medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Etheldreda (d. 679; Æthelthryth, Audrey, Ediltrudis) 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 Etheldreda was married in 660 to Ecgfrith, the fifteen-year-old son and heir apparent of the king of Northumbria. By the time he succeeded to the throne a decade later Etheldreda, 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 Etheldreda 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 Etheldreda's allegedly incorrupt remains from the nuns' cemetery to a sarcophagus near the high altar of the abbey church. Etheldreda is the first saint of England whose entire body was declared so to have been miraculously preserved, though St. Cuthbert would furnish 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.
Etheldreda's cult handsomely survived 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. Etheldreda's shrine remained popular until its destruction in 1541. Today is her feast day at Ely and her day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology.
Some period-pertinent images of St. Etheldreda:
a) as depicted in the later tenth-century Benedictional of St Æthelwold (ca. 973; London, BL, Add MS 49598, fol. 90v):
http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_49598_f090v
b) as depicted in a mid-thirteenth-century wall painting in St Mary and All Saints Church, Willingham (Cambs):
http://www.paintedchurch.org/wilhamet.htm
Another view:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/9354942@N03/15130480337/
c) as portrayed in relief in a mid-thirteenth-century roof boss over the site of her former shrine in Ely Cathedral:
1) grayscale image (ca. 1949):
http://tinyurl.com/hr4fqdt
2) in color (2010):
http://www.ipernity.com/doc/stiffleaf/22003439/in/keyword/123201/self
d) as depicted in an initial at the beginning of the unique, late thirteenth- / early fourteenth-century copy of _La vie seinte Audrée_ (London, British Library, MS add. 70513, fol. 100v):
http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~drussell/images/Audree100v.jpg
e) as portrayed in relief on the eight earlier fourteenth-century capitals (1330s?) devoted to her in the Octagon of Ely Cathedral:
1) unwilling marriage to Ecgfrith:
http://tinyurl.com/hxd62tx
http://www.ipernity.com/doc/stiffleaf/22003585/in/keyword/123201/self
2) receives the veil at Coldingham:
http://www.ipernity.com/doc/stiffleaf/22003597/in/keyword/123201/self
3) Ecgfrith's attempt to remove her from Coldingham:
http://www.ipernity.com/doc/stiffleaf/22003611/in/keyword/123201/self
4) asleep while on pilgrimage to Ely; her staff flowers:
http://tinyurl.com/j67xe5g
http://www.ipernity.com/doc/stiffleaf/22003589/in/keyword/123201/self
5) consecration as abbess at Ely:
http://www.ipernity.com/doc/stiffleaf/22003621/in/keyword/123201/self
http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NzEyWDk5OQ==/z/n5wAAOSwM4xXYWiR/$_57.JPG
6) death and entombment:
http://www.ipernity.com/doc/stiffleaf/22003607/in/keyword/123201/self
7) translation; her body discovered to be incorrupt:
http://www.ipernity.com/doc/stiffleaf/22003629/in/keyword/123201/self
8) effects the release of the imprisoned Brystan:
http://www.ipernity.com/doc/stiffleaf/22003617/in/keyword/123201/self
f) as portrayed (upper register at center) in relief on a fifteenth-century alabaster panel in the Church of St Peter Mancroft, Norwich:
http://tinyurl.com/zba9rg8
g) as portrayed in relief on an earlier or mid-fifteenth-century pilgrim's badge from Ely now in the Museum of London:
http://collections.museumoflondon.org.uk/online/object/29018.html
h) as depicted (at right; at left, St. Helen) on the mid-fifteenth-century chancel screen (ca. 1450) in the Church of St Margaret, Upton (Norfolk):
http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/upton/images/Dscf4510.jpg
i) as depicted (scenes) in four mid-fifteenth-century panel paintings (ca. 1455) owned by the Society of Antiquaries of London:
http://artuk.org/discover/artworks/saint-etheldreda-148325/search/collection:society-of-antiquaries-of-london-2055/page/4
j) as depicted on the later fifteenth-century chancel screen (ca. 1479) in St Helen's Church, Ranworth (Norfolk):
http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/ranworth/images/Dscf4410.jpg
k) as depicted (at left; at right, St. Roch) on a panel of the late fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century chancel screen in St Mary's Church, North Tuddenham (Norfolk):
http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/northtuddenham/images/dscf5076.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
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