Seaxburh of Ely
Encyclopedia
Seaxburh; also Saint Sexburga of Ely, (died about 699) was the queen of King Eorcenberht of Kent
Eorcenberht of Kent
Eorcenberht of Kent was king of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Kent from 640 until his death, succeeding his father Eadbald....

, as well as an abbess
Abbess
An abbess is the female superior, or mother superior, of a community of nuns, often an abbey....

 and a saint
Saint
A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...

 of the Christian Church
Christian Church
The Christian Church is the assembly or association of followers of Jesus Christ. The Greek term ἐκκλησία that in its appearances in the New Testament is usually translated as "church" basically means "assembly"...

.

Seaxburh's sisters were Æthelburg of Faremoutiers, Saethryth
Saethryth
Saint Sæthryth , also called Sedrido, Sethrida or Saethrid, was the stepdaughter of king Anna of East Anglia, who became a Benedictine nun at the abbey of Faremoutiers-en-Brie, Gaul under its foundress Saint Burgundofara, whom she succeeded as abbess...

, Æthelthryth
Æthelthryth
Æthelthryth is the proper name for the popular Anglo-Saxon saint often known, particularly in a religious context, as Etheldreda or by the pet form of Audrey...

 and possibly Withburga. Her marriage to Eorcenberht produced two sons, both of whom ruled, and two daughters. After her husband's death in 664, Seaxburh remained in Kent
Kingdom of Kent
The Kingdom of Kent was a Jutish colony and later independent kingdom in what is now south east England. It was founded at an unknown date in the 5th century by Jutes, members of a Germanic people from continental Europe, some of whom settled in Britain after the withdrawal of the Romans...

 to bring up her children. She acted as regent until her young son Ecgberht
Ecgberht of Kent
Ecgberht was a King of Kent who ruled from 664 to 673, succeeding his father Eorcenberht s:Ecclesiastical History of the English People/Book 4#1....

 came of age.

Seaxburh founded the abbeys at Milton
Milton-next-Gravesend
Milton-next-Gravesend was, and still is, one of the ancient ecclesiastical parishes in the NW of the county of Kent, England. When Gravesend became a town under Royal Charter in the 13th century, Milton was included within it. Much of the parish was, until c. 1840, rural...

 and Minster-in-Sheppey
Minster-in-Sheppey
Minster is a small town on the north coast of the Isle of Sheppey and in the Swale district of Kent, England.-Toponymy:The name of the town derives from the monastery founded in the area...

, where her daughter Ermenilda
Ermenilda of Ely
Saint Eormenhild is a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon saint. Later hagiography makes her the daughter of King Eorcenberht of Kent and St. Seaxburh of Ely, and wife to Wulfhere of Mercia, with whom she had a daughter, St. Wærburh, and a son, Coenred...

  was also a nun. She moved to the double monastery at Ely
Ely, Cambridgeshire
Ely is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, England, 14 miles north-northeast of Cambridge and about by road from London. It is built on a Lower Greensand island, which at a maximum elevation of is the highest land in the Fens...

 where her sister Æthelthryth was abbess and succeeded her when Æthelthryth died in 679. According to Bede
Bede
Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...

, in 695, Seaxburh organised the movement (or translation) of Æthelthryth's remains to a marble sarcophagus
Sarcophagus
A sarcophagus is a funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved or cut from stone. The word "sarcophagus" comes from the Greek σαρξ sarx meaning "flesh", and φαγειν phagein meaning "to eat", hence sarkophagus means "flesh-eating"; from the phrase lithos sarkophagos...

, after they had lain for sixteen years in a common grave. On opening the grave, it was discovered that her body was miraculously preserved. The legend is described in Bede
Bede
Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...

's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which celebrates the saintly virtues of Æthelthryth, but speaks less highly of Seaxburh, referring only to her marriage, succession as abbess and translation of her sister's relics. The date of Seaxburh's death at Ely is not known. The surviving versions of the Vita Sexburge, compiled after 1106, describe her early life, marriage to Eorcenberht, retirement from secular life and her final years as a nun and abbess at Ely.

Family

Seaxburh was a daughter of Anna
Anna of East Anglia
Anna was King of East Anglia from the early 640s until his death. Anna was a member of the Wuffingas family, the ruling dynasty of the East Angles. He was one of the three sons of Eni who ruled East Anglia, succeeding some time after Ecgric was killed in battle by Penda of Mercia...

, King of East Anglia, the son of Eni
Eni of East Anglia
Eni or Ennius was a member of the Wuffing family, the ruling dynasty of the Kingdom of East Anglia. He was the son of Tyttla and brother of Raedwald, both kings of East Anglia.There is no historical evidence that Eni ever ruled the East Angles himself...

, who ruled the East Angles from the early 640s and was slain together with his son Jurmin, at the Battle of Bulcamp in 653 or 654. She was the sister of Æthelburg and Saethryth
Saethryth
Saint Sæthryth , also called Sedrido, Sethrida or Saethrid, was the stepdaughter of king Anna of East Anglia, who became a Benedictine nun at the abbey of Faremoutiers-en-Brie, Gaul under its foundress Saint Burgundofara, whom she succeeded as abbess...

, who were both abbesses of Faremoutiers Abbey
Faremoutiers Abbey
Faremoutiers Abbey was founded circa 620 by Burgundofara . It formed an important link between the Merovingian Frankish Empire and the southern Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Kent and East Anglia....

 in Brie
Brie
Brie is a historic region of France most famous for its dairy products, especially Brie cheese. It was once divided into two sections ruled by different feudal lords: the western Brie française, corresponding roughly to the modern department of Seine-et-Marne in the Île-de-France region; the...

, and also the sister of Æthelthryth
Æthelthryth
Æthelthryth is the proper name for the popular Anglo-Saxon saint often known, particularly in a religious context, as Etheldreda or by the pet form of Audrey...

, who married firstly Tonberht, an ealderman of the South Gyrwe
Gyrwe
Gyrwe was an Anglo-Saxon name for Jarrow, in North East England.The word Gyruum represents the Old English [æt] Gyrwum = "[at] the marsh dwellers", from Old English gyr = "mud", "marsh"....

 in the Fens, and secondly Ecgfrith of Northumbria
Ecgfrith of Northumbria
King Ecgfrith was the King of Northumbria from 670 until his death. He ruled over Northumbria when it was at the height of its power, but his reign ended with a disastrous defeat in which he lost his life.-Early life:...

. Withburga, who died in 743, may also have been her sister. Seaxburh, her brother and all her sisters became saints.

Marriage and widowhood

Seaxburh was connected with the royal family of the Magonsætan by her marriage to Eorcenberht
Eorcenberht of Kent
Eorcenberht of Kent was king of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Kent from 640 until his death, succeeding his father Eadbald....

, who was king of Kent
Kingdom of Kent
The Kingdom of Kent was a Jutish colony and later independent kingdom in what is now south east England. It was founded at an unknown date in the 5th century by Jutes, members of a Germanic people from continental Europe, some of whom settled in Britain after the withdrawal of the Romans...

 from 640 to 664. Eorcenberht was the great-uncle of Mildburh and her sisters, the daughters of King Merewalh
Merewalh
Merewalh Merewalh Merewalh (sometimes given as Merwal or Merewald was a sub-king of the Magonsæte, a western cadet kingdom of Mercia thought to have been located in Herefordshire and Shropshire...

 of the Magonsætan.

Their sons Ecgberht and Hlothhere
Hlothhere of Kent
Hlothhere was a King of Kent who ruled from 673 to 685.He succeeded his brother Ecgberht I in 673. He must have come into conflict with Mercia, since in 676 the Mercian king Æthelred invaded Kent and caused great destruction; according to Bede, even churches and monasteries were not spared, and...

 both became kings of Kent. Their daughter Ercongota was a nun
Nun
A nun is a woman who has taken vows committing her to live a spiritual life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent...

 at Faremoutiers, who was eventually canonised. Eorcenberht is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the Chronicle was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great...

 within the annal for 640: "Then his son Eorcenberht succeeded to the kingdom; he overthrew all devil-worship in his kingdom, and was the first of the English kings to establish the Easter festival". In the same passage is the Chronicles single reference to Seaxburh and Eorcengota, "...þaes dohter wæs ge haten Erchongata halifemne. and wundorlic man. thære modor wæs Sexburh Annan dohter East Engla ciningas" – '...his daughter was called Eorcengota, a holy and a remarkable person, whose mother was Seaxburh, daughter of Anna, king of the East Anglians'. Seaxburh and Eorcenberht had a second daughter, Ermenilda, who married Wulfhere of Mercia
Wulfhere of Mercia
Wulfhere was King of Mercia from the end of the 650s until 675. He was the first Christian king of all of Mercia, though it is not known when or how he converted from Anglo-Saxon paganism. His accession marked the end of Oswiu of Northumbria's overlordship of southern England, and Wulfhere...

 and after his death became a nun and was later canonised. According to Barbara Yorke, Seaxburh's marriage was itself of seminal importance in the establishment of monastic life for women during the Anglo-Saxon period, as she became an example of an ex-queen who made retreating to an nunnery a desirable royal vocation.

Eorcenberht died on July 14, 664, in an outbreak of plague that occurred that year. After her husband's death, Seaxburh remained in Kent to bring up her children. She played an important political and religious influence in the kingdom: she acted as regent for her son Ecgberht, ruling Kent until her young son came of age, and was the founder of Kent's first abbey for women at Milton
Milton-next-Gravesend
Milton-next-Gravesend was, and still is, one of the ancient ecclesiastical parishes in the NW of the county of Kent, England. When Gravesend became a town under Royal Charter in the 13th century, Milton was included within it. Much of the parish was, until c. 1840, rural...

. Thereafter, Seaxburh became a nun and founded the abbey of Minster-in-Sheppey
Minster-in-Sheppey
Minster is a small town on the north coast of the Isle of Sheppey and in the Swale district of Kent, England.-Toponymy:The name of the town derives from the monastery founded in the area...

. According to the Liber Eliensis
Liber Eliensis
The Liber Eliensis is a 12th-century English chronicle and history, written in Latin. Composed in three books, it was written at Ely Abbey on the island of Ely in the fenlands of eastern Cambridgeshire. Ely Abbey became the cathedral of a newly formed bishopric in 1109...

, a 12th century chronicle and history written at Ely
Ely, Cambridgeshire
Ely is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, England, 14 miles north-northeast of Cambridge and about by road from London. It is built on a Lower Greensand island, which at a maximum elevation of is the highest land in the Fens...

, an English source related that Seaxburh received "the veil of holiness" from Theodore
Theodore of Tarsus
Theodore was the eighth Archbishop of Canterbury, best known for his reform of the English Church and establishment of a school in Canterbury....

, the Archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...

, in her church on the Isle of Sheppey
Isle of Sheppey
The Isle of Sheppey is an island off the northern coast of Kent, England in the Thames Estuary, some to the east of London. It has an area of . The island forms part of the local government district of Swale...

 and that her daughter Eormenhild also became a nun there. Seaxburh is said by her hagiographer
Hagiography
Hagiography is the study of saints.From the Greek and , it refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though less common...

 to have sought refuge as a nun after living a secular role that she had found hard to tolerate: having reluctantly submitted to marriage, she hastened from queenhood to "a timely widowhood and a hasty withdrawal to the religious life", according to Susan Ridyard.

Religious life at Ely

Shortly afterwards Seaxburh moved to the double monastery
Double monastery
A double monastery is an institution combining a separate monastery for monks and an abbey for nuns. Examples include Coldingham Monastery in Scotland, and Einsiedeln Abbey and Fahr Abbey in Switzerland, controlled by the abbot of Einsiedeln...

 at Ely, which was the precursor to Ely Cathedral
Ely Cathedral
Ely Cathedral is the principal church of the Diocese of Ely, in Cambridgeshire, England, and is the seat of the Bishop of Ely and a suffragan bishop, the Bishop of Huntingdon...

, and where her sister Æthelthryth was abbess. The historian Barbara Yorke
Barbara Yorke
Barbara Yorke is a historian of Anglo-Saxon England.She studied history and archaeology at Exeter University, where she completed both her undergraduate degree and her Ph.D. She is currently Professor of Early Medieval History at the University of Winchester, and is a Fellow of the Royal...

 mentions the possibility that Seaxburh and her namesake Seaxburh of Wessex
Seaxburh of Wessex
Seaxburh was a wife of Cenwalh of Wessex who according to tradition ruled Wessex as queen for a year following Cenwalh's death in 674. She should not be confused with her near-contemporary, Seaxburh of Ely, the saintly daughter of Anna of East Anglia....

 were the same person, but also notes that the accounts of Seaxburh's religious life at Ely contradict this suggestion.

According to Yorke, Seaxburh's retirement to Ely is an example an Anglo-Saxon custom, represented in a law
Anglo-Saxon law
Anglo-Saxon law is a body of written rules and customs that were in place during the Anglo-Saxon period in England, before the Norman conquest. This body of law, along with early Scandinavian law and continental Germanic law, descended from a family of ancient Germanic custom and legal thought...

, whereby a married woman remained the responsibility of the paternal side of her family, perhaps to spend the rest of her days as a nun or an abbess. Described by the Liber Eliensis as a "pretiosa virago", or precious lady-warrior, she succeeded as abbess when Æthelthryth died, probably of plague, in 679. Seaxburh's previous political experience in East Anglia and Kent would have been useful in preparing her for the role of abbess at the double monastery at Ely.

In 695, in a vivid demonstration of the dynastic value of the cult of royal saints in Anglo-Saxon England, Seaxburh decided to translate the remains of her sister Æthelthryth, who had been dead for sixteen years, from a common grave to the new church at Ely. Professor Patrick Sims-Williams has identified Seaxburh as "the chief mover behind the translation of her body and the promulagation of her cult". The Liber Eliensis describes these events in detail. When her grave was opened, Æthelthryth's body was discovered to be uncorrupted and her coffin and clothes proved to possess miraculous powers. A sarcophagus
Sarcophagus
A sarcophagus is a funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved or cut from stone. The word "sarcophagus" comes from the Greek σαρξ sarx meaning "flesh", and φαγειν phagein meaning "to eat", hence sarkophagus means "flesh-eating"; from the phrase lithos sarkophagos...

 made of white marble was taken from the Roman ruins at Grantchester
Grantchester
Grantchester is a village on the River Cam or Granta in Cambridgeshire, England. It is listed in the Domesday Book as Grantesete and Grauntsethe...

, which was found to be the right fit for Æthelthryth. The architectural historian John Crook questions how such miraculous coincidences feature in hagiographies (the studies of the lives of saints), when he observes that "the miraculous discovery of a suitable coffin is, however, a hagiographic commonplace". Seaxburh's supervised the preparation of her sister's body, which was washed and wrapped in new robes before being reburied. She apparently oversaw the translation of her sister's remains without the supervision of her bishop, using her knowledge of procedures gained from her family's links with the abbey at Faremoutiers as a basis for the ceremony.

The fourth book of the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed by the Northumbrian monk Bede
Bede
Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...

 in 731, celebrates the monastery at Ely and focuses on Æthelthryth's piety and the translation of her relics. Bede does not mention the matrilinear succession established at Ely by Æthelthryth, where power passed in turn to Seaxburh before subsequently transferring to Seaxburh's daughter Eormenhild and to her granddaughter, Werburh. He praises the virtues of Æthelthryth, a princess who was married twice but still preserved her virginity. Seaxburh receives little praise from Bede, as she had borne children before becoming a nun. He only mentions Seaxburh's marriage to Eorcenberht, succession as abbess and translation of her sister's relics.

Death and veneration

The date of Seaxburh's death is not known, but when she died at Ely, she was at "a good, late age", according to the Liber Eliensis, which also related that 'Richard, Bishop of Ely' translated the remains of Seaxburh and of "all the saintly women reposing in that place". Her feast day is July 6.

Seaxburh is mentioned in a written account of Kent's earliest Christian kings and their canonised relatives, known as the Kentish Royal Legend (Old English: Þá hálgan). These kings, queens and princesses were unified by their holiness and royal connections. Pauline Stafford
Pauline Stafford
Pauline Stafford is Professor Emerita of Early Medieval History at Liverpool University in England. Her work focuses on the history of women and gender in England from the eighth to the early twelfth centuries, and on the same topics in Frankish history during the eighth and ninth centuries...

 notes that the Legend "may have been a Christian alternative to pagan geneaology" to the rulers of 10th and 11th century mediaeval England, as it described an earlier period of sustained Christian piety within the royal dynasty of Kent. Being both a queen and a saint, Seaxburh was held in high regard within the Legend: within it her role as queen and the founder of the minster at Sheppey was highlighted.

The 1913 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia
Catholic Encyclopedia
The Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia and the Original Catholic Encyclopedia, is an English-language encyclopedia published in the United States. The first volume appeared in March 1907 and the last three volumes appeared in 1912, followed by a master index...

 lists several separate accounts of the saint's deeds and miracles, or so-called Lives. The Life (or Vita) printed in John Capgrave
John Capgrave
John Capgrave was an English historian, hagiographer and scholastic theologian-Schooling:Capgrave was born in Bishop's Lynn, now King's Lynn, Norfolk – "My cuntre is Northfolke, of the town of Lynne"...

's Nova, Legenda and used by the Bollandists, was perhaps copied from a Cotton manuscript
Cotton library
The Cotton or Cottonian library was collected privately by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton M.P. , an antiquarian and bibliophile, and was the basis of the British Library...

 in the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

. There is another Vita in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 in the same collection, but it was so damaged by fire that it is useless. The surviving versions of the Vita Sexburge were compiled after 1106 (the year the relics of Seaxburh were translated) and are copies from an earlier manuscript, now lost. The Vita describes Seaxburh's early life, marriage to Eorcenberht, withdrawal to Milton and then Minster-in-Sheppey, and her final years as a nun and the abbess at Ely. The section relating to her life at Sheppey is similar to another fragment, dating between the 9th and 11th centuries, and currently kept at Lambeth Palace
Lambeth Palace
Lambeth Palace is the official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury in England. It is located in Lambeth, on the south bank of the River Thames a short distance upstream of the Palace of Westminster on the opposite shore. It was acquired by the archbishopric around 1200...

. It has been suggested that part of the Vita Sexburge was derived from this manuscript, or that both parts originated from an earlier version of Seaxburh's Life.

External links


Sources

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