulted in several church foundations, and, eventually, that her decision to return to Ely, where she refurbished a church and founded a monastery, led to her position as abbess. In addition to these foundations, Marie asserts: “Et en plusurs autres contrees / Out autres eglises fundees” (And in many other countries / She had founded other churches).41 Thus, while Æthelthryth began her patronage of Hexham while she was yet Queen of Northumbria, it is when she renounces this secular position that her work as a religious patron develops. In actively refusing Ecgfrith’s attempt to draw her back to her throne, Æthelthryth is able to continue unheeded in her role as patron. Once Æthelthryth is separated from her husband both physically and legally, Marie explains that she Repeira en l’ile de Ely En sa lige possession 40. VSA, lines 1319 –424 and 1511–44. Archaeological evidence at Flixborough, which is near West Halton, indicates a Saxon settlement (probably a nunnery) that Ben Whitwell suggests might be the foundation made by Æthelthryth after she crossed the Humber. See his “Flixborough,” Current Archaeology 11.126 (1991): 244 –47, and “Flixborough’s Royal Heritage,” Minerva 2.5 (1991): 6 – 9. For a summary of the excavations at Flixborough, see D. Evans, “Flixborough, Middle Saxon Settlement,” Archaeology in Lincolnshire and South Humberside 26 (1990): 35, 37. Artifacts from the site include pins, buckles, rings, tweezers, loom weights, spindle whorls, needles, knives, shears, an inscribed plaque and multiple styli. Dating evidence indicates that the site was in use between the late seventh century and the late ninth century. 41. VSA, lines 1713 –14.
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K’ele out de Tonbert, son baron . . . . . . . . . . . En ceste ile sainte Audree Une riche eglise a fondee, Pur ce k’ele ert des Estengleis, Del linage as nobles Engleis, Par esperit de prophecie Et par sa seinte noble vie. Le plusurs ke fillies avoient Dedens sa garde se les metoient Pur aprendre la loy devine Et de li sen et discipline . . . . . . . . . Sainte Audree Deu mercia Des compaignes ke il li dona. En cel tens ne avoit asise En cel yle fors une eglise. Cele destruit le roy Penda, Seinte Audree la redresca. Maison, officines i fist, En l’aorner grant peine mist. (She took refuge in the Isle of Ely, / In her sovereign possession / That she had had from her husband Tonberht. . . . / In this isle Saint Audrey / Founded a rich church. / Because she was descended from the East Angles, / Of the noble lineage of the English. / Because of her spirit of prophecy / And because of her holy noble life, / Most of those who had daughters / Placed them in her care / To learn from her divine law / And good sense and discipline. . . . / Saint Audrey thanked God / For the companions he had given her. / At that time only one church / Was situated on that island. / This was destroyed by King Penda / And Audrey reestablished it. / She established the house and workshops there / And took great pains in adorning it.)42 When Marie documents the foundation of Ely, she indicates that Æthelthryth built the house using the dower property from her first marriage. In 42. VSA, lines 1600 – 602, 1627–36, and 1643 –50.
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an eloquent discussion of La Vie Seinte Audrée, Wogan-Browne has demonstrated that the saint’s ownership and use of her dower property to establish the monastic church at Ely is akin to thirteenth-century rituals in which widows used their dower portions autonomously. The saint’s virginity, moreover, is a symbol of her volition, her power in the face of social or political demands on her body and her economic resources. Thus, Marie illustrates how Æthelthryth has repeatedly used the resources at hand—the estate at Hexham, her royal vestments, and a dower property—to found and support new religious sites. Where the vie then recounts the story of Æthelthryth’s governance of Ely, her ascetic choices, and her death (an account that follows Bede closely), we see that Marie has opted to enlarge the events leading to Æthelthryth’s position as abbess of Ely. It seems that the author felt no need to elaborate on the well-known narrative of Æthelthryth’s miraculous virginity and posthumous incorruption; instead, Marie concentrates on producing a narrative that illustrated how the queen lived her daily life, how she exercised her responsibilities as a noblewoman, how she used her talents well. As Wogan-Browne contends, “Marie’s rewriting of the vita produces a model of less immediate relevance to the monks of Ely and of greater relevance to the concerns of Anglo-Norman noblewomen.”43 Thus, Marie focuses on both the personal and political aspects of the saint’s activities and in so doing addresses many of the themes crucial to aristocratic women’s lives: political marriage and social responsibility; inheritance and dower rights; patronage and economic disposal of wealth; fertility, sterility, and the production of heirs; and patriarchal anxiety over female independence. Marie’s focus on Æthelthryth’s patronage was obviously understood as the most significant aspect of La Vie Seinte Audrée, if we judge by the historiated initial that begins the life. Whereas many medieval depictions illustrate the crowned Æthelthryth in Benedictine garb holding a book and crozier denoting her status as an abbess, a miniature in the Campsey manuscript departs from this standard iconography to illustrate the abbess holding a miniature model of Ely in her right hand and reading from a book. As noted above, the VSA is extant in only one medieval codex, which is now BL, Add. ms 70513. The Anglo-Norman life, which Marie composed in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, was copied between 1275 and 1300 into a manuscript held by the Campsey priory, whose imprint appears on the first folio: “Cest liuere est a Couent de Campisse” (This book is from the 43. Wogan-Browne, “Rerouting the Dower,” 37.
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convent of Campsey).44 The relatively undecorated manuscript contains thirteen saints’ lives, and of them only six begin with miniatures illustrating the saint whose story follows: Edward the Confessor, Osyth, Modwenna, Richard of Chichester, Katherine of Alexandria, and Æthelthryth.45 The manuscript’s visual representation of Æthelthryth is limited to the historiated initial “A,” in which the saint is shown holding a miniature of Ely cathedral in her right hand (fig. 7). In a full frontal position, Æthelthryth stands beside a podium upon which a book rests. The standard crozier is omitted, and the tall podium replaces it visually, supporting the book from which she reads. The saint gestures with her open left hand at the cathedral in her right, as if she is reading Marie’s narrative and describing her foundation of Ely. More clearly than any other visual image of the saint that has come before, the miniature confirms the importance of Æthelthryth’s patronage and her authority as the abbess of Ely. The iconography here makes it explicit that in Marie’s text Æthelthryth’s role as patron is prominent. The addition of the model church underscores Æthelthryth’s position as founder and confirms the importance of her architectural campaigns, while the book, resting on a podium, provides a metaphysical nod toward the manuscript that contains the image, which was read by the Campsey Ash nuns. As the teacher, Æthelthryth anachronistically reads from Marie’s narrative, describing her patronage of the Ely foundation, and this image of the abbess/saint reading from a book replicates the use of this manuscript by the canonesses, and in so doing underscores the nuns’ literacy. As the passage above indicates, Marie’s textual description of Æthelthryth’s work at Ely emphasizes the richness of the church, the development of the house and workshops to support it, and the degree of effort involved in the project. Marie explains that Æthelthryth rebuilt a church 44. In What Nuns Read, Bell describes the manuscript and the other known books in the Campsey library at 69 – 70 and 123 –26. In Religious Women in Medieval East Anglia, 54, Gilchrist and Oliva find that the Campsey Ash ex libris inscription suggests that the nuns regularly lent books out, which provides evidence that lay women might have had access to the VSA outside the priory. The manuscript itself was later in the library collection at Welbeck Abbey, a male Augustinian house refounded by the bishops of Ely. How the manuscript arrived at Welbeck from Campsey is unknown, but perhaps the Augustinian connection between the two houses provides one explanation, and the connections between Campsey and Ely suggest another. The manuscript is now British Library, Add. ms 70513 (formerly Welbeck Abbey ms 1.C.1). 45. These include Elizabeth of Hungary, Paphnutius, Paul the Hermit, Thomas Becket, Mary Magdalene, Edward the Confessor, Edmund the Confessor (Archbishop of Canterbury), Audrée, Osyth, Faith, Modwenna, Richard of Chichester, and Katherine of Alexandria. For a full description, see Russell, “Campsey Collection,” 51– 83.
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Image not available
Fig. 7. Detail, historiated initial, Marie’s La Vie Seinte Audrée. British Library, Add. ms 70513, fol. 100v, 1375 –1425
that was previously destroyed and led it so well that nobles sent their daughters to live with her and learn from her. Like the Liber Eliensis, Marie goes further by explaining that Æthelthryth’s sister and nieces become abbess after her and that the community develops because of the dynastic support of the royal family of women.46 La Vie Seinte Audrée indicates, therefore, that the building of Ely is the work of an aristocratic woman and her sororal family. As female founders and patrons became more widely known throughout the later medieval period, the visual arts began to reflect hagiographic and historical practice. The two fourteenth-century panels discussed in the first chapter include a pictorial cycle of the saint’s life, detailing her participation in the building of Ely (fig. 8). The paintings form one of only two pictorial cycles of Æthelthryth’s life to survive, the other being the capitals carved after 1321, including the scene of raptus described in Chapter 3. Though this life is inscribed directly above the monks’ choir, none of the images details her foundation of Ely or her patronage of other churches and religious communities, which suggests that early on patronage 46. VSA, lines 2141– 62 and 2364 –409. Wogan-Browne makes this point and the connection between the VSA and aristocratic patronage in “Rerouting the Dower,” 39 –41.
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Image not available
Fig. 8. Pictorial cycle, retable, four scenes from the life of Æthelthryth. Ely Cathedral, 1455
was not a monastic concern in the way that Æthelthryth’s power as an intercessor was. The second cycle, from which only four scenes have survived, includes only two from the previous cycle, which are the marriage to Ecgfrith and the translation of Æthelthryth’s incorrupt body. The panels, which were likely part of a retable at Æthelthryth’s shrine, have been dated to 1455 and are thought to have been painted by Robert Pygot.47 The 47. The panels were found being used for cupboard doors in an Ely cottage, as John Fletcher notes in “Slices from a Deep Cake: Dating Panel Paintings of St. Etheldreda from Ely,” Country Life 155 (1974): 728 –30. Fletcher demonstrates that by dating the oak boards on which the panels are painted the retable can be dated not to 1425, as has been suggested, but between 1445 and 1460. Under each picture is a Latin verse, but like many of these inscriptions, the one describing the building of Ely is damaged and illegible. Nicholas Rogers
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addition of one scene provides a strong indication that the artist relied on another source, such as Marie’s written text, to accentuate Æthelthryth’s position as builder of her community. The four images depict her marriage to the Northumbrian prince, their divorce, her direct supervision of the monastic builders at Ely, and the scene of Æthelthryth’s translation. In the third image, she stands at the lower left in Benedictine garb, crowned and holding a red book with gold hinges as she directs a crew of five masons who are building the monastery walls. The specific imagery of Æthelthryth building her house shows that this ideology was centrally placed at Ely’s high altar by the mid-fifteenth century. Unlike earlier portrayals, here the saint holds only a closed book, an emblem of her teaching; in the first three scenes, she does not carry the crozier, which had become a standard emblem for her, nor does she hold a lily as she did in Æthelwold’s benedictional. The exclusion of both the staff and the lily in the third image signals an important pictorial moment in this cult: as the benefactor of this house, Æthelthryth literally directs its foundation; the image reveals this intention by showing the masons in the preliminary stages of building. Her position is the royal foundress, not yet its abbess, and her virginity is yet to be proved by the incorrupt body. Thus, this artist has inserted an image unknown before, focusing more on the queen’s divorce and her subsequent position as the royal founder of Ely, a detail that Bede did not emphasize and that as a result later writers did not dwell on until Marie wrote her vie. Like the absent crozier, nuns and monks are noticeably lacking in the third image; only two ladies, dressed as lay women, stand behind the saint. The artist has specifically included the house’s literal beginnings, showing Æthelthryth’s responsibility for its construction. By placing her at the lower forefront of the scene where she towers above the foundation’s walls, with a red book clasped in one hand, the other upraised as if explaining to the mason in front of her how to cut the stone, the saint has been positioned above the foundation, showing her special beneficence as well as her intentions for Ely. Indeed, as McCash has remarked, the gesture is a standard one of patronage, showing Æthelthryth’s authority over the building program.48 has narrowed the date further by identifying the artist as Robert Pygot of Bury St. Edmunds and identifying the passage from a liturgical text. See “Regional Production,” in Gothic: Art for England, 1400 –1547, ed. Richard Marks and Paul Williamson (London: V&A Publications, 2003), 94 –97 and 430 –31. 48. A private communication, for which I extend my thanks.
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The inclusion of this scene is suggestive about the presentation in Marie’s vie: Æthelthryth’s agency and active participation is foremost in this narrative. The first scene shows her marriage, and the second shows her departure as she walks away from Ecgfrith, suggesting that it is her choice to dissolve the marriage. Furthermore, the presentation of Æthelthryth as nun, founder, and director of the building program situates her authority over Ely. The fourth picture completes the imagery suggested by the third. The translation of the body itself is significant, but the progression of events in the cycle shows the queen’s marriage into great opulence, her departure from it, and her religious behavior thereafter. By founding her house, Æthelthryth has established a place for women, as the fourth image illustrates. Seven Benedictine nuns surround the saint’s corpse, some placing her carefully within the marble sarcophagus, others with their hands upraised in adoration. Bishop Wilfrid and another male religious stand beside the tomb, with four laity behind and the doctor standing at the head. All strike a pose similar to the nuns, raising their hands in awe or smiling in wonder at the incorrupted body. The image reveals several important concerns: the healed scar is documented by the bishop and the doctor; the monks mentioned by Bede are noticeably absent, as if the double house were built for nuns alone; a gold crozier stands next to the sarcophagus as evidence of her abbatial role; and the elaborate floor decoration signals the completion of Æthelthryth’s house. In the previous image, only the cut stone is visible, and the workers are depicted actually constructing the exterior walls. The fourth image, however, is an interior illustration, and the glazed floor tiles demonstrate the church’s lavish appointments in elaborate detail. In all the images, the artist has provided a rich gold background, the first two showing the great wealth of the marital couple, as demonstrated by the sumptuous clothing and the intricate floor designs. The spartan image of the gray monastic walls in the third scene contrasts with the final image showing the highly decorated tomb and the colored floor tiles. When completed, the monastic church’s interior recalls the richness of the floor tiles in Ecgfrith’s royal house in the first two scenes. The extravagance is tempered by the black robes of the nuns, but even they, in the multiple yards of cloth, imitate the wealthy opulence of the laity’s attire. In the illustration of her death, the artist has carefully indicated that Æthelthryth has fulfilled her royal mission: she founded a rich house and brought many young women to live with her, a direct recollection of Marie’s narrative. The panel suggests several of the concerns in Marie’s text, but, most important, it serves to illustrate Æthelthryth’s direct responsibility for the
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establishment of her house. The combined symbolism between text and image suggests the importance of patronage to a late medieval audience that was particularly invested in patronage and in securing their own chantry priests to pray for their souls.49 The date of the Campsey manuscript—and thus the historiated initial showing Æthelthryth’s role as patron— coincides with the first pictorial cycle produced at Ely, which was limited to the view of those within the monks’ choir but did not focus on patronage. The miniature from the retable, which would have been displayed for public consumption at Æthelthryth’s shrine and therefore would be available to monastic, clerical, and lay devotees, seems to provide the earliest depiction of Æthelthryth’s patronage, and as such it establishes a link in the visual tradition between the two pictorial cycles, one dated to 1321, the other to the mid-fifteenth century. Marie’s narrative holds the key to understanding the artistic changes rendered in the second cycle because the historiated initial provides a direct complement to Marie’s hagiographic documentation of aristocratic women who literally held their religious houses in their own hands. If so, we have evidence that a text that circulated well outside of Ely had an impact on the presentation of the saint at the cult center, and we can begin to see how a consideration of lay concerns shaped the cult in the later medieval period. Marie’s audience, therefore, becomes important to understanding the synergies between the original monastic producers of the cult and those who received it in later periods. Her translation appears to have transformed the ways in which the cult was conceived by those who had the power to disseminate it, and thus it is necessary to consider how her text affected religious and lay audiences alike, even as it becomes necessary to reconsider how production and reception are not always conducted from the cult center outward.
Marie’s Vie Seinte Audrée and Her Audience at Campsey Ash Priory As an Anglo-Norman life, Marie’s narrative is part of an important hagiographic tradition about female saints in England. A wider, more systematic study of the seventy extant Anglo-Norman lives is warranted to document the theme of patronage in them, but as Wogan-Browne observes, “all the female saints [in the Anglo-Norman group] are high born,” and of the six 49. See, e.g., Judith Middleton-Stewart, Inward Purity and Outwards Spendour: Death and Remembrance in the Deanery of Dunwich, Suffolk, 1370 –1547 (Woodbridge, Suff.: Boydell & Brewer, 2001).
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lives devoted to English saints, “the three on women (Etheldreda, Modwenna, Osith) are all virgin princesses and subsequently royal abbesses, whereas the native male ecclesiastical saints (Edmund of Abingdon, Becket, Richard of Chichester) have meritocratic clerical careers and are not royal or even, necessarily, noble by birth.”50 Though limited in number, the models seem to confirm a gendered split in Anglo-Norman hagiography: female saints are exclusively royal, as well as virginal abbesses, whereas male saints were judged on their ecclesiastical careers outside the monastery. This paradigm mirrors Bede’s but also confirms the social realities of medieval life. Men who became saints usually had ecclesiastical careers regardless of their socioeconomic station and could transform their lives through Christian service; female saints, on the other hand, were noteworthy for their virginity, their royalty, and their abbatial position—the highest ecclesiastical career available to them. In fact, the three states combine to form an ideological pattern, as if their royalty enables the choice of virginity, which because of its merit provides an opportunity to take on a leadership role within the convent. Thus, the women exchange royal status in the secular world for authoritative status within the cloister. Given that female saints’ lives focus so regularly on the appropriateness of cloistered life, it is not surprising to find that codices containing them are associated with the most prestigious English nunneries.51 Marie’s Vie Seinte Audrée is a perfect example of the type of reading that would appeal to aristocratic women who lived in or supported female institutions, and its survival in the Campsey Ash manuscript, along with vitae of other royal female saints, is not surprising. The priory was a meeting ground for women: nuns, lay women, and vowesses. Situated within the Liberty of Etheldreda (comprised of the six Hundreds of Carlford, Colneis, Wilford, Plomesgate, Loes, and Thredling and held by the prior and convent of Ely), Campsey Ash was a wealthy house.52 Campsey Ash was founded ca. 1195, when Theobald Valognes gave his entire estate there to his sisters Joan and Agnes to build a nunnery. They established an Augustinian house and became its first two 50. Wogan-Browne, “‘Clerc u lai, muïne u dame,’” 64. 51. Wogan-Browne, Saints’ Lives and Women’s Literary Culture, 196 –97. 52. William White, White’s 1844 Suffolk: A Reprint of the 1844 Issue of History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Suffolk (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1970), 14 –15. The other major holding was the Liberty of St. Edmund, which included seven hundreds, which makes it the largest in Suffolk. The Duke of Norfolk’s Liberty comprised only the manors of Bungay, Kelsale, Carlton, Peasenhall, Dennington, Brundish, Cratfield, the three Stonhams, and the four Ilketshalls. Thus, a large section of Suffolk was held by two large cathedral monasteries: Ely and Bury St. Edmunds, and both are monuments to Anglo-Saxon saints.
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prioresses.53 Because the priory had a number of wealthy patrons, it flourished, and by the tax roll of 1291 the nunnery and its holdings were valued at more than £107.54 The endowments increased during the fourteenth century, when several aristocratic families, including the royal family, provided economic support to the priory.55 In a comparison study of both male and female houses in the Norwich diocese, Marilyn Oliva has demonstrated that Campsey Ash was the wealthiest house in East Anglia and one of the richest in all England.56 According to the Valor Ecclesiasticus, Campsey Ash was valued at £213 5s 5 1/4d, which means that from 1291 until the house was dissolved its worth doubled, a rarity in women’s houses. Among the eleven nunneries Oliva examined, Shouldham Priory was second in terms of wealth, with £138, and the rest fell under £67, with Flixton Priory valuing at just over £23. Thus, Campsey’s wealth far exceeded Shouldham’s, and both more than doubled the worth of other female houses in the Norwich diocese. Campsey Ash and Shouldham, the two most prominent houses, had the richest nuns and house guests, boasted nuns of the highest 53. Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. 6, pt. 1, 584. See also R. E. C. Waters, Genealogical Memoirs of the Extinct Family of Chester of Chicheley, Their Ancestors and Descendants, vol. 1 (London: Robson & Sons, 1878), 325; and VCH 2:112 –15. In Women Religious, Thompson quotes the charter for the priory’s foundation at 178n.; she also discusses the various Valognes foundations at 141 and 178. A summary of the information in the VCH, Suffolk, also occurs in Collections Towards the History and Antiquities of Elmeswell and Campsey Ash in the County of Suffolk (1790; reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1968), 21–24. This history notes a dispute between Robert Valognes, who claimed the advowson of Campsey Ash, and the nuns, who denied his title to it. The Bishop of Norwich decided that Robert de Valognes should continue as their patron, that he could seize the nunnery sede vacante, and that he was to approve the election of prioresses. This Robert was father to Cecily de Valognes Ufford, William Ufford’s grandmother. For the most complete genealogy of the Valognes family, see W. A. Copinger, ed., The Manors of Suffolk: Notes on Their History and Devolution, vol. 5 (Manchester: Taylor, Garnett, Evans & Co., 1909), 146. See also VCH, Hertfordshire, vol. 3 (1912; reprint, London: Dawsons, 1971), 73 –74; Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee, eds., Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 20 (London: Oxford University Press, 1917), 83 – 84; John A. C. Vincent, “Sir Alexander Balliol of Cavers and the Barony of Valoynes,” The Genealogist 6 (n.d.): 1– 7; and Herbert C. Andrews, The Benstede Family and Its Predecessors in Hertfordshire and Essex: The De Valoignes and Balliols (1937): 1–50. 54. VCH, Suffolk, 2:112. 55. VCH, Suffolk, 2:112 –15. A number of alienation licenses were granted in favor of Campsey Ash, some at the request of Queen Philippa. For instance, John de Framlingham, clerk, obtained a license in 1332 for the manor of Carlton-by-Kelsall to be given to the priory for use by the chaplains. Other licenses gave them the advowson of the church of Hargham, the church of Burgh (both at Matilda de Burgh’s request), the manor of Wickham Market, the manor of Horpol, a fourth of the manor of Dallinghoo, and the manor of Hillington at the request of Roger de Boys and others. 56. Marilyn Oliva, The Convent and the Community in Late Medieval England: Female Monasteries in the Diocese of Norwich, 1350 to 1540 (Oxford: Boydell Press, 1998), 41.
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social rank, and received the most patronage.57 The two houses are central to this study in that the Uffords held the advowson at Campsey Ash, and the Beauchamps, Isabella Ufford’s natal family, held the advowson at Shouldham. The extraordinary wealth of these benefactors made these nunneries exceptional. The survival of Marie’s life in the Campsey Ash manuscript demonstrates that the Anglo-Norman life circulated within an aristocratic religious audience and, given the priory’s position as a boardinghouse for wealthy women, among a lay audience. While the Campsey nuns and their guests were obviously not Marie’s first audience, the survival of La Vie Seinte Audrée there suggests that there may have been similarities between the Campsey community and the community for which Marie was writing. We cannot know for certain to whom this work was addressed or for whom it was produced, but its circulation tells us a great deal about those who appreciated it. The early thirteenth-century Vie Seinte Audrée was copied into a manuscript dated to the last quarter of that century, and an inscription on the last folio indicates that the manuscript was produced at Campsey to be read aloud by the nuns during their meals: “Ce liure [est] deviseie a la priorie de Kampseie de lire a mengier” (This book was made at or bequeathed to the priory of Campsey for reading during mealtimes).58 This small piece of evidence illustrates that Campsey had French-reading as well as socially powerful nuns. That Campsey was often a boardinghouse for aristocratic women demonstrates further that the audience for this text included nonprofessed women. The mixture of religious and lay women who might have appreciated this text is tantalizing, as are the connections between these two groups as readers. Riddy has demonstrated that by the late fourteenth century a female aristocratic audience was not necessarily lay or religious but instead merged those two distinct categories into one audience: “the literary culture of nuns in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and that of devout gentlewomen not only overlapped but were more or less indistinguishable.”59 57. Oliva, Convent and the Community, 57, 107, 121–22, 172 –73. 58. Bell, What Nuns Read, 123 –26. Russell notes that “deviseie” is ambiguous and might mean here “to plan, devise, arrange; to assign, designate; to bequeath.” See his caution against using this phrase to argue for the nuns’ production of the manuscript, in “The Campsey Collection,” 63 – 64. For a more general overview of monastic book production in England, see A. I. Doyle, “Book Production by the Monastic Orders in England (ca. 1375 –1530): Assessing the Evidence,” Medieval Book Production: Assessing the Evidence, ed. Linda L. Brownrigg (Los Altos Hills, Calif.: Anderson-Lovelace and Red Gull Press, 1990), 1–19. 59. Riddy, “Women Talking About the Things of God,” 110. The permeable boundary of the convent wall is also an important part of Warren’s analysis in Spiritual Economies. For a
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Riddy illustrates a significant shift in academic thought regarding late medieval women as readers. Instead of identifying a complete split between lay and religious audiences, she demonstrates how the physical boundary of the cloister did not separate aristocratic nuns from their lay counterparts. Previously imagined as a concrete categorization of women’s lives, the physical space of the nunnery seemed to have separated lay and religious women. Oliva’s discussion of East Anglian nunneries complements Riddy’s argument and shows that aristocratic women had access into and out of cloistered spaces, often using nunneries as boardinghouses. Thus, Marie’s text cannot be understood as one devoted to nuns but rather as one devoted to an aristocratic field of women readers, an audience that extended far beyond the male-centered community at Ely and its daughter houses. Although it is difficult to ascertain Marie’s immediate audience in the early thirteenth century, the presence of this later manuscript at Campsey Ash confirms that La Vie Seinte Audrée was circulated outside of Ely among a group of women readers who held the socioeconomic position to appreciate—and be influenced by—the presentation of patronage Marie offers. The reception of this text at this affluent and influential priory suggests several possibilities about the transmission of the text. Campsey’s position within the Liberty of Etheldreda, its aristocratic status, and its wealth place it as a counterpoint to rich monastic centers like Ely and Bury St. Edmunds and qualify Marie’s extended audience as a group of wealthy, aristocratic women who were probably educated.60 Specifically, Marie’s text documents some of the anxieties of secular women’s lives and illustrates the codification of the choices lay women have, even as she demonstrates how women could use the category of chaste patron to exercise control over their holdings. By illustrating how Æthelthryth had adopted the role of patron while queen and later as abbess, and how she used her own dowers to fund these initiatives, Marie established a very different sign by which Æthelthryth’s life could be read. Presented as a model by which aristocratic women might imitate Æthelthryth’s behavior, Marie’s Vie discussion of the matrix of women readers and book owners, see Mary C. Erler, Women, Reading, and Piety in Late Medieval England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 60. David Sherlock notes that a number of books belonged to the nunnery, including a psalter (ca. 1300); another psalter (late twelfth century), bound with a thirteenth-century hymnal; a book of verse (fifteenth century); and a now-lost prayerbook. See his “Excavation at Campsea Ash Priory, 1970,” Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology 32 (1970/72): 121–39 at 125. Bell provides a more lengthy description of the six manuscripts known to have been in the Campsey Ash library, in What Nuns Read, 123 –26.
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redirects the story of a twice-married virgin. The male writers heretofore had focused on using Æthelthryth as a symbol of monasticism and ecclesiastical leadership, a symbol directed at male audiences who could support monasteries through their service. Marie, by contrast, seems to be writing directly to an audience of women, and not necessarily women religious. Indeed, she seems to be suggesting why lay women might want to consider adopting practices that at the very least would support religious spaces. Thus, this chapter concludes by addressing the aristocratic women at Campsey Ash as one of the potential audiences for Marie’s account. One in particular stands out as a woman who may have been influenced by Marie’s account of Æthelthryth’s life: Isabella Ufford, the Countess of Suffolk and patron of Campsey Ash Priory. While Isabella lived seven hundred years after Æthelthryth, significant parallels exist between the two women’s lives, and Marie’s narrative contextualizes the saint’s life in a way that speaks directly to the social concerns of Isabella’s life. Because La Vie Seinte Audrée included themes that appealed to an audience of aristocratic women, the following case study details the life of Isabella Ufford, a widow who may well have been affected by Marie’s life and the ideologies of chastity and patronage noted therein. The marital choices of an English widow—and by extension the possible propagation of children— concerned her family, her overlord, church authorities, and the king. Her choices included remarriage and sexual activity, the conventual life and the imposition of chastity, and secular abstinence as a lay widow. Public concern heightened when, at the husband’s death, a wife remained childless, leading to anxiety over inheritance and the dispensation of aristocratic titles. The aristocratic widow too had concerns as she stood at the crossroads between marriage, the cloister, and her own independence. Isabella was twice widowed, and after the death of her second husband, the Earl of Suffolk, she chose to take a vow of chastity at Campsey Ash in front of the Bishop of Ely. The vow, which precluded remarriage and future children, did not exempt her from her status as countess and allowed her to maintain and utilize the dower properties she received from both marriages. Her continued patronage of the priory at Campsey Ash, where she held the advowson after her husband’s death, suggests that she participated in the ideology of patronage established by Marie’s life of Æthelthryth. By no means was it the only hagiographic narrative to posit this behavioral position for women, but Marie’s text was read at Campsey, and Isabella could well have heard it read or read it herself. The countess’ participation in the forms of patronage that La Vie Seinte Audrée supports suggests that by reading it aloud the Campsey
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nuns were not only celebrating the life of a virtuous royal woman who was worthy of imitation but also directly encouraging Isabella’s patronage for their community.
A Widow’s Vow On 21 March 1382, Isabella, Countess of Suffolk, stood at the church’s high altar of Campsey Ash, where she vowed to remain chaste in perpetuity: “Jeo, Isabelle jadys la femme William de Ufforde, Count de Suff, vowe a Dieu et a nostre dame seynte Marie et a toux seyntz en presence de tresreverencz piers en Dieu Evesqz de Ely et de Norwiz que jeo doi estre chast dors en avaunt ma vie duraunte.” (“I, Isabella, formerly the wife of William de Ufford, Count of Suffolk, vow to God and to our lady saint Marie and all saints in the presence of the very reverent pair, the Lords Bishop of Ely and of Norwich, that I will be forever chaste during my life.”)61 This proclamation, recorded in Thomas Arundel’s episcopal register, was made immediately following Isabella’s husband’s unexpected death on 13 February 1382.62 The recorded vow makes explicit her status as widow, the name of her husband, the presence of the two bishops, and her intention to 61. The register is G/I/2 of the manuscripts of the Dean and Chapter of Ely at Cambridge University Library. See also J. H. Crosby’s abstracts of the registers’ contents in the Ely Diocesan Remembrancer (EDR), a nineteenth-century periodical that published Crosby’s catalog serially between 1889 and 1914. The abstract can be found in the EDR 124 at 153. The CUL manuscript room holds a collation of these serial notices, without volume numbers, which has the shelfmark CUL, ms Adv. c. 116.1. I am quoting here from the CUL collection of Crosby’s calendar at page 72. A notice of Isabella’s vow also appears in A. Gibbons’s Ely Episcopal Records: A Calendar and Concise View of the Episcopal Records Preserved in the Muniment Room of the Palace at Ely (Lincoln: James Williamson, 1891), 146 and 393, which is copied directly from the 12th report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, app. 9, 386; the witness list in both, however, is incorrect. Waters also records this vow, Genealogical Memoirs, 336. 62. Bishop Arundel’s register says that Isabella took the vow in 1381, but the language she speaks indicates that she is a widow, so it must have been after that date, for the earl died on 15 February 1382. G. E. Cokayne lists the date as 1381– 82 in GEC, 152 –53, but May McKisack has clarified the year to 1382, in The Fourteenth Century, 1307–1399 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959), 428 –29. Her findings are confirmed by the Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem and Other Analogous Documents Preserved in the Public Record Office, vol. 15 (London: HMSO, 1970), 239 –58, listing the inquiries in the month of March, 5 Richard II. Therefore, the vow must be dated 21 March 1382, after the earl’s death.
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remain chaste. The pledge, moreover, names the Virgin Mary, the woman who symbolized chastity before, during, and after childbirth, as well as throughout her marriage. Late medieval women who aspired to be like Mary were faced with physical and social contradictions; among their choices were remarriage, lay chastity, and the nunnery, but as Margery Kempe’s autobiographical account makes explicit, none could count on chastity within marriage without a similar pledge from her husband, especially when both were members of the high gentry. Because William was Earl of Suffolk and Isabella was a daughter of the Earl of Warwick, both had a vested interest in producing children to continue the familial connection between these two dynasties. A member of the wealthy Beauchamp family, and the fifth daughter of Thomas de Beauchamp and Catherine Mortimer, Isabella was an unmarried girl when her parents died in 1369 (see Genealogical Chart 1). The Earl and Countess of Warwick both mention their daughter in their wills, dated 6 September and 4 August of 1369, respectively.63 In his testament, Isabella’s father left her 1,000 pounds for her marriage portion,64 and soon after his death Isabella married John Lestrange V and bore a daughter, Elizabeth. John died early in their marriage on 3 August 1375, while still a minor, making his daughter the Baroness Lestrange and his wife a young, wealthy widow.65 After John Lestrange’s death, Isabella married William Ufford in 1376. The earl was about thirty-five years old at his second marriage, and Isabella was obviously much younger. Her position as the youngest daughter, as well as her unmarried status at her parents’ death in 1369, suggests she was quite young when she was first married, in the early 1370s (perhaps twelve, because that was the age of maturity).66 Supposing Isabella conceived her daughter Elizabeth within marriage, she most likely married John Lestrange V between 1369 and 1372, because her daughter Elizabeth was ten when she died in 1383, following her marriage to Thomas Mowbray earlier that year.67 Thus, Elizabeth would have been about three years old 63. GEC, vol. 12, pt. 2, 153n. 64. Waters, Genealogical Memoirs, 334. 65. Waters, Genealogical Memoirs, 332. 66. Frances Gies and Joseph Gies, Women in the Middle Ages (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1978), 99. 67. GEC, vol. 12, pt. 1, 345. John Lestrange V was also young when he and Isabella married, for he died a minor on 3 August 1375.
Elizabeth Richard Isabel = = de Berkeley de Beauchamp le Despenser b. ca. 1385 b. 1381/2 b. 1400 m. 1397 d. 1439 m. after 1422 d. 1422 Earl of d. 1439 Warwick
Elizabeth Thomas = Lestrange Mowbray b. 1373 m. 1383 d. 1383
Elizabeth Thomas = de Beauchamp de Ufford b. before 1369 d. 1368
NB: Only the children of Thomas and Catherine pertinent to the present discussion are included here.
John Isabella William = = Lestrange V de Beauchamp de Ufford b. ca. 1354 b. before 1369 b. ca. 1339 m. ca. 1373 d. 1416 m. 1376 d. 1375 d. 1381/2
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Thomas Margaret = de Beauchamp de Ferrers b. 1338/9 m. ca. 1381 d. 1401 d. 1406/7 Earl of Warwick
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Guy Philippa = de Beauchamp de Ferrers b. ca. 1337 b. ca. 1338 d. 1360 m. before 1353 d. 1384
Thomas Catherine = de Beauchamp Mortimer b. 1313/4 b. ca. 1315 d. 1369 m. ca. 1337 Earl of d. 1369 Warwick
Genealogical Chart 1. Beauchamp family, Earldom of Warwick
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when her mother married William Ufford, and she would have been alive when Isabella made her vow to remain chaste. Having borne a child who survived, Isabella probably seemed a good candidate as William’s second wife. He needed an heir, if not the dower property Isabella’s widowhood offered. His exorbitant wealth would secure her financially, and his position as Earl of Suffolk would protect her dower and her daughter’s inheritance. Isabella’s marriage to William Ufford quickly followed the death of his first wife, Joan Montacute, the daughter and coheir of Thomas Brotherton, Earl of Norfolk.68 Joan bore five children while married to William, but all the children died within a year of each other, and Joan’s death is recorded shortly thereafter. The loss of his heirs and his wife most likely prompted William’s hasty second marriage, for on 27 June 1376 William Ufford obtained the king’s pardon by paying a fine for marrying Isabella without license.69 Like her first, Isabella’s second marriage was brief, lasting from 1376 until 15 February 1382, when William died suddenly while walking up the steps of Parliament (see Genealogical Charts 2 and 3).70 The marriage lasted long enough to produce children, but although both were parents from their first marriages, Isabella and William had no children together, so that upon his death there were no heirs “of his body” to inherit the earldom, which therefore escheated to the crown. Despite the brevity of their marriage, William appears to have had great affection for his second wife, giving her more than the customary gifts in his will, including a bed that had passed to him as earl, a large missal, his mother’s diamond ring, a cross, a gold casket, and an image of the Virgin.71 He also made Isabella a co-executor of his estate, from which she received a large number of dower properties, such as Haughley, Thorndon, Parham, and Costessey. Little is recorded about the arrangements made for her first marriage dower, but during her second marriage, Isabella and William Ufford held the properties in jointure, 68. GEC, vol. 12, pt. 1, 432 –34. See also the genealogy of the Uffords in Waters, Genealogical Memoirs, 322 –42 at 331–34. 69. Waters, Genealogical Memoirs, 332. For this practice in context, see Walker’s “Feudal Constraint and Free Consent,” 99 –102. 70. GEC, vol. 12, pt. 1, 433. 71. William mentions three books in his will: two missals, the larger of which went to Isabella, and the book of Genesy, which was likely a family Bible. His will was proved at Lambeth Palace, and it is recorded in the register of Archbishop Courtney, fols. 191r –194v. Waters includes an edition and a translation of this will, Genealogical Memoirs, 334 –36. For a short version of William’s and Isabella’s wills, see also Testamenta Vetusta, vol. 1, ed. Nicholas Harris Nicolas (London: Nichols & Son, 1826), 114 –15 and 193 –94, respectively.
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which means that they had joint tenancy of land during their lifetime and that the survivor held the tenancy alone after the spouse’s death.72 As William’s widow, Isabella could expect the lands of the barony and the earldom in dower, and from the surviving accounts we know that she maintained a number of manors until her death in 1416.73 The heirs to the barony received her dower portion at her death, as did the family who held the earldom after the Uffords.74 Only a month after she was widowed for the second time, Isabella took her vow of chastity, which might be considered a form of protection for an unborn heir. The inquisitions at William’s death show that the jury did not know whether Isabella was pregnant.75 So, Isabella’s vow might have 72. Frances Gies and Joseph Gies, Marriage and the Family in the Middle Ages (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), 190. See also McKisack, Fourteenth Century, 260 – 61. Waters, Genealogical Memoirs, 334 –36, shows that the terms of the will are “subject to the jointure of the Countess Isabel and to the claims of Dame Maud de Montacute, Abbess of Barking,” who was heir to William’s first wife, Joan. For a discussion of various couples who held joint tenancy, see Archer, “Rich Old Ladies,” 19. On the legal status of widows in the fourteenth century, Hallissy, Clean Maids, 142 – 43; and Sheehan, “Canon Law and Property Rights of Women,” in Marriage, Family, and Law. 16 –30. 73. IPM, 20:184 – 85. 74. McKisack, Fourteenth Century, 472 –73; IPM, 22:1–5 Henry V, 184 – 85; and Waters, Genealogical Memoirs, 334 –36. The inquisition of Isabella’s estates at her death shows that she did not enjoy the entire bulk of these estates. Many of the properties or rights held by William were his through his first wife, Joan Montacute, and they reverted to her heir, Margaret Marshal, Countess of Norfolk, upon his death. For William’s estates, see IPM, 15:239 –58; for Isabella’s, see IPM, 20:184 – 85. At her death, Isabella held the manors of Chawton in Hampshire, and Dodington and Whitchurch, Shropshire, as part of her first dower. Her second dower included the manors of Haughley and Thorndon in Suffolk, by assignment of Richard II. She also held “the castle and vill of Orford, the manor of Parham, the advowson of the priory of Campsey Ash, the manor and advowson of Ufford, the manor and lordship of Sogenho, the manor and lordship of Windervile and the quay and haven of Woodbridge.” In Norfolk, Isabella also held the manor of Costessey as part of her second dower, as well as the manor and advowson of Hickling and other properties (which are illegible in the records). W. A. Copinger also adds Huntingfield and Blything, Suffolk, in his Manors of Suffolk, 5:393. 75. IPM, 15:239 –58. At the time of her vow, Isabella’s daughter Elizabeth was still living whose husband, Thomas Mowbray, also shared an interest in his mother-in-law’s fortune, as well as in the de Arundel estates through his second wife. As mentioned below, Elizabeth’s grandmother was Mary, daughter of Isabel Despenser and Richard, Earl Arundel, who was also father to Thomas Arundel and the next earl, who was also named Richard. At Elizabeth’s death in 1383, her husband Thomas Mowbray married Elizabeth, daughter of the younger Earl Arundel and Elizabeth Bohun, connecting him by marriage once again to the Arundel family. Richard, Earl Arundel, was one of the Lords Appellant, and Thomas Mowbray, his son-in-law, one of the junior Appellants. For a fuller account, see Anthony Goodman, The Loyal Conspiracy: The Lords Appellant Under Richard II (Coral Gables, Fla.: University of Miami Press, 1971), esp. 156 –57.
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anticipated this possibility, as well as protecting her position as joint tenant. If she remarried, she would have taken both dowers with her into the new marriage, and her husband would have access to her properties even after her death, should they have children.76 By taking the position of a vowess, Isabella could not be forced to marry immediately, nor would a third husband enjoy the Ufford and Lestrange dowers. Her vow, moreover, protected her from ravishment by any who might be tempted to abscond with the wealthy young widow, for it put her under episcopal protection.77 According to Mary Erler, a widow’s chaste vow was a public declaration made before a bishop during mass. Her study, which focuses on fifteenthcentury widows, defines the avowal ceremony and discusses its social implications for late medieval women. She found that among the women who became vowesses, most elected freely to preserve their chastity in an episcopal ceremony but did not promise either obedience to a religious order or poverty. Furthermore, most of the women chose chastity not out of any ardent spirituality but out of a need to negotiate the legal, political, and social systems within which they lived.78 The ceremony, a highly elaborate ritual requiring family witnesses, was included in an episcopal mass before the reading of the Gospel: the woman should approach the seated bishop, wearing ordinary dress, carrying dark clothing over her left arm and led by two honest 76. Mitchell, Portraits of Medieval Women, 8 –9. 77. Walker discusses this practice in “Free Consent,” 123 –34, and in “The Marrying of Feudal Wards,” 209 –24. 78. Mary C. Erler, “Three Fifteenth-Century Vowesses,” in Medieval London Widows, ed. Barron and Sutton, 165 – 83. For the reasons that widows chose lay chastity, see also Mary C. Erler, “English Vowed Women at the End of the Middle Ages,” Mediaeval Studies 57 (1995): 155 –203; Joel T. Rosenthal, “Fifteenth-Century Widows and Widowhood: Bereavement, Reintegration, and Life Choices,” in Wife and Widow in Medieval England, ed. Sue Sheridan Walker (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993), 33 –58 at 45 –47, as well as Gilchrist and Oliva, Religious Women in Medieval East Anglia, 18 –19. Gilchrist and Oliva also provide a table of the vowesses within the Norwich diocese that shows that Isabella was one of the first women whose vow of chastity was recorded. Other early vowesses include Jane Fraunk of Swaffham, who took her vow in 1377 (also listed in the Ely episcopal register), and Alice Brakenest of Halesworth, who pledged herself to chastity at Flixton Priory in 1381. The remainder of the vows listed by Gilchrist and Oliva date to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which shows the relative scarcity of this practice in the Diocese of Norwich, as well as the unusual nature of the three fourteenth-century vowesses. In “English Vowed Women,” Erler provides a more substantial list of vowesses, along with the date of each vow, which range from 1231 to 1537. Only two were recorded in the thirteenth century, and both were made by royal women. The practice became more common later, with 58 in the fourteenth century, 102 in the fifteenth century, and 47 in the sixteenth century.
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men of her relationship. Kneeling, she first placed the paper with her vow (cedula professionis) at the bishop’s feet, then read the vow from it. . . . Then she marked the document with a cross upon the seated bishop’s knee and gave him the paper for safe-keeping. . . . The ceremony proceeded with an episcopal blessing and asperging, first of the clothes, then of the ring, with which the woman was then invested. Vowess clothing seems to have been indistinguishable from that of widows. Besides the veil, mantle, and ring mentioned in this rite, the widow’s wimple was worn. . . . Mass resumed with the offertory, and at the mass’s end the woman received the bishop’s blessing and kissed his ring.79 The similarities to a nun’s profession are striking, as Oliva and others have demonstrated.80 The investment of clothing in widow’s attire, and the blessing of the ring, which imitates the imagery of the nun marrying Christ, is a physical sign of the vow and reflects the importance of visual symbols of chastity—the professed widow must wear a symbol of chastity to distinguish her visibly from other widows; the dark clothing indicates her position as widow, while the ring signals her chaste status as a holy woman. The widow’s wimple, moreover, counters the nun’s veil so that her attire links her visually to lay widows and to professed nuns equally, even as it categorizes her so that she occupies a visual space set apart from both. Joel Rosenthal finds that a vowess, “even if she remained in the world, removed herself from full reintegration.”81 The implication here is that as with the visual text of her clothing, the chaste widow resided between the world of nuns and wives, and her vow places her in a special category separate from both the sacred and the lay worlds. Despite the vocational separation demonstrated by the different clothing of nuns and vowesses, the ceremony emulates that for the profession of nuns. Prostrating herself before the bishop, the vowess submits publicly to his authority and is veiled, whereupon she kisses the bishop’s ring, the symbol of his ecclesiastical position. No longer bound by the authority of her husband, she moves from under the authority of the king to living under 79. Erler, “Three Fifteenth-Century Vowesses,” 165 – 66. Barbara Hanawalt indicates that a vowess would leave the veil on the bishop’s altar in case she wanted to take this final step, but she would not wear it until then. See her “Remarriage as an Option for Urban and Rural Widows in Late Medieval England,” in Wife and Widow in Medieval England, 141– 64 at 158. 80. Oliva, Convent and the Community, 52. 81. Rosenthal, “Fifteenth-Century Widows and Widowhood,” 47.
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the authority of her bishop. A widow’s vow of chastity offers a social ritual that places her under the protection and authority of the highest ecclesiast in her region—a protection symbolized by the veil, the ring, and her dark clothing. Thus, even though a widow chooses chastity without joining a religious house, the bishop’s sanction protects her through the symbolic clothing. Spatial enclosure, however, was not a requirement for vowesses as it was for professed nuns.82 They could continue to live a public life or retire to a female community as a lay boarder, but even then the widow would not be required to remain within the convent walls. Spatially, the vowess could traverse the confines of the nunnery to the outside world and back again. The position of vowess allowed her to move across institutional boundaries, which might have been one of the reasons aristocratic women like Isabella made this choice. The vowess’ words, spoken before witnesses and literally entrusted to the bishop’s keeping, explain the ceremony as an ecclesiastically binding practice. The vow, placed at the bishop’s feet and read from that position, dramatically places the widow in subservience to him. If she could not read, she repeated the bishop’s words to make her vow, an act that further places her within his authority. By echoing his words, the illiterate widow was constrained to trust the paper as a tangible record of the event. Widows, literate or not, marked the paper and surrendered the written vow to the bishop, who recorded it in his register. This symbolic ritual literally and symbolically places the woman’s words within the bishop’s power. Holding the tangible evidence of the vow affords the bishop documentary proof of the event; if she wanted to remarry, she had to gain papal dispensation to do so.83 Episcopal sanction, symbolized in the ecclesiastical record, protected her even as it constrained her. Medieval women suffered some form of social constraint throughout their lives; a widow whose life, arguably, afforded her the most latitude was no exception. Male protection by king, overlord, guardian, husband, son, priest, or bishop ensured a social position for women and provided a financial guarantee in aristocratic circles.84 In the avowal ceremony, the transfer of this protection is symbolized by the presence of the two male witnesses who offer her into the bishop’s care. Although a public ceremony was required to document a commitment to chastity, vowesses remained a particularly unrecorded group. Some 82. Power, Medieval English Nunneries, 38 –41, esp. 38 at n. 2. See also Oliva, Convent and the Community, 47–48. 83. Erler, “Three Fifteenth-Century Vowesses,” 166. 84. Walker, “Feudal Constraint and Free Consent,” 97–109.
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chaste lives were indicated by the husband’s will or by the widow’s, although few documents survive to offer illuminating evidence of the vowess as a quasi-religious category. Without the corporate franchise of the nunnery, whose sparse records might include a chaste widow, a lay woman who remained in the public sphere could remain unrecognized as a vowess but for an episcopal record. In this case, Bishop Arundel’s register makes it clear that Isabella took a vow of chastity, even recording her actual words, which is unlike the only other notice included in his register, a record of the vow of Catherine Bernard of Cambridge, who lived within the bishop’s jurisdiction.85 The inclusion of Isabella Ufford’s vow in this register—along with the record of her words—marks the exceptional nature of this event. The presence of two bishops underscores its importance as well. According to his own account, Thomas Arundel, Bishop of Ely and later Archbishop of Canterbury, appeared at Campsey Ash Priory as an invited guest to receive Isabella’s vow. As noted above, the priory lay within the Loes Hundred, which was part of the Liberty of Etheldreda in the Diocese of Norwich.86 At the episcopacy’s foundation in 1109, the first Ely bishop divided the estates, giving part to the monks for their self-maintenance and keeping the remainder. This action provoked a long-standing economic dispute between the bishop and the monastery so that the monks rarely wanted to acknowledge the bishop’s sovereignty except when it might benefit them.87 This split confirms that, as Bishop of Ely, Thomas Arundel had no jurisdiction over the estates within the Liberty of Ely, especially at Campsey Ash. The additional presence of Bishop Henry Despenser of Norwich suggests a further conundrum. Although Campsey Ash lay within the Liberty of Etheldreda, it was part of the Norwich diocese, whose bishops had held ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the priory since its foundation at the 85. On 20 June 1385, Catherine Bernard vowed to remain chaste in the conventual church of the Friars Minor, Cambridge. See Crosby’s calendar in the Ely Diocesan Remembrancer at CUL, 78. A cursory glance of the Ely episcopal records shows another reference to a vow of chastity in the register of Bishop John de Fordham; on 4 April 1407, Alice Thurgarton took her vow in English at Downham Manor, one of the bishop’s houses. 86. Helen Cam, Liberties and Communities in Medieval England: Collected Studies in Local Administration and Topography (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1963), 194. For a detailed discussion of the Liberty of Saint Etheldreda, the rights of the bishop versus the rights of the monastery, and the fiscal rewards of these rights, see Miller, Abbey and Bishopric of Ely, 199 –246. 87. David Knowles has discussed at length the special problems of the cathedral monasteries, whose abbatial position was held by the bishop, in The Religious Orders in England, 3 vols. (1948; reprint, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962), 254 – 69. For specific discussions concerning Ely disputes, see Evans, Medieval Estate of Ely; and Crosby, Bishop and Chapter, 151–74.
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close of the twelfth century. Bishop Arundel’s register shows that he celebrated mass and presided with the assistance of Henry Despenser. In her study of medieval vowesses, Erler documents evidence that a bishop would allow another to receive a vow within his diocese, though he probably would not attend the service.88 So why was Henry Despenser present if he was not the celebrant, and why did Bishop Arundel appear as celebrant, and record this vow in his register, when he did not have ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Campsey Ash? Several clues can be found in Isabella’s status as Countess of Suffolk and as the former Baroness Lestrange.
Mapping Kinship and Sociopolitical Contexts William, the second Earl of Suffolk, held the advowson at the priory through Cecily de Valognes (d. 1325), a direct descendant of the priory’s founders and wife of William’s grandfather, Robert de Ufford II (d. 1316).89 Cecily brought the advowson into the Ufford family by her marriage in the late thirteenth century, and, once it became the family priory, Campsey was often the site for the Ufford women to enter the monastic life and for family burials. Emphasizing their special relationship with the priory, many of the Uffords requested burial there, including William and his two wives, Joan and Isabella; the first earl, Robert, and his wife, Margaret; Robert’s brothers Edmund and Ralph; and Edmund’s wife, Elizabeth (see Genealogical Charts 2 and 3).90 It was Ralph’s wife, Maud de Burgh, formerly the Countess of Ulster, who founded a chantry college at Campsey so that the chaplains could pray for the souls of her husbands when she took the veil there.91 William 88. In “Three Fifteenth-Century Vowesses,” 182, Erler describes a letter by Henry Ware, vicar general of the Bishop of London, that is dated 19 February 1418 and that allows Thomas Langley, Bishop of Durham, to receive Lady Alice Salvan’s vow within the London diocese. 89. Waters, Genealogical Memoirs, 323 –25. Cecily de Valognes inherited the manor of Hickling and a one-fourth portion of the barony of Ixworth and was one of the heirs of the extinct Creke family. It was through her that these properties became part of the Ufford holdings. She also held the advowson at Campsey Ash, which became the Ufford family priory. She died in 1325. 90. GEC, vol. 12, pt. 1, 432 –34. See also Waters’s account, which includes all those buried at Campsey Ash. Oliva also notes the Ufford burials in a larger context of lay burials in East Anglian houses, Genealogical Memoirs, 151–52. 91. Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. 6, pt. 1, 584 – 86. See also Power, Medieval English Nunneries, 39, and Oliva, Convent and the Community, 113 –14. For a discussion of chantry foundations in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, see Joel T. Rosenthal, The Purchase of Paradise: Gift Giving and the Aristocracy, 1307–1485 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972), 31–52.
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Ufford’s sister, also named Maud, was a Campsey canoness and still living at his death, for she is named one of the coheirs to the barony of Ufford.92 These familial connections explain the choice of Campsey for Isabella’s vow. Even though Shouldham, the second wealthiest house in the Norwich diocese, was the Beauchamp family priory, and thus Isabella’s natal priory, she held the advowson of Campsey in dower until her death. Her decision to take the vow there confirms her personal investment in her husband’s family priory.93 Campsey’s geographical position within the Norwich diocese indicates that the Bishop of Norwich should have been the celebrant at the mass. Bishops had license to receive vows from any of the widows who lived on their estates and often did so at their manor chapels, regardless of the diocese in which the manor lay. The regularity of this practice suggests that widows took their vow at a location convenient for the bishop, not at the woman’s parish church, so the location of Isabella’s vow signals that it was exceptional. Thomas Arundel traveled a good distance outside his diocesan authority to invest Isabella with the ring and mantle in a house to which she was patron, and it is likely that the bonds of kinship between the bishops and Isabella’s marital families led both to attend. The genealogical history shows that Isabella was related to both Thomas Arundel and Henry Despenser in a number of ways, which might explain both bishops’ presence at her vow. Isabella’s first mother-in-law was Mary Lestrange, daughter of Isabel Despenser and Richard Arundel. The Earl Arundel put aside his wife to marry her first cousin, Eleanor of Lancaster, whose children included Richard, the next earl, and Thomas, Bishop of Ely.94 Thus, Thomas was half-brother to Isabella’s first mother-in-law, Mary Lestrange. Henry Despenser, Bishop of Norwich, was also directly related to the Countess of Suffolk, again through her mother-in-law. Mary Lestrange was a first cousin to the Norwich bishop, whose father Edward 92. GEC, vol. 12, pt. 2, 153. 93. Historical documents make it clear that the Valognes and Ufford families had provided properties and gifts to the priory for years. See VCH, Suffolk, 2:112 –15. A more systematic study of the surviving primary documents deserves to be undertaken in order to provide more information about Isabella’s activities as patron. One major supporter of Campsey Ash was William’s father, Robert de Ufford, who garnered a license in 1319 for the priory to acquire lands and tenements. 94. For Thomas’s biography, see Margaret Aston, Thomas Arundel: A Study in Church Life in the Reign of Richard II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967). Aston asserts that Mary Lestrange is not half-sister to Thomas Arundel but instead his father’s sister, which would make Thomas first cousin to John Lestrange V and his wife Isabella Beauchamp Ufford. If so, the marital connections between the bishop and the countess are stronger than described above.
William de Willoughby b. 1370 d. 1409
Alice = Skipworth b. ca. 1355 d. ca. 1372
Robert de Willoughby b. ca. 1349 d. 1396 Heir to William de Ufford William de Ferrers b. 1372 d. 1445
Joan = de Hoo m. 1371 d. 1394
Henry de Ferrers b. 1355/6 d. 1387/8 Heir to William de Ufford
son
Maud † de Ufford Canoness at Campsey in 1347 d. after 1416 Heir to William Ufford
Richard de Beauchamp b. 1381/2 d. 1439 Heir to Isabella de Ufford
Robert de Scales b. ca. 1372 d. 1402
Roger Joan = de Scales de Northwood b. ca. 1347 d. 1414/5 d. 1386 Heir to William de Ufford
Catherine Robert = de Ufford de Scales m. 1335 d. 1369
Margaret Thomas = de Ferrers de Beauchamp d. 1406/7 b. 1338/9 m. 1381 d. 1401 Earl of Warwick
Margaret William = de Ufford de Ferrers m. 1355 d. 1368
John de Ufford d. 1348
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Cecily John = de Ufford de Willoughby m. 1348 d. 1372
Robert Margaret † = de Ufford of Norwich b. 1298 b. ca. 1302 d. 1369 m. 1316? First Earl of Suffolk d. 1368
Robert Cicely = de Ufford de Valognes b. 1279 b. 1281 d. 1316 m. ca. 1298 d. 1325
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Joan John = de Ufford de St. Philibert m. 1331 d. ca. 1357
William de Ufford d. before 1316
Genealogical Chart 2. Ufford family, Earldom of Suffolk, part 1
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Eleanor Arundel m. 1371
Walter Elizabeth = de Ufford Montacute d. 1360
Robert de Ufford d. 1375
William de Ufford d. 1375
Magaret de Ufford d. 1375
† Buried at Campsey
Edmund de Ufford d. 1375
John de Ufford d. 1375
Edmund † Elizabeth † = de Ufford d. 1375
Joan † William † Isabella † = = Montacute de Ufford de Beauchamp b. 1348/9 b. ca. 1339 b. 1369 m. 1361 d. 1381/2 m. 1376 d. before 1376 Second Earl d. 1416 of Suffolk Founded a second chantry college at Campsey
Eva John = de Ufford de Brews
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Thomas = de Ufford d. 1374
Thomas Elizabeth = de Ufford de Beauchamp d. 1368 b. before 1369
Maud † Plantagenet b. ca. 1310 m. 1343 d. 1377 Founded chantry college at Campsey
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Robert Elizabeth = de Ufford de Botetourt d. 1368
Ralph † = de Ufford b. ca. 1302 d. 1346
Genealogical Chart 3. Ufford family, Earldom of Suffolk, part 2
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Despenser was brother to Isabel Despenser. This connection also related the two bishops, because Mary and Thomas Arundel were half-brother and half-sister, making the two bishops half first cousins. Isabella Ufford’s brother also connected her by marriage to the Bishop of Norwich; Thomas de Beauchamp married Margaret de Ferrers, daughter of William de Ferrers and Margaret Ufford, the Earl of Suffolk’s sister. Isabella’s elder brother, Guy de Beauchamp, had previously married a de Ferrers, William’s sister, Philippa, who upon Guy’s death in 1351 took a formal vow of chastity.95 To bring the relations back to Henry Despenser, William and Philippa de Ferrers were first cousins to Henry Despenser, whose mother was Anne Despenser de Ferrers. Within this complex set of intermarriages, Henry Despenser could claim Isabel Ufford as a cousin through three different marriages. The favor shown because of kinship is not unusual. Familial patronage within the upper gentry was mutually satisfactory, serving to enrich monastic sites and promote the spiritual life of the benefactors.96 Given the complexity of the intermarriages surrounding Isabella Ufford, it is possible that there are other connections yet to be uncovered between Isabella and the two bishops who consecrated her vow. In any case, their presence ensures that the oath is legally binding, and the episcopal record serves as the witness to this oath, one that requires papal dispensation to break.97 Bishop Arundel’s register also includes a list of witnesses, a practice common for women of elevated status. The presence of these witnesses demonstrates their confirmation of her choice.98 The circumstances surrounding Isabella’s highly public vow of chastity, moreover, demonstrate the social importance of her marital future and her religious devotion. In effect, her vow rests at the intersection of secular and ecclesiastical male power. The great wealth Isabella enjoyed during her second marriage and the control she had over her dowers after William’s death suggest that she used chastity as an avenue by which she negotiated social, economic, and political systems. The witness list confirms that the political and the social, in this case, are inextricably intertwined; the men who attended the ceremony 95. Richard Gough, Description of the Beauchamp Chapel, Adjoining to the Church of St. Mary at Warwick; and the Monuments of the Earls of Warwick, in the Said Church and Elsewhere, 2d ed. (London: J. Nichols & Son, 1809), 5. 96. Mitchell, “Widowhood in Medieval England,” 207. 97. Erler, “Three Fifteenth-Century Vowesses,” 167– 81, discusses some widows who asked to be released from their vow of chastity, often to remarry. Some are women who were already pregnant or had already given birth. 98. Erler, “Three Fifteenth-Century Vowesses,” 166.
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and those who presided were Isabella’s relatives, both natal and marital, and their presence demonstrates the investment the extended family had in her future and in her governance of her dowers. The connections made within this marital matrix illustrate the importance of Isabella’s decision to remain within the aristocratic dynasty as a lay woman and countess, as well as to skirt around it using her vow of chastity, which ensured that she would not be pressured or forced to marry again within it. More significant is that the notation of the event in the episcopal register belies the kinship that each name reveals. At first glance, the witnesses, whose titles are given in lieu of their names, seem to serve as independent attesters to a widow’s vow. Yet the ceremony required the widow to appear with two kinsmen, both of good repute. Her brother, Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and her nephews by marriage, Robert, Lord Willoughby de Eresby, and Roger, Lord Scales, are listed as witnesses to the ceremony. The three kinsmen are the only ones named, but the register makes clear that the audience included a large number of priors and abbots, knights and squires, “et aliis multitudine copiosa.”99 The formulaic “great crowd in attendance” would be expected and was appropriate, given Isabella’s status and that of each attester. Public interest in the ceremony would be high, given that she was the Countess of Suffolk, that she and William had produced no heirs, that the earldom would likely escheat to the crown, and that her estates and power were far-reaching as a widowed countess. The presence of her male relatives at the ceremony also confirms the public interest in Isabella’s future: would she prove to be pregnant with William’s child? would she remarry? take the dower estates with her into a new marriage and thus risk losing them to another family? live a conjugal life with a man she had not married? remain chaste? have children who might threaten the Ufford heirs’ right to inherit the barony? Inheritance anxiety necessitates a clear account of the familial relationships that converge around Isabella Beauchamp Lestrange Ufford; her extended family relations reveal a number of interested parties, named and unnamed, who shared a concern over Isabella’s future. It is important to note that these spectators represent the intricate kinships that intersect at both of Isabella’s 99. Waters, Genealogical Memoirs, 336: “The Bishop of Ely, acting in place and by the authority of the Bishop of Norwich, then received her vow, and solemnly blessed the mantle or cloak and the ring of the vowess, and put them on her. There were present on this occasion the Earl of Warwick (brother of the Countess), the Lords Willoughby and Scales (nephews of the late Earl), other knights and esquires, and a great crowd of people.”
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marriages. An overview of the multiple marital connections among the Ufford, Beauchamp, Lestrange, de Ferrers, and Despenser families demonstrates the implications of Isabella’s vow of chastity for her aristocratic family (see Genealogical Chart 4). As noted above, Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, was Isabella’s brother. He married Margaret de Ferrers, daughter of William, Lord Ferrers II, and Margaret Ufford, sister to William Ufford. He was therefore Isabella’s nephew by marriage as well as her brother. Through his sister, then, he was brother-in-law to the Earl of Suffolk, and through his wife, brother-in-law to Henry, one of the Earl of Suffolk’s four heirs. As brother and brother-in-law, as well as nephew by marriage to the late William Ufford, Thomas de Beauchamp had a threefold interest in the ceremony: how his sister would be provided for as a widow; what estates he or his heirs might return to the Beauchamp family at her death; and how her vow would affect the inheritance of his wife’s brother, Henry de Ferrers. One can argue that as a direct heir to William, Henry de Ferrers attended the ceremony; more than likely his sister, Margaret de Ferrers, Thomas Beauchamp’s wife, and their son, Richard, were also there. Unfortunately, the register does not specifically record their presence. The second and third named witnesses are Roger, Lord Scales IV, son of William Ufford’s sister, Catherine, and her husband, Robert, Lord Scales III; and his first cousin, Robert, Lord Willoughby IV, son of Cecily Ufford, another of William Ufford’s sisters. Like their first cousin, Henry de Ferrers, both Roger and Robert were named heirs to the Ufford barony. The three nephews shared their inheritance with William’s only surviving sibling, Maud, a nun at Campsey Ash Priory. The first Earl of Suffolk, Robert Ufford, had five daughters and five sons. The order of their births is not completely known, though Margaret was the third daughter and the marriage dates of Joan and Catherine suggest that they were older children.100 The boys were born in this order: Robert, Thomas, Walter, William, and John. William was the fourth, but the eldest surviving son on his father’s death in 1369, and thus he became the second Earl of Suffolk. At 100. The marriage dates of Joan and Catherine suggest that either they were married very young or they were much older than Margaret or Cecily. Joan married John de St. Philibert in 1331 and died before 1357, and Catherine married Robert, Lord Scales III, before 6 May 1335 and died before August 1369. The third daughter, Margaret, married before 1355 and died before 1368, and Cecily married John, Lord Willoughby, before 1348 and died in 1372. Their sister, Maud, canoness at Campsey, entered the house in 1347 and died after 1416. GEC, vol. 12, pt. 1, 434 –35. See also Waters, Genealogical Memoirs, 328 –31.
Margaret Thomas = de Ferrers de Beauchamp
Elizabeth Richard Isabel = = de Berkeley de Beauchamp le Despenser
Henry de Ferrers
Philippa Guy = de Ferrers de Beauchamp
Henry le Despenser Bishop of Norwich
Edmund de Arundel
[1] Elizabeth Thomas = Lestrange Mowbray
John Isabella William = = Lestrange V de Beauchamp de Ufford
Mary John = de Arundel Lestrange IV
[2] Elizabeth Thomas = de Arundel Mowbray
Richard Elizabeth = de Arundel III Bohun
Isabel Richard Eleanor = = le Despenser de Arundel II of Lancaster
Thomas de Arundel Bishop of Ely
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William Margaret = de Ferrers de Ufford
Anne Edward = de Ferrers le Despenser
Hugh le Despenser, Jr.
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Isabella Henry = le Verdun de Ferrers
William de Ferrers de Groby
Genealogical Chart 4. Ufford, Beauchamp, de Ferrers, Despenser, and Arundel family matrix
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William’s death, all his siblings were dead, with the exception of Maud, the Campsey canoness, which suggests that she might have been the youngest daughter, and perhaps the youngest child, because she outlived her generation. She was named heir to the barony and was living at Campsey at the time of Isabella’s vow, which probably ensures her presence at the ceremony. Though Maud’s life dates are not recorded, she survived Isabella’s death in 1416 because she is named in Isabella’s will.101 Isabella’s family and her marriages create a complex web of kinship around her. This prosopographical account is intended to demonstrate the relationships Isabella shared, including kinship with the two bishops who heard her vow. Recurrent intermarriage between the Despenser, the Arundel, the Beauchamp, the Lestrange, and the de Ferrers families demonstrates the importance the families placed on linking their dynasties. Because of the double, and sometimes triple, connections made, Isabella is firmly entrenched within this matrix. Her vow to remain chaste disrupts the usual course of women’s behavior in these families—marriage, remarriage, and yet marriage once more back into the same grouping of relatives. Another marriage for Isabella might have initiated multiple claims to the Ufford estates, and if she married at will, the estates could be dispensed outside this family rubric. Thus, her vow serves not only her own interests but also the interests of the families into which she has previously married. Her avowal confirms the rights of the Ufford and Lestrange heirs to retain their respective baronies, because at her death the baronial estates returned to her husbands’ descendants, not to Isabella’s natal family. Because the countess was a childless widow, William’s nephews, for instance, could expect an even larger inheritance. Likewise, interest in the familial dynasty would not be limited to the direct heirs. In a social order that continued to protect them as wealthy gentry, even nobility, these families surrounded Isabella to ensure her rights as a widow and to ensure their own future inheritance. By marrying children into the same pool of families, the wealthy aristocracy could maintain its control over their estates, increase, or at least maximize, their political power, and continue to patronize religious institutions. A widow’s rights included control over her dower properties, which in the thirteenth century entailed one-third of the husband’s properties at the time of his death unless otherwise agreed. Dower privilege would not be disrupted by remarriage, for a widow could take the estates into her next 101. Waters, Genealogical Memoirs, 331.
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marriage, where her new husband would have access to them.102 Isabella’s young age and the potential she had to bear more children posed a direct conflict for the Ufford heirs. In the thirteenth century, a widow could expect to receive legitim, or one-third of her husband’s goods or chattels, which she could will to whomever she chose at her death. One-third of the properties went to children of the marriage, and the final third was to be used for the benefit of the man’s soul.103 Isabella profited from an expanded definition of dower rights, which had changed throughout the fourteenth century. Because she and William held the properties in jointure, she was entitled to enjoy them throughout her lifetime. We know that she held all of them, including the advowson of Campsey Ash Priory, until her death. Within this familial matrix, Campsey was obviously favored, as the earl’s will illustrates. William had made provision for a London monk to sing perpetually for his soul, and most likely he made a similar provision at Campsey Ash, where he directed that his executors erect a marble tomb for him. William was, moreover, a generous patron to Campsey. He ordered that the symbol of the earldom, the sword that was given to his father by the king, be offered at Campsey on the day of his burial. He also bequeathed each nun 20 shillings and the prioress 40 shillings, and also 100 marks for the repairs of the church. The earl doubled his sister Maud’s annuity of 100 shillings per annum, which had been established by her father, and also gave her a silver cup and 40 shillings outright.104 As a Campsey canoness, Maud’s inheritance of one-fourth of the barony benefited the priory too; her inherited properties would be shared with her order, so that at Isabella’s death the priory benefited more than any other single heir. Without a definite description of how much the heirs inherited, we can assume that they received at least one-third of the barony, according to thirteenth-century practice, and Campsey Ash should have received one-third because William was buried there. If the inheritance did play out this way, Campsey could expect to receive not only the direct gifts from the earl but also funds to 102. Walker, “Feudal Constraint and Free Consent,” 99. 103. Leyser, Medieval Women, 168 –72. In the twelfth century, the dower was calculated at the church door so that the widow received one-third of his properties as they were when she married him. After the Magna Carta was signed, the properties held at the husband’s death became the measure from which the dower was taken. In 1225, the reissue of the Magna Carta confirmed that widows could not be forced to remarry, that she was to pay nothing for her dower, and that she was guaranteed forty days of housing at her husband’s estates, ensuring accommodations for her until the dower rights could be settled. 104. Waters, Genealogical Memoirs, 334 –36.
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support his burial at the priory as well as Maud’s inheritance. Thus, Campsey should have received one-third of William’s holdings at his death, with Maud’s quarter of another third at Isabella’s death—a total of almost half the barony, in addition to the gifts he willed to the house. Because much of William’s estate was given to Campsey Ash directly or through his sister Maud, his will confirms their continued familial patronage, and Isabella’s request to be buried there suggests that she followed this tradition. Her will confirms her devotion to the priory. Although Isabella was a generous patron to several houses, her favor toward Campsey Ash and its chantry college is significant. In her will, she gave the house 40 marks, and, like her husband, she offered the prioress 40 shillings and each nun 20 shillings. She also gave 100 shillings and a covered metal chalice to “ma treschier soer Mahaut Ufford.”105 To the master of the chantry college, William Wyrsted, she gave 10 marks, and to each of the canons she gave 20 shillings. As noted above, William’s aunt, Matilda (or Maud) de Ufford, had founded a chantry college at Campsey Ash for the souls of her two husbands, but when she was granted papal dispensation to join the Austin house of Bruisyard, only a few miles away, because the visitors at Campsey disturbed her religious devotions, she took her chantry college with her. The Uffords founded a second college at Campsey, one that was unique throughout England: the location of the new chantry was inside the convent precincts. Oliva records that the nuns were obliged to build “a suitable house with chambers and a common room within the close near to the chapel, and [to pay] the master thirteen marks yearly, and the four chaplains ten marks annually.”106 This college was supported by Isabella, not William, for in 1382, the year of Isabella’s vow, the nuns received licenses “to acquire land in mortmain to support the five resident chaplains.”107 Though William Ufford’s name is on the 1383 charter, which licenses the property of Wickham Market to be used to support the second chantry at Campsey Ash, clearly William was already dead, and it must have been Isabella who was responsible for increasing the number of canons. The gifts Isabella gave to the chaplain and canons at her death in 1416 indicate 105. The Register of Archbishop Chichele, fols. 296r–296v, which has been edited by E. F. Jacob in The Register of Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1414 –1443 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938), 94 –97. For an abbreviated translation, see also Testamenta Vetusta, ed. Nicolas, 1:193 –94. 106. Oliva describes this series of events in detail, as well as the rarity of a chantry college connected to a female house, in Convent and the Community 113 –14. 107. Oliva, Convent and the Community 113.
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that the college had received her support throughout her widowhood. She ordered her executors, moreover, to bury her at Campsey next to William and to have thirteen secular clerks sing for her soul for three years.108 This order suggests that she continued to support the chaplains and increased their number from five to thirteen between 1383 and her death in 1416. At her death, the estates Isabella held in her own right went to her nearest natal family member, her nephew, Richard de Beauchamp, the Earl of Warwick and son of Thomas de Beauchamp and Margaret de Ferrers.109 Her dower properties returned to her marital families, and William’s nephews and sister finally received their shares of the Ufford barony. Ironically, Isabella outlived the three nephews who attended her vow in 1382, so their sons inherited their percentage of the dower estates. In any case, all the dower properties stayed within the marital matrix made up by the Beauchamp, Ufford, Despenser, Lestrange, and Ferrers families—a signal that the witnesses to her vow happily affirmed her decision to remain chaste, a choice that indicated that no future husbands or children would disrupt their inheritances.
Imitatio Ætheldredae? A comparison between Isabella Ufford’s life and Marie’s account of Æthelthryth’s in La Vie Seinte Audrée reveals some similarities between the hagiographic text and lived experience. Æthelthryth had insisted on chastity within both her marriages, and each was arranged in a political matrix that could be appreciated by late medieval aristocratic women. She is first widowed, then divorced so that she can take the veil. Her profession of continued chastity distinguishes her as one of the most unusual saints; she is both 108. It is possible that William and Isabella founded the second chantry college after Maud removed the first to Bruisyard, but William’s will suggests that there was not a college at Campsey at his death. In the will, he directed his executors to establish a cell for a monk at the Charter House in London in which a member of the house would perpetually sing for William’s soul. If the chantry college had been in existence, it is likely that William would have had the local canons sing for him, as Isabella directs them to do in her will. Her testament demonstrates that she gave money to several religious houses. Ann K. Warren, Anchorites and Their Patrons in Medieval England (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985), 203, suggests that Isabella’s will “territorially identified [her] with Norfolk and Suffolk, making bequests to all the houses of friars in both shires and also to four conventual houses there. She also left twenty shillings to Julian of Norwich, establishing her relationship with a renowned mystic, now an anchoress.” 109. Richard, Earl of Warwick, is Isabella’s named heir in IPM, 20:184.
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married, widowed, chaste, and virgin— effectively holding all the sexual categories that stigmatized lay and religious women’s bodies. Her multiple identities allow Marie to present Æthelthryth according to the needs of the author’s community; the thirteenth-century vita, then, becomes an ascetic model for medieval women.110 It is significant that Marie has presented Æthelthryth as an icon of patronage and authority, one that illustrates what aristocratic women of means should do with their marital wealth, despite the requirements of a heterosexual matrix in which most high-status women had to marry. While still Queen of Northumbria, Æthelthryth founded Hexham, and after taking the veil at Coldingham she established another house there. After she returned to Ely, she used her dower to build a monastery. With these examples, Marie carefully presents Æthelthryth as a figure of foundation, so much so that the iconography of her included in the Campsey Ash manuscript is changed to reflect her authoritative status. What is more, this iconic image, produced outside the cult center, becomes one that seems to influence Ely’s presentation of their patron: the pictorial cycle demonstrates that a new scene was added and Æthelthryth’s authority over the community was extolled. Marie’s presentation establishes a sign by which Æthelthryth’s body is read as a material body, one that generates wealth and distributes it effectively. Not only was she a historical woman whose life experiences are similar to the women of Marie’s audience, but Æthelthryth also operates as a symbol of materiality. Her body is in this case a sign of material wealth and generosity that is intended to teach other women how they should uses their resources. In short, Æthelthryth’s story indicates how they can use their bodies in a marital exchange, garnering wealth by which they can become patrons themselves. This idea draws on Rubin’s “Traffic in Women,” in which Rubin indicates that women are passive participants in the exchange between men. She argues that women, exchanged in marriage for wealth by their paternal or fraternal families, are the means by which men extend their kin groups and create larger social ties.111 An aristocratic woman in late medieval England could well expect that she herself would play an integral role in the social and economic exchange of marriage, in much the way that Isabella 110. In chapter 4 of her dissertation on Æthelthryth, Garrison provides a historical discussion of the religious women who were attracted to the type of ascetic behavior provided in Marie’s VSA, including Christina of Markyate, whose psalter includes Æthelthryth in its calendar. See Garrison, “Lives of St. Ætheldreda,” 181–289. 111. Rubin, “Traffic in Women,” 157–210.
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Beauchamp must have when she wed into the Lestrange and Ufford families. Marie extends the metaphor, suggesting the necessity of marriage for aristocratic women, but she reframes the imagery of women as passive participants in this economic transaction by suggesting how women might use aristocratic marriage to enhance their status and their economic wealth, and in turn their authority, through acts of patronage. In supporting religious spaces, medieval women would be acting in a socially approved manner, but Marie suggests how women who take on the roles of founder and patron can adopt authoritative positions, perhaps even gain more agency in their lives, if their largesse is directed appropriately. Certainly, their economic support would be read as an acceptable devotional activity, but as so many gentry and aristocratic families were doing in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, widowed women who chose the vocation of vowess or nun might well find themselves able to marhsal their own resources and use them in innovative ways. The case study of Isabella Ufford demonstrates well how a woman might model her behavior on the acts of patronage presented in Marie’s text. In the 1300s, marriage and the remarriage of widows was politically and economically important in English society, just as it had been in Æthelthryth’s time. To be sure, their social worlds differed; nevertheless, because Marie placed the life of Æthelthryth within an existing social context in late medieval England, several likenesses appear between the two noble women. Isabella was also twice-married but twice-widowed; she did not leave her husband for the religious life but chose lay chastity as a widow. Her choice placed her in a position similar to Æthelthryth’s, for Isabella administered her dower properties and used them to patronize Campsey Ash and other monastic houses. Furthermore, Isabella’s chaste vow protected her dower properties. As a confirmed vowess, she could not remarry and her estates could not be shared with another husband or given to any future children. In choosing chastity, Isabella, like Æthelthryth, exercised her dower rights without interference. Isabella’s patronage of Campsey, a female house with a chantry college, also complements Æthelthryth’s financial support of Ely, a house for men and women that she established on her dower property. The Liber Eliensis claims that Ely was Æthelthryth’s dower from her first marriage to Tondberht and that she enjoyed full rights over it after his death. Campsey Priory was, as noted above, the family priory of the Uffords. The advowson passed to Isabella at William’s death, and she was its patron until her death in 1416;
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therefore, both women held their religious properties as a result of marriage and widowhood. Though the circumstances of the foundation of Ely and the foundation of Campsey differ, Isabella, like Æthelthryth, supported a continued building campaign, especially in the priory church, where her husband directed that a marble tomb be erected for him. Excavations at the ruins of Campsey have revealed an elaborate tomb and tiles with the Ufford arms on them dating to this period. As co-executor of William’s estate and the earl’s widow, Isabella probably instructed that this tomb be built, which her role as priory patron would ensure. That Isabella was responsible for her husband’s elaborate burial is further supported by the similarity between it and the tomb built for her parents in Warwickshire.112 Patronage provided a means of commemorating and praying for the dead, ensuring the redemption of their souls and making claim to a local institution.113 Isabella came from a family steeped in this tradition. Throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Beauchamps were one of four prominent families whose patronage included the foundation and support of chantry colleges, and it appears that Isabella provided the land revenues necessary to establish a second chantry college at Campsey Ash.114 The Ufford family, only two generations into their earldom, provided monies on a lesser scale than the earls of Warwick but certainly emulated aristocratic traditions of religious benevolence throughout England. Rosenthal has made clear, however, that without a license Edward I “had forbade the alienation of real property to the church” in the Statute of Mortmain, 1279.115 His analysis of the Patent Rolls shows that some 450 licenses were granted to nobles to alienate property for religious houses.116 Foremost, this form of patronage was the privilege of the elite, and Isabella’s position as countess and her extended families placed her within this group. Because the practice was on the decline in the fifteenth century and never particularly common for 112. Sherlock, “Excavation at Campsea Ash Priory,” 138, indicates that the tomb illustrates an important link to the well-known tomb of Isabella’s parents, Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and his wife, Catherine, which was completed in 1391 and remains in the chancel of St. Mary’s Warwick. See also Laurence Keen, “Medieval Floor-Tiles from Campsea Ash Priory,” Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology 32 (1970/72): 140 –51. For detailed information on the Beauchamp tombs, see Gough. 113. Mitchell, “Widowhood,” 210 –11. 114. Rosenthal, Purchase of Paradise, 50. On the patronage of the Beauchamps, including Isabella’s nephew, Richard, see Anne Payne, “The Beauchamps and the Nevilles,” in Gothic: Art for England, ed. Marks and Williamson, 219 –33. 115. Rosenthal, Purchase of Paradise, 134. 116. Rosenthal, Purchase of Paradise, 135.
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nunneries in the fourteenth century, the allocation of land for the nunnery at Campsey Ash is relatively unique. The alienation of property had been a custom throughout the priory’s history, and it was a common practice in the Beauchamp family. We can conjecture, therefore, that Isabella learned this form of patronage as a girl, noted it within the Ufford family, and continued it once she held the advowson of Campsey herself. Because of Isabella’s vow at Campsey, many nineteenth-century historians assumed that Isabella’s status following her vow made her a canoness there.117 As yet, no conclusive proof confirms her permanent residence at Campsey, though I suspect she was a regular visitor, if not a boarder. As Erler cautions, not every woman who made this public pledge entered a religious house; some lay women retained control of their estates, dower, and inheritance, as Isabella had done.118 One document in particular suggests Isabella’s residential status as a vowess. Twenty-five years after her vow, a special commission met Isabella at her manor of Parham, where they took a deposition from her. She insisted that she did not own the manors of Wickham Skeith and Cotton but that their owner was Simon Blyant, who had promised her the first opportunity to purchase them should he decide to sell. In this document, dated 15 February 1407, she is specifically referred to as “Isabel, Countess of Suffolk” or “Countess” whenever her speech is recorded.119 This deposition suggests she was living on her manor at Parham, Suffolk, because the commission met her there. If she had been living at the priory, the commission might have easily traveled to Campsey, because Parham lies less than four miles away. The proximity of Parham to Campsey Ash might also mean that Isabella conducted her secular affairs there yet resided at the priory. Two charters now held by the British Library also document some of Isabella’s activities after her vow: Harley Charter 55.H.1 and Harley Charter 57.C.42. In the first, dated 1397, Isabella sold her market rights to Ankarette Talbot, her first husband’s sister and heir, for the sum of 400 pounds. In the second, dated 1400, Isabella received permission from William Willoughby, her great nephew and heir to part of the Ufford barony, to “lay waste” or to use one hundred marks of the dower without repaying it. Both charters indicate, as does her control of the dower properties until her death in 1416, 117. Collections Towards the History and Antiquities of Elmeswell and Campsey Ash, 23; Gibbons, Ely Episcopal Records, 146; and Jessopp, “Manuscripts of the Bishop of Ely.” 386. 118. IPM, 20:184 – 85. 119. See Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous (Chancery) Preserved in the Public Record Office, 1399 –1422, vol. 7 (London: HMSO, 1968), 185 – 86.
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that she continued to administrate her wealth after her vow of chastity in 1382 and that she retained a significant influence in her marital families.120 Charter evidence, however, provides no conclusive documentation about how Isabella spent the thirty-four years after William’s death, and her will does not state that she remained a lay woman, though it directs that her burial be at Campsey next to her husband, not in the nun’s cemetery. If Isabella were a canoness, we might expect her to be buried with other nuns to show that she had given up her lay status. Yet, within the Ufford family, a religious profession did not always prohibit inheritance, dispensation of property through wills, or the burial location. Isabella’s sister-in-law Maud, who had inherited part of the barony at her brother’s death, demonstrates that inheritance was not necessarily disrupted by one’s choice of a religious life. Thus, Isabella’s continued care of her estates, and her preference for burial with her husband, need not be seen as proof she was not a canoness. Maud’s brother too confirms that inheritances did not pass by religious men and women and that at times they could choose their burial sites; John de Ufford, who was Prebendary of Sleford in the church of Lincoln, left a legacy to his canoness sister and directed that he be buried at Hingham.121 Within the Beauchamp family, moreover, Isabella’s aunt, Catherine Beauchamp, was a nun at Wroxhall who died in 1378 and was buried with her family in the Beauchamp Chapel at St. Mary’s, Warwick.122 Whether Isabella became a canoness at Campsey remains unclear, but she did claim chastity for her future, as Æthelthryth had. What we can say is that Isabella had defined a space that allowed her to negotiate her life. Despite the similarities between the two medieval women, we cannot be sure that Isabella was intentionally imitating Æthelthryth’s life so much as imitating a cultural standard for the governance and dispensation of dower wealth evident in Marie’s narrative, a text that Isabella could well have known. Vernacular hagiography, especially of an abbess who used her dower properties to establish monastic centers, circulated throughout England and offered “a view of the kind of social aspiration liable to make religious lives attractive and sustainable for other women.”123 The popularity of 120. The first charter indicates Isabella’s exorbitant wealth, and the latter, as Linda E. Mitchell mentioned to me in a private conversation, is very unusual. Widows lived off their dowers but were not able to decrease the value of these estates throughout their tenure so that the heirs would not be cheated out of their inheritance. 121. Waters, Genealogical Memoirs, 330; Oliva, 104 –5. 122. Gough, Description of the Beauchamp Chapel, 15. 123. Wogan-Browne, “Queens, Virgins, and Mothers,” 17.
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the Ely cult throughout England, especially in East Anglia, suggests that Isabella would have been well acquainted with the cult of Æthelthryth. The Ely monastery’s holdings in Suffolk explain, in part, the development of veneration of their most important saint, for local traditions offer evidence of the widespread East Anglian reverence for Æthelthryth, who appears on a number of late medieval rood screens in Suffolk and Norfolk, as in several other artistic forms, as the final chapter of this study demonstrates.124 It is likely that the canonesses at Campsey Ash observed Æthelthryth’s feast day, because it is listed in a calendar included in one of the psalters used there.125 Campsey’s geographical location within the Liberty of Etheldreda and the possession of the Anglo-Norman Vie Seinte Audrée, moreover, proves localized knowledge of the cult and of Marie’s text, and Isabella’s position as patron to Campsey Ash suggests that she would have had a good opportunity to hear the nuns read Marie’s Vie Seinte Audrée or even to borrow the manuscript for her own devotional reading.126 The connections between Ely and Campsey Ash Priory are suggestive: the relationship between Isabella and Thomas Arundel; the Bishop of Ely’s appearance as celebrant at Isabella’s vow of chastity; the position of the priory within the Liberty of Etheldreda; the inclusion of the only copy of Marie’s VSA in a manuscript held by the priory; and the behavioral similarities between Isabella and Æthelthryth.127 Marie describes Ely as a royal foundation appropriate for the daughters of nobles. Campsey Ash would have been a comparable establish124. For an indication of Æthelthryth’s popularity in medieval iconography, see the Appendix. 125. CUL, Add. ms 7220. 126. For descriptions of the shared reading of lay and religious women, see Erler, Women, Reading, and Piety. 127. The Uffords are mentioned twice in an Ely priory register. In 1353, Robert de Ufford, the first Earl of Suffolk, pressed Thomas Arundel to get the Ely prior and convent to release Richard Spynk, a citizen of Norwich, a move that shows the bishop responding to Isabella’s father-in-law’s request. In 1361, Robert de Ufford gave evidence for the priory and convent of Buttele, where he held the advowson, to be released from “amercement at the leet of Blaxhall for nonreparation of the bridge of Langwude, and the causeways, and from all future liability.” See the calendar of this register in Historical Manuscripts Commission, 6th report, pt. 1, app., 299 –300. Also, one of William Ufford’s heirs, Roger de Scales, is a descendant of the Eschalier family—the family named in the miracle, which helps date Marie’s VSA because it was copied into her text. In this miracle, Æthelthryth takes revenge on the family for the misappropriation of monastic monies. Because the Scales family was connected to Campsey Ash, it is possible that they had something to do with the transmission of Marie’s text into the Campsey manuscript. This theory is not likely, however, because it was not the Scales family who held the advowson at Campsey after Isabella’s death but the descendants of Robert de Willoughby.
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ment, perhaps not in total wealth but certainly in terms of the number of aristocratic women drawn there and its reputation for rich patrons. There are many links between Isabella and Campsey and between the nunnery at Campsey and the monastery of Ely. No evidence has yet been found of the Uffords’ direct veneration of Æthelthryth, which suggests that the family may have no connection with the manuscript or with including Æthelthryth in the legendary. A more extensive examination of the codex would shed light on its use at the priory, and more substantial study of the verse life would offer more context for Marie’s translation. As it stands, the manuscript confirms that it was used by nuns at Campsey during the fourteenth century and that female members of the Ufford family would have had access to it. Whatever the terms by which the Campsey manuscript was made, Marie’s imagery of Æthelthryth as founder and patron offers a fitting complement to the public ceremony of Isabella’s chaste vow and the acts of patronage performed by the Ufford family. The reception of this text at the Campsey Ash nunnery illustrates, moreover, how the hagiographic tradition about Æthelthryth was transformed from a specifically male monastic cult in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries to one that had resonance for both lay and monastic female audiences in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
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fiv e Abbesse heo was hir self imad after 4e furste 6ere / And an holi couent inow heo norisede 4ere: Clerical Production, Vernacular Texts, and Lay Devotion (ca. 1325 – ca. 1615)
After a yeare compleate, she became Abbesse in the region or territorie called ELGE (now ELIE): where building a monasterie of virgins, dedicated to god, this their mother and virgin began to be a patterne and document of heauenlie conuersation and a leader to eternall life.1
As we have seen, the major texts produced to honor Æthelthryth between 695 and 1200 were reflective of particular historical moments and cultural concerns. Two influential vitae, both written in Latin, were composed as a means to enhance the cult and, by extension, to support the formation of religious institutions. In the case of Bede, his account was used to supplement his narrative of a newly established Christian community, and Richard of Ely’s vita offered a foundation narrative that could promote the monastery’s patron and simultaneously protect the monks’ interests as guardians of her institution. Like many Anglo-Saxon cults revived during the tenth century, vernacular writing appeared early in the development of the Etheldredan cult. Æthelweard and Æthelmær’s request that Ælfric provide monastic texts in Old English is an early example of laity reading devotional material in the vernacular. Similarly, Marie’s Anglo-Norman vie appears to have been written for an aristocratic audience whose life experiences included secular (marital) and sacred (avowed) concerns, and it is illustrative of the insular tradition of producing vitae for non-Latinate audiences. The four narratives discussed thus far demonstrate that the development of early texts about Æthelthryth perpetuated the cult among aristocratic as well as monastic audiences. As we have seen, the literary tradition was supported by the most elite writers and the most privileged readers. The move 1. The Lives of Women Saints of Our Contrie of England, also Some Other Liues of Holie Women Written by Some of the Auncient Fathers, c. 1610 –1615, ed. Carl Horstmann (London, 1886), 68.
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to vernacular writing in the early period, however, did not make the cult much more accessible among the laity; indeed, Ælfric’s and Marie’s texts seem to have had a narrow circulation among very privileged readers. Indeed, their influence appears to have been minimal outside the writers’ targeted audiences. The concerns embedded within them—Ælfric’s presentation of the thegn’s chaste marriage, and Marie’s description of the domestic details of Æthelthryth’s marriages — do not appear in later versions, which supports this contention. It may well be that the specificity with which these narratives were written, both in theme and in language, made them incompatible with later usage. In any case, they did not give rise to other vernacular texts. This is not to say, however, that late medieval vernacular texts were not written to honor Æthelthryth; a number survive to illustrate continued interest in making the life available to lay audiences. The Vitae Ætheldredae produced in late medieval England demonstrate that they are, like Ælfric’s and Marie’s texts, recensions of Bede’s prose account or of the expanded narrative that comprises book one of the Liber Eliensis. The number of lives collected in Table 1 is a testament to the importance of Æthelthryth through the centuries, for these texts show patterns of interest that are fairly unusual for a regional cult. A comparison of the data illustrates that between the eighth and fifteenth centuries, Latin versions were produced with some regularity. While Latin texts about Æthelthryth predominate between 1000 and 1500, there are a few exceptions: Marie’s poem in Anglo-Norman (ca. 1200) and three accounts written in Middle English, including an epitome in the South English Legendary and two independent versions both dated to the fifteenth century. After 1500, Æthelthryth’s life appears in three printed collections, all of which were written in English. This trajectory parallels the basic development of literary writings in England: Latin texts dominated the early period through the twelfth century, though Old English poems and prose texts were also being produced; Anglo-Norman works were written for aristocratic audiences in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; writings in Middle English began around 1200 but became more common by the fifteenth century, especially with the advent of printing in the 1470s.2 The chronology of texts about Æthelthryth substantiates what we already know about literacy and 2. Manfred Görlach offers a comparative graph of law documents, literature, scholarly texts, and spoken languages in England, and his presentation of the concurrence of Latin, English, and French aptly reflects the development of the Etheldredan literary tradition. In Studies in Middle English Saints’ Legends (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 1998), 5.
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reading practices in England, but in the context of local and regional saints, who were rarely supported with this degree of literary production, the Vitae Ætheldredae signal an exceptional interest in presenting this cult through the written word. When considered together, the lives demonstrate a recurrence of clerical productions in Latin and a long-standing existence of vernacular narratives about Æthelthryth. What the chronology does not make clear is exactly how these texts were received, how various groups understood the figure of a royal, married virgin, or how clerics or laity may have become instrumental in promoting or venerating the saint. Because this book has largely focused on clerical productions — indeed, ones that have supported the monastery at Ely or its central shrine—this chapter will examine the production and reception of vernacular texts that illustrate a broader audience of devotees, both professed religious and lay. My aim is to demonstrate the various ways in which one legend could be disseminated and to suggest some reasons that the narrative was perceived as increasingly important for lay consumption. While it is difficult to know how any of the vitae were received, there are moments when lay appreciation of native female saints seems very low, and others when laity expressed great devotion to regional figures of sanctity. One measure of interest in Æthelthryth’s life is the recensions included in legendaries, such as the epitome in the South English Legendary, and the multiple independent vitae, such as the verse account included in BL, Cotton Faustina B.III, a manuscript that is linked to Wilton Abbey. These texts all demonstrate an investment in Æthelthryth’s role as abbess, emphasizing her position as teacher and leader of nuns. Initially, the South English Legendary seems to have been produced by clerics for the devotional reading of nuns and, in time, for a lay audience; less certain is the audience for whom the Wilton manuscript was originally intended. It might have been a lay devotee or, more likely, the Benedictine nuns at Wilton. The latter case does not preclude a nonreligious audience because the two groups overlapped in aristocratic circles, as the preceding discussion of Isabella Ufford indicates. My intention is to examine the production of the three vernacular lives, their provenances, and to some degree the audiences whose needs would have been met by them. One goal is to demonstrate how Æthelthryth was produced textually as a figure of late medieval devotion and to ascertain whether laity were being actively encouraged to read about the saint; another is to examine the presentation of Æthelthryth as a monastic leader who nourishes her community. Some part of this imagery reappears
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in all the Middle English recensions, and the role seems to have been an important one to late medieval audiences. Another way to measure lay interest is to examine the material goods in parishes, and the second half of the chapter builds on the first by locating specific sites of devotion to Æthelthryth in the East Anglian landscape. Katherine L. French and Gail McMurray Gibson, among others, have demonstrated that the materials of the medieval parish provide an entrée into the complexities of lay devotional practice.3 The wealth of images included in the Appendix demonstrates that producing images of Æthelthryth as signs of devotion was an important activity. In addition, there is significant dedicatory evidence in parishes, monasteries, altars, and guilds. The proliferation of images throughout southern England, but especially in East Anglia, indicates the favor given to this saint. Of particular interest are a number of roodscreens on which the image of Æthelthryth is painted. When the sites of these screens are mapped, a cluster appears in and around Norwich. The meanings behind these multiple images are as difficult to decipher as is the evidence from the textual tradition, but the screen paintings indicate that there was an established devotion to Æthelthryth among these Norfolk parishioners. In what follows, I examine several of these images, consider their placement on the screens, speculate about the nature of this form of devotion, and locate the connections between these material texts and the English lives that were produced in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and early sixteenth centuries.4 The most important roodscreen discussed is the complex arrangement at St. Helen’s, Ranworth, which provides a demonstrable narrative in which Æthelthryth is a maternal figure of leadership and education regarding virginity. This role, which had been noted by Bede and which appears in only a few of the texts in the literary tradition, 3. Andrew D. Brown, Popular Piety in Late Medieval England: The Diocese of Salisbury, 1250 –1550 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995); Katherine L. French, The People of the Parish: Community Life in a Late Medieval English Diocese (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000); Gail McMurray Gibson, The Theater of Devotion: East Anglian Drama and Society in the Late Middle Ages (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989). Other scholars have also influenced my work here, including Coletti, Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints; Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, c. 1400 – c. 1580 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); Judith Middleton-Stewart, Inward Purity and Outward Splendour; Christine Peters, Patterns of Piety: Women, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval and Reformation England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 4. Reading literary, historical, and visual texts about saints is increasingly common, and I have been influenced by too many studies to recount here. I will note, however, that three books have been particularly useful: Caviness, Visualizing Women; Marks, Image and Devotion; and Lewis, Cult of St. Katherine, esp. 1–44.
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is transformed into an important sign on the Ranworth screen, as the image of the saint is placed alongside other figures that recall stories of virginity, teaching, and Christian conversion. The result is that we can see how laity in a small Norfolk parish received the clerical tradition and how they reinterpreted it in their church ornamentation. This imagery can be tied directly to the vernacular tradition about Æthelthryth’s maternity. The epigraph, which is from The Lives of Women Saints of Our Contrie of England, demonstrates that the imagery of Æthelthryth as a virgin “mother” was included in the vernacular tradition. Of particular importance, therefore, are the intersections between the presentations of the saint offered in vernacular texts, the transmission of information between clerical and lay communities, and the survivals that are testament to lay devotion to the saint. Complementary narratives emerge between these two distinct but overlapping communities. My aim is to the locate the intersections between forms of clerical and lay veneration, even as it is my intention to illustrate how laity transformed the figure of Æthelthryth by developing their own devotional practices in her honor.
Vitae Ætheldredae Intriguing about extant Vitae Ætheldredae is the abundance of Latin lives and the relative paucity of English lives between 1000 and 1500 c.e. The evidence shows that clerical production, stemming principally from Bede’s account, continued steadily throughout the later medieval period. The prose vita of the monastic chronicle was recopied on several occasions, but the form of these Latin recensions was not fixed; several verse or rhyming prose accounts were also produced: Gregory of Ely’s verse account in the twelfth century; a late thirteenth-century text in rhyming prose; and a metrical life written in the fifteenth century.5 Readership of these texts associated with Ely appears to have been primarily clerical or monastic. Two codices demonstrate that Latin texts were also available for reading within other religious institutions, both female and male. BL, Lansdowne ms 436, is a fourteenth-century collection of vitae from the library at Romsey Abbey, a nunnery in Hampshire, and BL, ms Cotton Tiberius E.i, contains John of Tynemouth’s Santilogium Angliae, Walliae, Scotiae et Hiberniae 5. E. O. Blake has discussed the various manuscripts containing the chronicle’s vita, in LE, xxiii–xxxvii.
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(ca. 1325), which is associated with St. Albans Abbey in Hertfordshire. The vita included in the Romsey manuscript closely follows the Bede account; the version presented by John of Tynemouth is taken from the Liber Eliensis and features four miracles from the monastic chronicle.6 Particularly striking is that these two independent collections are focused exclusively on British saints, and they demonstrate some monastic concern about these figures. They also illustrate that Latin legendaries about local saints were produced independently of those about universal saints. The reasons are unclear, but this impulse carried over when making copies of the Legenda Aurea (LgA), the popular legendary of late medieval Europe. For example, Æthelthryth is included in only one copy of the LgA. This well-known collection of saints’ lives, which was introduced into England soon after it was compiled by Jacobus de Voragine (ca. 1270), was the most widely read book of the medieval period, and translations of the text into English made it available to readers of all backgrounds.7 Cambridge, Pembroke College ms 277 is an early fourteenth-century codex in which lives of several British saints are appended to the Legenda Aurea (rather than inserted according to their feast days). These Latin lives include Æthelthryth, Ælfeah, Dunstan, Aldhelm, Botulph, Edward the Confessor, Alban, Swithun, and Kenelm. As the only native female saint, Æthelthryth may be included here because of regional devotion to her. An inscription on the flyleaf indicates that it was owned by a cleric, one Thomas atte Chirche de Blofeld, who was the rector of St. Michael’s of Conesford in Norwich, an area known to have supported the Ely cult. His obituary is dated 1341.8 That there is only one manuscript of the Legenda Aurea that includes Æthelthryth is somewhat surprising, especially because so many copies were produced in England and because the life of Æthelthryth was circulated regularly in Latin among clerical and monastic audiences. Manfred Görlach indicates, however, that the addition of native saints to insular productions of the LgA is unusual; indeed, there are five known manuscripts of the LgA that include British saints, and only one translated into English that includes native figures.9 The 6. Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, ed. Love, cxvi – cxvii. For an overview of John’s life and work, see Michael Lapidge and Rosalind C. Love, “Angleterre, Pays de Galles, Hagiographie latine,” in Hagiographies, vol. 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001), 305 –9. 7. Sherry Reames, The Legenda Aurea: A Reexamination of Its Paradoxical History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 197–209. 8. M. R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Library of Pembroke College, Cambridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1905), 252. 9. Görlach identifies four, and in a personal communication. Sherry L. Reames has added a fifth to the group: Oxford, Bodl., ms 285; Cambridge, Pembroke College 277; Westminster
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presentation of Æthelthryth in only one of them might signal this cleric’s personal devotion to her, or it might demonstrate that she was a significant figure in the medieval hagiography. The insertion of the Latin life in two legendaries featuring British saints, however, indicates that when native figures were so honored, Æthelthryth was among those included. It might be expected, therefore, that as legendaries in English developed, the Ely abbess would be a regular figure; the most significant British production, the South English Legendary, demonstrates, however, that this expectation is not met by the surviving evidence.
South English Legendary Vernacular texts about Æthelthryth are less common than Latin texts, but they are more interesting in many ways. They include an epitome in the South English Legendary and two independent vitae, one written in quatrains ca. 1420 (BL, ms Cotton Faustina B.III) and the other a prose life from the late fifteenth century (CUL, Add. ms 2604). Each of the vernacular texts will be considered in turn, but I begin with the brief notice about Æthelthryth that appears in the South English Legendary.10 The epitome is included in only three of the some sixty complete and fragmentary manuscripts that survive: BL, Egerton ms 1993, fols. 163r–163v (between 1325 and 1350); Bodley ms Eng. Poet.1.a, fols. 33r–33v (also known as the Vernon manuscript, Abbey ms XII; Oxford, Balliol College ms 288; and Cambridge, Trinity College ms B.15.1. See Görlach, Studies in Middle English Saints’ Legends, 26. The translation of the Legenda Aurea is a recently discovered manuscript by Osbern Bokenham that is held by Abbotsford Library, Melrose, Scotland. At present, Simon Horobin is at work on an edition of this legendary, which is to be published by the EETS. After Signs of Devotion had gone to press, I had an opportunity to examine the manuscript and the life of Æthelthryth included there. Bokenham’s version clearly follows Bede yet adds some innovations to the story: he omits the first marriage to Tondberht and the presentation of Ely as part of Æthelthryth’s dower; he develops the wedding, veiling, and translation ceremonies and makes them visual, not narrative; he includes biblical exegesis and narrative moralizing not seen in other late medieval lives, making it clear how to understand this story; he presents Æthelthryth’s thoughts through monolog; he omits miracle stories; and he refers to Æthelthryth’s genealogy, saying that a family tree is drawn in pictures at Ely. Though too late to include an analysis of Bokenham’s life here, I do want to indicate how important this text is to the veneration of Æthelthryth in late medieval East Anglia. It provides a useful counterpoint to each of the three lives discussed in this chapter. 10. Charlotte d’Evelyn and Frances A. Foster, A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050 –1500, vol. 2 (New Haven, Conn.: Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1970), 584. This reference work does not include Cambridge, CUL, Add. ms 2604.
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produced ca. 1385); and Bodley ms 779, fols. 279v–280r (ca. 1400). Each of these fourteenth-century codices is part of what Görlach has identified as the “E” branch of the SEL manuscripts.11 As many have noted, this collection of saints’ lives seems to have been produced by clerical writers for lay audiences, at times as manuals for preaching and at other times for the personal devotion of a patron as consumer. Görlach argues, however, that the earliest versions of the South English Legendary were produced for the devotional reading of nuns, and he hypothesizes that many of the English lives were included when the collection was first organized near Worcester.12 The survival of only three manuscripts that contain the legend of Æthelthryth, therefore, may not be indicative of her importance to the original writer and readers of this collection, but as the following demonstrates, Æthelthryth did not become an important figure as the legendary was revised and circulated throughout the midlands among lay groups. The South English Legendary was largely based on Jacobus’s Legenda Aurea, in which few British saints are recorded. The appearance of any native figures in the SEL, therefore, demonstrates some desire to reshape the LgA in accordance with devotion to local saints. Native male saints are honored in the various branches of the South English Legendary, and, as Renee Hamelinck notes, nearly one-fifth of the legends are about English saints.13 This percentage shows that there was strong support for making the South English Legendary into a collection that represented local concerns. The native figures most often celebrated include bishops and kings, mostly from the Anglo-Saxon period: Thomas Becket in 23 manuscripts; Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, in 21; Edward the Elder in 20; Bishop Oswald in 19; Dunstan in 18, and Edmund, King of East Anglia, in 16.14 Several scholars, 11. Manfred Görlach, The Textual Tradition of the South English Legendary (Leeds: University of Leeds, 1974), viii–x and 304. 12. Görlach, Textual Tradition, 32 –37. Worth noting here is that two images of Æthelthryth are located in Worcestershire, including a fifteenth-century wall painting at St. Wulfstan’s Hospital in Worcester and an embroidered panel of the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century. These artifacts are evidence that there was some measure of devotion to Æthelthryth in this region, but whether the SEL prompted it remains unclear. See the Appendix for details on the two images. 13. Renee Hamelinck, “St. Kenelm and the Legends of the English Saints in the South English Legendary,” in Companion to Early Middle English Literature, ed. N. H. G. E. Veldhoen and H. Aertsen (Amsterdam: Free University Press, 1988), 21–30 at 21. The ratio of six males to every female in the LgA also shows this disparity. See Thomas Head, comp., “Women and Hagiography in Medieval Christianity,” 23 March 2005 . 14. To arrive at these numbers, I relied on Görlach, Textual Tradition, as well as on O. S. Pickering and Manfred Görlach, “A Newly Discovered Manuscript of the South English
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including Hamelinck, Klaus Jankofsky, and Jill Frederick, have discussed the sense of nationalism apparent in the legends of these native figures, and while these discussions are compelling, they all focus exclusively on male saints; none considers how the native women included may have contributed (or not) to the ideological thrust of nationalism apparent in the male lives.15 When we compare the number of native men to native women in these manuscripts, the female saints are far less frequently honored, a fact that parallels the whole collection, where males outnumber females four to one.16 Excluding Bridget of Ireland and Ursula, who were originally featured in Jacobus’s Legenda Aurea and who therefore appear in a significant number of manuscripts (twenty-one and thirteen respectively), the native women of the South English Legendary are Frideswith (who is included in six manuscripts and one fragment), Mildrith (three manuscripts, plus one fragment), Eadburh of Winchester (three), Æthelthryth (three), Helen (one, plus one fragment), and Wenefrid (one).17 A comparison between the universal female saints honored in Jacobus de Voragine’s legendary and the local women in the SEL illustrates a considerable difference: Katherine of Alexandria and Margaret, the most popular saints in late medieval England, appear in eighteen manuscripts each; Faith, another well-regarded saint, appears in eleven. By contrast, the disparity between the universal and Legendary,” Anglia 100 (1982): 109 –23. For each saint, Görlach indicates the number of appearances in full manuscripts, fragments, and lost manuscripts. He also indicates manuscripts that likely had a legend that is now missing. In my count, I have included only the full manuscripts, the fragments, and the lost items for each saint. In addition, several other lists of saints in the SEL are available but are not nearly as definitive: d’Evelyn and Foster, Manual of the Writings; Carleton Brown, A Register of Middle English Religious and Didactic Verse, vol. 1 (Oxford: Bibliographical Society, 1916). Carl Horstmann also provides a listing of the manuscripts’ contents in Early South-English Legendary or Lives of Saints, Laud 108 in the Bodleian Library (London, 1887). 15. Klaus Jankofsky, “National Characteristics in the Portrayal of English Saints in the South English Legendary,” in Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe, ed. Renate BlumenfeldKosinski and Timea Szell (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 81–93; and Jill Frederick, “The South English Legendary: Anglo-Saxon Saints and National Identity,” in Literary Appropriations of the Anglo-Saxons from the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century, ed. Donald Scragg and Carole Weinberg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 57–73. 16. Anne B. Thompson, Everyday Saints and the Art of Narrative in the South English Legendary (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 153. 17. Worth noting is that even though Bridget and Ursula were included by Jacobus de Voragine, the inclusion of these figures in the SEL is not universal. There is a long and short version of the Life of Bridget, and collectively she is honored in nineteen manuscripts. Ursula is presented in only fourteen. These figures are significant when compared with the other native female saints, but they illustrate that the desire to represent native women in this collection was not a strong one.
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native male saints is negligible: Peter and Paul appear in seventeen, and the martyrs Stephen and John the Baptist are featured in sixteen. A simple accounting leads to several important conclusions regarding textual devotion to the saints: (1) English clerics were invested in presenting the Legenda Aurea to an English audience, and when doing so they had some desire to document their native history by including episcopal and royal male figures; (2) native male saints were represented as regularly as universal saints were, which is suggestive about the measure of local devotion being reflected or encouraged by the compiler and revisers of the South English Legendary; and (3) the presentation of native women in the South English Legendary does not appear to have been important when these manuscripts were recopied and the collection was disseminated outside Worcester, for the great majority do not include any of them, and only one features all the women except Helen, who was only occasionally considered British. Indeed, the lives of native women are, for the most part, dispersed among the manuscripts. These conclusions beg a question: when the women appear, is there any indication why they were being honored? Native women seem to have been included in the South English Legendary when there was a deliberate effort to represent as many native saints as possible (such as Wenefrid in Bodley ms 779) or when local devotion prompted the writer to include one or more (such as Helen in ms Lambeth Palace 223, which was produced for an individual).18 The six manuscripts that feature Frideswith suggest the possibility that locale mattered. Frideswith’s cult at Oxford was in close proximity to the region of production for the South English Legendary (Worcestershire and Gloucestershire), and it may be the reason she was honored more often than other native women. Still, among the manuscripts containing the epitome of the Oxford saint, there are two distinct versions of the Frideswith story, and they appear in different manuscript branches, which suggests that the reasons for including the Oxford saint differed in each.19 As an alternative, we might consider that some of the women were included because they represented England’s aristocratic past. Frideswith, Æthelthryth, Mildrith, and Eadburh were all royal, and the lives stress their locality. In particular, the last three are presented as virgin daughters of Anglo-Saxons kings, and they appear together in the same manuscripts of 18. Görlach, Textual Tradition, 82 – 83. 19. Sherry Reames, ed., Middle English Legends of Women Saints (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 2003), 23 –25. See also d’Evelyn and Foster, Manual of the Writings, 588.
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the “E” branch. As representatives of East Anglia, Kent, and Wessex, each demonstrates a regional history of England, and this may be the reason they were grouped together. If so, this finding would support the argument that insular saints were honored as part of a nationalistic impulse. The treatment of Eadburh’s life repeatedly emphasizes that she is the daughter of Edward of Wessex, and thus it seems to indicate the writer’s desire to document royal figures of sanctity. The presentation of Mildrith’s and Æthelthryth’s royal status, however, is more subdued and may mean that another aspect of their sanctity was worth venerating. Common to the three lives is that the women are aristocratic nuns who abdicated their secular positions in favor of monastic ones. Of note, the epitomes for Æthelthryth and Mildrith stress their position as abbess, even as the life of Eadburh illustrates her devotion as a nun. Certainly, the writer demonstrates some investment in promoting English monasticism, and the stories of these women as figures of royal piety and abbatial leadership seem to accord with the inclusion of native bishops. If we accept that the legendary was first produced as a lectionary for nuns, recounting the religious lives of Æthelthryth, Mildrith, and Eadburh would have been particularly apropos. As the collection was revised and a lay audience was imagined, it may well be that representatives of female monasticism seemed less important and that their lives therefore were not sustained in later recensions. The possibilities presented here are all viable, but unfortunately we have far too little data to make any one a firm claim. The few native females in the South English Legendary make it difficult to make strong assertions about the relative importance of these figures. What is more, no critical edition of the lives has been published, with the exception of Paul Acker’s edition of the story of Mildrith.20 These editions are sorely needed before a comparative study can be made of the texts and of the manuscripts in which they appear. For now, we must rely on the internal, textual evidence to determine other possible reasons for this investment in Æthelthryth. The epitome produced for the South English Legendary is essentially an abbreviated form of Bede’s narrative. In fifty short lines, the poet addresses Æthelthryth’s two marriages, her religious life, and the translation of her 20. Paul Acker, “Saint Mildred in the South English Legendary,” in South English Legendary: A Critical Assessment, ed. Klaus P. Jankofsky (Tübingen: Francke Verlag, 1992), 140 –53. Richard T. Martin of St. Louis University has also prepared a translation of Æthelthryth’s legend and presented a discussion of it at the Twenty-First Annual Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies, 1994. To my knowledge, Martin has not published this work. See an abstract of this conference paper, titled “The Legend of St. Etheldreda in British Library, ms Egerton 1993, and Bodl., ms Eng. Poet. 1.a (Vernon),” in Manuscripta 38.3 (1994): 199.
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incorrupted corpse. Each of these sections is about the same length, with twenty lines devoted to the chaste marriages, fourteen to her life as a nun, and fourteen to the translation ceremony. The final two lines are new additions, the first describing a “gret feste” held at Ely; the second, a ritualistic line in which the speaker asks Jesus to bring him and his audience to the bliss of heaven. The reference to the festival at Ely is unique and seems to suggest that the speaker’s audience would not know about the Ely traditions, which included an important fair held in honor of Æthelthryth’s feast, 23 June.21 Given that this text was produced near Worcester, it may be that the Cambridgeshire festival was unknown to those in that region. Other references show that the poet is deliberately identifying Æthelthryth as a saint of Ely, which may be intended to place the figure geographically for the purposes of pilgrimage, because the fair would be an enticement for laity. If we follow Görlach’s suggestion that the original audience would have been nuns, the feast may be referenced here to demonstrate the local reverence for this saint at a large Benedictine house in East Anglia. Furthermore, the collection of native lives in the South English Legendary suggests an intention to represent regional devotion to Saxon saints in particular. As one of several royal daughters in the SEL collection, situating Æthelthryth’s monastery places the saint geographically and is a reminder of her local status. Attention to Ely as a place begins with the first line and her status as a royal daughter of East Anglia in the second: 21. Several fairs were authorized at Ely in the medieval period, and it is most likely that the SEL writer is referencing the main one for Æthelthryth’s feast day of 23 June. It was a seven-day fair granted between 1121 and 1129 and reconfirmed on several occasions. A second fair was given, probably by Henry III to Bishop Hugh de Northwold for the translation feast of 17 October. This grant was extravagant, for it allowed the bishop to hold a two-week festival, but by 1248 the king had rescinded the grant in favor of a grant to Westminster Abbey for his patron saint, Edward the Confessor. Two later fairs were granted by Edward I, perhaps to make up for the loss caused by his father: one in 1312, where the prior was granted a fair for fifteen days at the festival of Saint Lambert (17 September), the day of the rededication of Ely Cathedral under Hugh de Northwold in 1252, and another fair in 1318, when the bishop was granted a fair lasting twenty-two days, beginning on the Vigil of the Ascension. That year, Ascension Day fell on 1 June, so the fair encompassed the time leading to, and including, Æthelthryth’s feast day of 23 June. After Henry’s decree in 1248, no medieval fair seems to have been granted for 17 October, which indicates that the reference in the SEL must be to the June feast. Information about the fairs comes from Samantha Letters, Gazetteer of Markets and Fairs in England and Wales to 1516, http://www.ihrinfo.ac.uk/cmh/gaz/gazframe.html, 23 February 2005, and from Ethel M. Hampson, “Fairs,” in The Victoria History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely, vol. 4, ed. Ralph B. Pugh (London: Institute of Historical Research, 1953), 50. I provide a discussion of the importance of these fairs and of pilgrimage at Ely in “Building a Presbytery for St. Æthelthryth,” 535 – 61.
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Saint Aeldri of eli. god [mayde] was and hende Hir fader was king of engelond. of al the est ende. (Saint Audrey of Ely was a good and beautiful maid / her father was king of all the east end of England.)22 This opening departs from Bede’s narrative by focusing on the saint’s characteristics and lineage, not on the fact that Ecgfrith took a wife. Likewise, when the poet indicates that Æthelthryth became a nun, he omits the passage about Coldingham and places her religious profession on the Isle of Ely, claiming that there she built a great convent. The poem ends with the reference to the local festival, and thus from the beginning of the poem to the end the writer makes three specific references to Ely as the home of this saint. The geographical references suggest that location matters, yet the description of the isle with which Bede concludes his account is omitted. This change might indicate that the identification of place is not meant to encourage pilgrimage to the shrine so much as to mark this abbess saint as distinctly English. In fact, the epitome not only identifies her as the daughter of Anna, “king of all the east end,” but also claims that she married two kings of England. The presentation, therefore, may be intended to mark her status as a local saint, even as it confirms her position as a member of the East Anglian royal family. Despite his faithfulness to the original account, the writer eliminated the most dramatic aspects of Bede’s story. For instance, Wilfrid’s verification of the saint’s virginity (the attempted bribe) is omitted, as is the first-person narrative of Cynefrith, who found the healed scar on the corpse. What is more, there is no reference to the scar, nor does the poet recount Æthelthryth’s speech about the meaning of the swelling under her jaw. The writer focuses instead on the saint’s desire for a holy life and her wish to join “4e ordre of nonnerie” (the order of a nunnery). Like many other virgins in the South English Legendary, Æthelthryth is called a “holi maide,” and this phrase is repeated following the death of her first husband, Tondberht, to 22. No edition of this epitome is available, and my quotes here are based on a transcription of the earliest version, which is BL, ms Egerton 1993, fol. 163r–163v, though I have referenced the other two versions for clarity and include emendations in brackets. Abbreviations have been corrected silently. For the most part, the Vernon manuscript (Bodl., Eng. poet.1.a, fol. 33r–33v) agrees with the Egerton, but Bodley ms 779, fol. 279v–280r, shows a number of spelling changes as well as metrical and phrasing differences. Translations are my own and are provided here to clarify some difficult passages.
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illustrate their chaste marriage: “4is holi maide was aliue. clene of hir self inow” (this holy maid remained alive and was herself perfectly clean). The attention to the maid’s holiness and purity continues when the poet presents her living situation with Ecgfrith: To gadere hi were ten 6er. as king and is spouse Euer he was as clene maide. as heo com verst to house. Heo bar hir so vair a6en hir lord and so on him gan crie 3at heo was euer clene maide. wi4oute sunne of folie. (They were together ten years as king and his spouse / She was ever as clean a maid as she had been when she first came into his house / She bore herself so courteously in resistance to her lord and so began to entreat him / That she was ever a clean maid without the sin of wantonness.) The multiple references to Æthelthryth’s purity and to her holiness reoccur in the first twenty lines, and they illustrate that she successfully resists her husbands’ desires. The poet stresses that it is her will to remain chaste when he comments on her exceptional behavior as a wife: “so fare4 alle o4er wives nou4e. whose wolde her wille drie” (there are no other wives who would maintain her will). It is her determination—indeed, her active complaint— that forces Ecgfrith to concede that she may become a nun: “On hir lord heo criede vaste. 6if heo mi6te come to ende / In to 4e ordre of nonnerie” (Upon her lord she cried fast if she might enter / Into the order of a nunnery). When Ecgfrith grants her request, it is because there is no other option, or, as the poet says, “he ne mi6te non o4er do” (he could do nothing else). The second section of the epitome also stresses Æthelthryth’s agency in her religious life: In 4e ile of eli. noone heo bi com Of 4e bischop wolfrai 4at was 4o. 4e abit heo nom. For hir 4at hous was furst bigonne. 4is ordre forto make So 4at a gret couent sone. heo gan to hir take. Abbesse heo was hir self. imad after 4e furste 6ere. And an holi couent inow. heo norisede 4ere. Clannore life ne mi6te beo. 4an seinte aeldri gan lede
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Of fastinge and of orisons. and of almes dede. Of suche godnesse and holinesse. hir folewede inow At laste as god it wolde. toward hir ende heo drow. (In the Isle of Ely, she became a nun / Through Bishop Wilfrid it was that she took the habit for herself / For her that house was first begun, in order to make this community / So that soon she began to draw a great convent to her / She was herself made abbess after the first year / And a holy convent she nourished well there / A cleaner life there might not be than the one Saint Audrey began to lead / Of fasting and of praying and of good works / Of such goodness and holiness she followed exactly / At last as God would have it, she drew towards her death.)23 The elements in this passage change Bede’s narrative considerably, amplifying his small reference to her building a monastery into a more significant presentation of Æthelthryth’s role as the founder of Ely. She becomes a nun with Wilfrid’s assistance, and although the poet uses indirect phrasing regarding the building of the convent, it is implied that she instigates the project. This may well be a residual effect of the presentation offered by Marie in La Vie Seinte Audrée or the iconography of Æthelthryth as patron and authority in the historiated initial and the pictorial cycle. That we are to understand her authority in this line (for hir 4at hous was furst bigonne 4is ordre forto make) is indicated by her active participation in drawing others to the community once the physical structure is in place. This reference too is reminiscent of the description in Marie’s vie, where Æthelthryth’s holy life induces others to join her. Æthelthryth’s election to the position of abbess, moreover, indicates her authority at Ely and suggests that her desire brings the enterprise to fruition. The abbess’ daily activities build her reputation as a holy woman: she nourishes the community, she lives a clean life by fasting, praying, and performing good works, and she follows the path of holiness. In addition, the presentation of Æthelthryth as a nourisher is a compelling image of motherhood, one that recalls Bede’s statement “Post annum uero ipsa facta est abbatissa in regione quae uocatur Elge, ubi constructo monasterio uirginum Deo deuotarum perplurium mater uirgo et exemplis uitae caelestis esse coepit et monitis” (A year afterwards she was 23. I am most grateful to Linda E. Voigts for a consultation on this passage.
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herself appointed abbess in the district called Ely, where she built a monastery and became, by the example of her heavenly life and teaching, the virgin mother of many virgins devoted to God).24 The presentation of Æthelthryth as a virgin mother of other virgins replicates the imagery Bede used in his hymn, where the Virgin Mary births new virgins by her example. This depiction is striking in the pared down version of the South English Legendary, where in the second section of the brief poem only two points are made: the first, that Æthelthryth built a religious life and nourished her community (ten lines), and the second, that she prophesied her own death (four lines). The emphasis placed on her religious life and on her administration as abbess suggests that this was far more important to the writer than her gift of prophecy. Where Bede had provided a long list of her ascetic behaviors (fasting, praying, and so on), the poet elects to focus on very few to illustrate how Æthelthryth organized the community and how she cared for its members. This change amplifies Æthelthryth’s authority as a maternal figure who lived chastely and situates her clean living within the convent as preferable to her clean living within marriage. The final fourteen lines focus on the translation ceremony, which is the major scene in the Ecclesiastical History. Unlike the Anglo-Saxon account, which describes the monks finding the sarcophagus and recounts the miracles that occurred when the coffin and shroud were touched, the SEL poet abbreviates the story and focuses on the miracle performed by God, the incorruption of the body: Ur lord ha4 for hir loue. vair miracle iwrou6t. Sixtene 6er 4is holi maide. [in] er4e lay so Or heo were up inome. and inschrine ido. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hir bodi heo fond alle fair. as heo aliue were Cler and sound and fair inow. ri6t as heo slepe 4ere. Also vare4 4is wiues 6ut. (Our lord has made a fair miracle for her love of him / Sixteen years this holy maid lay in the earth / Before she was raised up and enshrined / . . . / Her body she [Seaxburh] found all fair as she were alive / Clear and sound and perfectly beautiful, right as if she were asleep there / This wife continues this way still.) 24. Bede, EH, 392 –93.
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The imagery used here—the virgin is “aliue” and “fair”—recalls the first section, where Æthelthryth is described as “alive” and “clene” after Tondberht’s death, and again when she is called “vair” during her second marriage. The use of the phrase “also vare4 4is wiues 6ut” to assert that the body continues to be uncorrupted echoes the earlier phrase “so fare4 alle o4er wives nou4e.” The repetition in this phrasing implies that the body has remained the same, but the poet does not explicitly say that the incorruption is a result of Æthelthryth’s virginity. Ultimately, this section is a flat rendering of Bede’s text, in which Cynefrith’s firsthand testimony is excised and attention is focused on Seaxburh’s role in the translation. She is elected abbess after Æthelthryth’s death, and the translation seems to occur at her instigation: “4e abbesse hir soster nom it up and let hit in a schrine do” (the abbess her sister took [the body] up and let it be put in a shrine). The poet makes it clear, moreover, that the abbess is the one who discovers the incorruption and honors the body accordingly. With the exception of Seaxburh’s authority in this ceremony, the final section seems unimportant when compared with the first and second sections, which illustrate Æthelthryth’s agency in directing her religious life. In the third section, the poet downplays the post mortem miracles attendant to the translation and does not explain what the preservation of the body means. Where Bede had used Cynefrith’s testimony to charge the scene with more immediacy, the SEL writer reduces the tension by presenting it as equal to or lesser than the other elements of the saint’s life. It seems, therefore, that the revelation of the bodily incorruption is not interpreted here as proof of the saint’s virginity as much as it is offered as proof that Æthelthryth led a good and holy life.25 This presentation could be read as a means to situate Æthelthryth as an exemplar of British sanctity, but the narrative does not seem to identify her in this way exclusively. As we have seen, she is an unusual wife and the mother of her community, and her behavior is worthy of a reward that illustrates God’s efficacy. Where Bede had relied on witnesses to prove her continued virginity, the writer of the South English Legendary indicates that this is not the only significant aspect of the story. Indeed, his presentation intimates that Bede’s focus would not be as appealing to a later audience as Æthelthryth’s ability to persuade her husband to release her or as her leadership as Ely’s abbess. In this, the account might well be more interesting to 25. Jankofsky illustrates that the use of the words “still” and “yet” “indicate the continuity of tradition” associated with a given cult. See “National Characteristics in English Saints,” 86.
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an audience of women who had chosen a life of monasticism. It is possible, however, that the life remained marginally important for a lay audience, because Æthelthryth’s conviction would be read against the canonical requirement that the husband had to agree to the divorce and, as such, would be educative about the responsibilities of wives and husbands. The limited number of manuscripts in which the epitome appears suggests that it did not circulate widely between 1300 and 1400, and we can therefore surmise that the life was not terribly important to the revisers of the South English Legendary, who were writing for lay audiences. By contrast, the Latin accounts of Æthelthryth’s life that appeared while production of the SEL was at its height indicate that clerical interest remained strong. John of Tynemouth’s collection, the Sanctilogium Anglie, Walliae, Scotiae et Hiberniae (SA), the Romsey manuscript, and the Legenda Aurea are all legendaries that illustrate that clerical readers continued their devotion to the Ely saint. The reasons for not including Æthelthryth more frequently in recensions of this major vernacular collection, therefore, remain unclear. One possibility is that the cult was simply not important among lay groups and that as the collection was increasingly copied for lay reading, the Life of Æthelthryth did not meet the devotional needs of a lay audience. Pilgrimage to Ely during this period, however, suggests otherwise. Most shrines in England experienced a significant increase in donations between 1349 and 1400 as a direct result of the Black Plague. Ben Nilson has examined the donation receipts for the shrines of several native saints, including those for Æthelthryth’s shrine at Ely. The evidence shows that among the sites Nilson studied, Æthelthryth’s routinely received the most donations (with the exception of Becket’s at Canterbury). On average, the shrine revenues at Ely were approximately £40 per annum between 1330 and 1520.26 By contrast, the average revenues for the shrines of Cuthbert and for Edward the Confessor—the latter a cult promoted and supported by royalty —were £21 and £25 per annum, respectively. Furthermore, most shrines saw a sharp spike around 1400 and a significant decline in donations after that date. While the Ely receipts show a dip at the beginning of the fifteenth century, donations returned to their pre-plague levels and remained there until 1520, when they fell off considerably. Nilson’s data illustrate, therefore, that pilgrimage to Ely remained an important activity even when other cult centers suffered a loss of revenues. It also demonstrates 26. Ben Nilson, Cathedral Shrines of Medieval England (1998; reprint, Woodbridge, Suff.: Boydell Press, 2001), 154 and 235.
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that during the time that the South English Legendary was in active circulation, pilgrimage to Æthelthryth’s shrine was also at its peak. The economic picture provided by these shrine receipts suggests that the paucity of native women in the South English Legendary is not indicative of regional devotion to them.27 One conclusion is that the South English Legendary, as a clerical production, does not fully illustrate the devotional desires of laity in the fourteenth century and that the elimination of native religious women from the collection had little to do with lay interest in their cults.
The Verse Life from Wilton Abbey Where Latin collections like the Santilogium Anglie illustrate some measure of clerical interest in local saints during the fourteenth century, and where the South English Legendary demonstrates a move to offer the lives of native figures to both religious and lay audiences, the translation of independent, hagiographical narratives did not occur with any regularity until after 1400. The existence of two fifteenth-century versions about Æthelthryth and of two sixteenth-century print versions intimates a change in the literary traditions of the Ely cult, one that may be based on language development alone or one that may in fact be related to the impetus behind the production of the South English Legendary and later collections, such as Osbern Bokenham’s Legendys of Hooly Wummen. BL, ms Cotton Faustina B.III, and CUL, Add. ms 2604, contain full-length treatments that are based on the Liber Eliensis life; however, each is clearly independent of the other. The former, which is a verse account dated ca. 1420, accompanies the life of Edith of Wilton in a compilation of texts.28 These two lives, one about the Ely saint and another about the Wilton patron, follow foundation documents about Wilton Abbey and seem to have been part of the reading material there; inserted between them is a list of the prioresses of the abbey.29 27. I am assuming here, based on the miracle stories associated with the cult, which feature knights, tax collectors, reeves, ploughmen, wives, peasants, and children, that pilgrimage to Ely was undertaken by religious and lay penitents of various classes. 28. D’Evelyn and Foster, Manual of the Writings, 584. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne has discussed the Edith life in “Outdoing the Daughters of Syon? Edith of Wilton and the Representations of Female Community in Fifteenth-Century England,” in Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts in Late Medieval Britain, ed. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne et al. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), 393 –409. 29. Thomas Smith, Catalogue of the Cottonian Library, ed. C. G. C. Tate (Woodbridge, Suff.: D. S. Brewer, 1984), 151.
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Written in a Wiltshire dialect, the approximately 1,100 lines are composed in quatrains.30 The vita in BL, ms Cotton Faustina B.III rivals Marie’s Vie Seinte Audrée in the number of changes and elaborations to the basic story. Most significant is the presentation, which seems to be performance-oriented, as if the story was designed to be read aloud or perhaps performed as a narrative play.31 The account is filled with dialogues between Æthelthryth and her spiritual advisers, speeches she makes to her community of nuns, and visions in which angels appear to explain future events. One example occurs when Ecgfrith encourages Wilfrid to speak to Æthelthryth about producing heirs while they are young. Where Bede simply reports what Wilfrid has told him about the bribe, the writer of the Middle English version constructs a dialogue in which Ecgfrith tells the bishop and his wife why he wants to consummate the marriage. Æthelthryth’s response demonstrates her authority as a speaker (much like Saint Katherine), for she responds directly to Ecgfrith’s desire to have children with a theological argument about the difference between one’s inheritances on earth and the spiritual inheritance of heaven: “Syrus, se 6e not ry6t welle 4at 4is worlde nys nou6t, Bot euer fals and fyculle & ry6t vnsadde To alle hem 4e whiche trustone 4erto? Wherfore let vs here serue clene 4at god 4at vs hath made, Styll in clannasse, as we herebyfore algatus han do, And purchese we to owre soule 4at hey6e heritage 3at we my6ten in heuene clene maydenus y-cronyd be— For, forsothe, 4at is to vs most a-vantetage To haue owre heritage in heuene with god in trinite.” (“Sirs, see you not well clearly that this world is nothing / But ever false and fickle and certainly inconstant / To all of them who put their trust therein? / Wherefore let us serve here the purity with which God has made us, / Remaining in cleanness, as heretofore we have always done, / And earn that high heritage for our souls / So that we might be crowned clean maids in heaven—/ For it is 30. Carl Horstmann provides an introduction to the dialect in his edition, “Vita S. Etheldredae Eliensis,” in Horstmann, ed., Altenglische Legenden (Heilbronn: Verlag von Gebr. Henninger, 1881), 282. 31. Coletti discusses the interplay between saints’ lives, drama, and religious culture in Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints, 22 –99.
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the most advantageous for us, to be sure, to have our heritage in heaven with God in Three.”)32 After mentioning that a royal convent is nearby to which she could retire, Æthelthryth continues, saying: “My maydenhode, syre, y shulde nowe 6eue To hym 4at made bothe ny6t & eke day. For he is welle & founder of alle godenesse, & of mayden-hode & of clene virginite, And euer with-ou6t bygynnyng with hym hit was And with his blessud angels fayre and fre: For of a mayde Jhesu for vs was y-bore And toke monkynde in vrthe here alowe— And ellus owre soules hade ben forlore. Wherfore to 6eue hit to hym, hit were ry6t welle by-towe. And for by-cause 4at he louythe so well 4ate order y-wys Of clene mayden-hode, as y chaue 6ow now y-sayde, A feyrore lyf, forsothe, my lord, non 4er nys: Wherfore, gode sire, graunt me to don as ychan 6ow sayde.” (“My maidenhood, sir, you should now give / To him that made night and also day. / For he is the well and founder of all goodness, / And of maidenhood and pure virginity, / And ever it was with him without beginning / And with his blessed angels fair and free: / For of a maid, Jesus was born for us / And was subjected alone to mankind here on earth / Or else our souls would have been forlorn. / Wherefore to give it to him, it would be right well done. / And surely for the reason that he loves so well that state / Of clean maidenhood, as I have now said to you, / A fairer life, to be sure, my lord, none other is: / Wherefore, good sire, grant me to do as I have said to you.”)33 32. “Vita S. Etheldredae Eliensis,” lines 208 –16. Translations of this poem are mine, and while the Middle English is accessible to most, I offer them here for clarification. While there is not space to enter into this discussion here, I note that this text is particularly interested in the separation of the body and the soul, that the soul ascends to heaven and that the body remains on earth. 33. “Vita S. Etheldredae Eliensis,” lines 231–44. The authority expressed here recalls that of other speaking saints, such as Mary Magdalene, who preaches as one of the apostles of Christ;
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In the literary tradition about her, Æthelthryth is rarely afforded speech. It is striking, therefore, that where Bede had recorded Æthelthryth’s brief explanation of her neck wound, and where the Liber Eliensis recorded miracles in which Æthelthryth rebuked those who abused her community, this late medieval poem stages the conjugal problem as a marital discussion and allows Æthelthryth the persuasive voice of spiritual authority regarding marriage and purity. She insists that a spiritual inheritance (for example, a place in heaven) is worth far more than the earthly concerns about producing heirs. In fact, she stresses the importance of preserving their souls over the necessity of preserving their earthly goods. Remaining chaste, moreover, will allow the marital pair to imitate Jesus and his mother, and thus both wife and husband will have a beautiful life. Her developed argument recalls the promise that Cecilia makes to Valerian on their wedding night: “‘And if that ye in clene love me gye, / He wol yow loven as me for youre clennesse, / And shewen yow his joye and his brightnesse’” (“And if you preserve me in pure love / He will love you for your cleanness as he loves me / And will show you the joy of heaven and his splendour”).34 Cecilia’s speech appears in a text written about fifty years before the Wilton vita, Chaucer’s Second Nun’s Tale. The resonances between the two are striking and suggest that the essential argument was repeated in court poetry and in devotional reading alike. Likewise, Æthelthryth’s references to the purity of maidenhood echo the argument against procreation in Hali Meidenhad, in which readers are encouraged to set “4in heorte heouen 4iderwart as 4in eritage is, ant eor2e forhohien” (your heart in the direction of heaven as your heritage is, and scorn the earth).35 These allusions show that the writer of the Wilton vita has drawn on an established tradition about religious women and their purity.36 In so doing, Katherine, who engages in spiritual debates with nonbelievers; and Cecilia, who uses rhetoric to convince her husband of the merits of chastity. Several scholars have investigated the female saint as a figure of authority, and I highlight here those that have been most influential for me: Gail Ashton, The Generation of Identity in Late Medieval Hagiography: Speaking the Saint (London: Routledge, 2000); Coletti, Mary Magdalene; Lewis, Cult of St. Katherine; McInerney, Eloquent Virgins; Winstead, Virgin Martyrs; and Wogan-Browne, Saints’ Lives and Women’s Literary Culture. 34. Geoffrey Chaucer, The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson, 3d ed. (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1987), 8:159 – 61. The language comes from Jacobus’s LgA, as Reames shows in “A Recent Discovery.” See also Lynn Staley’s examination of the politic context of the Cecilia legend and “Cecilia’s Aggressiveness” in “Chaucer and the Postures of Sanctity,” in The Powers of the Holy: Religion, Politics, and Gender in Late Medieval English Culture, ed. David Aers and Lynn Staley (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), 179 –259. 35. Hali Mei2had, ed. Bella Millett (London: Oxford University Press, 1982), 13. 36. Millett discusses this context in her introduction to Hali Mei2had, xxiv–xxvi.
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the poet situates the life of this Anglo-Saxon saint in direct conversation with the life of Cecilia and the various treatises on virginity and chastity that are circulating in the early fifteenth century. What is more, the writer uses the didactic scene to illustrate appropriate behavior according to canon law, which stipulated that married couples had to agree if one partner wanted to join the religious life.37 Indeed, the release of the conjugal debt is made more explicit than it was in the South English Legendary, when Ecgfrith verbally acquiesces to her request: “Take 4ou my wyff, syre Wylfride, 4is mayde clene, And professe hur to religiose: for I grant ry6t welle 4er-to, Sey6th hit wolle by no wey non other weys bene.” (“Sir Wilfrid, take my wife, this clean maid / And profess her as a religious: for I certainly accede to that, / She says it will by no means other wise be.”)38 This exchange between husband and wife humanizes the saint in ways similar to the scenes presented by Marie in La Vie Seinte Audrée, but the poet’s decision to stage their agreement as a dialogue focuses attention on an important theological point, one that had been a very small detail in Bede’s text. By enlarging this scene and giving voice to both Ecgfrith’s and Æthelthryth’s desires, the writer shows us how the married pair negotiate their impasse. The interaction between the two is conducted in a more formal way than when Margery Kempe and her husband argue about “diddling,” but the presentation of this domestic scene is similar nonetheless. What Æthelthryth’s speech demonstrates, moreover, is that she is aware of contemporary theology regarding bodily purity. Her words suggest that the audience for this vita included women who were considering a religious vocation over the secular demands of marriage, or women who had already made that choice.39 This conclusion fits the manuscript’s provenance of Wilton Abbey, where the text would have been read by nuns as part of their devotional reading. 37. On necessity of consent, see Irven M. Resnick, “Marriage in Medieval Culture: Consent Theory and the Case of Joseph and Mary,” Church History 69.2 (2000): 350 –71; and James A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 348 – 64 and 436 –37. 38. “Vita S. Etheldredae Eliensis,” lines 254 –56. 39. Millett indicates that Hali Mei2had “seems to have been written to reinforce the vocation of women who had already taken a vow of virginity,” xxiii. It appears that the author of the epitome about Æthelthryth employs a similar approach to his audience.
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Much like the performative aspects of the text, the aural references in this poem indicate that the life was written to be read aloud.40 Indeed, there are multiple lines in which the writer/narrator addresses the audience directly or makes a self-referential remark that establishes the authority of the speaker. Addresses to the audience include these formulaic lines, which are reminiscent of secular texts in the vernacular tradition: “now wolle y nomore 6ow telle” (now will I tell you no more); “as 6e shulle here-after well here” (as you shall now here); and “whiche y chull to 6ow now wryte and say” (which I shall now write and say to you).41 Ballads, for example, often illustrate these addresses and are also written in quatrains. The poet also makes it clear that the story comes from written sources, and by sharing this confidence with the audience he establishes his narrative authority. A regular half-line is “as ychaue read” (as I have read), and there are others such as “as hit y-writon ys” (as it is written) and “yna not redde” (I have not read).42 When describing Æthelthryth’s sisters, the speaker indicates that the sources show that Seaxburh was married: “Bot whethere his dou6ter Adelburwe were mariede, yna not redde, / For y my6t not come hurre story in no plase to” (But whether or not [Anna’s] daughter Æthelburh was married, I have not read, / For I have not come across her story in any place).43 Additional references to written texts occur when the poet presents miracles found in two separate versions of Æthelthryth’s legend. Before recounting the miracle of the rising waters in which Æthelthryth is saved from Ecgfrith’s advances, the speaker identifies the source as one read “Whenne y on pylgrymage laste 4er was” (when I was last there on pilgrimage). In this passage, the writer indicates that he found the miracle “yn hure story boke / By helpe of 4e sexteyne 4at was 4er 4at day” (in her storybook with the help of the sexton who was there that day).44 Here, the poet makes it clear that one can learn about the saint’s life by visiting the Isle and reading materials made available at the shrine. The informational tone adopted indicates that the speaker does not expect the audience to know much about the saint, but, as he reassures them, the details provided are authoritative because they came directly from Ely. The poet suggests that if others travel there, they can expect to visit the shrine and perhaps even read about the miracles themselves. Mentioning a personal pilgrimage, moreover, 40. Joyce Coleman, Public Reading and the Reading Public in Late Medieval England and France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 76 –108. 41. “Vita S. Etheldredae Eliensis,” lines 109, 264, and 977. 42. “Vita S. Etheldredae Eliensis,” lines 22, 30, 50, and 74, as well as lines 47 and 139. 43. “Vita S. Etheldredae Eliensis,” lines 139 –40. 44. “Vita S. Etheldredae Eliensis,” lines 1113 –15.
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indicates that the speaker is not from Ely, a suggestion that is substantiated by the Wiltshire dialect in which the text is written and by the location of the manuscript in the library at Wilton Abbey. The second reference to written sources for the miracles illustrates that the speaker read a legend of the saint “which y founde in 4e abbey of Godstow” (which I found in the abbey of Godstow).45 The nunnery of Godstow lies just west of Oxford, and a cleric or student from Oxford might well be the author, given the proximity of the nunnery to the university and the visitation records that repeatedly indicate students were forbidden from visiting the nunnery.46 The reference to Godstow indicates that, just as a written account of Æthelthryth’s life was available to pilgrims at the shrine, a version of it was being read far from the cult center. The reason Godstow would have a copy of the life may be simple: it was a Benedictine house and would have shared an interest in saints venerated by other Benedictines, including the monks of Ely. Even more likely is that the saint was included in a collection read by the Godstow nuns and their guests as part of their devotional practice. If so, the legendary was unlikely to have been a copy of the South English Legendary because the epitome included therein did not feature any of Æthelthryth’s miracles. The reference to finding a source at Godstow is indicative of the transmission of saints’ lives among women’s houses.47 Godstow was a well-endowed, aristocratic foundation, one that would have had access to religious writings and that valued them as devotional reading. The poet may, in fact, not be a male cleric; it is possible that the poet was a Wilton nun who had visited both Godstow and Ely and read the various accounts. In any case, the account marks the suitability of saints’ lives for the reading of nuns when the speaker attributes to Æthelthryth the ability and the desire to read these texts herself: “And also seyntus lyues in boke he wolde fayne rede” (And also she would eagerly read saints’ lives in a book).48 45. “Vita S. Etheldredae Eliensis,” lines 978 –79. 46. Visitation records indicate that the nunnery ran a school for aristocratic girls, housed lay boarders, and entertained clerical guests. On several occasions, the Godstow nuns were directed to not allow visiting clerics or students from Oxford. See The English Register of Godstow Nunnery, near Oxford, written about 1450, ed. Andrew Clark (London: Trübner, 1911). 47. Interest in the libraries of female communities is growing, in part because scholars are examining the bequests of books in wills and in part because codicologists are investigating the connections between manuscripts known to have been held by women. The evidence provided here suggests that more obscure saints’ lives may also yield important information about book transmission. On the libraries of female communities, see Bell, What Nuns Read, and for the exchange of texts among various women’s communities, both lay and religious, see Erler, Women, Reading, and Piety. 48. “Vita S. Etheldredae Eliensis,” line 272.
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The Wilton Abbey vita illustrates, therefore, a particular concern with reading and writing, as well as with the ascetic behavior of Æthelthryth. The poet also demonstrates a strong desire to speak to his or her audience and to illustrate the didactic nature of the abbess’ life, even as he frames her as a knowledgeable educator. The aural nature of this text, combined with the elements of performance noted above, suggests an informality that might easily be shared between clergy and laity. The life itself, while perfectly suitable reading material for nuns, has some element of the secular about it. The ballad style, the constant references to the audience, the dialogues between characters — all seem designed to entertain an audience, while contributing to their spiritual edification. In this, it is reminiscent of the tone employed in the South English Legendary, educative and easily comprehensible. Specific lines of the Wilton Abbey life, moreover, indicate that there are connections between it and the epitome of Æthelthryth in the SEL. The first is when Ecgfrith’s acquiesces to Æthelthryth’s request for a divorce and concludes by saying, “hit wolle by no wey non other weys bene” (for it would be no other way). This phrase recalls the same moment in the SEL epitome: “at laste he grantede hit. 4o he ne mi6te non o4er do” (at last he granted it, though he could do nothing else). Likewise, the SEL poet describes Tondberht’s death in a way that seems to be adopted by the author of the Wilton text. The former reads: “4is holi maide was aliue. clene of hir self inow” (this holy maid remained alive and was herself perfectly clean); the latter expands this somewhat to say: “Bot somme-what byfore 4re 6ere 4is prince Tonbart, / As 4e story dothe vs bothe wryte & mene, / Dyede & his soule from his body dude departe, / & lafte his wyff alyue here, as he was bore, a mayde clene” (But somewhat before three years, this prince Tondberht, / As the story does tell us and also mean / Died and his soul from his body did depart, / And left his wife alive here, just as she was born, a clean maiden).49 These nuances suggest that the writer had read the South English Legendary and, consciously or not, used its language when presenting the saint’s two marriages. We know so little about the ownership of any of the manuscripts of the SEL, but the association, however tangential, between the two verse accounts of Æthelthryth should not be surprising because both were produced in the same region. Görlach’s suggestion that the SEL was originally composed for the devotional reading of nuns would indicate that the text circulated in nunneries and would have been readily available, just as the Life of Æthelthryth was 49. “Vita S. Etheldredae Eliensis,” lines 161– 64.
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present at Godstow. Many have noted that the SEL seems to have been written for a nonelite audience, but we ought to consider how audiences may have included groups from different social strata. The Wilton Abbey account demonstrates a canonical learnedness that appears to be more in keeping with the aristocratic women of Godstow or of Wilton, and the elements of entertainment that are so evident in this account seem to be more representative of aristocratic literary taste. It is easy to see how the vita, as presented in the Wilton manuscript, would appeal to an audience who read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight or Sir Cleges, texts that were clearly written for entertainment as well as for spiritual enlightenment. Having said that, the sensibilities illustrated in the Wilton vita do not preclude a less learned or less privileged audience, as the Tournament of Tottenham indicates. A parody of the medieval tournament using a nonelite register of speech, the Tournament requires some knowledge of the romance tradition, as well as of arms and armaments, for the parody to operate. As such, it might appeal to a broad audience, one that includes knights and ladies as well as burghers, merchants, reeves, and other laborers and their families. The performative approach of the Wilton Abbey account, combined with the informational tone, the indications of an aural delivery, and scenes of didactic dialogue, makes the text especially accessible to many, and we may well imagine that it, like the South English Legendary account, circulated among a more diverse lay and religious audience.
Vernacular Legendaries of British Saints The Life of Æthelthryth included in CUL, Add. ms 2604, is much different in tone and approach from the Wilton Abbey verse life or the epitome of the South English Legendary. This prose account is a translation of the Latin version in John of Tynemouth’s Sanctilogium Angliae, a collection that had been produced for monastic reading. At some point before his death in 1349, John visited Ely and used several sources to develop his account of Æthelthryth’s life, as well as short narratives of the other Ely saints.50 His version neatly follows Bede’s vita, but it adds details from the Liber Eliensis and other sources. The English translation in CUL, Add. ms 2604, shows only minor variations from John’s Latin account. First, the two chaste marriages are presented, and the husbands’ acceptance is explained by miraculous 50. Love, in Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, cxvi.
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interventions (the first husband is deterred from approaching his bride on their wedding night by a ring of fire around her as she prays for deliverance, and the second husband’s attempted raptus is diverted by the miracle of the rising waters). Æthelthryth’s asceticism at Ely, her death from a tumor, and the translation of her body follow, as in Bede’s account. The writer then describes the destruction of the monastery by the Danes and the refounding of Ely by Æthelwold and Edgar. The vita concludes with several of the standard miracles that appear in other Latin accounts. Although folio 58 has been cut out of the manuscript of the English translation, John of Tynemouth’s version indicates that only part of one miracle is missing. The narrative is easy to read, it provides details about the saint’s life and death, and it offers several miracles to authenticate the saint’s power. The text itself illustrates no details about the translator or his audience, and the presentation of the saint, while inordinately focused on her passivity, provides no additional clues about production or reception.51 Originally, John organized the Sanctilogium Angliae, Walliae, Scotiae et Hiberniae in calendar order, but it was rearranged in alphabetical order (with some alterations) in the fifteenth century, and more changes were made before it was printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1516 as the Nova Legenda Anglie. That same year, an anonymous translator made it available in English, and Richard Pynson printed it as the Kalendre of the Newe Legende of Englande (hereafter Kalendre), perhaps for the Brigittine nunnery at Syon.52 With the exception of CUL, Add. ms 2604, there is no indication that John’s Life of Æthelthryth (or any other from his legendary) was translated before Pynson’s edition, which means that, by and large, the Sanctilogium Angliae remained one designed for and read by an audience trained in Latin until the Kalendre was printed in the early sixteenth century. The translation of eleven narratives from the Sanctilogium Angliae and their insertion in 51. The writer’s interest in the two marriages is in keeping with the presentations of Marie or of the anonymous writer of the Wilton vita; the difference in this prose account is that Æthelthryth is married “ayenst hir will,” and that he shows that God intervenes to protect the saint from each husband, that her father builds the monastery for her, and that she patiently endures her life of asceticism. Her behavior recalls the long-suffering Griselda, who does not challenge what happens to her. This presentation, which seems to have been John of Tynemouth’s creation, is in stark contrast to the strength of purpose illustrated by Marie in the VSA or by the anonymous writer of the Wilton Abbey vita. The life can be found in CUL, Add. ms 2604, fol. 52v–59r, but has not been edited. 52. Nova Legenda Anglie: As Collected by John of Tynemouth, John Capgrave, and Others, ed. Carl Horstmann, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901), ix–lxviii; and The Kalendre of the Newe Legende of Englande, ed. Manfred Görlach (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 1994), 7–12.
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CUL, Add. ms 2604, is therefore particularly intriguing. This codex is a unique witness of an impulse to create a vernacular legendary of both British and universal saints, one that bridges the gap between collections featuring female saints, which in the fifteenth century were organized around universal saints or local saints, not both. This late fifteenth-century manuscript contains abridgements of twentytwo saints’ lives, the majority of which are about women ( John the Baptist, John the Evangelist, and Leonard are the three exceptions).53 The codex has some postmedieval additions, but the main section appears to be written in one fifteenth-century hand and illustrates, therefore, the intentional grouping of the twenty-two saints.54 Half these narratives are focused on local figures, including Edith of Wilton, Eadburh, Hild, and Modwenna, and all these British lives come from John of Tynemouth’s collection; the other half include well-known universal saints from the Legenda Aurea, such as Cecilia, Barbara, and Agatha, and more obscure figures, such as Domitilla, Justina, and Benedicta, whose lives seem to be derived from individual passions. In addition to Æthelthryth’s vita, the manuscript includes lives of the female saints associated with Ely: Seaxburh, Eormenhild, Eorcengota, Wihtburh, and Wærburh. This East Anglian grouping might indicate that the manuscript was produced near the cult center at Ely, because the six family members constitute more than one-quarter of the saints represented.55 The codex provides no indication about the author, audience, or patron. The only information about provenance comes from the eighteenth century, when the manuscript was purchased at the estate sale of one George Tasburgh, a Roman Catholic from Rodney Hall in Norfolk. In addition, the manuscript contains a contents page penned on the back of an envelope addressed to the Reverend George Burton, Rector of Eldon [Elveden], Suffolk (1740 – 91 c.e.). These details suggest that the manuscript may have 53. These lives include John the Baptist, John the Evangelist, Columba of Sens, Agatha, Cecilia, Barbara, Æthelthryth, Seaxburh, Eormenhild, Wærburh, Eorcengota, Wihtburh, Edith of Wilton, Eadburh, Eanswith, Hild, Martha, Domitilla, Justina, Benedicta, Modwenna, and Leonard. 54. A legend of Christopher is appended in a postmedieval hand, and some of the decorations were added in the eighteenth or nineteenth century. Of interest, several folios of this manuscript are cut out, including one from the Life of Æthelthryth, and it is tempting to think that it is missing a number of miniatures. No published description of this manuscript currently exists, but I am grateful to Jayne Ringrose of the Cambridge University Library who graciously provided me access to her notes about the manuscript. 55. The Life of Modwenna is the longest and may challenge an Ely provenance, but the length of the lives may be indicative of the sources rather than of the writer’s desire to showcase one saint more than another.
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been in East Anglia at the Reformation, but there is no other codicological evidence to support this provenance. Produced between 1450 and 1500, the prose collection itself indicates that the compiler approached his material by placing British saints alongside universal figures, as the originator of the South English Legendary had done, and by focusing particularly on female saints, as Bokenham had done in his Legendys of Hooly Wummen, a collection of female lives produced in East Anglia. Bokenham wrote individual lives at the request of several lay women, and the sole manuscript of all the lives may have been a gift to the nuns at Denny Abbey.56 CUL, Add. ms 2604, seems much like the AngloNorman collection in the Campsey manuscript in its compilation and scope, as well as in its presentation as a vernacular devotional text. It may be that the codex was written for reading at an East Anglian nunnery, as were the Campsey and Wilton manuscripts, or it might have been deliberately produced for a mixed audience of lay and religious women, as was The Legendys of Hooly Wummen. These legendaries offer evidence of an established tradition in which hagiographical material was written specifically for avid female readers, and they provide a historical context for CUL, Add. ms 2604. A. S. G. Edwards demonstrates that several fifteenth-century manuscripts illustrate a practice of incorporating verse lives of universal saints with other devotional material, such as John Lydgate’s Life of Our Lady, specifically for female readers.57 Such manuscripts include Bokenham’s Legendys, the Wilton Abbey manuscript, and CUL, Add. ms 4122, which contains lives of Margaret and Dorothy and a treatise on the Virgin Mary. Edwards shows that these verse collections are rare; even rarer are collections of female saints’ lives in prose. He finds that while many of the verse collections have been associated with a female readership, none of the prose legendaries illustrates this kind of association. CUL, Add. ms 2604, may 56. Osbern Bokenham, Legendys of Hooly Wummen, ed. Mary S. Serjeantson (1938, reprint, Millwood, N.Y.: Krause, 1988). See discussions of this text in Sheila Delany, trans., A Legend of Holy Women: A Translation of Osbern Bokenham’s Legends of Holy Women (South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992); Sheila Delany, Impolitic Bodies: Poetry, Saints, and Society in Fifteenth-Century England, The Work of Osbern Bokenham (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); and Winstead’s useful discussion of this literary figure in Virgin Martyrs, 112 –46. The connection to Denny Abbey is made by A. S. G. Edwards in “The Transmission and Audience of Osbern Bokenham’s Legendys of Hooly Wummen,” in Late-Medieval Religious Texts and Their Transmission, ed. A. J. Minnis (Woodbridge, Suff.: D. S. Brewer, 1994), 157– 68. 57. A. S. G. Edwards, “Fifteenth-Century English Collections of Female Saints’ Lives,” Yearbook of English Studies 33 (2003): 131–41 at 136.
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provide the first evidence of a prose collection focused primarily on women saints and produced for female readers.58 Other scholars have also documented the interest that aristocratic and upper-middle-class women had in religious texts written in English. As Karen A. Winstead notes, Lydgate addressed his legend of Margaret to all women, nobles and women of lesser economic status, while Bokenham wrote for both lay and religious women from privileged backgrounds.59 Erler has illustrated the circulation of books among clerics and lay women, among lay and religious women, and among religious communities of women, and she contends that the “closeness of female secular and religious life is visible in a common spirituality which transcends state in life and which often presents only marginally differentiated ideals to secular and religious women.”60 In separate discussions, Gibson and Theresa Coletti have shown how the devotional practices are mirrored in the East Anglian parochial landscape and that late medieval religious culture was a site in which women participated in a variety of ways, including vernacular reading, the sponsorship of literary texts, and the patronage of material goods in the parish.61 These are but a few of the scholars whose enormously important studies have reshaped our understanding of women’s spirituality, reading practices, and artistic patronage in late medieval England.62 Collectively, they have illustrated the fascination of both medieval men and medieval women with universal female saints. As a context for CUL, Add. ms 2604, their work demonstrates that female audiences were eager to read or hear about female saints, and this interest most likely is the reason that Agatha, Cecilia, and Barbara were included in this unique manuscript. The presence of the three important male saints is also easily understood in light of the work completed on religious devotion. Lesser-known saints, such as Domitilla and Martha, are more difficult to comprehend, and they may represent the personal interest of a patron who identified with the narratives of a 58. Delany discusses the interest that fifteenth-century people had in female saints and in all female legendaries, in Impolitic Bodies, 29 –43. 59. Winstead, Virgin Martyrs, 119. 60. Erler, Women, Reading, and Piety, 9. 61. Gibson, Theater of Devotion; and Coletti, Mary Magdalene esp. 22 –99. 62. Two studies of reading practices deserve mention: Andrew Taylor, “Into His Secret Chamber: Reading and Privacy in Late Medieval England,” in The Practice and Representation of Reading England, ed. James Raven et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 41– 61; and Rebecca Krug, Reading Families: Women’s Literature Practice in Late Medieval England (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002).
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married Roman woman or with the domestic concerns of Lazarus’s sister. More likely, this collection was translated for a nunnery: thirteen lives focus on cloistered saints, seven feature martyrs, and two depict figures close to Christ. All the native women featured, however, are abbesses or nuns, figures that would have appealed most to a community of religious women. Cambridge University Library, Add. ms 2604, is unique, then, in several ways: it is the first legendary written in English that demonstrates a strong devotion to native female saints; it incorporates native women equally with universal females who were popular figures in devotional literature; and it is written in prose. As such, this collection anticipates the translation of the Nova Legenda Anglie in 1516, when interest in reading about native saints was confirmed by Pynson’s edition. In the absence of a known author, patron, or provenance, it is difficult to make claims about the production of CUL, Add. ms 2604, its intended use, or the various readers who received it. Its date, between 1450 and 1500, places it securely within the growth of literacy in English, and its focus on female saints is in keeping with others produced during the period, especially those linked to networks of readers in Norfolk and Suffolk. A careful investigation of the lives in this manuscript is required before further assertions can be made, but it seems promising to attribute this compilation to the East Anglian literary tradition of producing late medieval legendaries for female audiences. In sum, the three vernacular accounts examined here can be linked to communities of religious women. The continued presence of Æthelthryth, Mildrith, and Eadburh in the South English Legendary, moreover, seems to indicate that there was some investment in presenting these women to lay audiences, but on the whole the production and reception of Middle English texts about Æthelthryth remained within the purview of monastic communities until 1516, when the Nova Legenda Anglie was translated and printed. This collection offers the most substantive evidence of lay interest in the insular saints, but there are signs that the Ely cult was well supported by laity. As noted above, pilgrimage to Æthelthryth’s shrine was especially strong, perhaps in part because the shrine was situated between London and Walsingham, where the Mary shrine received so many visitors. Likewise, a significant number of dedications (parishes, chapels, guilds, and altars) and devotional images indicate that the cult of Æthelthryth was well supported by laity in southern England. The following is designed as a counterpoint to the analysis of the written texts provided here, for it documents lay
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investment in this regional saint, even as it attempts to reconcile the gap between the lack of narratives written specifically for lay consumption with a significant lay devotion to Æthelthryth.
Material Evidence and Lay Devotion As the foregoing has shown, devotional practice has received a great deal of attention from scholars who are seeking to reposition the conversation about clerical culture, reading practices, and the production and reception of religious texts in late medieval England. As work in this area has developed, an older model, which argued that clerical culture produced or interpreted texts for a passive and unlettered laity, is being profoundly altered. The surviving evidence illustrates that a variety of devotional texts, such as books of hours and collections of saints’ lives, were demanded by aristocratic and middle-class readers, even as they were shared between monastic, clerical, and lay groups. Work in history and art history has demonstrated that the local parish is a resource by which we can examine lay devotion from another angle, one that complicates the notion of the passive, lay audience. Indeed, laity were responsible, both physically and economically, for decorating and maintaining the nave of the church, which makes parish ornamentation a valuable resource for understanding the connections between clerical and lay religious culture.63 Of particular interest are parish roodscreens, which served as the boundary between chancel and nave, priest and parishioner, religious and laity. Roodscreens were so named because of the enormous crucifix that adorned the upper beam, flanked by carved figures of the Virgin Mary and John, behind which the Doom, or Day of Judgement, was painted. Made from either wood or stone, the screen usually constituted a solid half-wall with carved arches over open bays, and these bays afforded a direct view of the altar. Images of saints adorned the front of the screen, and in this position they served as the first line of mediation between laity and the priest, laity and the sacred space of the chancel, and laity and God. Because parishioners were responsible for ornamenting and maintaining the roodscreen, these images provide a tangible register of lay devotion. Eamon Duffy observes that saints were chosen for their familiarity and accessibility as well as for their perceived ability to 63. Kamerick, Popular Piety and Art, 69 –106.
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intercede with God on behalf of the petitioner.64 By personalizing beloved saints in their parishes, laity could visualize a powerful intermediary who literally stood between them and judgment.65 Parishioners chose those saints with whom they felt a kinship, either because of their own name or because of a shared experience. Duffy indicates that laity responded to those with the most fantastic stories, but there seems to have been a particularly close connection felt between the supplicant and the saint for whom she or he was named. The importance of name saints can be seen in the parish of North Burlingham, Norfolk, where the screen bears the names of some donors: John and Cecilia Blake, Robert Frennys, Thomas and Margaret Benet, and another Thomas, whose last name is obliterated. Surviving wills indicate that there were several other donors, including Edward Lacy and Robert Howard.66 As Duffy has shown, this screen features both native and nonnative saints whose names correspond directly with the donor names inscribed on the screen: Benedict, Edward the Confessor, Thomas of Canterbury, John the Baptist, and Cecilia.67 Undoubtedly, one of the two empty niches originally had a figure of Margaret, and the almost obliterated male saint might have been Robert. While the North Burlingham screen presents a neat connection between patron saint and donor, the schema regarding name saints does not play out so tidily in all screen donations, and in many cases there is no obvious connection between donor and patron. For instance, three native saints—Walstan and Æthelthryth among them—are painted on the Burlingham screen, yet none of the known donors shares these names. In fact, the majority of screens do not show a name correlation between the saints honored and the donors, when these patrons are known. Still, paintings on roodscreens offer unique insight into lay devotion because they provide evidence of affinities regardless of parish dedication. One would expect a wall painting of Margaret to appear in a church dedicated to her, but there might not be paintings of other saints in that same church. The multiple screen panels routinely feature eight or more saints, but on the whole the figures rarely include the church’s patron. The collective images, therefore, are inordinately useful in 64. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 155 –205. 65. For a larger discussion of the ritual purpose of the roodscreen, see Eamon Duffy, “The Parish, Piety, and Patronage in Late Medieval East Anglia: The Evidence of Rood Screens,” in The Parish in English Life, 1400 –1600, ed. Katherine L. French et al. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), 133 – 62. 66. Simon Cotton, “Mediaeval Roodscreens in Norfolk— Their Construction and Painting Dates,” Norfolk Archaeology 40 (1987): 44 –54. 67. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 160.
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determining the devotional practices of a given parish. When an image of a saint appears in multiple parishes, it is possible to look for patterns throughout a region. For instance, we can chart the proximity of screens featuring the same saint and investigate commonalities and differences among paintings. Where historical documents, such as wills, church warden accounts, manorial records, and records of advowson, are useful when trying to ascertain why the saint was honored in a particular locality, it is often the case that the screen itself provides some indication of why specific saints were chosen. For example, saints are often paired on screens, and the repetition of these saint pairs can be an indication of how the two were perceived or how the two were being presented in a given location. Finally, the most important reason for examining roodscreens is that, because the paintings appear in so many churches (although principally in East Anglia and Devonshire), they allow us to consider the devotional preferences of a larger and more diverse audience of devotees.
Æthelthryth and Norfolk Roodscreens The majority of surviving screens were erected between 1450 and 1550, and they regularly feature saints with the most impressive credentials. Apostles and virgin martyrs are standard figures, as are the evangelists, doctors of the church, and confessors.68 Native saints are less common, and those represented most often are Anglo-Saxon kings (such as Edward the Confessor or Edmund of East Anglia) and late medieval ecclesiasts (the most common is Thomas à Becket). Vitae of these native males were added to late medieval legendaries, including the South English Legendary, the Gilte Legende, and Caxton’s Golden Legend, and as a result these narratives seem to have been well known among lay audiences. Images of native women rarely adorn parish screens, and this may be a direct result of the omission of these figures in legendaries written in English. Where the South English Legendary and The Golden Legend made Edward and Edmund national saints, these texts had for the most part not included native women.69 We have seen that literary interest in Æthelthryth, in particular, remained clerical or monastic, which might 68. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 171. 69. Vernacular copies of the LgA are plentiful in England, especially following the production of the Gilte Legende in 1438 (from a French tradition) and Caxton’s translation and printing of the Golden Legend in 1483. It is reasonable that we would not find many English saints in the Gilte Legende because it was translated from the French Légende Dorée. Caxton’s
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be extrapolated to indicate why so few native women appear on parish screens. A survey of the screen paintings demonstrates that seven native women appear in this medium: Sidwell, Wenefrid, Wihtburh, Æthelthryth, Frideswith, Margaret of Scotland, and Puella Ridibowe. Only one of the seven is highly venerated in screen paintings: Æthelthryth with fourteen paintings (possibly as many as twenty). Sidwell appears on eight, possibly nine, roodscreens, and Wihtburh, on four.70 The five paintings associated with Wenefrid are all disputed.71 The other three saints appear only once, and these identifications are not uncontested.72 At times, saints’ names are inscribed below their portraits; at other times, we must rely on their emblems and their location to identify them. The screens featuring Sidwell are all in Devonshire and are situated in parishes adjacent to Exeter, where her cult was centered. Likewise, three paintings of Wihtburh survive in the locality of East Dereham, Norfolk, where she founded a monastery, and the fourth, which is at Woolpit, Suffolk, is not far away. While regional interest accounts for the paintings of Sidwell and Wihtburh, the small number of native women listed here indicates that, on the whole, they received little attention from parishioners in screen ornamentation, regardless of local investments. printed edition of the Golden Legend, however, is surprising, for it includes only a few British saints, including Wenefrid and Frideswith. Similarly, only Wenefrid appears in Mirk’s Festial. There are a large number of independent vitae for Æthelthryth, yet she does not appear in Caxton’s Golden Legend, Mirk’s Festial, the Speculum Sacerdotale, or the sermon collection of native saints in Bodley ms Hatton 96. Görlach’s work on the relationship between the SEL and Caxton’s Golden Legend demonstrates why it includes so few native women: it was not based on the “E” branch of the SEL that featured Æthelthryth, Eadburh, and Mildrith. See Görlach, Studies in Middle English Saints’ Legends, 71–145. The only sermon for Æthelthryth’s feast I have found is a collection in Oxford, Balliol College, ms 149, which is described in Siegfried Wenzel, Latin Sermon Collections from Later Medieval England: Orthodox Preaching in the Age of Wyclif (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 121–24, 405 –7, 593 –95. I thank Professor Wenzel for bringing it to my attention. 70. Parishes in which Sidwell’s image is found are all in Devonshire, close to Exeter, where her shrine was located: Ashton, Beer Ferrers, Hennock, Holne, Kenn, Plymtree, Whimple, Widecombe (possibly), and Wolborough. Those for Wihtburh are found in East Anglia, near East Dereham: Barnham Broom, Burlingham, and Oxborough in Norfolk, and Woolpit in Suffolk. 71. Several screen paintings in Devonshire have been tentatively identified as Wenefrid, including Ashton, Beer Ferrers, Hennock, and Holne. In addition, the now-lost screen at Babingley in Norfolk is said to have had an image of Wenefrid. 72. The images of Frideswith at Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, and of Margaret of Scotland at Litcham, Norfolk, are only suggestions, not firm identifications. The presentation of Frideswith replicates the image of Æthelthryth at Ranworth, Norfolk, and may in fact be the Ely abbess. Puella Ridibowne is a little known saint associated with St. Albans, and an inscription identifies her at Gateley, Norfolk, yet her obscurity makes an investigation of this cult extremely difficult.
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Given the scarcity of evidence, one might well conclude that occasionally a parish felt a special kinship with a given local saint and included her on the chancel screen. While this appears to be true for Sidwell and Wihtburh, evidence about the Welsh saint Wenefrid is too sketchy to offer conclusive data. If the five identifications are correct, it means that her cult was highly celebrated in Devonshire, not Shropshire, where her shrine was located. The connection between a Shropshire saint and Devonshire devotion would then demonstrate that local affinities were not the only reason for parishioners to honor a saint in this way. The images of Æthelthryth challenge this claim further, for there are multiple screen paintings of this Cambridgeshire saint in several counties, including ten in Norfolk, three in Suffolk, and one in Devonshire. The visual materials associated with the cult of Æthelthryth show that, among native women saints, she was the most commonly depicted in English parochial spaces.73 Duffy indicates that she appears on roodscreens more often than any other English saint, with the exception of King Edmund, who as a royal martyr of the Danish invasions was highly venerated throughout East Anglia, where he had been king.74 There were sixty-one parish church dedications to Edmund; by contrast, there were only twelve for Æthelthryth.75 This difference suggests that there would be a greater discrepancy between the two saints regarding the number of rood paintings, but this is not the case. By comparison, Edmund is represented only slightly more often. His image appears on twenty screens, where Æthelthryth’s portrait can be confirmed on fourteen and likely several others.76 Local veneration might be responsible for these 73. A cursory examination shows that compared with the images associated with Æthelthryth (see the Appendix, which lists more than 100), there are 28 of Wenefrid, 18 of Sidwell, 12 of Helen, 11 of Frideswith, 9 of Wihtburh, 8 of Osyth, and 3 of Wærburh. I have not researched each cult as extensively as I have for Æthelthryth, and there are undoubtedly more images of each saint than are listed here. I provide this comparison, however, to demonstrate the discrepancy between the female saint whose cult was most densely attested and others who were also well regarded. 74. Eamon Duffy, “Holy Maydens, Holy Wyfes: The Cult of Women Saints in Fifteenthand Sixteenth-Century England,” in Women in the Church: Papers Read at the 1989 Summer Meeting and the 1990 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical Historical Society, ed. W. J. Shiels and Diana Wood (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), 175 –96 at 178 –79. 75. Francis Bond, Dedications and Patron Saints of English Churches: Ecclesiastical Symbolism, Saints, and Their Emblems. London: Oxford University Press, 1914. Bond’s catalog is notoriously inaccurate, which makes a systematic review of dedications imperative. I have no doubt, however, that the number of dedications to Edmund was extraordinarily high. 76. C. E. Keyser, A List of Buildings in Great Britain and Ireland Having Mural and Other Painted Decorations, 3d ed. (London: HMSO, 1883). His list also needs to be updated, but it serves as an important record of a number of screens that have been whitewashed or destroyed since the late nineteenth century.
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high numbers, perhaps in part because the monasteries of Ely and Edmundsbury together held almost all the lands in Suffolk, the Five and a Half Hundreds of Wicklow being the Liberty of Etheldreda, and the lion’s share of the county, the Liberty of Edmund. So, we might also expect Æthelthryth to appear on screens in the Liberty of Etheldreda or to have a majority of dedications in this area, yet this is not the case. Mapping the screens featuring Æthelthryth, along with other devotional sites, demonstrates that cult activity was centered in the saint’s natal Cambridgeshire and the neighboring county of Norfolk. The majority of screen paintings of Æthelthryth are in Norfolk, and most are located in and around Norwich. The Ely saint has been identified on four screens in Suffolk, but not one is in the Liberty of Etheldreda. What is more, three of these Suffolk screens are in parishes situated near the Norfolk county border, which is suggestive about their relationship to the Norwich cluster.77 There are three identifications in Devonshire, and possibly one in Oxfordshire.78 Mapping also illustrates that the various guild and altar dedications to Æthelthryth are for the most part in Cambridgeshire and in Norfolk, but parishes in which she is the patron saint are scattered throughout southern England. It is somewhat surprising that there are none in Suffolk. This evidence shows that church dedications are not confined to a specific regional area, nor always associated directly with properties held by the monastery or episcopacy of Ely. Parish dedications, then, seem not to be linked geographically 77. For the identification of saints on roodscreens, see Keyser, List of Buildings; W. W. Williamson, “Saints on Norfolk Rood-Screens and Pulpits,” Norfolk Archaeology 31 (1955 –57): 299 –346; Duffy, Stripping of the Altars; Duffy, “Holy Maydens”; Duffy, “Parish, Piety, and Patronage”; M. R. James, Suffolk and Norfolk (London: Dent, 1930); Frederick Bligh Bond and Bede Camm, Roodscreens and Roodlofts, 2 vols. (London: Pitman, 1909); W. G. Constable, “Some East Anglian Roodscreen Paintings,” Connoisseur 84 (1929): 141–47, 211–20, 290 –94, 358 – 65; J. Piggott, “Rood-screens of East Anglia: Suffolk,” East Anglian 3 (1866/8): 316 –17; Edward F. Strange, “Painted Roodscreens of East Anglia,” Architects Magazine 6 (1906): 105 – 6; Edward F. Strange, The Rood-Screen of Ranworth Church (Norwich: Jarrold, 1902); Aymer Vallence, English Church Screens: Being Great Roods, Screenwork, and Roodlofts of Parish Churches in England and Wales (New York: Charles Scribner’s, 1936); Aymer Vallence, Greater English Church Screens (London: Batsford, 1947); H. Watling, “Some Old Stained Glass in Suffolk Churches, with Notes on Roodscreens,” East Anglian, n.s., 13 (1909/10): 198 –202; J. Cooper, Church Screens of East Anglia, with Particular Reference to Somerleyton (Oxford, 1969); H. M. Cautley, Norfolk Churches (1949; reprint, Woodbridge, Suff.: Boydell Press, 1979); H. M. Cautley, Suffolk Churches and Their Treasures, 4th ed. (Ipswich: Boydell Press, 1975); and W. W. Lillie, “Screenwork in the County of Suffolk,” Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology 20 (1930): 214 –26, 255 – 64; 21 (1931/33): 179 –202; 22 (1934/36): 120 – 06. 78. As Duffy’s extensive research on roodscreens has shown, the majority of screens survive in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Devonshire, but many more existed. See esp. Duffy, “Holy Maydens.”
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Map 2. Sites associated with Æthelthryth’s cult in medieval England
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to the cult center, as guilds and altars are. By contrast, the clustering of roodscreens depicting Æthelthryth in Norfolk suggests a more localized, communal veneration. Certainly the cult was widely known in East Anglia, but the concentration of screens around Norwich indicates that laity in this area chose to venerate the saint for particular reasons, perhaps a motivation shared among several communities. The grouping of images around Norfolk has no clearly identifiable rationale, though there was a local parish church dedicated to Æthelthryth in Norwich. A review of Ely documents demonstrates that there is no direct correlation between monastic or episcopal ownership of manors and the Norfolk parishes.79 In addition, there is no conclusive evidence from parishioners’ wills, churchwarden accounts, or guild records to indicate why Æthelthryth would appear on any one of these screens. Certainly, Norfolk testators left money for the embellishment of images in their parishes, more so than their neighbors in Suffolk, and the majority of painted screens survive in East Anglia and Devonshire, which may skew this data.80 That said, the cluster of images around Norwich is indicative of a specific association with Æthelthryth, one worthy of more considered attention. A brief look at three of the paintings will demonstrate that, by and large, Æthelthryth seems to represent a local incarnation of virginity on these parish screens. This investment in Æthelthryth may be directly related to the parochial devotion to the virgin martyrs, as CUL, Add. ms 2604, suggests, and this context is important for examining the image of Æthelthryth at Ranworth, where parishioners included her as a maternal figure of virginity, a teaching saint who leads others to the faith. An examination of these paintings reveals that Æthelthryth routinely appears, as on the North Tuddenham screen, as a Benedictine abbess, with habit, crozier, and an open book (fig. 9). As is typical of all medieval representations of her, she wears a crown to represent her East Anglian royal heritage. While she gave up her royal position to become a nun, almost all the depictions of this saint include a crown, and occasionally the crown serves as the only emblem that distinguishes her from other abbesses, just as a wheel and sword symbolizes Katherine or an impaled dragon designates 79. While the bishop and monastery of Ely held manors throughout Norfolk, the parish screens on which she is depicted are not, for the most part, located in these holdings. Furthermore, no images of the saint survive in the Suffolk area known as the “Liberty of Etheldreda,” a significant area held by the monastery. For a discussion of the episcopal and monastic holdings, see Miller, Abbey and Bishopric of Ely. 80. Kamerick, Popular Piety and Art, 89 –91.
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Margaret.81 Despite the distinctions made between them, saints were often paired based on like attributes, and most often Æthelthryth is grouped with the virgin martyrs. At North Tuddenham, she is included with Agnes, Dorothy, and Katherine, seemingly as a local representative of virginity. Æthelthryth also appears with her sister Wihtburh, another virgin/abbess who founded a house at Dereham, Norfolk. This sororal connection might illustrate why Æthelthryth appears so often in Norfolk. It is significant that the prior and convent of Ely owned the Hundred and a Half of Mitford, which encompassed Dereham (see Map 2 for the distance between Ely and Norwich).82 Certainly there had been a long connection between Dereham and Ely, and it is likely that the few screens showing Æthelthryth in this area of Norfolk are a result of this connection, but the sisters are represented together only twice, and only two of the many paintings of Æthelthryth are in the Hundred and a Half of Mitford. Portraiture on the screens, however, offers further insights. Æthelthryth is often paired with other female saints, and occasionally she appears next to Helen the mother of Constantine (fig. 10). The Upton screen illustrates how the two women’s lives are complementary: both are royal British saints who fundamentally affected the growth of the medieval church, Helen by finding the true cross and inspiring conversion of the Jews, Æthelthryth by founding a royal monastery and helping to further Christian conversion in Britain.83 Often, saints were painted from templates that illustrated a roughcut form that was simply flipped over to sketch out the companion panel, after which the attributes were added.84 The result is that paired saints are usually turned toward each other in a mirrored image, as they are at Upton. The portraits easily distinguish the two women, but their posture and emblems are mirrored: the cross and crozier lean across opposite shoulders, resting on the inside corner of the panel, and the books rest in the opposite hand. These emblems specifically demonstrate their contributions to the church and directly recall the narratives in which Helen finds the cross and Æthelthryth serves as abbess. Like North Burlingham, veneration of Æthelthryth by the Upton parish cannot be linked to a donor who shared her name; the screen is inscribed for 81. The static image remains the same for Æthelthryth on each of the roodscreens, and while there are occasional differences (sometimes the book is omitted, or the crown), for the most part Æthelthryth is recognizable, as most virgins saints are, by her emblems. 82. Miller, Abbey and Bishopric of Ely. 83. Harbus, Helena of Britain. 84. Duffy, “Parish, Piety, and Patronage,” 148 –51.
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Fig. 9. Roodscreen, detail of Æthelthryth. St. Mary’s, North Tuddenham, Norfolk, ca. 1520
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Fig. 10. Roodscreen, detail of Æthelthryth. St. Margaret’s, Upton, Norfolk, ca. 1450
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William and Agnes Wynne, both of whom died in 1505. No bequest to the screen is made in either’s will, nor do we find paintings of William or Agnes on the screen. In fact, the wills that include bequests for Norfolk screens demonstrate that none names a saint directly, a practice that makes identification between donor and saint difficult.85 Churchwarden accounts, or records of the elected officials of the parish, do not exist for any of the screens on which Æthelthryth appears, eliminating another avenue by which we might uncover lay patronage of this saint.86 In the case of Upton, its history provides a clue: the patronage of the church was given to the Austin canons at Butley, Suffolk, by the founder, Ralph de Glanville, and Butley lay within the Liberty of Etheldreda, but this connection is tenuous at best, given that in the Liberty there appears to have been no strong identification with Æthelthryth.87 The saints on the Upton screen, however, illustrate an interesting composition that might suggest one of the reasons Æthelthryth is included in the sequence. Of the eight panels, four are of men—Augustine, Jerome, Gregory, Ambrose—and four are of women: Helen, Æthelthryth, Joan of Valois (or possibly Elizabeth of Hungary), and Agatha. One way of characterizing this group is that all signify important church roles, which means that each saint’s position in the church is foregrounded. The men’s roles are clearly ecclesiastical—bishop, cardinal, and pope; the women’s roles illustrate the approved status for women in the church—widow/mother, abbess, and virgin. Æthelthryth’s role as abbess, then, seems to provide a complement to the male ecclesiastical roles also featured on the screen. The image of Æthelthryth at Gateley emphasizes Æthelthryth’s abbatial position, for the crown is eliminated (fig. 11). As in the North Tuddenham screen, Æthelthryth is dressed in a Benedictine habit, she holds a crozier, and she reads from an open book. The habit and veil seem more apparent here, in the absence of the crown or halo of the North Tuddenham painting. There seems to be a simplicity to the image, as well. Compared with the Upton screen, the garments appear humble. Where the Upton lined robe is adorned with an elaborate brooch, the simple lines of the Gateley 85. Cotton, “Mediaeval Roodscreens in Norfolk,” 44 –54. 86. See J. Charles Cox, Churchwardens’ Accounts from the Fourteenth Century to the Close of the Seventeenth Century (London: Methuen, 1913); Ronald Hutton, The Rise and Fall of Merry England: The Ritual Year, 1400 –1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994); and Beat A. Kümin, The Shaping of a Community: The Rise and Reformation of the English Parish, c. 1400 –1560 (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1996). I want to thank Katherine French for discussing churchwarden accounts with me and for bringing several sources to my attention. 87. In fact, the patronage of the house was given to the Bishop of Ely in 1600, which might account for the survival of the screen. See the church guide, “Upton Parish Church.”
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Fig. 11. Roodscreen, detail of Æthelthryth. St. Helen’s, Gateley, Norfolk, ca. 1500
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robe indicate a desire to downplay Æthelthryth’s elite status. Æthelthryth appears as a girl in the Gateley screen, compared with the gaunt older woman of the North Tuddenham screen or the regal vitality of the figure on the Upton screen. The presentation of Æthelthryth’s humility at Gateley is in keeping with the rest of the screen, where only Henry VI has a crown; none of the female saints wears one, including the Virgin Mary.88 By contrast, the image of Æthelthryth at Ranworth heightens Æthelthryth’s elite status by presenting her with elaborate, gilded accoutrements. Ranworth is just northeast of Norwich and some fifty miles east of Ely (see Map 2). St. Helen’s, the parish church of Ranworth, has an ornate screen that extends across the entire east end (fig. 12). On the chancel screen, male saints are featured, and these are the twelve apostles. Parclose screens extend six feet west of the chancel and mark off an area for the side altars in this aisle-less church. On the outside of the parclose screens, male figures are painted, but several of these panels remain blank. These side screens frame two altars that project out into the nave. Above each altar, the screen continues, and four figures are painted on each dado (figs. 13 and 14).89 The paintings above each altar are significantly larger than those on the chancel screen, and their size and location are suggestive about their importance. Positioned at eye level, rather than lower as on most screens, the eight figures dominate and draw attention away from the apostles on the chancel, which appear to have been produced before the side altars were built. That these saints were significant intermediaries is confirmed by the functionary use of the south altar, which was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The women depicted above it are Saint Anne’s daughters, or the three Marys, alongside Saint Margaret at the far right. As Theresa Coletti has found, the depiction of Mary Salome, the Virgin Mary, and Mary Cleophas, with Margaret is a juxtaposition that is resolved by the knowledge that Margaret’s escape from the dragon’s belly made her the patron saint of childbirth. According to Coletti (who is building on Duffy’s discussion of the screen), conjoining the “virgin martyr [with the] fecund mother carries . . . significance in view of the screen’s ritual purpose”: the Lady altar, “where women seeking purification after childbirth would most likely 88. These saints include Elizabeth, the Virgin Mary, and Puella Ridibowne, who might represent Christina of Redburne near St. Alban’s. The male saints are Pope Louis, Henry VI, John Schorne, and probably Augustine. 89. Strange suggests that originally the screen had buttresses that enclosed the side altars and provided the necessary privacy for each altar. See his Rood-Screen at Ranworth, 3 – 6.
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Fig. 12. Roodscreen, showing chancel and parclose screens. St. Helen’s, Ranworth, Norfolk, 1475 –1525
have offered their candles of thanksgiving.”90 While we might initially reject the association of a virgin martyr with maternal saints, once we understand the ritualistic way in which laity imagined this figure, Margaret becomes a fitting complement to the Holy Kinship. The resolution of this series intimates that there is a complex iconographical program at work on the Ranworth roodscreen, one that bears further attention. Opposite Margaret on the far left of the north altar is Æthelthryth, who flanks three figures. Next to Æthelthryth is Agnes, the second is an unfinished representation of John the Baptist, and the third is Barbara. The two middle panels were evidently begun, then changed, which complicates a reading of this series. Generally, it is agreed that Agnes is intended in the second panel, for there is a lamb on her lap, and this is clearly intended to be a female saint, even though the panel was begun as a male figure.91 The change must have been made near the time that money was given for painting 90. Theresa Coletti, “Genealogy, Sexuality, and Sacred Power: The Saint Anne Dedication of the Digby Candlemas Day and the Killing of the Children of Israel,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 29 (1999): 25 –59 at 45. Coletti’s analysis is derived from Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 181– 83. 91. Duffy, “Parish, Piety, and Patronage,” 158.
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Fig. 13. Roodscreen, north altar, featuring Æthelthryth, Agnes, John the Baptist, and Barbara. St. Helen’s, Ranworth, Norfolk, 1475 –1525
the south screen in 1479, for the decoration of Agnes is consistent in style and tone with other figures on the north and south altars.92 The third panel presents John the Baptist, but like the second panel there is evidence that the incomplete sketch was interrupted and possibly in the process of being changed. Work was suspended on this image, perhaps, as Duffy argues, because a large altar ornament blocked the panel from view. Duffy hypothesizes that this altar was dedicated to John the Baptist and that the image of Agnes may have been altered to represent him.93 It is also possible that the image of John was covered and the other male figure made into Agnes so that the north altar was one dedicated to female virgins. The wills of Rose Kyng and William Cobbe indicate that a guild of John the Baptist existed in 1456 and in 1478, but by 1485, when the will of Roger Iryng was proved, only two guilds were listed at Ranworth: one dedicated to the Holy Trinity, the other dedicated to Saint Helen. By 1507, there were four lights in the church. Robert Milward pledged gifts of wax to the light of Saint Helen, the light in front of the rood, the light of “Our Lady” 92. Cotton, “Mediaeval Roodscreens in Norfolk,” 50. In 1479, Robert Iryng let goods to paint the screen above the altar of Mary in the south aisle. 93. Duffy, “Parish, Piety, and Patronage,” 158.
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Fig. 14. Roodscreen, south altar, featuring Mary Salome, the Virgin Mary, Mary Cleophas with their children, and Margaret. St. Helen’s, Ranworth, Norfolk, 1475 –1525
on the south altar, and “a lyte of seynt . . . [sic] and seynt John baptyst.”94 The blank in Robert Milward’s will is fascinating, for it suggests that the light was in the process of being dedicated to another saint, and it seems likely that this candle was meant for the north altar. The Lady altar was named in Robert Iryng’s will of 1479, and in 1483 Margaret Bloker directed that a tabernacle for the Virgin Mary and an image of Saint Anne be made (for the altar?). She also directed that wax be given to support a light in honor of Anne and her daughter.95 This indicates that the south altar was erected or being built in 1483, and one wonders if the John the Baptist altar was in the process of being changed because a light in his honor is identified in 1478 but absent by 1485. As Robert Milward’s will illustrates, a light for John was again referenced nearly thirty years later, which might 94. A. W. Morant and J. L’Estrange, “Notices of the Church at Randworth, Walsham Hundred,” Norfolk Archaeology 7 (1871): 178 –211. Some of these wills are transcribed by Morant and L’Estrange in their article, which also describes the screen in some detail. These wills can be found in the Norfolk Record Office: Rose Kyng (proved 1456) is Norfolk Consistory Court (NCC) Brosyard 25; William Cobbe (proved 1478) is NCC Gelour 191; Roger Iryng (proved 1485) is NCC Fuller 55; and Robert Milward (proved 1507) is Archdeaconry of Norfolk Grantham 15. 95. Morant and L’Estrange, “Notices of the Church at Randworth,” 194 –95. Robert Iryng’s will is NCC Awbreye 13, and Margaret Bloker’s will is NCC Caston 287.
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indicate that parishioners wanted to maintain an older tradition of honoring the Baptist. As an alternative, we might consider that the figure of John on the north altar was being regendered to represent a virgin saint and that the altar was in the process of being rededicated.96 The transformation in the second panel, where Agnes is painted over what seems to be a papal figure, indicates that a deliberate change had already been made on this section of the screen.97 Placing a fourth female saint here would have made the two side altars symmetrical, creating a neat separation between male saints on the chancel with female saints featured above the side altars. That the two side screens were to be viewed as a composite is confirmed by the postures of Æthelthryth and Margaret, who face inward. These two panels frame the entire screen, and the position of the two bodies is such that the virgins are presenting to each other, as Helen and Æthelthryth do at Upton.98 Here, Margaret’s body mirrors the position of Æthelthryth’s, her staff replicates the abbess’ crozier, and her crown and robes duplicate the elaborate habit. While the uncertain identifications confuse the program intended above the north altar, the presentation 96. Duffy indicates that this kind of dedicatory change happened at Morebath, where the Jesus altar was transformed into a site of devotion to Sidwell. Stripping of the Altars, 168. Marks shows that, in addition to a titular saint, an altar could have more than one saint statue or image, though there were also some proscriptions about this practice. He also indicates that refurbishing often meant that the adornments in one space would change over time. See Marks, Image and Devotion, 23, 89, and 258. 97. Some have argued that Agnes is now supposed to be John the Baptist, but that is not in accord with the description provided by the conservationist Pauline Plummer, who indicates that there is now a female figure painted over a male figure. The original had a miter, a halo, and a pallium. It seems that the painting was changed twice, for the originally unshaven bishop was given a curly beard, and the under robe appears to have been painted to represent John’s camelskin. Also, the image has been touched up and the pallium and lamb used to represent Agnes. See Pauline Plummer, “Ranworth Rood Screen,” Archaeological Journal 137 (1981 for 1980): 291–95. 98. I am grateful to the Reverend Phillip McFadyen, vicar of St. Helen’s, Ranworth, for making this observation. He allowed me to examine the Ranworth Antiphonal, which is located in the parish church. It is significant for this discussion that the antiphonal includes Æthelthryth in the calendar. A notation marks her feast, 23 June, and her translation feast, 17 October, and it seems that the parishioners may have celebrated both, especially the June feast, which is marked as an important one. The antiphonal was the gift of a medieval rector, one John Cobbe, who was a canon of Langley Abbey, which held the advowson of the church. The association of Ranworth with this Augustinian house may have contributed to devotion to Æthelthryth in the parish. On the whole, clerics and monastics were more likely to show devotion to this abbess, and this may be the reason she is such an important figure at Ranworth. See Patricia Mockridge, The Parish Church of St. Helen’s Ranworth: The Cathedral of the Broads (Ranworth: Temprint, 2003), 3 –4; and “The Abbey of Langley,” in The Victoria History of the County of Norfolk, vol. 2, ed. H. Arthur Doubleday (Folkstone, Kent: Dawson, 1975), 418 –21.
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of three virgin saints with this unfinished figure suggests that this altar was designed or being redesigned to complement the purification altar as one devoted to virginity. Even if the final program were to include John the Baptist in this third panel, this would not undermine this series. Indeed, the Baptist appears regularly among the virgin martyrs in roodscreen iconography, seemingly as a male representative of virginity. In a discussion of the Wilton Diptych, in which John the Baptist, Edward the Confessor, and Edmund of East Anglia are positioned alongside Richard II, Katherine J. Lewis notes that the Baptist was considered a virgin and that several accounts of his life, including that in the Legenda Aurea, stress his virginity.99 Positioned alongside virginal figures, Æthelthryth is an appropriate figure for a screen about virginity (fig. 15). Like other late medieval images of the abbess, Æthelthryth is shown wearing a habit and veil and holding a crozier and a closed book as emblems of her ecclesiastical office; she also wears a crown to indicate her position in the East Anglian royal house. When included on parish screens, Æthelthryth is usually grouped among the virgin martyrs, seemingly as a local embodiment of virginity, as she is here. Still, the Ranworth painting seems to privilege the saint’s ecclesiastical office, as well as her elite status. Wearing a wimple and veil, Æthelthryth is shown seated with an open book on her knees. She holds the page with her left hand and her crozier in the right. The staff extends across her body from left to right, drawing the eye from the haloed crown alongside the open book on her lap to her feet. The arrangement of the scene draws attention to the ecclesiastical emblems, even as the gold on her patterned robe and on her elaborate crown indicates her royal status. The open book is significant, for it is positioned so that viewers can see the text as she reads. This posture, as Winstead has demonstrated, was a commonly executed image for female saints in the continental manuscripts and is reminiscent of a standard image of Saint Anne teaching the Virgin Mary to read.100 99. Katherine J. Lewis, “Becoming a Virgin King: Richard II and Edward the Confessor,” in Gender and Holiness: Men, Women, and Saints in Late Medieval Europe, ed. Samantha J. E. Riches and Sarah Salih (New York: Routledge, 2002), 86 –100 at 87. 100. Winstead argues that images of reading virgins were not usually produced in England, perhaps because of discomfort about reading as a politically dangerous activity. See Winstead, Virgin Martyrs, 147 – 80. John Mitchell indicates that the Ranworth screen was likely produced by a workshop in Norwich whose painters were influenced by continental models. See Mitchell, “Painting in East Anglia Around 1500: The Continental Connection,” in England and the Continent in the Middle Ages: Studies in Memory of Andrew Martindale, ed. John Mitchell (Stamford: Shaun Tyas, 2000), 365 – 80.
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Fig. 15. Roodscreen, detail of Æthelthryth. St. Helen’s, Ranworth, Norfolk, 1475 –1525
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The depiction of Æthelthryth as an authorial figure — indeed, as a teacher reading—is significant. The saint’s posture, moreover, is unusual among the iconography associated with her. More common is a representation of Æthelthryth standing and holding a closed book and her crozier. As the paintings at North Tuddenham and Gateley demonstrate, the presentation of Æthelthryth reading occurred in several locations. Before this depiction on parish screens, the only time the saint was depicted with an open book is in the Campsey Ash manuscript, where Æthelthryth is shown reading and gesturing at the church she holds. The historiated initial, which illustrates the saint’s teaching and abbatial authority, provides an image that complements that of Æthelthryth at Ranworth. While all eight figures on the north and south altars are seated, three of the women hold open books, including Agnes, Margaret, and Æthelthryth, which argues for a deliberate representation of women as figures of instructional authority. The equal attention given here to Æthelthryth’s posture as a reader and to her ecclesiastical emblems is suggestive about how parishioners were to understand this image, for it appears to have been copied from one of the pictorial scenes carved on a capital in Ely Cathedral (fig. 16). This sculpture represents the consecration and enthronement of Æthelthryth as abbess, and it features Æthelthryth at the center with book, habit, crown, and crozier. The dominance of the crozier, which extends from the bishop’s feet to the top of his miter, rivals his authority and stresses Æthelthryth’s abbatial role. The similarities between the Ely sculpture and the Ranworth painting are striking, and it seems that, in both, viewers were to understand Æthelthryth as one who held great authority. As noted throughout this chapter, the imagery of Æthelthryth as abbess of Ely, combined with the presentation of her nurturing role as the virgin mother, has been repeated in various accounts. The South English Legendary records that “Abbesse heo was hir self imad after 4e furste 6ere / And an holi couent inow heo norisede 4ere” (she was herself made abbess after the first year and she nourished perfectly a holy convent there). The poet of the Wilton Abbey vita claimed, “He 6aff gode ensampull to more & lasse / In gode leuyng hem-self euere to lede” (She provided a good example to all / In good living she herself always led).101 Less direct is John of Tynemouth’s account, which was translated into the Kalendre and says simply that she “repayryd a monasterye & gaderyd many susters” (repaired a monastery and 101. “Vita S. Etheldredae Eliensis,” lines 329 –32.
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Fig. 16. Pictorial cycle, capital in octagon, Æthelthryth consecrated abbess. Ely Cathedral, 1325 –45
gathered many sisters).102 None of these versions offers the specificity of the Ecclesiastical History, in which Æthelthryth is the “virgin mother of many virgins.” The description Bede presents does appear in a post-Reformation manuscript containing lives in the vernacular, however. The Lives of Women Saints of Our Contrie of England is a collection that was produced between 1610 and 1615. The correctness of the hand demonstrates, according to Carl Horstmann, that “it was no doubt copied directly from the original manuscript.”103 We do not have the original, but evidence from the copy shows that the known author followed the Ecclesiastical History closely, for the text illustrates exactly Bede’s presentation of Æthelthryth as mother and teacher: “After a yeare compleate, she became Abbesse in the region or territorie called ELGE (now ELIE): where building a monasterie of virgins, dedicated to god, this their mother and virgin began to be a patterne and document of heauenlie conuersation and a leader to eternall life.”104 An allusion to Æthelthryth’s position as abbess and mother seems to have been added to each of the Middle English accounts, and this imagery was made explicit in the source of The Lives of Women Saints. 102. Görlach, Kalendre of the Newe Legende, 96. 103. Horstmann, ed., Lives of Women Saints of Our Contrie of England, iii. 104. Horstmann, ed., Lives of Women Saints of Our Contrie of England, 68.
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When the Ranworth altar is considered in this light, the iconographic narrative becomes clear. The painting of Æthelthryth is a fitting complement to the other figures included there. First, Æthelthryth joins Agnes and Barbara as a local woman who had resisted the constraints of marriage and remained a virgin devoted to God.105 Agnes’s story, moreover, complements Æthelthryth’s in that her devotee, Constance, draws other virgins to her because of Agnes’s faith. Likewise, John the Baptist’s and Barbara’s legends recall their conversions and the baptism of others into the faith. On the inside of the parclose screen are Felix, Stephen, and George. As deacon, Stephen was known for preaching and helping the apostles as they led others to the faith; Felix was the first bishop of East Anglia, and he had converted the royal family, including Anna and his daughter, Æthelthryth.106 George, the patron saint of England and appropriate companion to the East Anglian missionary, was also celebrated as a virgin martyr in medieval legend.107 Positioned below the rood, or crucifix, on the left at Ranworth are images of these virgin saints: George, Felix, Stephen, John the Baptist, Barbara, Agnes, and Æthelthryth. On the right are the Holy Kinship, Margaret, Michael, Thomas Becket, and Laurence, the keeper of the treasures of the church. In the middle are apostles who adorn the foundation of the chancel screen. This grouping is an impressive pantheon that builds visually from the floor upward, drawing the eye to the roodloft, where the crucifix and painting of the Doom would have been. Michael and Mary on the right with the figures of maternity and earthly concerns serve as protectors to the community of faithful, represented by the children in the scene.108 On the opposite side are those who chose a life of spiritual devotion and in so doing became figures of spiritual leadership. The inclusion of Æthelthryth as virgin, abbess, 105. The text most easily accessible to Ranworth parishioners was Caxton’s Golden Legend, printed in 1483. See The Golden Legend, or Lives of the Saints as Englished by William Caxton, ed. F. S. Ellis, 7 vols. (London: Dent, 1900). 106. Peters sees this foregrounding of faith as integral to all roodscreens, in large part because the devotion of parishioners had become so Christocentric. See Peters, Patterns of Piety, 97–129. 107. Samantha J. E. Riches, “St. George as a Male Virgin Martyr,” in Gender and Holiness: Men, Women, and Saints in Late Medieval Europe, ed. Samantha J. E. Riches and Sarah Salih (New York: Routledge, 2002), 65 – 85. 108. Michael is well known as the defender of the faith and for his role at the Assumption of Mary, where he bears Mary’s soul to heaven. Michael is also depicted in scenes of the Judgment as the one who will weigh the souls and help Christ determine who is worthy of entering heaven while Mary pleads for those who ask for her intercession. I gratefully acknowledge here the work of Richard F. Johnson, who generously shared parts of his work with me prepublication: Saint Michael the Archangel in Medieval English Legend (Woodbridge, Suff.: Boydell Press, 2005).
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and mother demonstrates a considered logic, then, when the whole is configured. At the far left of the Ranworth screen, Æthelthryth is a compelling but overlooked image. Æthelthryth and Margaret together offer a narrative frame to the artistic program of the side altars and to the composite roodscreen. The reading of Margaret as the means of resolving the four portraits on the south altar indicates that reading Æthelthryth as the key to the north altar might be profitable, and it has proved to be so. She complements the virginal figures in several ways, and if we accept that the iconography of this series was intentionally changed to emphasize the value of virginity, we might conclude that, here, the habit, crozier, and book are important symbols not of virginity per se but of Æthelthryth’s position, in which she practiced and taught the value of virginity. That this message was the one intended for the community of worshippers is intriguing, especially when one considers how virginity and leadership are being coupled with fecundity and motherhood on the south altar. The image of Æthelthryth at Ranworth begins the series of virgin saints, and this is the same position afforded her in almost all the parish screens. A comparison of the screens illustrates that when Æthelthryth is included she is usually positioned at the north end, or that when the women saints appear on the south aisle or in the middle of the screen, she routinely appears as the first female saint looking from left to right, as at Ranworth, Westhall, Gateley, Horsham St. Faith, Oxborough, Norwich, and Wolborough. Occasionally, she appears at the far right, or south end, as at North Tuddenham, North Burlingham, Stanton Harcourt, and Woolpit, but the schema is simply inverted, again making her the complement to the series of virgin saints. On three other screens, Beeston, Litcham, and Upton, she is paired with the last woman saint in the row, making her second to last, which suggests that the artist knew to put her in the last pairing if not in the final niche, or that in these communities the tradition of putting Æthelthryth last on the screen was unknown. This patterning suggests that Æthelthryth’s position on a screen matters. We know that place mattered in church ornamentation, which is why the image of Saint Christopher was usually painted opposite the porch door, so that parishioners would see him first on entering the nave; likewise, the church’s patron was often painted on the wall next to the altar, and the doctors of the church were usually displayed prominently on the pulpit, as the literal mouthpiece of ecclesiastical authority. The position of paintings on roodscreens is also formulaic: the apostles are usually centered on the chancel screen, often on the doors to the altar, with male saints on one side and
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females on the other. Using the Ranworth screen as the key to understanding the patterns associated with lay devotion, it is possible that Æthelthryth was seen by the neighboring Norwich communities as the regional representative of virginity, and as such her image served as the anchor for the series of women saints to follow. Moreover, her role as founder and abbess of a regional monastery would have allowed local communities to imagine their saint as part of the choir of virgins. We have, therefore, some evidence of a legendary in Middle English that offered the details of Bede’s narrative directly to lay readers. While we are missing the exact textual trail, the evidence from The Lives of Women Saints of Our Contrie of England suggests that an English translation of Bede’s life was available at some point during the late fifteenth or early sixteenth centuries. What originally appeared to be a sharp distinction between the hagiographical texts about Æthelthryth and the presentation of her on the Ranworth screen is actually a modulation of an image that first appeared in 731 c.e. Two kinds of devotion were operating simultaneously, and if we read between the lines of these sources, we see that the original account was available. While we cannot know for certain how Bede’s narrative was translated to the lay community at Ranworth, it is clear that parishioners drew on a tradition established in clerical texts when decorating their screen and used the imagery of the virgin mother to meet their needs as a community (that is, through rituals of purification and devotion), and, one might argue, in a way that shaped their communal identity.109 Perhaps it is because Ranworth was held and serviced by the canons of Langley Abbey that a more elaborate and carefully designed screen was developed at St. Helen’s. The connection between an Austin house and a parish may be an indication of why this cult became so important to parishioners at Ranworth. The transmission may have been suggested by the canons, but it does not appear to have been imposed, for the laity at Ranworth did not simply adopt the presentation; they used it to develop a new schema in which Æthelthryth’s position as abbess and mother was coupled with other female saints to emphasize a new understanding of this regional figure.110 The parishioners’ active engagement demonstrates that lay devotion to the saints was not a passive ritual but one that augmented, and in this case transformed, the clerical narratives that undoubtedly contributed to lay interest in this cult. 109. Marks, Image and Devotion, 1 and 86 –92. 110. Brown, In Popular Piety, 251, indicates that “there was no constant confrontation between popular practices and clerical concerns,” a fact that seems to be evident at Ranworth.
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Conclusion
The medieval cult of Æthelthryth, which spans nine hundred years, might be more usefully framed the medieval cults of Æthelthryth because devotion to this native saint was so varied and specific to time and place. These chapters have shown that when a text was produced the writer or artist drew on a series of cultural signs that Æthelthryth represented and, depending on the needs of the intended audience, produced a performative identity for her. As we have seen, the signs by which her identity has been framed have included royal asceticism, political marriage, conjugal chastity, perfected virginity, monastic chastity, inviolability as place, abbatial leadership, religious patronage, and maternal nourishment. The result is a collection of vitae, miracle stories, liturgical texts, and visual representations that illustrate the multivalency of the saint’s story and the plasticity of the saint’s body as signifier. Each of the narratives produced, in fact, focuses on embodiment, particularly how the female saint’s body can operate as a symbol, a metaphor, or a metonym. At times, the body is presented as distinctly feminized, and at other times it is masculinized. There are times too when gender is downplayed (perhaps neutralized by the term “chaste”?) to make it amenable to a male devotional audience. In each case, the body is performative, offering widely divergent audiences a way to appreciate and imitate Æthelthryth’s life. At the same time, each of the people who produced these images had specific concerns that could be met by the presentation, and these concerns have been my focus here. As we have seen, production sites mattered as much as producers and consumers of this cult. The pre-Conquest narratives were written in monastic centers far from the saint’s tomb. Bede’s text emphasizes the physical body as incorrupted, perfected, intact, and he fixes our gaze on the healed scar as a mark of perfection. This sign of inscription helps the physician, Cynefrith, identify the body, even as it allows Bede to situate the female body as the site of vanity requiring God’s intervention. In presenting Æthelthryth’s body as one that requires perfection, Bede demonstrates the
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fallibility of the female body as a metaphor for all newly converted Christians and stresses God’s presence and ability to countermand human weakness (and in this case, human frailty is a vanity that is gendered feminine). His position as recorder within this eighth-century text mirrors his selfpresentation within the Ecclesiastical History, and we see that he is authorizing the history and confirming the sanctity of Anglo-Saxon England even as he is initializing English poetics by placing his hymn to Æthelthryth beside his prose narrative. Where Bede is writing to an aristocratic lay audience and presenting Æthelthryth as an example of royal asceticism for the English church in its infancy, Bishop Æthelwold, and his student Ælfric, are far more invested in the ways that the virginal body could speak to aristocratic male laity who might be induced to enter Benedictine monasteries during the reforms of the tenth century. The illuminated miniature of Æthelthryth in the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold shows how the bishop is framing monastic service as both chaste and enclosed, while Ælfric is concerned to represent chaste marriage followed by a monastic vocation as the means by which one is guaranteed a spiritual reward. The liturgical texts produced in this period were therefore disassociated from the physical body of the saint, and Æthelthryth’s sanctity was presented to a male audience as both virginal and chaste. The representation suggests that this virgin saint signifies, in ways that male saints cannot, that she embodies a sexual state that must be approximated by monastic chastity. Perhaps it is the disquiet over this idea that requires Æthelwold and Ælfric to render the saint’s body as a series of discursive texts, for only through the liturgical presentations is Æthelthryth venerated. The deliberate separation of physical body and figural sign can most likely be attributed to Æthelwold’s need to define the community at Ely (and others) as a temporally separate monastic space, an enclosed sacral space far removed from secular concerns. The illustration of Æthelthryth, then, as abbess and perpetual virgin within the highly ornate frame of the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold works as the sign of monastic separation and enclosure that the bishop presents through his rhetoric of reform. After the Conquest, narratives were written at the cult center and elsewhere as the story of Æthelthryth was disseminated. It seems that the majority of written narratives were still produced in monastic settings, though there is some indication that clerks were also responsible for making Æthelthryth’s life available to broader lay audiences. As the monastery of Ely became the central place of production, the monks adopted the
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imagery of enclosure as they compiled Ely’s institutional history. The inviolable body of the saint was cast as a series of enclosed spaces—the shrine, the monastery, and the isle of Ely—that always have the potential of being violated. Framing the monastery as a feminized space, moreover, allowed the monks to represent themselves as part of the queen’s body, capable of being violated as well. In their carefully crafted narrative, however, the space is protected, and figural (and material) bodies are compromised by William’s rapaciousness. The passive, feminized body is then rewritten as an active, masculinized body — indeed, one that materializes and takes vengeance on those who threaten the monks, whether royal or episcopal. The monks can assert themselves, then, as capable of reclaiming the monastic properties appropriated during the Norman invasion, by producing acts of violent retribution framed as miracle narratives. Drawing on the narrative of the Liber Eliensis, Marie retains some details but discards the representation of the saint as masculinized. Writing for a female audience, one that in time was both religious and lay, she offers a presentation that feminizes Æthelthryth, placing her within a heterosexual matrix and using the saint’s life to demonstrate to aristocratic women, who are subject to social rules of marriage, how they can mediate their lives and martial their resources to become active agents as patrons. Marie invokes the metaphor of the wealthy widow and illustrates how Æthelthryth had used her dower properties to found religious spaces. Certainly, the imagery of women funding ecclesiastical initiatives was not radical (in fact, we could read this as a way to control the exorbitant wealth and spending of aristocratic widows), but La Vie Seinte Audrée suggests that women can have agency as wives and as widows, that even within the social structures, they can negotiate their own lives. The case study of Isabella Beauchamp Lestrange Ufford illustrates how one woman adopted the practice of aristocratic patronage and how she controlled her life by taking a vow of chastity. Comparing her life choices with Æthelthryth’s allows us to see how a secondary audience for La Vie Seinte Audrée may have appreciated Marie’s presentation. Late medieval narratives about Æthelthryth addressed women in similar ways. The Middle English lives indicate how Æthelthryth negotiates with her husbands and successfully balances the requirements of marriage against the desire for a spiritual life. Again, the body of the saint is distinctly feminized in these texts, which were likely produced for reading by nuns or lay women. Yet, as the vernacular tradition developed, it began to emphasize Æthelthryth as the virginal “mother of virgins,” an image first offered by
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Bede in his devotional hymn. Although this gendered imagery of nourishment was included in most of the extant lives of Æthelthryth, it became pronounced only in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, just when the devotion to saints like the maternal Bridget of Sweden was so pronounced. The iconography at St. Helen’s, Ranworth, indicates how pervasive the image of Æthelthryth as mother had become. There, she is included above the north altar, situated alongside the virgin martyrs and opposite the Holy Kinship. The roodscreen at Ranworth provides a specific narrative about saints and their embodiment, and it demonstrates that the parishioners were invested in presenting virginity and maternity, for Æthelthryth, like Margaret, operates simultaneously as a sign of fecundity and purity. Each of the chapters presented here could operate as a discrete whole, yet collectively they provide an entrée into English religious practices. The foregoing discussion has been centered on the multivalency of Æthelthryth’s body, but that focus is simply the means by which I have examined the production of hagiographical narratives and the devotional responses to them. This book reveals how one national figure provides a central point of investigation among the cultic practices of several disparate groups — religious and lay, aristocratic and common, male and female, literate and nonliterate — over an extended period of time. The attention to textual production and reception is not intended to be an indication of how popular Æthelthryth was; instead, it is designed to be illustrative of English hagiography, cultural belief, and devotional practice. In adopting a methodology that is comparative, far-reaching in its historical inquiry, and multidisciplinary, this book demonstrates how signs of devotion—particularly those produced in honor of native saints— enrich and add complexity to our understanding of English religiosity.
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appendix Imagines Ætheldredae (970 – 1550)
Because of the vast amount of time that has passed since medieval people produced material goods to venerate Æthelthryth, much has happened that renders this list of images incomplete. Despite moments of crisis, such as the Reformation and the Interregnum, when religious images were routinely destroyed, a large number of Etheldredan images survive, attesting to the saint’s popularity among a variety of medieval groups. The richness of this catalog is suggestive of the quality and quantity of medieval representation for this saint. In addition to a large number of survivals that can be positively identified, the list also includes several images of Æthelthryth that are now lost or destroyed, images known either through medieval records or by the identifications of antiquarians. Still, we cannot definitely assign each of the following to this saint. While ascertaining the identity of saints in material representation is important to the larger project of mapping devotion to any given saint, a number of problems prohibit this pursuit, including the mutilation of images, the lack of identifying marks, or a change in location of the object. Often, too, antiquarian scholars made pronouncements based on the popularity of a saint in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, leading to a number of mistaken identifications. Because of the inaccuracy of antiquarian records and the inability to examine images now lost, these identifications are to be regarded with caution. Likewise, a few other identifications are disputed among contemporary scholars. Whenever an identification is tentative, a mark (‡) is used to indicate this uncertainty, and because some survivals are not in their original locations, I have noted the present location alongside the original so that others might find them more easily. Multiple copies of the same seal are noted by ♦. Finally, the list concludes with a register of the guilds, institutional dedications, altar lights, and bells named in honor of Æthelthryth. While this inventory illustrates the breadth of media used to venerate her, it also reveals the complexity of field work and the chance nature of this enterprise. More than likely, other
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medieval images of this saint exist in unrecorded sites or in places that I have not visited, as well as in manuscripts or on seals that I have not seen.1 I.
1
2‡
3‡
4
5 6
Sculpture A. Metal Engravings Magdebourg, Germany, Magdebourg University, Hans Burgkmair (woodcut 1517), print in Images des saints de la famille de Maximilien I (1799)2 Unknown location, devil flying before Æthelthryth (medieval?), print, P. Ribadineira and P. Rosweid, General Legende der Heiligen (1649) Unknown location, with crozier and crown (medieval?), print, J. Giulini, Tägliche Erbauung eines wahren christen zu dem vertrauen auf Gott und dessen Dienst in Betrachtung seiner Heiligen auf alle Tage des Jahres in auserlesnen Kupfern und deren Erklärung auch erbaulichen Betrachtungen und andächtigen Gebetern (1753 –55) Monumental Brasses Balsham, Cambridgeshire [now London, Ely House, Holborn], commemoration of John Sleford, chaplain to Queen Philippa and archdeacon of Wells, whose cope is adorned with figures of saints, including Æthelthryth and Wilfrid (before 1401) Pilgrim Badges3 King’s Lynn, Norfolk [now in Norwich Museum], Spencer 1980, no. 92 King’s Lynn, Norfolk [now in Norwich Museum], Spencer 1980, no. 93
1. Where the provenance is known, classes of material objects are listed in alphabetical order by county, followed by objects held or found in London and by objects with an unknown provenance. A few images in this list were found in the Index of Christian Art (ICA), Princeton University, and I would like to thank the staff for their assistance in this project. 2. Technically, this entry should come in the “Wood” section, but I have elected to place it here with the other engravings for comparison. 3. This list of badges was corrected and improved significantly by Brian Spencer, who provided detailed information about each in a private communication. I am grateful for his kind generosity, and I must thank Sarah Blick for helping me make this connection.
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7
8
9‡
10 11 12
13 14
15
16
17 18
19
297
Salisbury, Wiltshire, Avon river bed [now on loan to Salisbury City Museum, no. 195c], Spencer 1990, no. 109 (late 14th– early 15th century) Salisbury, Wiltshire, Avon river bed [now in private collection of Mr. P. Shaffery], Spencer 1990, no. 110 (second half 15th century) Salisbury, Wiltshire, Avon river bed [now on loan to Salisbury City Museum, no. 191b], Spencer 1990, no. 111 (15th century) London, Brooks Wharf [now in private collection of Mr. J. Auld] London, Southwark Bridge [present whereabouts unknown] London, Thames at Fishmongers Hall, London Bridge north [now in British Museum], M & LA no. 56, 7-1, 2086 (early 15th century)—from same mold as Stepney badge below London, Thames, Southwark Bridge north [now in Museum of London] London, Thomas More Street, Stepney [now in a private collection], Spencer 1998, no. 206b—from same mold as Fishmongers Hall badge above London, site of Globe Theatre, Southwark [now in private collection of Mr. Brian North Lee] Spencer 1998, no. 206c Provenance unknown [now in private collection of Mr. P. Shaffery] Reliquaries London, V&A 1870, no. 634, 2 images on box (note different dates): Enamel figure on copper gilt reliquary (14th century) Bronze-gilt figure laid on copper gilt reliquary (15th century) Seals4 London, BL, Harley ch. 44.D.31, Prior and Convent (1177– 89)
4. Because so few matrices survive but are most commonly made of metal, seals are organized under this category by default.
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20
21
22‡
23
24 25 26‡ 27
28 29‡ 30 31 32 33
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♦London, BL, D.C., D.I. [cast] London, BL, Seal LV.29, Bishop Eustace (1198 –1215), [cast] ♦London, BL, Harley 43.H.6 London, BL, Seal LVI.85, Bishop Hugh de Northwold (ca. 1235), [cast] reverse ♦London, PRO, Seal E.40/14492 London, BL, Seal XLIII.40, Prior and Convent (ca. 1250), [cast] reverse ♦London, BL, Seal XLV.6 ♦Cambridge, CUL, EDC/B/156 (1309) ♦London, PRO, Seal S.C.13/H.85 London, BL, Seal LV.32, Bishop William de Luda (1290 –98), obverse ♦London, BL, Seal DC, E.190 [cast] ♦London, BL, Seal XLVII.240 ♦London, PRO, Seal S.C.13/F.14 London, PRO, Seal S.C.13/F.14, Bishop William de Luda (1290 –98), reverse London, BL, Seal LV.25, Priory seal ad causus (13C) Durham, Greenwell & Blair, no. 3191, Bishop Robert Orford (1306) London, BL, Seal LV.33, Bishop Simon Montacute (1337–45), [cast] obverse ♦London, PRO, Seal D.L.27/1245 London, BL, Seal LV.35, Bishop Thomas de L’Isle (1345 – 61) London, BL, Seal LV.36, Bishop Thomas de L’Isle (1345 – 61) London, BL, Seal XLIII.37, Bishop Simon Langham (1362), reverse London, BL, Seal LV.34, Bishop Simon Langham (1362), [cast] London, PRO, Seal E135/6/72, Bishop Thomas de Arundel (1384) London, BL, Seal LV.45, Archdeacon of Ely (14c), [cast]
5. While this seal is identified as that of Bishop Simon Langham (1362 –1366) in the PRO documentation, the reverse clearly shows the arms of Bishop Simon Montacute, his predecessor.
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34 35 36 37 38
39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51‡ 52
299
♦London, PRO, Seal E.326/9156, Archdeacon of Ely (1514) London, BL, Seal LV.23, Official of Ely (14th century), [cast] London, PRO, Seal S.C.13/F.41, Bishop Richard Redman (1501–5) London, BL, Seal LV.38, Bishop James Stanley (1506 –15), [cast] London, PRO, Seal E.30/1472/2, Bishop Nicholas West (1529) London, PRO, Seal E.25/46/2, Bishop Thomas Goodrich (1534) ♦London, PRO, Seal E.326/3764 B. Stone Ely, Cambridgeshire, Ely Cathedral, eight capitals forming a pictorial cycle (ca. 1340): Æthelthryth marries Ecgfrith Æthelthryth takes the veil at Coldingham Ecgfrith tries to seize Æthelthryth by force Æthelthryth sleeps on pilgrimage to Ely; staff blossoms Æthelthryth consecrated abbess Æthelthryth’s death and chesting Translation and discovery of Æthelthryth’s incorrupted body Æthelthryth releases Brystan from prison Ely, Cambridgeshire, Ely Cathedral, figure on Bishop Hugh de Northwold’s marble tomb (ca. 1254) Ely, Cambridgeshire, Ely Cathedral, roof boss, Presbytery (13th century) Ely, Cambridgeshire, Ely Cathedral, roof boss, Lady Chapel (ca. 1340) Ely, Cambridgeshire, Ely Cathedral, roof boss, Lady Chapel (ca. 1340) Amport, Hampshire (ca. 1500), alabaster panel Chester, Cheshire, Chester Cathedral, figure on Wærburh’s shrine, destroyed
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53‡ 54 55 56‡ 57 58‡ 59‡
60‡ 61‡ 62 63 64 65‡ 66
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Burnham Market, Norfolk, St. Mary, figure on parapet (ca. 1500) Norwich, Norfolk, St. James, font stem (ca. 1475) Norwich, Norfolk, St. Peter Mancroft, alabaster panel (15th century) Wells, Somerset, Wells Cathedral, figure on west front (ca. 1250) London, V&A 1930, no. 702, alabaster panel [from set?] (15th century) London, V&A 1925b, fig. 8, alabaster figure Boston, Massachusetts, Museum of Fine Arts, alabaster panel (ca. 1400) C. Wood Ely, Cambridgeshire, Ely Cathedral, figure on abbot’s stall (medieval?, if so, ca. 1450) Ely, Cambridgeshire, Ely Cathedral, figure on misericord (ca. 1342) March, Cambridgeshire, roof figure paired with Wendreda, patron of church (1470 –1520) Wiggenhall, St. Germans, Norfolk, figure on bench end6 Wiggenhall, St. Mary the Virgin, Norfolk, figure on bench end (ca. 1500) Blythburg, Suffolk, figure on chantry screen, also identified as the Virgin Mary (after 1452) Niederöfflingen, Germany, figure formerly in chapel (1550)7 II. Glass (in local parish church unless otherwise noted)
67 68
Ely, Cambridgeshire, Ely Cathedral, St. Dunstan’s Chapel (16th century) Norbury, Derbyshire (prob. 14th century)
6. Theresa Coletti generously sent references to both Wiggenhall bench ends. I thank her for these gifts, as well as for our many conversations about East Anglian religious devotion. 7. This reference was kindly provided by Greg Blanton, for which I am very appreciative.
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69‡ 70‡ 71 72‡ 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93
301
Lincoln, Lincolnshire, Lincoln Cathedral, one of two (14th century) Lincoln, Lincolnshire, Lincoln Cathedral, one of two (14th century) Stamford, Lincolnshire, St. John’s (mid-15th century) Bale, Norfolk (15th century) Field Dalling, Norfolk Fincham, Norfolk Kelling, Norfolk (ca. 1450) Marsham, Norfolk, destroyed Outwell, Norfolk North Tuddenham, Norfolk [original location unknown] Salle, Norfolk (after 1444) Sandringham, Norfolk (late 15th– early 16th century) Stody, Norfolk, destroyed Terrington, Norfolk, St. Clement’s, pictorial cycle, destroyed (1426) Walpole, St. Peter, Norfolk, destroyed (1423 –25) Oxford, Oxfordshire, All Souls College Chapel (1441) Oxford, Oxfordshire, Christ Church (1330 –50) Ludlow, Shropshire (ca. 1445) Langport, Somerset (1490) North Cadbury, Somerset Blythburg, Suffolk, destroyed Long Melford, Suffolk (after 1484) Norton, Suffolk (ca. 1475) London, St. Etheldreda’s, destroyed (16th century) Greenwich, Greater London, Greyfriar’s Church, destroyed (ca. 1490 –94) III. Paintings
94 95
A. Manuscript Illumination Alnwick Castle, Duke of Northumberland (BL, Loan ms 82), p. 464, Missal (1396 –1407) Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, ms 57, fol. 49v, Book of Hours (ca. 1490)
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96 97 98‡ 99 100 101 102 103‡ 104 105 106 107 108 109 110
111 112 113 114 115
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Cambridge, Sidney Sussex College, ms 76, unfoliated, Psalter (ca. 1330) Cambridge, Trinity College, ms B.11.7, fol. 36, Book of Hours (late 15th– early 16th century) Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, ms Adv. 18.1.7, fol. 12v, Miscellany (after 1444/5) Ely, Cambridgeshire, Ely Cathedral, lost Gospels with images of Æthelthryth (ca. 1000) London, BL, Add. ms 49598, fol. 2v, Benedictional of St. Æthelwold (971–984) London, BL, Add. ms 49598, fol. 90v, Benedictional of St. Æthelwold (971–984) London, BL, Add. ms 70513, fol. 100v, Legendary (ca. 1250) London, BL, Add. ms 42130, fol. 51v, Luttrell Psalter (ca. 1340) London, BL, Kings 9, fol. 64b, Book of Hours (ca. 1530) New York City, PML ms M. 105, fol. 74v, Kildare Hours (ca. 1425) New York City, PML ms M. 46, fol. 45v, Book of Sarum (15th century) Norwich, Castle Museum ms 158.926. 4f, fol. 27, Book of Hours (ca. 1310 –20) Oxford, Bodl., ms Auct. D.4.4, fol. 238, Bohun Hours (ca. 1380) Oxford, Bodl., Rawl. D. 939, Almanac (ca. 1389) Oxford, Bodl., Rolls 5, Membrane 8, col. 3, Genealogy of English Kings (15th century)8 Paris, BNF, lat. 17294, Bedford Breviary, four scenes (15th century) Æthelthryth sitting, reading, fol. 471v Æthelthryth marries Ecgfrith, fol. 472r Æthelthryth as abbess, praying, fol. 472r Æthelthryth’s death and burial, fol. 472v Pommersfelden, Gräflich Schönbornische Bibliothek, ms 2934, fol. 10r, Bohun Hours (1361–73)
8. I am grateful to Adelaide Bennett, ICA, for bringing this citation to my attention.
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116‡
117 118 119 120
121‡ 122‡ 123 124‡ 125 126 127 128 129 130 131‡ 132 133 134 135 136 137‡ 138‡ 139 140 141
303
Vienna, Museum für angewandte Kunst, Cod. Lat. XIV (S5), fol. 2v, Book of Hours (early 15th century) B. Altar Tables Ely, Cambridgeshire, Ely Cathedral [now London, Society of Antiquaries], four panels forming a pictorial cycle, probably painted by Robert Pygot (1455): Æthelthryth marries Ecgfrith Æthelthryth divorces Ecgfrith Æthelthryth builds Ely Translation of Æthelthryth’s incorrupted body C. Roodscreen Panels Kenn, Devonshire Plymtree, Devonshire Wolborough, Devonshire (after 1518) Babingley, Norfolk, destroyed Barnham Broom, Norfolk (15th century) Beeston-next-Mileham, Norfolk (ca. 1434) North Burlingham, Norfolk (ca. 1525) Foulden, Norfolk (ca. 1475) Gateley, Norfolk (ca. 1485) Horsham, St. Faith, Norfolk (1492 –1528) Litcham, Norfolk, also identified as Helen (ca. 1492) Norwich, Norfolk, St. John Sepulchre, modern paint over the medieval image (ca. 1450) Oxborough, Norfolk [now East Dereham, Norfolk] (ca. 1480) Ranworth, Norfolk (ca. 1479) North Tuddenham, Norfolk (ca. 1500) Upton, Norfolk (ca. 1450) Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, also identified as Frideswith (ca. 1350) Lakenheath, Suffolk, destroyed Sudbury, Suffolk, St. Peter, modern paint over the medieval image (15th century) Westhall, Suffolk (ca. 1500) Woolpit, Suffolk, modern paint over the medieval image
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142 143‡ 144‡ 145‡ 146‡ 147‡ 148‡ 149
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D. Wall Painting Windsor, Berkshire, Eton College Chapel (1479 – 87) Willingham, Cambridgeshire (ca. 1250)9 Lanivet, Cornwall East Ham, Essex Gorleston, Norfolk, St. Andrew, also identified as Katherine Norwich, Norfolk, Norwich Cathedral, destroyed (ca. 1200?) Hessett, Suffolk, destroyed Worcester, Worcestershire, St. Wulfstan’s Hospital (15th century) IV. Textiles
150
Embroidery Spetchley Park, Worcestershire, embroidered panel (ca. late 14th– early 15th century) V. Citations of Images Not Found or Media Unknown10
151‡ 152‡ 153
Æthelthryth with spring at her feet11 Æthelthryth with Christchild12 Hingham, Norfolk VI. Dedications Altar Lights Ely, Cambridgeshire, Ely Cathedral Ely, Cambridgeshire, Holy Trinity Ely, Cambridgeshire, St. Mary Gamlingay, Cambridgeshire (1490) Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, St. Andrew
9. C. David Benson kindly brought Willingham to my attention and made his own reference materials on wall paintings available to me. 10. These include citations of images where the provenance, medium, and date of production is unknown. 11. Otto Wimmer, Die Attribute der Heiligen (Munich: Tyrolia-Verlag, 1966), 44. 12. Wimmer, Die Attribute der Heiligen. 78. Helen Roeder, Saints and Their Attributes, with a Guide to Localities and Patronage (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1955), 5.
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305
Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, St. Peter Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, St. Paul Leverington, Cambridgeshire, St. Leonard’s Hingham, Norfolk Northwold, Norfolk (1397) Terrington, Norfolk [which parish is unknown] Bells Feltwell, Cambridgeshire (1424) Gamlingay, Cambridgeshire (1490), 2 bells Morley, Norfolk, St. Botolph Cathedrals Ely Cathedral, Ely, Cambridgeshire (1252) Chapels Reach, Cambridgeshire (1378) Lynn, Norfolk, St. Nicholas Hexham Abbey, Yorkshire London, Ely Place, Bishop’s residence (ca. 1250?) Fairs St. Giles, Barnwell, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire (1229 for 23 June) Ely, Cambridgeshire, Ely monastery (1121–1233 for 23 June) Ely, Cambridgeshire, Ely monastery (1234?–48 for 17 October) Bishop’s Hatfield, Hertfordshire (1226, 1300 –1326, 1427–1516 for 23 June) Stowe Green, Lincolnshire (Ædeldre2estowe) Wheatacre, Norfolk (1318+ for 17 October) Guilds Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, thegns’ guild (10th century) Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Holy Sepulchre (13th century) Ely, Cambridgeshire, Holy Trinity (ca. 1289) Ely, Cambridgeshire, St. Mary Histon, Cambridgeshire Lynn, Norfolk, Chapel of St. Nicholas (or Margaret?) (1371–1490) Shipdam, Norfolk
294-307.Blanton.Append
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Taunton, Somerset, St. Mary Magdalene (15th century?) Monasteries Ely, Cambridgeshire (971) Canonsleigh, Devonshire (1282) Parish Churches Histon, Cambridgeshire Linton, Cambridgeshire Bishop’s Hatfield, Hertfordshire (975 –983) Chesfield by Graveley, Hertfordshire Totteridge, Hertfordshire (1229 –54) Stowe Green, Lincolnshire (Ædeldre2estowe) West Halton, Lincolnshire Mundham, Norfolk Norwich, Norfolk (pre-Conquest or 1100?) Thetford, Norfolk (pre-Conquest) Guilsborough, Northamptonshire Horley, Oxfordshire (pre-Conquest) Hyssington, Shropshire (pre-Conquest) West Quantoxhead, Somerset Niederöfflingen, Germany (before 1179) Sites of Pilgrimage Ely, Cambridgeshire, Ely Cathedral, shrine (pre-Conquest) Thetford, Norfolk, smock & coffin (pre-Conquest)
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Cambridge Corpus Christi College ms 146: 104n Corpus Christi College ms 201: 126n Corpus Christi College ms 391: 75n Pembroke College ms 277: 10, 236 Trinity College ms O.2.31: 75n Trinity College ms O.2.41: 68n Trinity College ms B.15.1: 237n CUL, Add. ms 2604: 10, 237, 249, 257– 63, 270 CUL, Add. ms 4122: 260 CUL, Add. ms 7220: 227n CUL, Dean and Chapter of Ely, G/I/2: 201 CUL, ms Adv. c. 116.1: 201n Dublin Trinity College ms 172: 10 Le Havre Bibliothèque Municipale, ms 330: 75n London British Library Add. ms 37517: 75n Add. ms 49598: 8, 13, 84 (fig. 3), 85 (fig. 4), 90 (fig. 5), 103 Add. ms 70513 (formerly Welbeck Abbey ms I.C.1 and called the Campsey Manuscript in this text): 179, 189 –91, 191 (fig. 7), 195 –201, 227–28 Arundel 60: 100 –101, 125n Arundel 155: 125n Cotton Tiberius B.v: 123n Cotton Faustina B.iii: 233, 237, 249 –57 Cotton Galba A.xiv: 91 Cotton Galba A.xviii: 81n Cotton Domitian XV: 9, 180 – 81 Cotton Tiberius C.vi: 104n Cotton Tiberius D.iii: 9 Cotton Tiberius E.i.: 235 Cotton Vespasian A.xix: 68n Cotton Vitellius A.vii: 103n Cotton Vitellius D.xvii: 126n Egerton 1993: 10, 237, 240 –49 Harley 863: 103n Harley 2904: 103 Harley Charter 55.H.I: 225 Harley Charter 57.C.42: 225
Lansdowne 436: 10, 235 Stowe 944: 126n Stowe Charter 31: 71–72n Gray’s Inn ms 3: 9 Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace Library, ms 223: 240 Lambeth Palace Library, ms 427: 103n The Register of Archbishop Chichele: 220n The Register of Archbishop Courtney: 204n Westminster Abbey Library Westminster Abbey ms XII: 236n–37n Munich Hauptstaatsarchiv, Raritäten-Selekt 108: 97n Norwich ANF Grantham 15: 279n NCC Awbreye 13: 279n NCC Brosyard 25: 279n NCC Caston 287: 279n NCC Fuller 55: 279n NCC Gelour 191: 279n Oxford Balliol College, ms 149: 266n Balliol College, ms 288: 237n Bodley ms 285: 236n Bodley ms 579: 80 Bodley ms 718: 103 Bodley ms 775: 104n Bodley ms 779: 10, 238, 240, 243n Bodley ms Eng. poet.1.a.: 10, 237, 241n, 243n Bodley ms Hatton 96: 266n Bodley ms Laud misc. 482: 99n, 103n Trinity College, ms 7: 10 Paris BN, ms lat. 987: 80n Rouen Bibliothéque Municipale ms 274 (Y.6): 75n, 103 Bibliothéque Municipale ms 369 (Y.7): 103 Salisbury Cathedral Library ms 150: 103n Worcester Worcester Cathedral Library ms F 173: 102
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Abingdon Abbey, 67, 80, 92, 110, 126 Acker, Paul, 241 Adamnan, 39, 61 Æbbe, abbess of Coldingham and Saint, 147–48, 186 Ælfeah, Saint, 236 Ælfgifu, Saint, 101–2, 119 Ælfheah, Saint, 100 Ælfric of Eynsham Catholic Homilies, 104,112, 121 Life of Æthelthryth, 6, 9, 75 –76, 105 – 8, 110 –22, 129, 147, 177, 232 Life of Æthelwold, 68, 71–72, 110 Life of Chrysanthus and Daria, 113, 116, 118 Life of Julian and Basilissa, 113, 115 –16, 118 Life of Swithun, 110 –11,121–23 Lives of Saints, 105, 108, 111–12, 114, 120 –21, 125, 128, 231 student of Æthelwold, 8, 75, 104, 121, 128, 290 Æthelberht, Saint, 101 Æthelburh, abbess of Barking Abbey and Saint, 61, 63 Æthelburh, daughter of Anna and Saint, 101–2 Æthelflæd, Saint, 101–2 Æthelmær, 120 –22, 231 Æthelmod, Saint, 101 Æthelred, Saint, 101 Æthelric, 23 Æthelstan Psalter, 81 Æthelthryth (also Æ2eldry2, Etheldreda, Etheldred, Audrée, Audrey) abbess of Ely, 7, 11, 23, 26, 31, 48, 63, 74, 100, 114, 119 –20, 133, 180, 233, 237, 271, 274, 283 – 84, 287, 290 art works, 295 –306; illuminated miniatures, 13, 78, 81– 83, 84 (fig. 3), 86 – 88, 93 –96, 189 –90, 290; pictorial cycles, 54, 154 –56, 155 (fig. 6), 191–95, 192 (fig. 8); roodscreen paintings, 15, 234, 264, 266 – 68, 270 –71, 272 (fig. 9), 273 (fig. 10), 274, 275 (fig. 11), 276 –77, 278 (fig. 13), 280 – 81, 282 (fig. 15), 283, 284 (fig. 16), 285 – 87, 292; sculpture, 54 (fig. 2), 54 –55, 154, 283
asceticism, 4, 12, 31, 37–39, 44 –45, 47, 119, 185, 189, 222, 246, 256, 258, 289 –90 chronology of life and cult, 6 at Coldingham, 32 –33, 36, 39, 186, 243 death, 32, 34 –35, 40 –43, 246 –47, 258 divorce, 26, 36 –37, 187, 193, 256 feasts, 6, 82, 96 –98, 127, 242 foundations dedicated to, 11, 71, 267, 270 as founder, 4, 32, 67, 115, 143, 153, 156, 176, 186, 190, 193 –94, 222, 224, 228, 245 –46, 271 guilds dedicated to, 238, 305 – 6 incorruption of the body, 4, 31–56, 76, 123 –24, 132 –36, 140, 189, 192, 232, 241, 247 intercession, 142 legendaries, 236 –48, 253, 257–59, 262, 283 litanies, 96 –105 liturgy, 98, 103, 124, 126 marriages: Ecgfrith, King of Northumbria, 4, 6, 19, 23, 34 –36, 146 –49, 158, 169, 183, 186 – 87, 192 –94, 250, 253 –54, 256 –58; Tondberht, 6, 34, 143, 183, 243, 247, 256 –58 as miles Christi, 168 – 69 miracles, 19 –20, 48, 53, 132, 135 –36, 141, 146 –70, 151–52, 159, 174, 177, 181, 183, 186 – 87, 236, 246 –47, 252, 254 –55, 258 as patron of religious institutions, 4, 8, 14, 74, 176 –79, 183 –95, 199, 200, 223, 289, 291 Queen of Northumbria, 4, 7, 23, 58, 66, 74, 112, 126, 142, 157, 176 –77, 185, 187, 199, 222 scar, 13, 42 –56, 135, 194, 243, 289 shrine, 161, 163 – 64, 192, 195, 248 –49 sickness, 30, 40 –41, 43 sovereignty, 158, 161– 62, 222, 252 spiritual mother, 4, 31, 59, 93, 235, 245 –46, 283 – 84, 287, 289, 291 as sponsa christi, 87, 174 translation of, 4, 6, 10, 20, 38 –54, 54 (fig. 1), 76, 97, 122 –24, 127, 132 –35, 181, 192 –95, 241–42, 246 –47, 258 tumor, 4, 13, 42, 47, 49
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Æthelthryth (cont’d) as virago, 14, 166, 168 – 69, 174 visions of, 167– 68, 250 widow, 7, 178, 187, 221, 223, 291 vitae, list of, 9 –10 Æthelweard, 120, 231 Æthelwine, Saint, 101 Æthelwold Bishop of Winchester, 6 – 8, 13, 66 – 81, 87– 89, 91–92, 94 –99, 103 –7, 109 –12, 114 –15, 119 –28, 131, 133 –34, 136, 138, 145 – 6, 173, 181, 193, 258, 290 Saint, 100, 102 Ætla, Bishop of Dorchester, 24 Agatha, Saint, 22, 53, 57, 100, 147, 151, 259, 261, 274 Agnes, Saint, 20, 22, 57, 98, 100, 102, 271, 277, 278, 278 (fig. 13), 280, 283, 285 Aidan, Saint, 101 Alban, Saint, 100, 108 –9, 111, 236 Alcuin, 57 Aldhelm author, 28 –30, 39, 46, 57, 99, 117, 119 Saint, 101, 236 Alfred, King of Wessex, 106 –7 Ambrose author, 28, 30 Saint, 274 Anastasia, Saint, 100 Andrew, Saint, 33, 176 Angela of Foligno, Saint, 52 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 31, 162 Anna, King of East Anglia, 34, 184 – 85, 243, 285 Anne, Saint, 276, 279, 281 Arundel, Edmund de, 217 Arundel, Eleanor de, 213 Arundel, Elizabeth de, 217 Arundel, Richard de, Earl of Arundel, II, 211, 217 Arundel, Richard de, Earl of Arundel, III, 211, 217 Arundel, Thomas de, Bishop of Ely and Archbishop of Canterbury, 201, 209 –11, 214, 217, 227 Ashley, Kathleen, 1, 146 Augustine author, 28, 51, 79, 119 Saint, 274 Barking Abbey, 29 –30, 38, 61, 63 Balthildis, Saint 101 Barbara, Saint, 259, 261, 277, 278 (fig. 13), 285
Basilissa, Saint 113, 115, 118 Beauchamp, Catherine de, 226 Beauchamp, Catherine Mortimer de, Countess of Warwick, d. 1369, 202 –3 Beauchamp, Elizabeth de, 203, 213 Beauchamp, Guy de, d. 1360, 203, 214, 217 Beauchamp, Richard de, Earl of Warwick, heir of Isabella Ufford, d. 1439, 203, 212, 216 –17, 221 Beauchamp, Thomas de, Earl of Warwick, d. 1401, 203, 212, 214 –17, 221 Beauchamp, Thomas de, Earl of Warwick, d. 1369, 202 –3 Beckwith, Sarah, 77, 132 Bede Ecclesiastical History of the English People, 6, 9, 12, 19 – 63, 65, 115, 135, 177, 246, 284, 290 hymn in honor of Æthelthryth, 6, 9, 19 –20, 22, 27, 56 – 63, 174, 246, 290, 292 Life of Æthelthryth, 4, 6, 7–9, 12 –13, 15, 19 – 63, 65 – 66, 68, 75 –76, 82, 88, 92, 95 –99, 104 – 6, 108, 112 –15, 117–18, 123, 127, 131, 133, 135 –36, 147, 173 –74, 176 –77, 189, 193 –94, 196, 231–32, 235 –36, 241, 243, 245 –47, 250, 252 –53, 257–58, 284, 287, 289 –90 Life of Hild, 22, 24 –28, 30 –31, 53, 61, 63 Saint, 99, 101 Beeston-next-Mileham, Norfolk, 286 Benedict, Saint, 93, 95, 99, 100, 120, 129, 264 Benedicta, Saint, 259 Benedictine Reforms, 66, 73 –74, 76, 104, 107, 120 Benedictine Rule, 73, 77, 112, 125 The Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, 6, 74, 77, 81– 82, 84 (fig. 3), 85 (fig. 4), 88, 90 (fig. 5), 92, 94, 96, 120, 129, 165, 290 Benet, Margaret, 264 Benet, Thomas, 264 Beornstan, Saint, 101 Berkeley, Elizabeth de, 203, 217 Bernard, Catherine, 209 Birinus, Saint, 102 Blake, E. O., 9, 137, 180 Blake, Cecilia, 264 Blake, John, 264 Blair, John, 89 Bloker, Margaret, 279 Blyant, Simon, 225 Bohun, Elizabeth, 205, 217 Bokenham, Osbern, 249, 260 – 61 Boniface, Saint, 79, 99, 101
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index Bosa, Bishop of York, 24 Botetourt, Elizabeth de, 213, 217 Botwulf, Saint, 101, 236 Brakenest, Alice, 206 Brews, John de, 213 Bridget of Sweden, Saint, 292 Brigida of Ireland, Saint, 100, 239 Brose, Margaret, 161 Brotherton, Thomas, Earl of Norfolk, 204 Bruisyard Abbey, 220 Buckland, Ralph (or Robert), 10 Burgh, Maud de, Countess of Ulster, 210 North Burlingham, Norfolk, 264, 271, 286 Burton, George, 259 Bury St. Edmunds, 98, 126, 144, 181, 199 Butler, Judith, 50, 76, 135, 165 Butley Priory, 274 Cædmon, 24 –25, 27, 60 – 61, 63 Campsey Ash Priory, 14, 179, 189 –90, 195 –201, 209 –13, 218 –28 Campsey Manuscript. See BL, Add. ms 70513 Cannon, Christopher, 149 Caxton, William, 265 Cecilia, Saint, 20, 57, 98, 100, 113, 252 –53, 259, 261, 264 celibacy, 8, 73, 95, 112, 125 Ceolfrith, 35 –36 Ceolwulf, King, 25 Cerne Abbas, 121 Chad, Bishop of Northumbria and Saint, 61, 101 chaste marriage, 76, 87– 88, 92, 113, 116 –19, 128, 151, 232, 242, 244, 257, 290. See also conjugal chastity Chaucer, Geoffrey, 252 Christopher, Saint, 259, 286 Chrysanthus, Saint, 113, 116 –17, 128 Cobbe, William, 278 Coldingham Abbey, 6, 32, 36 –37, 39, 47, 147, 186, 222, 243 Coletti, Theresa, 261, 276 Colman, Bishop of Lindisfarne, 61 Columba of Sens, 100 conjugal chastity, 4, 19, 28, 93, 112 –14, 118, 152, 289. See also chaste marriage Costessey, Norfolk, 204 Courtney, William, Archbishop of Canterbury, 204 Croyland Abbey, 98 Cuthbert Bishop of Durham, 185 Saint, 3, 27, 61, 63, 81, 93, 95, 99, 100, 248 Cuthburh, Saint, 101
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Cyneburh, Saint, 101 Cynefrith, 20, 40 –49, 53, 57, 59, 62, 76, 243, 247, 289 Cyneswith, Saint, 101 Daria, Saint, 113, 118 Denny Abbey, 260 East Dereham, Norfolk, 124, 134, 266, 271 Deshman, Robert, 78, 80 – 83 Despenser, Edward le, 211, 214, 217 Despenser, Henry le, Bishop of Norwich, 209 –11, 214, 217 Despenser, Hugh le, Jr., 217 Despenser, Isabel le, 211, 214, 217 Despenser, Isabel le, d. 1439, 203, 217 Despenser, Anne de Ferrers le, 214, 217 Diocese of Norwich, 197, 209, 211 Domitilla, Saint, 259, 261 Donovan, Leslie A., 96 Dorothy, Saint, 260, 271 Douglas, Mary, 152 –53 Duffy, Eamon, 263 – 64, 267, 276, 278 Dumville, David, 78 Dunstan Archbishop of Canterbury, 72 Saint, 99 –100, 236, 238 Durham Cathedral, 185 Eadburh of Winchester, Saint, 100 –101, 239 –41, 259, 262 Eadgyth, Saint, 101 Eadsige, 110 –11, 122 Ecgwine, Bishop of Worcester and Saint, 101 Edgar, King of Wessex, 6 –7, 68 –72, 120, 125, 133, 258 Egbert, King of Kent, 31 Edith of Wilton, Saint, 249, 259 Edmund King of East Anglia, 109, 265, 267, 281 Saint, 99 –100, 108, 111, 144, 238 Edmund of Abingdon, Archbishop of Canterbury and Saint, 196 Edward I, 224 Edward, King of Wessex, 241 Edward the Confessor, King of England and Saint 100, 142, 163, 190, 236, 248, 264 – 65, 281 Edward the Elder, King of Wessex and Saint, 238 Edwards, A. S. G., 260 Elizabeth of Hungary, Saint, 190, 274, 276 Ely abbot of, 9, 231
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Ely (cont’d) bishop of, 156, 171, 200 –201, 209, 211, 217 convent of, 186 –94, 196, 222 –24, 243, 245 –47, 271 cathedral, 54, 155 (fig. 6), 189 –90, 191 (fig. 7), 192 (fig. 8), 283, 284 (fig. 16) Diocese of, 6, 137, 139 –41 monastery of, 4, 6 – 8, 12 –14, 23, 26 –27, 32, 37–39, 48 –49, 57, 59, 67, 92, 126, 131–71, 173 –99, 222 –28, 233, 235, 242 –71, 276, 290 –91 Isle of 7, 14, 68, 124, 131–71, 162, 164, 187, 243, 245, 291 siege of 138, 157–70 Eorcengota, Saint, 48, 259 Eorcenwold, Bishop of London and Saint, 61, 100 Eormenhild, Saint, 99 –101, 126, 134, 165, 259 Erler, Mary, 206, 210, 225, 261 Etheldredstowe, 186 Eulalia, Saint, 57, 98, 100 Eugenia, Saint, 98, 100 Euphemia, Saint, 57, 100 Faith, Saint, 1, 101, 146, 239 Fell, Christine, 134 Felicitas, Saint, 100, 102 Felix Bishop of East Anglia, 184, 285 Saint, 101, 285 Ferrers, Henry de, 217 Ferrers, Henry de, d. 1387/8, 212, 216 –17 Ferrers, Margaret de, d. 1406/7, 203, 212, 214, 216 –17, 221 Ferrers, Philippa de, d. 1384, 203, 214, 217 Ferrers, William de, 212, 214, 216 –17 Ferrers, William de, d. 1445, 212 Ferrers de Groby, William de, 217 Flambard, Ranulf, 68 Flixton Priory, 197 Florence of Worcester, 162 Frank, Georgia, 44 Frederick, Jill, 239 Frideswith, Saint, 99, 101, 239 –40, 266 French, Katherine L., 234, 274 Frennys, Robert, 264 Fursey, Saint, 101 Gameson, Richard, 76, 86 Gateley, Norfolk, 274, 275 (fig. 11), 276, 283, 286 George, Saint, 285 Gervase, 166 – 68
Gesta Herewardi, 160, 162, 164 Gibson, Gail McMurray, 234, 261 Gilchrist, Roberta, 153 Gildas, Saint, 101 Gilte Legend, 265 Glanville, Ralph de, 274 Glastonbury Abbey, 67, 126 Godstow Abbey, 255 The Golden Legend. See Legenda Aurea Görlach, Manfred, 236, 238, 242, 256 Goscelin de St. Bertin, 9 Gravdal, Kathryn, 149 –150, 168 Gregory of Ely, 6, 9, 235 Gregory, Saint, 93, 99 –100, 274 Gregory of Nyssa, Saint Life of Macrina, 44 Guthlac, Saint, 99 –100 4a halgan, 9 Hali Meidenhad, 252 Hamelinck, Renee, 238 –39 Haughley, Suffolk, 204 Helen mother of Constantine, 53, 271 Saint, 101, 239 –40, 274, 278, 280 Henry II, 180 Henry III, 6 Henry VI, Saint, 276 Hereswith, 23 Hereward, 6, 157, 160 Herren, Michael, 30 Hexham Abbey, 33, 36, 176 –77, 185 – 87, 189, 222 Hilarius, Saint, 100 Hild abbess of Whitby, 22 –28, 30 –31, 61– 63 Saint, 30, 53, 259 Hildelith, Saint, 30 Historia monachorum in Aegypto, 119 Holofernes, 151 Hollis, Stephanie, 28 Hoo, Joan de, d. 1391, 212 Horsham, Norfolk, 286 Horner, Shari, 94 Horstmann, Carl, 284 Howard, Robert, 264 Iryng, Robert, 279 Iryng, Roger, 278 Isidore of Seville, Saint, 79, 101 Jackson, Peter, 112, 119 Jacobus de Voragine, 236, 239
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index Jankofsky, Klaus, 239 Jerome as author, 28 Saint, 274 Joan of Valois, Saint, 274 John, Bishop of Hexham, 24 John of Tynemouth, 10, 235 –36, 248, 257–59, 283 John the Baptist, Saint, 240, 259, 264, 277– 81, 278 (fig. 13), 285 John the Evangelist, Saint, 259, 263 Judith, 151 Julian, Saint, 113, 115 –17, 128 Juliana, Saint, 100 Justina, Saint, 259 The Kalendre of the Newe Legende of Englande, 10, 15, 258, 283 Karkov, Catherine, 94 Katherine of Alexandria, 190, 239 Kempe, Margery, 151, 202, 253 Kenelm, Saint, 100, 236 “Kentish Royal Legend,” 126 Keynes, Simon, 67, 69, 72 Kristeva, Julia, 52 Kyng, Rose, 278 Lacy, Edward, 264 Lancaster, Eleanor of, 211, 217 Langley Abbey, 287 Lapidge, Michael, 30, 74, 78, 91–92, 95, 97–98, 100 –103 Laurence, Saint, 99 –100, 285 Lees, Clare A., 24, 31 Legenda Aurea, 236, 238 –40, 248, 259, 281 Legendys of Hooly Wummen, 249, 260 Leofric Missal, 80 Leonard, Saint, 259 Lestrange, Elizabeth, Baroness Lestrange, d. 1383, 202 –3, 217 Lestrange, John, IV, 217 Lestrange, John, V, d. 1375, 202 –3, 217 Lestrange, Mary de Arundel, 211, 214, 217 Libellus Æthelwoldi, 68 – 69, 71–72 Liber Eliensis, 6, 13 –14, 48, 67– 68, 123 –24, 131–47, 149 –50, 152, 154, 156 –57, 159 – 60, 162 – 68, 170 –71, 174, 177, 180, 182 – 83, 186, 191, 223, 232, 236, 249, 252, 257, 291 Liberty of Etheldreda, 196, 199, 209, 227, 268, 274 Litcham, Norfolk, 286 literacy, 11, 24, 31, 63, 190, 232, 262
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The Lives of Women Saints of our Contrie of England, 235, 284, 287 Lochrie, Karma, 52 Love, Rosalind C., 98 Lucia, Saint, 100 Lydgate, John, 260 – 61 Macrina, Saint, 44 –45 Margaret, Saint, 11, 239, 260 – 61, 264, 271, 276 –77, 279 (fig. 14), 280, 283, 285 – 86, 292 Margaret of Norwich, d. 1368, 210, 212 Margaret of Scotland, Saint, 266 Marie de France, 6, 9, 14 –15, 174, 176 –91, 191 (fig. 7), 193 –96, 198 –201, 221–23, 226 –28, 231–32, 245, 250, 253, 291 Fables, 180 L’Espurgatoire Seint Patriz, 180 La Vie Seinte Audrée (VSA), 9, 14 –15, 174 –201, 191 (fig. 7), 221, 227, 245, 250, 253 Lais, 180 Martha, Saint, 261 Martin, Saint, 99 –100 martyrology, 63, 96 Mary, Virgin, 6, 26, 57–59, 61, 82, 93 –94, 98, 129, 147, 165, 202, 246, 260, 262 – 63, 276, 279, 279 (fig. 14), 281, 285 Mary Cleophas, Saint, 276, 279 (fig. 14) Mary Magdalene, Saint, 81– 82, 98, 100, 102 Mary Salome, Saint, 276, 279 (fig. 14) Matilda, Queen, 137, 139, 156 Mazdai, King, 114 McCash, June Hall, 180, 193 Milburh, Saint, 101 Mildgith, Saint, 101 Mildrith, Saint, 3, 100, 239 –41, 262 Milward, Robert, 278 –79 miles Christi, 168 – 69 Modwenna, Saint, 181, 190, 196, 259 Montacute, Elizabeth, 213 Mowbray, Thomas, 202 –3, 217 New Minster, Winchester, 89, 91, 95, 126 Newman, Barbara, 96 Nilson, Ben, 248 Norman Conquest, 3, 5 –7, 133, 140, 144, 157, 290 Northwood, Joan de, 212 Nova Legenda Anglie, 258, 262 Nunnaminster, Winchester, 89, 91, 95, 126, 144 Nursling Abbey, 38
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Oda, Archbishop of Canterbury, 123 Oftfor, Bishop of Worcester, 24 Old Minster, Winchester, 67, 80, 91, 102, 109, 126 Oliva, Marilyn, 197, 199, 207, 220 Oswald, Archbishop of Worcester and York and Saint, 103, 238 Oswald, King of Northumbria and Saint, 71, 100, 108 –9, 111 Oswiu, King of Northumbria, 23 Osyth, Saint, 99, 101, 190, Otter, Monika, 137–39, 169 Owine, 176 –77, 186 Overing, Gillian R., 24, 31 Oxborough, Norfolk, 286 Parham, Suffolk, 204, 225 Paul, Saint, 95, 240 Perpetua, Saint, 98, 100, 102 Peter, Saint, 6, 55, 240 Peterborough Abbey, 67, 92, 103, 126 Petronella, Saint, 100 Pfaff, Richard, 99 Picot, 166 Prescott, Andrew, 79 – 80 Pygot, Robert, 192 Pynson, Richard, 10, 258, 262 Radegund, Saint, 100 Ramsey Abbey, 97–98, 102, 126 Ranworth, Norfolk, 11, 15, 234 –35, 270, 276 –78, 277 (fig. 12), 278 (fig. 13), 279 (fig. 14), 281, 282 (fig. 15), 283, 285 – 87, 292 Regularis Concordia, 89 Richard II, 281 Richard of Chichester, Saint, 190, 196 Riddy, Felicity, 178, 198 –99 Ridyard, Susan, 136 –37, 139 –40, 144 Robert, Archbishop of Rouen, 103 Robert of Jumièges, 103 Rollason, David, 124 Romsey Abbey, 235 Rosenthal, Joel, 207, 224 Rubin, Gayle, 161, 222 Ruether, Rosemary Radford, 51 Rushforth, Rebecca, 97 St. Albans Abbey, 239 St. Philibert, John de, 212 St. Neots Abbey, 126 Santilogium Anglia, Wallia, Scotiae et Hibernia. See John of Tynemouth
Scholastica, Saint, 98, 100, 102 Seaxburh abbess, 20, 42, 45, 47–48, 247 Queen of Kent, 134, 254 Saint, 99 –101, 126, 165, 259 Sebbi, King of the East Saxons, 61 Secgan be 4am Godes sanctum 4e on Engla lande ærost reston, 125 –27 Sewara and Sewenna, 154, 164 Scales, Robert, III, 212, 216 Scales, Robert, d. 1402, 212 Scales, Roger, d. 1386, 212, 215 –16 Scarry, Elaine, 49 Schulenburg, Jane Tibbetts, 136, 170 Shaftesbury Abbey, 119 Sheingorn, Pamela, 1, 146 Shouldham Priory, 197–98, 211 Sherborne Abbey, 98, 103 Sidwell, Saint, 266 – 67 Silver, Brenda, 150 Skipworth, Alice, d. ca. 1372, 212 South English Legendary, 6, 15, 233, 237–43, 246 –49, 253, 256 –57, 260, 262, 265, 283 spiritual marriage. See chaste marriage or conjugal chastity sponsa christi, 82, 87, 174 Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, 286 Statute of Mortmain, 224 Stephen, King, 137, 139, 156, 171 Stephen of Ripon, Life of Wilfrid, 31–33, 36, 176 Stephen, Saint, 240, 285 Streonæshalch. See Whitby Abbey Swithun Bishop of Winchester, 109 –11 Saint, 3, 74, 77–78, 81, 95, 99 –100, 102, 108, 121–23, 129, 236 Synod of Hatfield, 61 Synod of Hertford, 61 Synod of Whitby, 26 Talbot, Ankarette, 225 Tasburgh, George, 259 Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, 28, 61 Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Saint, 96, 238, 248, 264 – 65, 285 Thomas atte Chirche de Blofeld, 236 Thomas, parishioner at Burlingham, Norfolk, 264 Thorndon, Suffolk, 204 Thorney Abbey, 67, 126 Tibba, Saint, 101 Thecla, Saint, 20, 57, 98, 100
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index Toua, Saint, 101 Tuddenham, North, Norfolk, 270 –71, 272 (fig. 9), 274, 276, 283, 286 Ufford, Catherine de, d. 1369, 212, 216 Ufford, Cecily de, d. 1372, 212, 216 Ufford, Edmund de, d. 1375, 210, 213 Ufford, Edmund de, d. 1375, son of William de Ufford, 213 Ufford, Eva de, 213 Ufford, Isabella Beauchamp Lestrange de, d. 1416 Countess of Suffolk, 179, 200 –201, 203 –4, 210, 212 –13, 215, 217, 226, 233 daughter of Earl of Warwick, 198, 202 –3, 222 –23 patron of Campsey Ash Priory, 211, 219 –21, 223 –24, 227–28 vowess, 14, 205 – 6, 208 –9, 214, 216, 218, 225, 291 Ufford, Margaret de, d. 1368, 212, 214, 216 –17 Ufford, Margaret de, d. 1375, 213 Ufford, Maud de, canoness of Campsey Ash, d. after 1416, 211–12, 216, 218 –20, 226 Ufford, Maud Plantagenet de Burgh de, d. 1377, 213 Ufford, Joan de, d. ca. 1357, 212, 216 Ufford, Joan de Montacute de, d. before 1376, 204, 210, 213 Ufford, John de, d. 1348, 212 Ufford, John de, d. 1375, 213, 216, 226 Ufford, Ralph de, d. 1346, 210, 213 Ufford, Robert de, d. 1316, 210, 212 Ufford, Robert de, Earl of Suffolk, d. 1369, 210, 212, 216 Ufford, Robert de, d. 1368, 213, 216 Ufford, Robert de, d. 1375, 213 Ufford, Thomas de, d. 1368, 203, 213, 216 Ufford, Thomas de, d. 1374, 213 Ufford, Walter de, d. 1360, 213, 216 Ufford, William de, d. before 1316, 212 Ufford, William de, d. 1381/2 Earl of Suffolk, 202, 210, 215 –16, 218, 221, 223 –24 husband of Isabella Beauchamp, 203 –5, 213 –14, 217, 226 patron of Campsey Ash Priory, 219 –20 son of Robert de Ufford, Earl of Suffolk, 216 Ufford, William de, d. 1375, 213 Upchurch, Robert K., 112 Upton, Norfolk, 271, 273 (fig. 10), 274, 276, 280, 286 Ursula, Saint, 239
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Valognes, Agnes, sister of Theobald, 196 Valognes, Cecily, d. 1325, 210, 212 Valognes, Joan, sister of Theobald, 196 Valognes, Theobald, 196 Valor Ecclesiasticus, 197 Verdun, Isabella le, 217 Vestiana, 44 Wærburh, daughter of Eormenhild, Saint, 101, 134, 259 Warner, George, 81 Warwick, Warwickshire, St. Mary’s Chapel, 226 Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., 49, 131 Walstan, Saint, 264 Wearmouth-Jarrow, monasteries of, 19, 61, 131 Welbeck Manuscript. See BL, Add. ms 70513 Wenefrid, Saint, 101, 239 –40 Westhall, Suffolk, 286 Whitby Abbey, 22, 24, 31, 61, 63 Wihtburh daughter of Anna, 126, 165 abbess of East Dereham, 134 Saint, 101, 124, 126 –27, 134 –35, 259, 266 – 67, 271 Wilcox, Jonathan, 121 Wilfrid Bishop of York, 20, 32 –37, 40, 47–49, 57, 59, 61– 62, 147, 176 –77, 194, 243, 245, 250 Saint, 101 William the Conqueror, 6, 14, 156 – 67, 170, 291 Willingham, Cambridgeshire, 55, 246 Winstead, Karen A., 261, 281 Willoughby, John de, 212 Willoughby, Robert de, d. 1396, 212, 215 –216 Willoughby, William de, d. 1409, 212, 225 Wilton Abbey, 15, 144, 233, 249, 252 –53, 255 –57, 260, 283 Wilton Diptych, 281 Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn, 16, 177, 189, 195 Wolborough Devonshire, 286 Woolpit, Suffolk, 266, 286 Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, 103 Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester and Saint, 238 Wulfstan of Winchester Life of Æthelwold, 68 –71, 78 Wynkyn de Worde, 258 Wynne, Agnes and William, 274 Wyrsted, William, 220
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