Heavenfield

I’ve been browsing through Paul Foracre and Richard Gerberding’s Late Merovingian France: History and Hagiography 640-720 (Manchester, 1996) this Easter break and I came across a curious account in the Life of St Geretrud.

Geretrud was the daughter of Peppin I and his wife Itta, born in about 621, and the first solidly saintly ancestor of the Carolingian dynasty. After the death of Peppin, his widow Itta and their daughter Geretrud founded the monastery of Nivelles where Geretrud spent the remainder of her life. Geretrud became abbess at age 26 and after a relatively quiet tenure died at the age of 33. She was succeeded by her niece Wulfetrud in about 653. The house of Nivelles therefore became one of the earliest Carolingian houses.The painting to the right is a Flemish painting of St Geretrud from Wikipedia commons.

In the contemporary vita written for the saintly Geretrud we can see the ruthless political pressures and manipulations that surround young noble girls. Geretrud’s desire to be the Bride of Christ confounds most of these pressures.

One of the few times that we can see Geretrud and her mother Itta intervening in political matters is when they give refuge and aid to Abbot Foillan when Erchinwald expels the former East Anglian missionaries from Peronne where St Fursey was buried. Sheltering Follian from such a powerful enemy was probably at least suggested by Geretrud’s brother Grimoald I, a major rival of Erchinowald. According to the ‘Nivelles Supplement (to the Vita Fursei) on Foillan’(written 650-657), Geretrud’s mother gave the Irish missionaries refuge and helped them establish the Irish monastery of Fosses. When Foillan disappears, it is Abbess Geretrud who sponsors the long search for him. His body was found after 77 days of searching and brought to her monastery of Nivelles and presented to the conspirators Bishop Dido of Pointiers and her brother Grimoald I. Grimoald and Dido then personally carry Foillan’s body on their shoulders to Fosses for burial.

Foillan’s murder just as Grimoald and Dido were planning the exile of Prince Dagobert raises questions. Was Foillan’s murder planned because he opposed Dagobert’s exile? Was Foillan murdered because he was part of the plot by those loyal to Dagobert? Grimoald and Dido seem particularly upset by his murder. Did Geretrud expect her brother’s involvement and ensure his contrition? The result seems fairly certain; Follian’s murder made the Irish of Fosses more willing to help in the plot and Dagobert was exiled to Ireland.

None of this business with Foillan is mentioned in the Life of St. Geretrud, written after the execution of her brother Grimoald for treason. The holy virgin Geretrud is not to be tarnished with her brother’s crimes. Yet, the Irish still left a trace on the Life of St Geretrud. As Geretrud is dying she sends for the hermit of Fosses (usually considered to be Ultan, Foillan’s brother) to ask when she will die. The hermit of Fosses responds saying:

“‘Today is 16 March, tomorrow during the solemn mass the maidservant of God and virgin of Christ, Geretrud, will go forth from her body. And say this to her, let her neither fear nor be alarmed concerning her death, but may pass on joyously because blessed Bishop Patrick with the chosen angels of God and with great glory are prepared to receive her. Go now quickly.’” (p. 326)

He goes on to tell her and she accepts this joyfully. Just as the hermits prophesies, during the mass the next day Geretrud dies just as the mass finishes on March 17th in her 33rd year of life.

To the Irish attached to Nivelles and at Fosses Geretrud’s death on the feast of St Patrick must have seemed a very favorable event supporting their continued association with Nivelles and the Carolingian family. Not only had Geretrud befriended Foillan and company when they were driven from the shrine of St Fursey at Peronne, she had sponsored the search for Foillan’s body, ensured that he was properly buried and then died herself on the feast of St Patrick. The Addendum Nivialense de Fuilnano also shows us that it was appended to the Life of Fursei at Nivelles between 650 and 657, the tenure of Geretrud or her niece Wulfetrud. This suggests that the cults of Fursey and Foillan were valued at Nivelles from Geretrud’s time.

St Owine is a somewhat malleable figure in the veneration of St Audrey.

He first appears in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People where he is a member of St Chad’s household at Lichfield. Owine witnesses an exchange between Chad and an angel shortly before Chad’s death. Bede goes on to explain that Owine had been chief of her officers and the head of Æthelthryth’s household when she married prince Ecgfrith of Northumbria (Bede, HE IV.3). Bede goes on to relate that Owine joined Chad at Lastingham dressed plainly and carrying only an axe and adze to show that he came to work. He was not skilled at the study of Scriptures but more than made up for this in his earnest manual labor. When Chad moved to Lichfield to become bishop he asked Owine to join his household there. He was working outside of Chad’s personal oratory when he overheard Chad conversing with an angels. Chad then sent Owine to collect the others of the household and he gave them all, including Owine, his last instructions. Chad died on March 2, 672; the same year Æthelthryth (Audrey) left her marriage and entered Coldingham. Thus, Owine had left Æthelthryth’s service long before she left her marriage. Owine is also only associated with Lastingham and Litchfield by Bede. To join Lastingham while Chad was there he would have joined between 664 and 670; most of this time Chad was also Bishop of York (c. 665-669).

The Liber Eliensis expands Owine’s role. It casts Owine as Æthelthryth’s protector who only entered the church after she took up monastic life. He is clearly portrayed as following her lead. This is clearly impossible. It does claim that Owine entered Lasthingham when it was ruled by Bishop Chad of Mercia whose great friend he became, so it pushes his entry into Lasthingham as late as possible (LE i.8, 10). In LE i.23, Owine is, ironically, called her tutor. This may be a plea to link the cults of Chad and Audrey, particuarly after Ely largely came under the control of Mercia in the time of Offa. However, the expansions are not too great over what Bede reports.

This caution to keep within the outline laid out by Bede is completely lost in Marie de France’s Life of St Audrey. Marie claims that Audrey founds the church of St Andrew at Augustaldeus (Hexham) which she staffed with ‘her people’ who established the house there. Audrey placed the monk Ovin (Owine) as the “master of that church and its religious life”. Ovin became friends with Chad but is not said to have joined Chad’s household. Later, Marie claims that Ovin, “spiritual leader of Saint Audrey’s people” followed Audrey into Coldingham.

We can see an escalating of Owine’s relationship to Audrey. I haven’t yet found a source that claims that Owine came to Ely with her, but that may be the implication of Marie’s claim that he followed her into Coldingham. Commemoration of St Ovin — notice Marie’s French spelling — is part of remembrances of St Audrey at Ely today. This cross is apparently a medieval relic from a neighboring village. This drawing is from Cambridgeshire History.

Today at Ely Cathedral, a procession to St Ovin’s Cross takes place at second evensong on both St Audrey’s day and the feast of her translation in October using the ‘verses and collect’ of St Ovin.

Sources:

Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, 731

Janet Fairweather, trans. Liber Eliensis: A History of the Isle of Ely from the Seventh Century to the Twelfth. Boydell, 2005.

June Hall McCash and Judith Clark Barban, trans and ed. The Life of Saint Audrey: A Text by Marie De France. McFarland, 2006.

As Prof Cohen over at In the Middle is teaching Marie de France this week, I thought I would revisit one of Marie’s innovations in her Life of Saint Audrey. I mentioned earlier that Marie had come up with an interesting answer to how Audrey preserved her virginity through 12 years of marriage, so here is her solution:

“Once she had married him, he surrounded her with sweetness and love, but he could not conquer her heart. The king was truly amazed that he could not direct her heart’s affection toward him. Her religious fervor was so intense that she was in prayer night and day. Whenever the king lay in his royal bed awaiting his pleasure, it pleased God to have him fall asleep. The queen would in turn get up to pray and make supplication; she did not want to get back into bed. The Holy Spirit living in her heart governed her. By His holy inspiration she was kept from corruption. She was strong against all vices and disdained pleasures of this world. Never would her body be penetrated not her heart violated. Never for her lord Egfrid’s beseeching nor for his love did she leave the service of Jesus Christ to which she had committed herself. … Unable to have his way with her, the king became irritated and twice tried to force her, but he could never subdue her that way. When he saw that he could not do with her what he wanted, he became extremely angry and even more ardently wanted her to do his bidding. But the more he tormented her, the more resistant he found her. The virgin and her will vanquished all his cruel intention. Finally King Egfrid realized that he could not overcome her in anyway when they were alone in his bedchamber. (lines 924-948, 955-969, McCash and Barban, eds. The Life of Saint Audrey, McFarland, 2006, p. 69, 71, 73)

You would think being so well rested would just make Ecgfrith that much more frustrated. Anyway, Marie managed to make Audrey the strong one, she is the one who can’t be vanquished or overcome. Audrey is the one who is in control of her future. In the next few lines she describes Ecgfrith’s complaints to clergy as a cruel trick, although of course she prevails. As far as I know, Marie’s sleepy Ecgfrith is unique in hagiography on Audrey.

octors are not very common in early medieval works so Cynefrith really stands out in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. Cynefrith is the primary witness to the miraculous ‘healing’ of St Aethelthryth’s neck wound while in the grave. Bede actually talks as though he knows Cynefrith: “more certain proof is given by a doctor named Cynefrith, who was present at her deathbed and at her elevation from the tomb. He used to relate how…”. Bede then directly quotes him and unlike elsewhere, he doesn’t find the need to tell us who is relaying the story. The implication is that he had personally talked to Cynefrith. It is not all that difficult to imagine how these circumstances worked out.

Cynefrith was apparently a physician in residence at Ely during the plague outbreak of c. 679. His testimony relates how he was ordered to lance the tumor on Abbess Aethelthryth’s neck to drain out the infection (poisonous matter). She seemed to recover for about two days and then rapidly declined and died on the third day. Note that he didn’t lance it on his own authority but was ordered to presumably by the abbess herself. He goes on to say that she was buried with a gaping neck wound and when she was raised from the grave it had sealed itself shut with only the slightest trace of a scar. [Today we can take this as evidence of natural mummification where the desiccation of the body dried out the wound and, as the stretch skin collapsed, it matted together.] It may also be Cynefrith who related Aethelthryth’s quote that she deserved this fiery red wound for her childhood vanity of wearing necklaces with gold and pearls. It is easy to imagine that this might have been some of Aethelthryth’s chat at he prepared to lance open her neck.

I find myself marveling today at Cynefrith’s endurance as a physician. He survived a plague where one of the treatments was for him to lance the swellings/bubos. He must have been continually exposed to a large amount of bacterium and still survived over 16 years later. If the plague was caused by Yersinia pestis (the black death) then survivors of infections might be able to fend off future exposures. Physicians required an excellent immune system in those days due to their high exposure.

So coming back to how Bede might have met Cynefrith, it is quite possible that by c. 705-709 he had joined Bishop Wilfrid’s retinue. We know that Wilfrid was present at Aethelthryth’s translation. If he wanted to promote Aethelthryth’s sainthood he might have insisted that Cynefrith travel with him as a witness to Aethelthryth’s sanctity, her own miraculous healing in the grave, and the healings that surrounded her translation. If Cynefrith was indeed traveling with the elderly bishop, who by then had cause to keep a physician nearby, then Bede would have had ample opportunity to discuss Aethelthryth with him, when he also questioned Wilfrid, if not other times.

Cynefrith is found in Book 4 Chapter 19 of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People.

[I'm going to use Audrey for St Aethelthryth because of the similarity of her name to Queen Aelfthryth.]

I was reading a paper by Mary Clayton recently and she mentions that the re-dedicated house of Ely was dedicated to Sts. Mary, Peter and Audrey, but that Audrey soon became the dominant patron after the death of the initial reformers (ie Bishop Aethelwold and his colleagues). What caught me up here is the dedication to Peter….doesn’t that sound more like Bishop Wilfrid? It also calls to mind that when Wilfrid has his stroke-like illness on return from his last trip to Rome one of his instructions from the Archangel Michael is to dedicate a church to St Mary before he dies. Fair enough, but this vision is long after Audrey is dead. Now Audrey’s church might not of counted because Wilfrid didn’t own it or build it but it still gives me pause to think that we don’t really know who her church was dedicated to, if anyone.

Clayton goes on to discuss how the Virgin Mary was really the unifying saint of the whole reform movement and was used to bolster the position of the queen, initially Queen Aelfthryth. In St Audrey Bishop Aethelwold had the perfect setting, a native virgin queen to be the focus of his Marian dedications (already suggested by Bede). Further, Queen Aelfthryth was the first consecrated queen of England. The increase in her prestige was in parallel to the support for the virgin queen St Audrey and the Queen of Heaven, St Mary. Building up Queen Aelfthryth proved disastrous though as she is associated with ruthless means of bringing her son Aethelred Unred to the throne and at Ely, with the murder of their first abbot after re-foundation, so that by the time the Liber Eliensis was written she was remembered as an evil witch.

Clayton observes that St Mary became a supporter of native saints because there were no established pilgrimages to Marian shrines in the Anglo-Saxon period. St Mary could be venerated anywhere, and nowhere had corporal relics of her. She also argues that veneration to Mary was restricted to monastic settings in the Anglo-Saxon period; she simply didn’t appeal to the laity until after the Norman conquest.

St Mary continues to have a significant presence at Ely because the association has antiquity in Bede’s writings and she supports Audrey’s veneration so well. Yet, as we saw with the Lady Chapel at Ely Cathedral, St Mary is pushed to the side in favor of St. Audrey. The extra large Lady Chapel and rich Marian-Audrey iconography will later been a great boon to Ely when Ely is placed on the pilgrim trail from London to the great Marian shrine at Walsingham.

~~

Mary Clayton (1994) Centralism and Uniformity versus Localism and Diversity: The Virgin and Native Saints in the Monastic Reform. Peritia 8: 95-106.

The Liber Eliensis makes a rather startling claim for Augustine of Canterbury:

~~~

“there had not yet been any church on the island [of Ely] other than the one founded by blessed the Augustine, the apostle of the English, but that was demolished right down to ground level by army of the unbelieving King Penda. This church Æthelthryth, lover of God, labored with all her might to renew and rebuild after its prolonged desolation. And as soon as it was rebuilt, dedicated as of old, in honour of Mary, the holy Mother of God, it became a shining light, through innumerable signs and miracles, as God carried out His work every day.” (LE i.15, p. 43)

It is quite possible that there was indeed a church or chapel on the Isle of Ely before she married Ecgfrith because tradition claims she retired to the Isle of Ely after the death of her first husband Tondbert. Owine and others who came to Northumbria as managers of her household could have been her staff from her retirement at Ely. It would make sense that she would return to what ever dwellings that she had on her estate at Ely when she returned to found the monastery. Perhaps Penda destroyed it, perhaps he didn’t. Penda becomes the fall guy for all mid-seventh century destruction, particularly of churches. The problem though is that Æthelthryth would have been living there until about 661 long after Penda was dead. If she returned to Ely after Penda destroyed it, then she didn’t have a church there during her religious retreat from the world before her second marriage.

What I find highly suspect is that Augustine had founded the original church and that it was dedicated to St. Mary before c. 605 (when Augustine died). There is no evidence whatsoever that Augustine worked outside of the Thames estuary, except the meeting at Augustine’s Oak and that was under the special protection of King Æthelberht. How likely is it that Augustine ventured up into the fenlands northwest of East Anglia? It just seems incredible to me. Also, I believe that this would be the earliest known dedication to St. Mary in England, if true. Now, when Æthelthryth built her church in the 670s, dedications to St Mary were becoming very popular. There is no reason to doubt that Æthelthryth had the church of Ely dedicated to St Mary.

So why credit Augustine of Canterbury with a church of St Mary at Ely? I think that Ely had a problem in that they were founded under the direction of the extra-territorial Bishop Wilfrid of York. Although it was founded on private property of a local royal woman, there is no evidence that the East Anglican church took part in its foundation or supported it in anyway in the early years. We might even imagine that the East Anglican church took offense at Bishop Wilfrid’s trespass in their diocese. This made the royal family more important than usual in the governance of the church of Ely. Thus, there was a hunt to keep finding more female heirs of Æthelthryth to govern the church, and act as intercessors in this life and beyond. Overall, the LE pulls in as many major saints of East Anglia and beyond as it can to support Æthelthryth’s veneration, but I’ll come back to that another day.

Only the need to court Canterbury can explain why they deferred credit to Canterbury, rather than give Æthelthryth the full credit. Why else would they even mention a church that had been completely razed to the ground over a decade before her arrival? Granted it gives the church a claim for antiquity probably greater than an existing East Anglican church. The church is said to be leveled to the ground to give Æthelthryth full credit for the fabric of the original church in the time the LE was written. (Æthelthryth’s new church was probably dedicated by Bishop Wilfrid while he stuck on his first nomadic exile.) In deferring to Canterbury for the foundation of Ely, they also divert credit for the early church away from Bishop Felix (who converts King Anna and his family, says the LE) and the East Anglian establishment. Or, could it be just a statement that says that the contemporary monastery of Ely should be directly accountable to the Archbishop of Canterbury, rather than local bishops? Indeed, was a statement of loyalty to Canterbury required in the wake of Archbishop Thomas Becket’s murder?

~~~

Janet Fairweather, trans. Liber Eliensis: A History of the Isle of Ely from the Seventh Century to the Twelfth. Boydell, 2005.

Æthelhere of East Anglia is an interesting figure. He was the brother and successor of King Anna son of Enni. He had a one year reign from c. 654 to November 655, when Bede specifically says that he died at the battle of Winwæd.

“The battle was joined and the heathen were put to flight or destroyed; of the thirty royal ealdormen who had come to Penda’s help nearly all were killed. Among them was Æthelhere, brother and successor to Anna, king of the East Angles and the cause of the war; he was cut down, having suffered the loss of all his thegns and followers. The battle was fought near the river Winwæd, which owing to heavy rains, had overflowed its channels and its banks to such an extent that many more were drowned in flight than were destroyed by the sword in battle.” (HE III.24, McClure & Collins, 1994:150)

This translation crediting the cause of the war to Æthelhere has been challenged. McClure and Collins (1994: 396) note that Prestwich saw it as beginning a new sentence and referring to Penda. This really doesn’t make sense though. Penda was clearly the leader of his forces, why go on to state that he was the ‘author of the war’? It has been noted elsewhere that Bede doesn’t give Penda the usual regnal summary or even specifically say that he died in the battle. This ambiguity makes Prestwich’s reading more tempting. However, the Liber Eliensis specifically contradicts this; it specifically says that Æthelhere instigated the war. “Amongst the slain was the very person who instigated the war, Æthelhere, the brother of Anna, king of East Angles, who became ruler in succession of him.” From this is it clear that the author of the LE read his copy of Bede’s History in such a way to make his own East Anglian king the cause or instigator of the war. So even in an East Anglian royal monastery there was no tradition to contradict this interpretation.

It seems very likely that Penda’s campaign into Northumbria in 655 was directly related to his war against Anna of East Anglia. Æthelhere would not be the first royal brother to turn to a traditional enemy to assist him in coming to the throne. His successor Æthelwold was a supporter of Lindisfarne’s missionaries, Bishop Cedd among the East Saxons. Æthelwold stood as godfather to King Swithelm of Essex, as his brother Anna had stood as godfather to Cenwealh of Wessex. It is unclear who baptized Cenwealh, uncharacteristically Bede doesn’t tell us. The Liber Eliensis claims that he was baptized, not surprisingly, by Bishop Felix who had come to East Anglia when Sigiberht returned from exile. Archbishop Honorius of Canterbury ordained a Bishop Berhtgisl (Boniface) of Kent for East Anglia before his death in September 653 (Bede, HE III:20), a year before the death of King Anna. McClure and Collins note that he remains bishop of East Anglia until 670. Experiencing a king who was willing to ally himself with pagan king Penda in a grab for power may have made Berhtgisl much more willing to cooperate with Lindisfarne if that alliance brought stability.

Anyway, it is clear that there was a close alliance between Bernicia and East Anglia before and after the death of King Anna. The strength of an alliance with King Anna is surely what made Æthelthryth an attractive bride for the much younger prince Ecgfrith. Æthelthryth and Ecgfrith were married in c. 661, during King Æthelwold’s reign (655-663) when Ecgfrith was only 15; presumably the marriage took place as soon as he was deemed old enough. Æthelwold was succeeded by his nephew Ealdwulf who reigned for nearly two generations (663-713). The succession of a nephew whose father had never been king (that we know of) might suggest that pleasing Northumbria was a factor in his succession. As the nephew of St Hild, he was also a matrilineal cousin of Queen Eanflaed of Northumbria. The year after Ealdwulf succeeded, King Oswiu of Northumbria took part in nominating the next Archbishop of Canterbury. Such close ties between Northumbria and East Anglia may explain the lengths that Mercian kings Æthelbald and Offa went to secure their hegemony over East Anglia in the next century.