PW: Queen Cynewise of Mercia

Queen Cynewise is one of the few early Mercian queens that we have any information on at all. The only direct mention of her name is after Penda's fall when Bede notes that Ecgfrith was not at the battle of Winwaed because he was a hostage in the care of Queen Cynewise (HE III.24). He...

St Geretrud and the Irish

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...

Bead and Book

As Eamon Duffy wrote in his recent book Marking the Hours, the late middle ages were an age of bead and book. It was not a choice of either/or. On the eve of the Reformation both Books of Hours and Paternoster beads were found at all levels of society. In wills prayer beads and books...

Columba’s Marriage Advice

In Adomnan's Life of Columba he relates a curious episode that seems to be pointed directly at Northumbria (from the Medieval Sourcebook, Ch XLII): "Of one Lugne, surnamed Tudida, a Pilot, who lived on the Rechrean island (either Rathlin or Lambay), and whom, as being deformed, his wife hated. ANOTHER time, when the saint was...

Which Mary?

[Photos and minor text revisions May 2010] As I mentioned in my review of Blanton's Signs of Devotion, I decided that I need to follow up on the interpretation of the choir of virgins in the Benedictional of Aethelwold. So I picked up these books from the library: Prescott, Andrew. intro. The Benedictional of St...

Æthelthryth, Etheldreda, and Audrey

You may have noticed that multiple names are often used for the saint of Ely -- Æthelthryth, Etheldreda, and Audrey, and that I tend to favor the last. I can see calling her Æthelthryth as that was the Old English name she was actually known by. The problem with this name for a saint that...