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Feminae Gloriosae: Women in the Age of Bede

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 June 2022

Joan Nicholson
Joan Nicholson*
Affiliation:
University of London Westfield College
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Extract

In 655 king Oswy of Northumbria defeated and killed Penda of Mercia near the river Winwaed. The odds were heavily against Oswy. He faced Mercian forces some three times larger than his own, his nephew Ethelwald had defected and his son Egfrid was currently held hostage by queen Cynewise of Mercia. So depressed had Oswy’s power become in the years leading up to 655 that he had even tried, unsuccessfully, to buy off Penda and although the favourable outcome at the Winwaed may have been assisted by the river’s bursting its banks, Bede, recording the victory, was inclined to regard the unexpected success as heaven-sent request for fulfilment of a vow Oswy had made, in sheer desperation, to dedicate his daughter to God and to holy virginity if he were victorious. Thus, on a wet November day, the future of the infant Elfled was sealed. Barely a year old, she was consigned to the cloister at Hartlepool, where her aunt Hild presided, and shortly transferred to Hild’s new foundation at Whitby where she grew up in the monastery which was to become preeminent in the north of England under the rule of its remarkable foundress. The outlook for the tiny princess was not one of solitary gloom.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History Subsidia , Volume 1 , 1978 , pp. 15 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1978 

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References

1 Bede, , HE, [ed] Plummer, C., [Venerabilis Baedae Opera Historica] (Oxford 1896) pp 177–8.Google Scholar

2 Ibid p 265.

3 Symeon of Durham, Historia Ecclesiae Dunhelmensis, ed T. Arnold, RS 75 (1882) I p 59.

4 Bede, HE p 243.

5 B[ede], , V[ita Sancti] C[uthberti], ed and trans Colgrave, B., Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert (Cambridge 1940) pp 264, 266.Google Scholar

6 V[ita Sancti] G[uthlaci Auctore] F[elice], ed B. Colgrave, Felix’s Life of Saint Guthlac (Cambridge 1956) p 84.

7 Bede, HE p 259.

8 Ibid p 265.

9 A[ldhelmi] 0[pera], ed R. Ehwald MGH AA 15 (Berlin 1919) p 318.

10 V[ita] B[onifatii Auctore] W[illibaldo], ed G. H. Pertz MGH SS 2 (Hanover 1829) p 335.

11 E[ddius Stephanus], V[ita] W[ilfridi Episcopi], ed and trans B. Colgrave, The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus (Cambridge 1927). pp 38, 40.

12 Bede, HE p 142.

13 Ibid p 253.

14 Ibid p 182.

15 ibid pp 253-4.

16 Ibid p 260.

17 Ibid p 252.

18 Ibid pp 127-8.

19 Ibid p 183.

20 Ibid pp 188-9; EVW p 22.

21 Bede, HE p 198.

22 EVW p 116.

23 Ibid p 88.

24 Bede, HE p 267.

25 Haddan, [A. W.] and Stubbs, [W.], [Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents] (Oxford 1964) 3 p 195.Google Scholar

26 Bede, HE p 244.

27 Ibid p 286.

28 Ibid pp 243-4.

29 V[ita\ L[eobae Abbalissae Biscofesheimansis Auctore] R[udotfo] MGH SS, ed G. Waitz, 15 (Hanover 1887) 1 p 123.

30 Ibid p 123.

31 Bede, HE p 219.

32 Ibid p 257.

33 Ibid p 220.

34 Ibid p 259.

35 A[nonymous], V[ita Sanciti] C[uthberti Auctore Anonymo], ed and trans B. Colgrave, Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert (Cambridge 1940) p 126; BVC p 262.

36 Ad[omnan,] V[ita] C[olumbani], ed and trans A. O. and M. O. Anderson (Edinburgh/London 1961) p 382.

37 BVC p 188; AVC p 80.

38 BVC p 254.

39 Bede, HE p 125.

40 [The Laws of the Earliest English Kings, ed F. L.] Attenborough (Cambridge 1922) [Lawcode of] Ethelbert cap 74.

41 Epistola Bede ad Egbertum Episcopum, ed Plummer, pp 415-16.

42 Haddan and Stubbs 3 p 195.

43 AdVC p 438.

44 Haddan and Stubbs 3 p 200.

45 Bede, HE p 322.

46 Ibid p 225.

47 Ibid p 163.

48 Ibid pp 303-4.

49 Ibid p 243.

50 Ibid p 244.

51 Ibid p 246.

52 EVW p 70.

53 Haddan and Stubbs 3 p 354.

54 VLR p 128.

55 Haddan and Stubbs 3 p 189.

56 Ibid p 190.

57 VBW p 334.

58 AO p 501.

59 Bede, HE p 99.

60 [Beowulf and Judith, ed E. V. K.] Dobbie (New York 1953) line 2017.

61 Ibid lines 2032-66.

62 Bede, HE p 249.

63 Ibid p 355.

64 Ibid p 180.

65 [Anglo-Saxon Poetry, trans R. K.] Gordon (London 1926) pp 79-80.

66 Attenborough, Hlothere and Eadric cap 6, Ine cap 38.

67 Bede, HE p 126.

68 Ibid p 157.

69 Attenborough, Ethelbert caps 30, 31.

70 Bede, HE p 45.

71 EVW pp 26, 28.

72 Bede, HE p 45.

73 Haddan and Stubbs 3 p 17.

74 Bede, HE p 90.

75 Ibid p 142.

76 Ibid pp 92-3.

77 William of Malmesbury, De gestis regum anglorum, ed W. Stubbs, Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi, RS 90 (1887) I p 15; Haddan and Stubbs 3 p 70. A spurious charter in which Emma, Francorum regis filia, regis Eadbaldi copula appears on the witness list seems to support William of Malmesbury.

78 Bede, HE p 97.

79 Ibid pp 106-13.

80 Ibid p 116.

81 Ibid p 126.

82 Ibid p 124.

83 Ibid p 268.

84 EVW p 6.

85 Bede, HE p 180.

86 EVW p 6.

87 Bede, HE p 110.

88 ADVC p 425.

89 Gordon p 311.

90 Dobbie lines 615-18.

91 EVW p 128.

92 Ibid p 78.

93 Ibid p 80.

94 Ibid p 92.

95 Ibid p 10.

96 Ibid pp 54, 84.

97 Bede, HE p 148.

98 The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great by an Anonymous Monk of Whitby, ed B. Colgrave (Lawrence 1968) p 103.

99 BVC pp 234, 236; AVC pp 102, 104.

100 Bede, HE pp 266-7.

101 BVC pp 242, 244.

102 Gordon pp 79-80.

103 BVC p 168.

104 BVC p 262; AVC p 126.

105 Bede, HE p 149.

106 EVW p 78.

107 Haddan and Stubbs 3 p 381.

108 , S. Bonifatii et Lulli epistolae, ed Dümmler, E., MGH Epp 3 (Berlin 1892) p 278.Google Scholar

109 Haddan and Stubbs p 381.

110 VGF p 112.

111 Ibid p 146.

112 Ibid pp 154, 158.

113 Bede, HE pp 267-8.

114 EVW p 48.