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58-492: Æthelthryth (or Æðelþryð or Æþelðryþe ; c.  636  – 23 June 679 AD) was an East Anglian princess, a Fenland and Northumbrian queen and Abbess of Ely . She is an Anglo-Saxon saint, and is also known as Etheldreda or Audrey , especially in religious contexts. She was a daughter of Anna , King of East Anglia , and her siblings were Wendreda and Seaxburh of Ely , both of whom eventually retired from secular life and founded abbeys . Æthelthryth

116-600: A Spanish ambassador for Roman Catholic worship. The chapel was purchased by the Catholic Church in 1874 and is one of the oldest churches in England to be in current use by the Catholic Church. St Etheldreda's Church, Hatfield is 13th century and was originally Anglo-Saxon. It was named for St Etheldreda because it was adjacent to a palace of the Bishops of Ely who held her as their patron saint. St Etheldreda's

174-468: A child, by Columbanus . With the approval of Bishop Gundoald of Meaux, Burgundofara established an abbey on her father's lands. Eustace of Luxeuil supplied monks as chaplains and to assist in building the monastery. It was a double monastery , the first in France, with communities of both monks and nuns . The main buildings and the abbey church were in the middle of a large enclosure; the monastery of

232-554: A church was built to commemorate this event. It is more likely that this 'Stow' actually refers to another fair , near Threekingham . Ecgfrith later married Eormenburg and expelled Wilfrid from his kingdom in 678. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , Æthelthryth founded Ely Abbey ,a double monastery at Ely in 673, which was later destroyed in the Danish invasion of 870. According to Bede , Æthelfryth died of

290-453: A common grave to the new church at Ely. 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 made of white marble was taken from the Roman ruins at Grantchester , which was found to be the right fit for Æthelthryth. Seaxburh supervised

348-485: A dialect was tentative, acknowledging that "the linguistic boundaries of the original dialects could not have enjoyed prolonged stability." As no East Anglian manuscripts, Old English inscriptions or literary records such as charters have survived, there is little evidence to support the existence of such a dialect. According to a study by Von Feilitzen in the 1930s, the recording of many place-names in Domesday Book

406-439: A neck tumour, which she interpreted as sent by God in his goodness to relieve her of guilt for her vanity in having worn heavy necklaces in her youth. Bede states that after her death, her bones were disinterred by her sister and successor, Seaxburh and that her uncorrupted body was later buried in a white, marble coffin . In 695, Seaxburh translated the remains of her sister Æthelthryth, who had been dead for sixteen years, from

464-559: A new earldom of East Anglia in 1017, when Thorkell the Tall was made earl by Cnut the Great . The restored ecclesiastical structure saw two former East Anglian bishoprics (Elmham and Dunwich ) replaced by a single one at North Elmham . The East Angles spoke Old English . Their language is historically important, as they were among the first Germanic settlers to arrive in Britain during

522-558: A small Mediaeval English stained-glass window, depicting St Etheldreda, which is set in a stone frame made from a very early Insular Christian Roman Chi Rho grave marker. The church of St Etheldreda Histon was demolished, it is commemorated in a stained glass window. The common version of Æthelthryth's name was St Audrey, which is the origin of the word tawdry , which derived from the fact that her admirers bought modestly concealing lace goods at an annual fair held in her name in Ely. By

580-757: Is remembered in the Church of England with a Lesser Festival on 17 October according to Book of Common Prayer tradition, and alternatively 23 June in the Common Worship calendar of Saints. St Etheldreda's Church in Ely Place in Holborn is dedicated to the saint. It was originally part of the London palace of the bishops of Ely . After the English Reformation , part was briefly used by

638-605: Is a Roman Catholic parish church in Ely, Cambridgeshire. It is part of the Diocese of East Anglia within the Province of Westminster. The church contains the shrine and relics of Æthelthryth, including her hand. St Etheldreda's Church in White Notley , Essex, is a Church of England parish church, of Anglo-Saxon construction, built on the site of a Roman temple, with a large quantity of Roman brick in its fabric. The church has

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696-536: Is the concentration of ship-burials at Snape and Sutton Hoo in eastern Suffolk. The "North Folk" and "South Folk" may have existed before the arrival of the first East Anglian kings. The most powerful of the Wuffingas kings was Rædwald, "son of Tytil, whose father was Wuffa", according to the Ecclesiastical History . For a brief period in the early 7th century, whilst Rædwald ruled, East Anglia

754-456: The Heptarchy , a scheme used by Henry of Huntingdon in the 12th century. Some modern historians have questioned whether the seven ever existed contemporaneously and claim the political situation was far more complicated. The East Angles were initially ruled by the pagan Wuffingas dynasty , apparently named after an early king Wuffa, although his name may be a back-creation from the name of

812-453: The Isle of Ely , which she had received from Tondberct as a morning gift . Æthelthryth was subsequently remarried for political reasons in 660, this time to Ecgfrith of Northumbria , who was fourteen or fifteen at the time. Shortly after his accession to the throne in 670, Æthelthryth wished to become a nun. This step possibly led to Ecgfrith's long quarrel with Wilfrid , bishop of York , who

870-944: The Vikings defeated the East Anglians in battle and their king, Edmund the Martyr , was killed. After 879, the Vikings settled permanently in East Anglia. In 903 the exiled Æthelwold ætheling induced the East Anglian Danes to wage a disastrous war on his cousin Edward the Elder . By 918, after a succession of Danish defeats, East Anglia submitted to Edward and was incorporated into the Kingdom of England. East Anglia

928-471: The kings of East Anglia were Wuffingas, named after the semi-historical Wuffa. During the early 7th century under Rædwald , East Anglia was a powerful Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Rædwald, the first East Anglian king to be baptised a Christian, is seen by many scholars to be the person buried within (or commemorated by) the ship burial at Sutton Hoo , near Woodbridge . During the decades that followed his death in about 624, East Anglia became increasingly dominated by

986-665: The 17th century, this lacework had become seen as old-fashioned, vain , or cheap and of poor quality, at a time when the Puritans of eastern England disdained ornamental dress. There are a number of accounts of Æthelthryth's life in Latin , Old English , Old French , and Middle English . According to Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, "more medieval vernacular lives [about Æthelthryth] were composed in England than any other native female saint". Æthelthryth appears in Bede 's Ecclesiastical History of

1044-648: The 4th century. Ken Dark writes that "in this area at least, and possibly more widely in eastern Britain, large tracts of land appear to have been deserted in the late 4th century, possibly including whole 'small towns' and villages. This does not seem to be a localised change in settlement location, size or character but genuine desertion." According to Bede, the East Angles (and the Middle Angles, Mercians and Northumbrians ) were descended from natives of Angeln (now in modern Germany). The first reference to

1102-556: The 5th century: according to Kortmann and Schneider, East Anglia "can seriously claim to be the first place in the world where English was spoken." The evidence for dialects in Old English comes from the study of texts, place-names, personal names and coins. A. H. Smith was the first to recognise the existence of a separate Old East Anglian dialect, in addition to the recognised dialects of Northumbrian , Mercian , West Saxon and Kentish . He acknowledged that his proposal for such

1160-637: The 6th century in the wake of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain and was one of the kingdoms of the Heptarchy . It was ruled by the Wuffingas dynasty in the 7th and 8th centuries, but the territory was taken by Offa of Mercia in 794. Mercia control lapsed briefly following the death of Offa but was reestablished. The Danish Great Heathen Army landed in East Anglia in 865; after taking York it returned to East Anglia, killing King Edmund ("the Martyr") and making it Danish land in 869. After Alfred

1218-433: The 7th century. Anglo-Saxon sources that include information about the East Angles or events relating to the kingdom: Post-Norman sources (of variable historical validity): 52°30′N 01°00′E  /  52.500°N 1.000°E  / 52.500; 1.000 Faremoutiers Abbey The abbey was founded around 620 by Burgundofara (Saint Fara), the first abbess. She had been consecrated to God, while yet

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1276-619: The East Angles ( Old English : Ēastengla Rīċe ; Latin : Regnum Orientalium Anglorum ), informally known as the Kingdom of East Anglia , was a small independent kingdom of the Angles during the Anglo-Saxon period comprising what are now the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and perhaps the eastern part of the Fens , the area still known as East Anglia . The kingdom formed in

1334-584: The East Angles bordered the North Sea to the north and the east, with the River Stour historically dividing it from the East Saxons to the south. The North Sea provided a "thriving maritime link to Scandinavia and the northern reaches of Germany", according to the historian Richard Hoggett. The port of Ipswich ( Gipeswic ) was established in 7th century. The kingdom's western boundary varied from

1392-459: The East Angles is from about 704–713, in the Whitby Life of St Gregory . While the archaeological and linguistic evidence suggests that a large-scale migration and settlement of the region by continental Germanic speakers occurred, it has been questioned whether all of the migrants self-identified as Angles. The East Angles formed one of seven kingdoms known to post-medieval historians as

1450-515: The East Anglian king Æthelberht executed and then took control of the kingdom for himself. A brief revival of East Anglian independence under Eadwald, after Offa's death in 796, was suppressed by the new Mercian king, Coenwulf . East Anglian independence was restored by a rebellion against Mercia led by Æthelstan in 825. Beornwulf of Mercia 's attempt to restore Mercian control resulted in his defeat and death, and his successor Ludeca met

1508-744: The English People , Ælfric 's Lives of Saints , Goscelin of Saint-Bertin 's Lives of Female Saints , the Liber Eliensis , Marie de France 's La vie seinte Audree , the South English Legendary , and a Middle English life in BL Cotton Faustina B.iii, among others. A modern fictional account has been written by Moyra Caldecott . Kingdom of the East Angles The Kingdom of

1566-596: The Great forced a treaty with the Danes , East Anglia was left as part of the Danelaw . It was taken back from Danish control by Edward the Elder and incorporated into the Kingdom of England in 918. The Kingdom of East Anglia was organised in the first or second quarter of the 6th century, with Wehha listed as the first king of the East Angles, followed by Wuffa . The Anglo-Saxon genealogy for East Angles gives Wehha as descended from Woden via Caesar . Until 749

1624-526: The Kingdom of the East Angles have survived because of a complete destruction of the kingdom's monasteries and disappearance of the two East Anglian sees as a result of Viking raids and settlement. The main documentary source for the early period is Bede's 8th-century Ecclesiastical History of the English People . East Anglia is first mentioned as a distinct political unit in the Tribal Hidage , thought to have been compiled somewhere in England during

1682-568: The Mercians. In 655 Æthelhere of East Anglia joined Penda in a campaign against Oswiu that ended in a massive Mercian defeat at the Battle of the Winwaed , where Penda and his ally Æthelhere were killed. The last Wuffingas king was Ælfwald , who died in 749. During the late 7th and 8th centuries East Anglia continued to be overshadowed by Mercian hegemony until, in 794, Offa of Mercia had

1740-714: The Pious , it changed to the Rule of Saint Benedict . In 887, the Abbey was sacked by the Normans . The monasteries became increasingly populated by young women from the nobility, and the Carolingian royal family. As the rules were relaxed, a period of decadence followed. Faremoutiers thus declined into the hands of the local lords and mutated into a place of receptions and maintenance of men-at-arms. Around 1094 Philip I of France wrote

1798-542: The Wuffingas were of Swedish origin. Anglo-Saxon Christianity became established in the 7th century. The extent to which paganism was displaced is exemplified by a lack of any East Anglian settlement named after the old gods . In 604, Rædwald became the first East Anglian king to be baptised. He maintained a Christian altar, but at the same time continued to worship pagan gods. From 616, when pagan monarchs briefly returned in Kent and Essex, East Anglia until Rædwald's death

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1856-463: The abbot of Marmoutier and "...asked him to reform the monastery of Faremoutiers because of the nuns' dissolute lifestyle". In 1140 the monastery was destroyed by fire, but rebuilt in 1145. In 1445, at the end of the Hundred Years' War , it was pillaged by soldiers. In the 16th and 17th centuries the abbey enjoyed royal favour, and saw a number of abbesses appointed by the crown. In 1683, at

1914-401: The brothers was located outside of it. It was established to follow the strict Rule of Saint Columbanus . The site, an estate belonging to Fara's family, originally known as Evoriacum, was renamed Faremoutiers ("Fara's monastery") in her honour. The modern village of Faremoutiers grew up around the abbey. Jonas of Bobbio , biographer of Columbanus stayed at Faremoutiers in 633. Three women of

1972-442: The danger of being forcibly carried off by the king, Æthelthryth then fled back to the Isle of Ely with two nuns as companions. They managed to evade capture, thanks in part to the rising of the tide . Another version of the legend related that she halted on the journey at 'Stow' and sheltered under a miraculously growing ash tree which came from her staff planted in the ground. Stow came to be known as 'St Etheldred's Stow', when

2030-664: The death of Æthelwold and of Eohric of East Anglia in battle in December 902. From 911 to 917, Edward expanded his control over the rest of England south of the Humber, establishing in Essex and Mercia burhs , often designed to control the use of a river by the Danes. In 917, the Danish position in the area suddenly collapsed. A rapid succession of defeats culminated in the loss of the territories of Northampton and Huntingdon, along with

2088-403: The dynasty, which means "descendants of the wolf". An indispensable source on the early history of the kingdom and its rulers is Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People , but he provided little on the chronology of the East Anglian kings or the length of their reigns. Nothing is known of the earliest kings, or how the kingdom was organised, although a possible centre of royal power

2146-560: The early 10th century, the East Anglian Danes came under increasing pressure from Edward, King of Wessex. In 901, Edward's cousin Æthelwold ætheling , having been driven into exile after an unsuccessful bid for the throne, arrived in Essex after a stay in Northumbria. He was apparently accepted as king by some or all Danes in England and induced the East Anglian Danes to wage war on Edward in Mercia and Wessex. This ended in disaster with

2204-439: The establishment of the first East Anglian see for Felix of Burgundy at Dommoc, probably Dunwich . He later abdicated in favour of his brother Ecgric and retired to a monastery. The three daughters of Anna of East Anglia , Æthelthryth , Wendreda , Seaxburh of Ely , are associated with the founding of abbeys. The eminence of East Anglia under Rædwald fell victim to the rising power of Penda of Mercia and successors. From

2262-500: The forces of Edmund of East Anglia , who was defeated and killed at Hægelisdun and then buried at Beodericsworth. Following his death Edmund became known as 'the Martyr' and venerated as patron saint and the town of Bury St Edmunds was established there. From then on East Anglia effectively ceased to be an independent kingdom. Having defeated the East Angles, the Danes installed puppet-kings to govern on their behalf, while they resumed their campaigns against Mercia and Wessex. In 878

2320-415: The kingdom of Mercia . Several of Rædwald's successors were killed in battle, such as Sigeberht , under whose rule and with the guidance of his bishop, Felix of Burgundy , Christianity was firmly established. From the death of Æthelberht II by the Mercians in 794 until 825, East Anglia ceased to be an independent kingdom, apart from a brief reassertion under Eadwald in 796. It survived until 869, when

2378-656: The last active portion of the Great Heathen Army was defeated by Alfred the Great and withdrew from Wessex after making peace and agreeing that the Danes would treat the Christians equally . The treaty between Alfred and Guthrum acknowledged the latter's landholdings in East Anglia. In 880 the Vikings returned to East Anglia under Guthrum , who according to the medieval historian Pauline Stafford , "swiftly adapted to territorial kingship and its trappings, including

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2436-519: The latter, the sea flooded the low-lying Fens. As sea levels fell alluvium was deposited near major river estuaries and the "Great Estuary" (which the Saxon Shore forts at Burgh Castle and Caister had guarded) became closed off by a large spit of land. No East Anglian charters (and few other documents) have survived, while the medieval chronicles that refer to the East Angles are treated with great caution by scholars. So few records from

2494-600: The mid-7th to early 9th centuries Mercian power grew, until a vast region from the Thames to the Humber, including East Anglia and the south-east, came under Mercian hegemony. In the early 640s, Penda defeated and killed both Ecgric and Sigeberht, who, having retired to religious life was later venerated as a saint. Ecgric's successor Anna and Anna's son Jurmin were killed in 654 at the Battle of Bulcamp, near Blythburgh . Freed from Anna's challenge, Penda subjected East Anglia to

2552-453: The minting of coins." Along with the traditional territory of East Anglia, Cambridgeshire and parts of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire , Guthrum's kingdom probably included Essex, the one portion of Wessex to come under Danish control. A peace treaty was made between Alfred and Guthrum sometime in the 880s. Under Scandinavian control, there are settlements in East Anglia which have names with Old Norse elements , e.g. '-thorp', '-by' In

2610-536: 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 Faremoutiers Abbey as a basis for the ceremony. After Seaxburh, Æthelthryth's niece and her great-niece, both of whom were royal princesses, succeeded her as abbess of Ely. Etheldreda

2668-415: The request of Louis XIV , architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart took charge of the reconstruction of the main building of the Abbey. Anna Gonzague de Clèves-Nevers , daughter of Charles I Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua , was educated at Faremoutiers. The abbey was later tainted by Jansenism , and in the 18th century suffered from an exhausting lawsuit with the bishop of Meaux and continuing economic problems. It

2726-406: The rest of Essex: a Danish king, probably from East Anglia, was killed at Tempsford . Despite reinforcement from overseas, the Danish counter-attacks were crushed, and after the defection of many of their English subjects as Edward's army advanced, the Danes of East Anglia and of Cambridge capitulated. East Anglia was absorbed into the Kingdom of Englandin in 918. Norfolk and Suffolk became part of

2784-504: The rivers Ouse , Lark and Kennett to further westwards, as far as the Cam in what is now Cambridgeshire. At its greatest extent, the kingdom comprised the modern-day counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and parts of eastern Cambridgeshire. Erosion on the eastern border and deposition on the north coast altered the East Anglian coastline in Roman and Anglo-Saxon times (and continues to do so). In

2842-455: The royal house of East Anglia entered the Abbey of Faremoutiers: Sæthryth , the step-daughter of King Anna , Anna's daughter Æthelburh , and his grand-daughter by his daughter Seaxburh , Eorcengota (†660), daughter of Eorcenberht of Kent . Queen Balthild of Chelles was an important benefactress of the monastery, as was Erchinoald , mayor of the palace of Neustria. In the 9th century, as all French abbeys were commanded to do by Louis

2900-611: The same end in 827. The East Angles appealed to Egbert of Wessex for protection against the Mercians and Æthelstan then acknowledged Egbert as his overlord. Whilst Wessex took control of the south-eastern kingdoms absorbed by Mercia in the 8th century, East Anglia could retain its independence. In 865, East Anglia was invaded by the Danish Great Heathen Army , which occupied winter quarters and secured horses before departing for Northumbria . The Danes returned in 869 to winter at Thetford , before being attacked by

2958-478: The sumptuous ship burial at Sutton Hoo. It has been suggested by Blair, on the strength of parallels between some objects found under Mound 1 at Sutton Hoo and those discovered at Vendel in Sweden , that the Wuffingas may have been descendants of an eastern Swedish royal family. However, the items previously thought to have come from Sweden are now believed to have been made in England, and it seems less likely that

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3016-433: Was "ultimately based on the evidence of local juries" and so the spoken form of Anglo-Saxon places and people was partly preserved in this way. Evidence from Domesday Book and later sources suggests that a dialect boundary once existed, corresponding with a line that separates from their neighbours the English counties of Cambridgeshire (including the once sparsely-inhabited Fens), Norfolk and Suffolk . The kingdom of

3074-721: Was among the most powerful kingdoms in Anglo-Saxon England: he was described by Bede as the overlord of the kingdoms south of the Humber . and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle identifies him as Bretwalda . In 616, he had been strong enough to defeat and kill the Northumbrian king Æthelfrith at the Battle of the River Idle and enthrone Edwin of Northumbria . He was probably the individual honoured by

3132-533: Was her spiritual counsellor. One account relates that while Ecgfrith initially agreed Æthelthryth should continue to remain a virgin, about 672 he appealed to Wilfrid for the enforcement of his marital rights as against Etheldreda's religious vocation. The bishop succeeded at first in persuading the king to consent that Etheldreda should live for some time in peace as a sister of the Coldingham nunnery, founded by his aunt, Æbbe of Coldingham . Eventually, in light of

3190-677: Was probably born in Exning , near Newmarket in Suffolk. She was one of the four saintly daughters of Anna of East Anglia , including Wendreda and Seaxburh of Ely , all of whom eventually retired from secular life and founded abbeys . Æthelthryth made an early first marriage in around 652 to Tondberct, chief or prince of the South Gyrwe . She managed to persuade her husband to respect her vow of perpetual virginity that she had made prior to their marriage. Upon his death in 655, she retired to

3248-587: Was settled by the Anglo-Saxons earlier than many other regions, possibly at the start of the 5th century. It emerged from the political consolidation of the Angles in the approximate area of the former territory of the Iceni and the Roman civitas , with its centre at Venta Icenorum , close to Caistor St Edmund . The region that was to become East Anglia seems to have been depopulated to some extent around

3306-643: Was suppressed during the French Revolution , and the forty-three nuns were dispersed at the end of 1792. Most rejoined their families. Until 1796 the premises were used as a barracks and thereafter as a quarry. In 1923 Benedictine nuns from the Abbaye Saint-Nicolas de Verneuil settled in Amillis before founding in 1931 a small community on the site of Faremoutier abbey, which remains to this day. The Abbey of Faremoutiers now belongs to

3364-530: Was the only Anglo-Saxon kingdom with a reigning baptised king. On his death in around 624, he was succeeded by his son Eorpwald , who was soon afterwards converted from paganism under the influence of Edwin, but his new religion was evidently opposed in East Anglia and Eorpwald met his death at the hands of a pagan, Ricberht . After three years of apostasy , Christianity prevailed with the accession of Eorpwald's brother (or step-brother) Sigeberht, who had been baptised during his exile in Francia . Sigeberht oversaw

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