medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Frideswide (d. 727, supposedly; also Frithuswith; in in Latin, Frideswida) is the seemingly quite legendary first abbess of a monastery at Oxford that for most of the eleventh century was a secular canonry and that in about 1122 was converted to a house of canons regular. The earlier twelfth century is also when the surviving stories about her begin to be recorded. Frideswide has a Vita in several versions (BHL 3162-3168) of which the earliest (Life A) makes her the daughter of a not previously attested sub-king Didanus (back-translated into Old English as Dida) who establishes at Oxford a church and women's monastery in honor of his deceased wife and who then at Frideswide's request places her in charge of it. Later Frideswide is pursued by a king Algar and flees with two of her nuns to a place called Bentona (usually identified as today's Bampton) and settles in a wood called Binsey, where they build a small monastery and she operates miracles.
Still according to this form of the Vita, Algar is struck blind while attempting to enter Oxford (in a version known to William of Malmesbury, it is the unnamed Algar's emissaries who are struck blind; they are then cured at the intercession of the saint). Frideswide returns to her monastery at Oxford and soon dies. Her _dies natalis_ is given as 19. October 727; she is said to have been buried in St Mary's Church at Oxford. Thus far the Vita (Life B gives some later history of the church). In 1180 Frideswide's putative remains, which had been the subject of a miraculous Inventio, were accorded an Elevatio in what was now the rebuilt church of St Frideswide. Numerous miraculous cures were subsequently attributed to her. Also in the twelfth century Frideswide became Oxford's patron saint. The university formally adopted her as patron early in the fifteenth century. Today (19. October) is her day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology.
In 1289 the aforementioned remains were placed in a new shrine that survived Cardinal Wolsey's closing of the monastery and his rebuilding of the church as the chapel of the college that became Christ Church. The shrine was desecrated in 1538, restored under Mary in what was now Christ Church Cathedral, and desecrated again in 1558. Pieces of it said to have been found in a well at Christ Church have been used to reconstruct the monument in what is now the cathedral's Latin Chapel. Views of the reconstructed shrine may be seen in this illustrated account of the building:
http://tinyurl.com/5nerc4
Frideswide as depicted in a fourteenth-century window in the Latin Chapel of Christ Church Cathedral (photographs by Gordon Plumb):
http://tinyurl.com/276mnr2
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/2fgbc2v
Sherry Reames' Introduction to her TEAMS edition of the _Life of St. Frideswide_ in the Shorter South English Legendary is here:
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/04sr.htm
and her edition begins here:
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/05sr.htm
Best,
John Dillon
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