Dear Maddy,
I've recently been wondering about the extent of Frideswide's cult myself,
and spent a little time pulling together the various bits of information I
could find on it. Here's what I came up with:
There are apparently just 3 well-attested medieval church dedications to
her in England. Besides the former Augustinian priory at Oxford, these
were the parish church at Frilsham, Berks (about 20 miles from Oxford), and
a small church or chapel at Binsey, just 2 miles from Oxford.
Some of her relics had apparently been distributed to other religious
houses at the time of her translation in 1180, for her name appears in
surviving inventories of relics claimed by Reading Abbey, Hyde Abbey
(Winchester), Waltham Abbey, and the royal chapel at Windsor. Most of these
same institutions had entries for her October feastday in their calendars
from at least the 13th century on, and so did Abingdon Abbey, Durham
Cathedral, Exeter Cathedral, and the diocese of Hereford.
Early in the fifteenth century Oxford University claimed her officially as
its patron. In 1434 Archbishop Chichele endorsed a petition from the
clergy [Oxford alumni, presumably] asking that her feast day (October 19)
be celebrated thenceforth throughout the Province of Canterbury; in most
churches, however, this order seems to have elicited little more than the
addition of her name to the calendar. Although proper lessons for her
feastday are included in the folio editions of the Sarum Breviary that were
printed in 1516 and 1531, the smaller printed breviaries have only a prayer
to commemorate her, and I've found only 3 Sarum manuscripts that added even
that much in response to Chichele's order. But she does have proper
lessons in the Exeter Cathedral lectionary (compiled around 1350) and in
all three surviving copies of the Hereford Breviary, suggesting again that
Exeter and Hereford were strong subsidiary centers of her cult in England.
I haven't found any manuscript evidence that she was venerated on the other
side of the Welsh border, but there are so few surviving medieval
breviaries from Wales that they can't represent a good sample. Oddly
enough, however, her name turns up in the litanies of two Sarum manuscripts
that were used in (and perhaps designed for) Scotland, one of which
considerably predates her adoption as patron of Oxford Univ., and she's
included in the 14th-century calendar of another Scottish Sarum manuscript.
So it's possible that she had a cult in some parts of Scotland.
If the St. Frevisse or Frewisse attested at Bomy (in Artois) and the abbey
of Fontenelle (in Normandy) is the same saint, then she also apparently had
a small cult in France.
If you see any possible connections between the bits of information I've
cited and the references you've found to her in Wales, I hope you'll let me
know. I'd love to have a better grasp on where and why her cult spread.
with best wishes,
Sherry Reames (Dept of English, University of Wisconsin [in the
sometimes-golden flatland of the American Midwest])
At 12:12 PM 9/26/2000 +0100, you wrote:
>
>Apologies for cross-posting
>
>Dr Madeleine Gray, in the foothills of God's golden county of Gwent
>(Department of Humanities and Science
>UWCN Caerleon Campus
>PO Box 179
>Newport NP18 3YG
>http://www.newport.ac.uk)
>
>'Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought'
>
>----- Forwarded by Madeleine Gray/Staff/UWCN on 09/26/00 12:10 PM -----
>
> Madeleine
> Gray To:
[log in to unmask]
> cc:
> 09/26/00 Subject: St Frideswide
> 12:09 PM
>
>
>
>
>
>Does anyone know how widespread Frideswide's cult was in England? She crops
>up in a medieval stained glass window in the Vale of Clwyd and I assumed
>she was there because one of the rectors had been to Oxford. However, a
>colleague from Aberystwyth has now sent me a string of references from the
>C15 poet Lewis Glyn Cothi (born in south-west Wales but active pretty much
>all over) comparing various female patrons to Frideswide among other
>saints. I know of no other references to her cult in Wales. I had assumed
>it was fairly localised in England apart from Oxford graduates but now I
>wonder if this was really so.
>
>Maddy
>
>
>Dr Madeleine Gray, in the foothills of God's golden county of Gwent
>(Department of Humanities and Science
>UWCN Caerleon Campus
>PO Box 179
>Newport NP18 3YG
>http://www.newport.ac.uk)
>
>'Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought'
>
>
>
>
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