According to the account of Eddi, Wilfrith’s biographer, the king and queen of Northumbria were staying at Coldingham when the queen was suddenly taken ill. ‘At night she was seized like the wife of Pilate by a devil, and worn out by many ills, hardly expected to see the day alive.’ The abbess Aebbe went to King Ecgfrith and represented to him that the reason of this seizure was their treatment of Wilfrith.

‘And now, my son,’ she said, ‘do according to the bidding of your mother; loosen his bonds and send back to him by a trusty messenger the holy relics which the queen took from him and like the ark of God carried about with her to her harm. It were best you should have him as your bishop, but if you refuse, set him free and let him go with his followers from your kingdom wherever he list. Then by my faith you will live and your queen will not die; but if you refuse by God’s witness you will not remain unpunished.’

Aebbe carried her point and Wilfrith was set free. He went into Mercia which was at war with Northumbria, but he was not suffered to stay there, for Queen Ostrith, the sister of King Ecgfrith, shared her brother’s hatred of him. Forced to fly from Mercia he went into Wessex, but King Centwin’s wife prevented him from staying there. It is curious to note the hatred with which these married women pursued him while lady abbesses were his friends. At last he found protection among the south Saxons, who fifteen years before had nearly killed him, but their king Aethelwalch († 686) had lately been converted to Christianity and gave him a friendly reception. Wilfrith is represented as joining his civilizing influences to those of the Irish monks who had settled on the coast. An interesting episode of his sojourn here was his intercourse with Caedwalla, afterwards king of Wessex (685-688), who at the time was living as an outlaw in the forests of Sussex[294].

We get further glimpses of Aebbe and the settlement at Coldingham. She entertained a great admiration for the holy man Cuthberht († 687), one of the most attractive figures among the evangelizing prelates of the north, of whom Bede has left an account.

Cuthberht was brought both by birth and education under Scottish influences. He was prior at Melrose before the Whitby synod, but after it came to Lindisfarne where his gentleness of temper and sweetness of disposition won over many to accept Roman usages. Overcome by the longing for solitude and contemplation which was so characteristic of many early Christian prelates, he dwelt as a recluse on the desert island of Farne from 676 to 685. There are many accounts of his life and of his wanderings[295].

At the time when Cuthberht’s fame was spreading, Aebbe of Coldingham ‘sent to this man of God, begging him to come and condescend to edify both herself and the inmates of her monastery by the grace of his exhortation. Cuthberht accordingly went thither and tarrying for some days he expounded the ways of justice to all; these he not only preached, but to the same extent he practised[296].’

It is recorded that during his stay at Coldingham Cuthberht went at night to pray on the deserted beach, and the seals came out of the water and clustered around him.

The first instance mentioned by Bede of a lapse of monastic discipline was at Coldingham where disorders occurred during Aebbe’s rule[297]. An Irish monk who was on a visit to the monastery had a vision of its destruction by fire, and when questioned about it by the abbess interpreted it as an impending retribution for the tenor of life of those assembled there.

‘For even the dwellings,’ he said, ‘which were built for praying and reading are now converted into places of revelling, drinking, conversation and other forbidden doings; the virgins who are vowed to God, laying aside all respect for their profession, whenever they have leisure spend all their time in weaving fine garments with which they adorn themselves like brides, to the detriment of their condition, and to secure the friendship of men outside.’

Through Aebbe’s efforts things somewhat improved, but after her death, the date of which is uncertain, the monastery really was destroyed by fire[298]. The story is told that Cuthberht at Lindisfarne forbade women to cross the threshold of his conventual church on account of the life of the nuns at Coldingham[299], but another version of his doings considers that his attitude was due to an episode with a Scottish king’s daughter which turned him against the sex[300].

Cuthberht was also the friend of Aelflaed, abbess of Whitby, who entertained unbounded reverence for him. On one occasion[301] she had fallen ill and, as she herself told the monk Herefrid, suffered so from cramp that she could hardly creep along. ‘I would,’ she said, ‘I had something belonging to my dear Cuthberht, for I believe and trust in the Lord that I should soon be restored to health.’

In compliance with her wish the holy man sent her a linen girdle, which she wore for a time and which entirely cured her. Later a nun by the help of the same girdle was relieved of a headache, but after that the girdle of miraculous power miraculously disappeared. The reason given for this disappearance illustrates naïvely enough how divine power was considered to be justified in making itself manifest with a reservation. ‘If this girdle had remained present,’ Bede argues, ‘the sick would always flock to it; and whilst some one of these might not be worthy to be healed, its efficacy to cure might have been denied, whereas their own unworthiness was perhaps to blame. Therefore, as was said above, Heaven so dealt its benevolence, that, after the faith of believers had been confirmed, then immediately the opportunity for detraction was entirely withdrawn from the malice of the unrighteous.’

Contemporary witnesses bear testimony to the wisdom and prudence of the abbess Aelflaed of Whitby, for Bede says in the life of Cuthberht that ‘she increased the lustre of her royal lineage with the higher nobility of a more exalted virginity’; whilst Eddi speaks of her as ‘the most virtuous virgin who is actually a king’s daughter,’ and in another passage characterizes her as ‘ever the comforter and best counsellor of the whole province.’

We find her in Cuthberht’s society on more than one occasion. Once he met her at the monastery of ‘Osingadune’ (Easington) where he went to dedicate the church, and while sitting by her at table he had a prophetic vision of the death of one of her servants[302].

The abbess Aelflaed directly appealed to this prophetic insight of Cuthberht’s when troubled in her mind about her brother King Ecgfrith, whose expedition against the Picts filled her with apprehension[303]. In the words of Bede: ‘At another time, the same most reverend virgin and mother of Christ’s virgins, Aelflaed, sent to the man of God, adjuring him in the name of the Lord that she might be allowed to see him, to converse on some pressing affairs. Cuthberht accordingly went on board ship, accompanied by some of the brethren, and came to the island which from its situation opposite to the river Coquet receives its name, and is celebrated for its community of monks; there it was that the aforesaid abbess had requested him to meet her. When she was satisfied with his replies to her many enquiries, on a sudden, while he was yet speaking, she fell at his feet and adjured him by the sacred and venerable Name of the Heavenly King and His angels, to tell her how long Ecgfrith, her brother, should live and rule over the kingdom of the Angles; “For I know,” she said, “that you abound in the spirit of prophecy, and that you can tell me this, if you will.” But he, trembling at her adjuration, and yet not wishing openly to reveal the secret which she asked for, replied, “It is marvellous that you, a woman wise and well-instructed in the Holy Scriptures, should speak of the term of human life as if it were long, seeing that the Psalmist says, ‘Our years shall be considered as a spider[304],’ and that Solomon warns us that, ‘If a man live many years and have rejoiced in them all, he must remember the darksome time and the many days, which, when they shall come, the things passed shall be accused of vanity[305].’ How much more then ought he, to whom only one year of life remains, to be considered as having lived a short time, when death shall stand at his gates?”

‘The abbess, on hearing this, lamented the dreadful prophecy with floods of tears, and having wiped her face, with feminine boldness she adjured him by the majesty of the sovereignty of God to tell her who would be the heir of the kingdom, since Ecgfrith had neither sons nor brothers. Cuthberht was silent for a short time, then he replied, “Say not that he is without heirs, for he shall have a successor whom you may embrace with sisterly affection as you do Ecgfrith himself.” But she continued: “Tell me, I beseech you, where he is now.” And he said, “You see this mighty and wide ocean, how it abounds with many islands. It is easy for God from one of these to provide a ruler for the kingdom of the Angles.” Then she understood that he spoke of Ealdfrith (Aldfrid) who was said to be the son of Ecgfrith’s father, and who at that time lived in exile, in the islands of the Scots, for the sake of studying letters.’

This meeting, if we credit the historian, took place in 684, and Aelflaed’s forebodings were realized. Ecgfrith lost his life, and part of his kingdom was taken by the Picts. In consequence of his defeat the settlement Whithern, set up as a religious outpost in the territory south of the Firth of Forth, was destroyed. Trumwin who had been entrusted with it was forced to fly. He and his friends sought refuge at Whitby where he remained and had much intercourse with Cuthberht and Aelflaed. Bede says that the abbess found ‘great assistance in governing and also comfort for her own life’ in Trumwin[306].

Northumbria had now passed the zenith of her greatness as a political power, for the territory in the north which was lost through Ecgfrith’s defeat was not regained, while in the south the province of Mercia began to shake off the Northumbrian yoke. King Ecgfrith had been succeeded by his half-brother Ealdfrith († 705) and owing to his attitude Wilfrith’s exile came to an end. Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, wrote a letter in his behalf to Ealdfrith and also one to Aelflaed of Whitby begging her to be at peace with him[307]. The prelate left Sussex for the north, where he remained for five years in undisturbed possession of his see[308]. But again the old quarrels revived, and Wilfrith in consequence of a council assembled by order of Ealdfrith at Eastrefield was robbed of his episcopal dignity and reduced to his abbacy at Ripon. He again insisted that the king and bishops should submit to the Pope, and at the age of well-nigh seventy he undertook another journey to Rome. But it was in vain he sent envoys to the king on his return. Ealdfrith was determined not to relent, but afterwards approaching death intimidated him. Feeling his end draw nigh he sent for Aelflaed of Whitby, who with the abbess Aethelburg (probably of Hackness) came to where he lay ill at Driffield in the East Riding. Aelflaed received the king’s dying words, and at a council of prelates subsequently assembled on the river Nidd bore testimony that he had spoken in favour of making peace. Wilfrith regained part of his influence but remained in retirement at his monastery.

Aelflaed outlived him and her friend Cuthberht who died in 687. It is probable that she assisted at the translation of Cuthberht’s body in 698, for in the inventory of the church at Durham one of the linen cloths or outer envelopes of his body, which was taken from it in 1104, is described as ‘a linen cloth of double texture which had enveloped the body of St Cuthbert in his grave; Elfled the abbess had wrapped him up in it[309].’

Aelflaed is the last abbess of Whitby known by name. Her death is supposed to have taken place in 713. Her monastery, like so many houses in the north, which had grown to prosperity with the rising power of Northumbria, sank into insignificance with the decadence of that power. This decline was partly due to political reasons, but the dislike which the later kings of Northumbria felt towards monasteries may have had something to do with it. For as we shall see later on the example Queen Aethelthrith had set was probably followed by two other Northumbrian queens, Cyneburg, the wife of Ealhfrith, and Cuthburg, wife of Ealdfrith († 705), who returned to their own countries and there founded monasteries.

§ 4. Houses in Mercia and in the South.

From the north we turn to Mercia and Wessex, the central and south-western provinces of England. Mercia had clung longest to her heathen beliefs, for Christianity was not accepted there till after the defeat of Penda in 655 when Northumbria gained supremacy. Penda, king of Mercia, remained faithful to his gods to the end himself, but his children adopted the new faith. His son Peada had already been baptized in Northumbria by Finnan who sent four ecclesiastics back with him to evangelise the Midlands, and Wulfhere (c. 658-675) Peada’s brother and successor was married to the Christian princess Eormenhild of Kent, for whom Queen Sexburg had made the religious foundation at Sheppey. Peada had founded a religious settlement at Burh or Medehampstead which is better known as Peterborough, a name bestowed on it after its restoration in 970. The charter of the foundation of Burh is dated 664, and besides the signatures of Wulfhere and other princes and thanes it bears those of Wulfhere’s sisters Cyneburg and Cyneswith[310].

Cyneburg and Cyneswith were esteemed as saints on the strength of their religious foundations at Castor, a village some miles distant from Peterborough; the name Cyneburg is held by the local historian to survive in the appellations of Lady Connyburrow Walk and Coneygreve Close[311]. Cyneburg had been married to Ealhfrith, who was for some time co-regent of Northumbria, but little is known of him after his presence at the synod of Whitby in 664. The charter of the Medehampstead foundation above referred to establishes beyond a doubt that Cyneburg had left her husband to found and preside over her monastery; for she is designated as ‘formerly a queen who had resigned her sway to preside over a monastery of maidens[312].’ Her legend, which is not older than John of Tinmouth[313], enlarges on this fact, and like Aethelthrith of Ely, Cyneburg together with her sister Cyneswith has found a place in the Calendar as a virgin saint[314].

The legend which tells of Cyneburh and Cyneswith also refers to St Tibba or Tilba, their kinswoman, who dwelt at Ryhall not far from Castor. The same day was kept in commemoration of all these three saints at Peterborough, to which place their bodies were transferred at an early date. For the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (972) says of Aelfsi, abbot of Peterborough: ‘And he took up St Kyneburg and St Kyneswith who lay at Castor, and St Tibba who lay at Ryhall, and brought them to Burh, and offered them all to St Peter in one day.’ Camden[315] speaks of Tibba as a ‘saint of inferior order, who was worshipped as another Diana by fowlers, a patroness of hawking,’ and adds information which shows that she was popularly connected with heathen survivals.

Mercia was the birthplace of many picturesque legends about the conversion of members of the ruling family and about their religious foundations. When once Christianity was accepted the activity which kings, queens and prelates displayed in its favour was great, but the historical information we have about them is meagre.

Thus Repton (Repandune) in Derbyshire, a monastery for women, had gained considerable importance when the noble youth Guthlac repaired thither in 694 to devote himself to learning under the abbess Aelfthrith[316]. Nothing is known about the beginnings of the house, and if the abbess Aelfthrith founded it she has not on this account been accepted as a saint like the founders of other houses. This omission may however be due to the difficulties which arose between Aelfthrith and the prelates of Mercia. We do not know their nature, but in 705 a council of Mercian clergy assembled to consider the re-admission of Aelfthrith to Church privileges[317]. A letter is also extant from Bishop Waldhere of London to Archbishop Brihtwald of Canterbury in which he mentions that a reconciliation has taken place[318].

The noble youth Guthlac who came to study at Repton afterwards became famous, and many accounts of his life have been written[319]. The earliest version, drafted by his friend Felix, supplies some interesting details of the life at Repton and the studies there[320].

We are told that Guthlac’s progress was wonderful. ‘When he had been there two years he had learnt the psalms, the canticles, the hymns and prayers after the ecclesiastical order,’ but he met with disapproval in the monastery by refusing to drink wine. The accounts which he read of the solitary life of the older monks filled him with a longing for solitude, and he left Repton and wandered about till he found the place of his heart’s desire at Crowland in the fen country, where he determined to settle. He had received the tonsure at Repton and returned there on a visit before finally settling at Crowland. He did not break his connection with Repton, for we hear that the abbess Ecgburh who succeeded Aelfthrith sent him as a gift a coffin made of wood and lead, together with a linen winding-sheet, and asked who should be warden of the place after him, as though she regarded Crowland as a dependency of Repton[321].

The abbess Ecgburg was the daughter of King Ealdwulf of East Anglia († 714)[322], and an eloquent letter which is quoted later in my account of Boniface’s correspondents was probably written by her[323].

In connection with Guthlac’s solitary life we hear of a woman Pega, who had also chosen a retreat in the fen country, at a place afterwards known as Peykirk, which is now situated on a peninsula formed by the uplands of Northamptonshire and connected with the mound on which Guthlac dwelt by a ridge of gravel, but which at that time formed an island[324]. One version of Guthlac’s life tells how ‘he had a sister called Pega whom he would not see in this life, to the intent that they might the rather meet in the life to come’; and another manuscript life says that the Evil One appeared to the saint in the form of Pega. Mr W. de Birch Gray who has reprinted these accounts notices that the tone in which Florence of Worcester speaks of Pega suggests that to him at least she appeared more famous than Guthlac[325].

Different accounts of Guthlac agree that at his death his companions at once departed to fetch Pega. In the celebrated series of drawings of the 12th century, which set forth the story of St Guthlac, the holy woman Pega is depicted twice[326]. In one picture she steps into the boat, in which the companion of Guthlac has come to fetch her, and in the other she is represented as supporting the saint, who is enveloped in his shroud.

The connection between Guthlac and Pega is at least curious, and the authority she at once assumed is noteworthy. ‘For three days’ space with sacred hymns of praise she commended the holy man to God,’ says the Anglo-Saxon prose version of his life[327]. And further, ‘After his death when he had been buried twelve months God put it into the heart of the servant of the Lord that she should remove the brother’s body to another tomb. She assembled thither many of the servants of God and mass-priests, and others of the ecclesiastical order.... She wound the holy corpse, with praises of Christ’s honour, in the other sheet which Ecgbriht the anchoress formerly sent him when alive for that same service.’

The Acts of the Saints give an account of St Pega or Pegia and tell us that she went to Rome where she died[328]. Her reputation for holiness, as far as it is preserved, is based chiefly on her connection with Guthlac, but these accounts leave room for much that must necessarily remain conjecture.

Other women-saints who were reputed to have lived about this period, and who were brought into connection with the rulers of Mercia, claim a passing attention, although their legends written at a much later date supply the only information we have about them. Thus there is St Osith[329] of Colchester, whose legend written in the 13th century is full of hopeless anachronisms. The house of Augustinian canons at Chich[330] in the 12th century was dedicated conjointly to the saints Peter and Paul and to the woman-saint Osith; a canon of this house, Albericus Veerus, probably wrote her legend. Perhaps St Osith of Aylesbury is identical with her[331].

Our information is equally untrustworthy concerning St Frideswith, patron saint of Oxford, for it dates no further back than the 12th century[332]. The chief interest in her legend is that its author establishes a connection between incidents in the life of Frideswith, and the dread which the kings of England had of entering Oxford; a dread which as early as 1264 is referred to as an ‘old superstition[333].’

All these women are credited in their legends with founding monasteries and gaining local influence, and excepting in the case of St Tibba, I have come across no coupling of their names with profane cults. Other women-saints who may perhaps be classed with them, though little survives except their names, are St Osburg of Coventry[334], St Modwen of Strenhall in Staffordshire and Burton-on-Trent[335], and St Everhild of Everingham in Yorkshire[336].

Other names which occur in local calendars will be found in the Menology of Stanton, who has compiled a very complete list of men- and women-saints in England and Wales from a number of local calendars.

In contrast to the uncertainty which hangs about the settlements under woman’s rule in the Midlands and around their founders, two houses founded in the south of England during the 7th century stand out in clear prominence. Barking in Essex, and Wimbourne in Dorsetshire, attained a considerable degree of culture, and the information which has been preserved concerning them is ample and trustworthy.

Bede has devoted several chapters of his history to stories connected with Barking[337]. It owed its foundation to Earconwald sometime bishop of London (675-693) who, after founding a settlement at Chertsey in Surrey under the rule of an abbot, in 666 made a home for his sister Aethelburg at Barking[338] where ‘he established her excellently in the regular discipline.’ Aethelburg appears to have been an energetic person, and has been raised to the rank of saint[339]. Her settlement included men as well as women, and young children seem to have been entrusted to her care for their education.

Bede says that ‘having taken the rule of the monastery she showed herself worthy of her brother the bishop in all respects, both by living rightly herself, and by the pious and prudent course she took to rule those who were subject to her; this was proved by celestial miracles.’

A number of these miracles are described by him with considerable power. Between 664 and 684, a great pestilence, the earliest on record in Christian times, visited England and carried off many of the inmates of Barking. First a boy of three years fell ill and in dying called by name the nun Eadgith, who presently died. Another nun called Torctgith[340] also had a vision of impending death. ‘One night at the beginning of dawn, having gone forth from the chamber in which she abode, she saw plainly as it were a human body, which was brighter than the sun, carried up on high, wrapped in fine linen, and lifted apparently from the house in which the sisters were usually placed to die. And when she looked more intently to see by what means the apparition of a glorious body which she beheld was raised on high, she saw that it was lifted up into the upper regions as it were by cords brighter than gold, until being introduced into the opening heavens it could no longer be seen by her.’

This imagery foretold the death of Abbess Aethelburg, who was carried off by the pestilence. She was succeeded at Barking by Hildelith, whom Boniface refers to as a very estimable person and who has also found a place among the saints[341]. Capgrave speaks of her having been educated in France, whence she came to Barking at the desire of Bishop Earconwald to help in establishing the foreign system of discipline.

It was for the abbess Hildelith and her companions at Barking that the scholar Ealdhelm († 709) wrote his great treatise on Virginity, a long and elaborate composition which sets before these women the beauties of the virgin life with a mass of illustration taken from religious and classical literature. From the point of view of women’s religious life, it is worth while to describe this treatise at some length, for it shows what a high degree of culture had been attained at Barking towards the close of the seventh century.

Ealdhelm, born of noble parentage about the year 640, is the representative in southern England of the classical revival which was about this time engrafted on Christian teaching. He studied first at Malmesbury under the learned Scot Maidulf and then at Canterbury where Archbishop Theodore and Abbot Hadrian were attracting many students, and where he perfected his Latin and musical studies and acquired in some measure the rare and much esteemed knowledge of Greek. ‘A wonder of erudition in liberal as well as in ecclesiastical writings,’ Bede calls him[342]. From Canterbury he returned to Malmesbury, which owing to his influence attained a fame which it kept till the Middle Ages. In 705 when Wessex was divided into two bishoprics, Ealdhelm was made bishop of the see of Sherbourne.

The interest Ealdhelm took in women was so great that posterity pictured him as continually in their society[343]. Besides his great treatise, passages in his other works bear witness to this interest. In a letter addressed to Sigegith[344], he gave advice about the baptism of a nun who had been received into her community while still a heathen; to another nun whose name is not mentioned he sent a letter together with several poems[345]. He composed verses in praise of a church which Bugga, a daughter of King Centwin (670-685), had built[346]. And besides the prose treatise on virginity addressed to the sisterhood of Barking, he wrote a long poem in heroic hexameters on the same subject called the ‘Praise of Virgins’; it has a preface addressed to the abbess Maxima, and is followed by a poem on the ‘Eight chief Sins,’ likewise intended for the perusal of nuns[347].

Ealdhelm opens his prose work on virginity[348] with thanks to the women of Barking for the writings they have sent to him. Hildelith, Justina, Cuthburg, Osburg, Ealdgith, Scholastica, Hidburg, Burngith, Eulalia and Tecla are addressed by name. He praises them as gymnosophists, as scholars and as fighters in the arena of discipline (c. 2). Like unto bees, he says (c. 4), they collect everywhere material for study.

Sometimes, he says, you study the Prophets, sometimes the Books of the Law, ‘now skilfully tracking the fourfold wording of the gospel story, expounded in the mystic commentaries of the Catholic fathers, and spiritually bared to the kernel, and disposed fitly according to the four-square pattern of ecclesiastical usage, namely according to the letter, allegory, tropology and anagogy[349]; now carefully searching into the writers of history and into the collections of chronographers, who have handed down the changing events of the past in wording that impresses the mind. Sometimes you carefully examine the rules of grammarians, the laws of accentuation measured by tone and time, fixed in poetic feet by marks of punctuation, that is divided into parts of verse consisting of two and a half and three and a half feet, and changed in endless varieties of metre.’

Ealdhelm then enlarges on the beauties of the virgin’s life, and dwells especially on the charms of peaceful companionship which it secures. Again in their dwelling and working together the women are likened to bees.

The charms of the virgin’s life are then set forth in language redundant of imagery, verbose and grandiloquent in the extreme. We are told of the temptations which those who have adopted a religious life must guard against (c. 11). There are eight sins as to which they are especially warned; the chief of these is pride. Women are then directed as to the books they should make a special subject of study, and are recommended to peruse the works of Cassian (who in the 5th century wrote the ‘Duties of Monastic Life’) and the ‘Moralities’ of Gregory the Great (which contain reflections suggested by the book of Job), and they are advised to study the Psalms to avoid unhappiness (c. 14). With the love of contrast peculiar to early writers, Ealdhelm shows how the women who serve God and those who do not are different in their bearing and outward appearance, and enlarges on the relative value of different estates (c. 17): virginity is of gold, chastity is of silver; marriage (jugalitas) is of brass; and again: virginity is wealth, chastity is sufficiency, marriage is poverty, etc.

He then displays the wide range of his learning by adducing many writers in support of his views (c. 20-40), in passages which are elaborate and instructive but wearisome through their reiterations. He enumerates all the women famous for their religious lives. The Virgin Mary comes first and she is followed by many women-saints of Italy and the East, on whom there is in some cases much, in others little, comment. In this list we in vain look for the names of religious women living on this side of the Alps. Helen the mother of Constantine (c. 48) is referred to, but her British origin is not mentioned and the idea of it had probably not arisen in Ealdhelm’s time.

The writer again turns to those who are devoted to religion, and in passages which are full of interest as a study of the times complains of the personal appearance of the clergy and of those women who have chosen religion as a profession. These passages are among the most instructive in regard to women and clearly show how completely life in a nunnery at the beginning of the 8th century differed from what it was later on.

‘It shames me,’ he says, ‘to speak of the bold impudence of conceit and the fine insolence of stupidity which are found both among nuns (sanctimoniales) who abide under the rule of a settlement, and among the men of the Church who live as clergy under the rule of the Pontiff. These act contrary to canonical decrees and to the rule of regular life, for with many-coloured vestments[350] and with elegant adornments the body is set off and the external form decked out limb by limb. The appearance of the other sex agrees with it; a vest of fine linen of a violet colour is worn, above it a scarlet tunic with a hood, sleeves striped with silk and trimmed with red fur; the locks on the forehead and the temples are curled with a crisping iron, the dark head-veil is given up for white and coloured head-dresses which, with bows of ribbon sewn on, reach down to the ground; the nails, like those of a falcon or sparrow-hawk, are pared to resemble talons’.... This state of things Ealdhelm strongly condemns. But he adds the remark that he is addressing no one in particular, evidently to avoid any umbrage his women friends might take at these remarks. His reference to luxurious clothing does not stand alone. The description Bede gives of the women at Coldingham has been quoted, and Boniface in a letter[351] to Cuthberht of Canterbury speaks of ‘the adornment of clothes, trimmed with wide edging of purple,’ which, he says, is deteriorating the young men in the monasteries, and foretells the coming of Antichrist. Sumptuous clothes as vestments during religious service remained in use, but in all other respects they were condemned as prejudicial to the welfare of those who were vowed to religion.

Ealdhelm’s work on virginity closes with an affectionate greeting to his women friends in which he addresses them finally as ‘Flowers of the Church, sisters of monastic life, scholarly pupils, pearls of Christ, jewels of Paradise, and sharers of the eternal home.’

His work was greatly prized and widely read both by his own and by later generations. It is extant in several copies of the 8th century[352], and maintained its reputation throughout the Middle Ages. William of Malmesbury († 1141) in his account of Ealdhelm specifies the work on virginity as one ‘than which nothing can be more pleasing[353].’ It still held its own when printing was introduced, for it was published at Deventer in Holland in 1512, and has since been reprinted for devotional purposes[354].

Among those on whom the book made a profound impression was Cuthburg, sister of King Ina of Wessex (688-725). She was at one time an inmate of the Barking settlement and was probably one of those to whom the work was addressed.

Cuthburg was held as a saint for founding a settlement at Wimbourne in Dorset[355], where the cult of her sister Cwenburg was associated with hers. Cuthburg as mentioned above was said to have left her husband Ealdfrith of Northumbria († 705) from religious motives. Her being held in veneration as a virgin saint may be due to her name being coupled with that of a virgin sister[356]. Missals printed at Rouen in 1515, and at Paris in 1519 and 1529, have an office prescribed for Cuthburg as a virgin[357]. The statement that she was the mother of Osred, afterwards king of Northumbria (706-717), is perhaps unfounded.

There is no doubt as to Ealdhelm’s friendly relations both with Cuthburg and her husband. He dedicated his enigmas to Ealdfrith under the title ‘Adcircius[358],’ and in a letter dated 705 he declares that liberty of election is granted to all congregations under his government including that called ‘Wimburnia,’ over which Cuthburg, the king’s sister, presides[359]. A manuscript of the 14th century, preserved in the nunnery of Romsey, contains a collection of saints’ lives, and gives a full account of a conversation Cuthburg had with her husband previous to their separation[360]. It further relates how she placed the basilica of her settlement under the protection of the Mother of God, and was herself buried in it. She died some time between 720 and 730, probably nearer the earlier date, for several abbesses are said to have ruled between her and Tetta. The name of Tetta has been brought into connection with a place named Tetbury, but we know nothing definite concerning a monastery there[361]. As abbess of Wimbourne she was the teacher of Lioba, called also Leobgith, who went abroad at the desire of Boniface as we shall see further on.

In the life of Lioba we get a description of the settlement of Wimbourne[362], which may be somewhat coloured to show the result of Tetta’s strict and beneficent rule, but which deserves attention as yielding a fair example of the arrangements which in the eyes of its author appeared desirable for a monastery of women. The author, Rudolf of Fulda, was a monk who wrote between 800 and 850, and who compiled his work from notices which Magno († c. 838) had collected from women pupils of Lioba[363].

‘There were two settlements at Wimbourne, formerly erected by the kings of the country, surrounded by strong and lofty walls and endowed with ample revenues. Of these one was designed for men, the other for women; but neither, for such was the rule of their foundation, was ever entered by any member of the other sex. No woman had permission to come among the congregation of the men, no man to enter into the dwellings of the women, with the exception of the priests who entered to celebrate mass and withdrew at once when service was over. If a woman, desirous of quitting the world, asked to be admitted to the sisterhood (collegium), she joined it on condition that she should not leave it unless a reasonable cause or a special occasion took her out with the leave of the abbess. The abbess herself, when she gave orders in affairs of the settlement or tendered advice, spoke through a window and there gave her decision....’

Wimbourne stands last in the list of well authenticated monastic foundations made by women during the early Anglo-Saxon period; of such foundations more than twenty have been mentioned in the course of this chapter. Others no doubt existed at this time, but we only hear of them at a later date. We find among them some of the centres most influential in enabling the Anglo-Saxons to attain a high degree of culture within a hundred years of their conversion to Christianity.

CHAPTER IV.