medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (23. June) is the feast day of:
1) Etheldreda (d. 679). E. (Ęthelthryth, Audrey) was the third daughter of a king of the East Angles. An apparently chaste first marriage to an Anglian ealdorman ended after three years with the husband's death. After another five years had passed E. was married in 660 to the fifteen-year-old son and heir apparent of the king of Northumbria. By the time he succeeded to the throne a decade later E., determined to remain a virgin, was being counseled spiritually by St. Wilfrid. In about 672 she became a nun at Coldingham, where her aunt St. Ebbe was abbess, and in the following year she founded a monastery of her own on her estates at Ely. Before 678, when her husband finally divorced her, she had given Wilfrid the estate on which he founded his monastery at Hexham.
When E. died (of plague) she had been abbess for only seven years. In 695 her sister St. Sexburga (Seaxburh), who had succeeded her as abbess, oversaw in Wilfrid's presence the translation of E.'s allegedly incorrupt remains from the nuns' cemetery to a sarcophagus near the high altar of the abbey church. E. is the first saint of England whose entire body was declared so to have been miraculously preserved, though St. Cuthbert would provide another instance only a few years later (698). Not only her tomb but also her coffin and her original burial clothes were held to be wonder-working.
E.'s cult survived in fine style both the Norman Conquest and the short-lived revolt based on Ely that followed a few years after. In 1106 she was translated to a new shrine in the choir of the rebuilt abbey church, soon (1109) to be Ely cathedral. New Vitae and miracle collections were written. E.'s shrine remained popular until its destruction during the Dissolution.
Here's E. at left on ff. 90v-91r of the so-called Benedictional of St Ęthelwold (ca. 973; London, BL, Add. 49598):
http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/sdk13/MSS/etheldreda.JPG
Exterior and interior views (expandable) of Ely cathedral are here:
http://tinyurl.com/2kgu9t
http://tinyurl.com/38o6dk
And here are a few views of St Etheldreda's Church in London, built in the later thirteenth century as the chapel of the London residence of the bishops of Ely:
http://tinyurl.com/2ffgsu
http://www.stetheldreda.com/images/front_big.jpg
http://www.stetheldreda.com/images/scan0011_big.jpg
http://volokh.com/sasha/etheleast.JPG
http://tinyurl.com/2hbgws
2) Lietbert of Cambrai (d. 1076). L. is Lietbert I in the numeration of the bishops of Cambrai-Arras. In 1051 he succeeded his uncle, bishop Gerhard I, who had educated him and later promoted him through various offices to the provostship of the cathedral chapter and archdeacon of Cambrai. Late in life, L. led a difficult pilgrimage to the Holy Land that got as far as Laodicea in Syria before having to turn back because Muslim authorities were said to be denying Christians access to the shrines in Jerusalem. His Vita (BHL 4929) by Ralph of St-Trond details this disappointing journey at considerable length. L. promoted monastic reform in his diocese and founded at Cambrai a monastery dedicated to the Holy Sepulcher.
A forthcoming study on L. as bishop and as count of Cambrai is John S. Ott, ""'Both Mary and Martha': Bishop Lietbert of Cambrai and the Construction of Episcopal Sanctity in a Border Diocese around 1100," in _The Bishop Reformed: Studies of Episcopal Power and Culture in the Central Middle Ages_, ed. John S. Ott and Anna Trumbore Jones (London: Ashgate, 2007).
3) Mary of Oignies (Bl.; d. 1213). M. was the daughter of wealthy parents at Nivelles. Forced to marry at the age of fourteen, she persuaded her husband to accept a chaste marriage and to join her in service to local lepers. In time M. became a hermit and a visionary. Links to Latin texts of her Vitae by Jacques de Vitry and by Thomas de Cantimpré are here:
http://www.peregrina.com/translations/marie.html
Best,
John Dillon
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