XIX. How Queen Ethelthryth always preserved her virginity,
and her body suffered no corruption in the grave. [660-696 A.D.]
CHAP. XIX.
How Queen Ethelthryth always preserved her virginity, and her body suffered no
corruption in the grave. [660-696 A.D.]
KING EGFRID took to wife Ethelthryth, the daughter of Anna,king of the East
Angles, of whom mention has been often made; a man of true religion, and
altogether noble in mind and deed. She had before been given in marriage to
another, to wit, Tondbert, ealdormanof the Southern Gyrwas; but he died soon
after he had married her, and she was given to the aforesaid king. Though she
lived with him twelve years, yet she preserved the glory of perfect virginity,
as I was informed by Bishop Wilfrid, of blessed memory, of whom I inquired,
because some questioned the truth thereof; and he told me that he was an
undoubted witness to her virginity, forasmuch as Egfrid promised to give him
many lands and much money if he could persuade the queen to consent to fulfil
her marriage duty, for he knew the queen loved no man more than himself. And it
is not to be doubted that this might take place in our age, which true histories
tell us happened sometimes in former ages, by the help of the same Lord who
promises to abide with us always, even unto the end of the world. For the divine
miracle whereby her flesh, being buried, could not suffer corruption, is a token
that she had not been defiled by man.
She had long asked of the king that he would permit her to lay aside worldly
cares, and to serve only Christ, the true King, in a monastery; and having at
length with difficulty prevailed, she entered the monastery of the Abbess
Aebba,who was aunt to King Egfrid, at the place called the city of Coludi,having
received the veil of the religious habit from the hands of the aforesaid Bishop
Wilfrid; but a year after she was herself made abbess in the district called
Elge, (Ely) where, having built a monastery, she began, by the example of a
heavenly life and by her teaching, to be the virgin mother of many virgins
dedicated to God. It is told of her that from the time of her entering the
monastery, she would never wear any linen but only woollen garments, and would
seldom wash in a hot bath, unless just before the greater festivals, as Easter,
Whitsuntide, and the Epiphany, and then she did it last of all, when the other
handmaids of Christ who were there had been washed, served by her and her
attendants. She seldom ate more than once a day, excepting on the greater
festivals, or some urgent occasion. Always, except when grievous sickness
prevented her, from the time of matins till day-break, she continued in the
church at prayer. Some also say, that by the spirit of prophecy she not only
foretold the pestilence of which she was to die, but also, in the presence of
all, revealed the number of those that should be then snatched away from this
world out of her monastery. She was taken to the Lord, in the midst of her
flock, seven years after she had been made abbess; and, as she had ordered, was
buried among them in a wooden coffin in her turn, according to the order in
which she had passed away.
She was succeeded in the office of abbess by her sister Sexburg,who had been
wife to Earconbert, king of Kent. This abbess, when her sister had been buried
sixteen years, thought fit to take up her bones, and, putting them into a new
coffin, to translate them into the church. Accordingly she ordered some of the
brothers to find a stone whereof to make a coffin for this purpose. They went on
board ship, for the district of Ely is on every side encompassed with water and
marshes, and has no large stones, and came to a small deserted city, not far
from thence, which, in the language of the English, is called Grantacaestir,
(Grantchester, near Cambridge) and presently, near the city walls, they found a
white marble coffin, most beautifully wrought, and fitly covered with a lid of
the same sort of stone. Perceiving, therefore, that the Lord had prospered their
journey, they returned thanks to Him and carried it to the monastery.
When the grave was opened and the body of the holy virgin and bride of Christ
was brought into the light of day, it was found as free from corruption as if
she had died and been buried on that very day; as the aforesaid Bishop Wilfrid,
and many others that know it, testify. But the physician, Cynifrid, who was
present at her death, and when she was taken up out of the grave, had more
certain knowledge. He was wont to relate that in her sickness she had a very
great tumour under her jaw. "And I was ordered," said he, "to lay open that
tumour to let out the noxious matter in it, which I did, and she seemed to be
somewhat more easy for two days, so that many thought she might recover from her
infirmity; but on the third day she was attacked by the former pains, and being
soon snatched out of the world, she exchanged all pain and death for everlasting
life and health. And when, so many years after, her bones were to be taken out
of the grave, a pavilion being spread over it, and all the congregation, the
brothers on the one side, and the sisters on the other, standing about it
singing, while the abbess, with a few others, had gone within to take up and
wash the bones, on a sudden we heard the abbess within cry out with a loud
voice, 'Glory be to the name of the Lord.' Not long after they called me in,
opening the door of the pavilion, and I found the body of the holy virgin taken
out of the grave and laid on a bed, like one asleep; then taking off the veil
from the face, they also showed me that the incision which I had made was healed
up; so that, in marvellous wise, instead of the open gaping wound with which she
had been buried, there then appeared only the slightest trace of a scar.
Besides, all the linen clothes in which the body had been wrapped, appeared
entire and as fresh as if they had been that very day put about her chaste
limbs."
It is said that when she was sore troubled with the aforesaid tumour and pain in
her jaw and neck, she took great pleasure in that sort of sickness, and was wont
to say, "I know of a surety that I deservedly bear the weight of my trouble on
my neck, for I remember that, when I was a young maiden, I bore on it the
needless weight of necklaces; and therefore I believe the Divine goodness would
have me endure the pain in my neck, that so I may be absolved from the guilt of
my needless levity, having now, instead of gold and pearls, the fiery heat of a
tumour rising on my neck." It happened also that by the touch of those same
linen clothes devils were expelled from bodies possessed, and other diseases
were at divers times healed; and the coffin wherein she was first buried is said
to have cured some of infirmities of the eyes, who, praying with their heads
resting upon that coffin, were presently relieved of the pain or dimness in
their eyes. So they washed the virgin's body, and having clothed it in new
garments, brought it into the church, and laid it in the sarcophagus that had
been brought, where it is held in great veneration to this day. The sarcophagus
was found in a wonderful manner to fit the virgin's body as if it had been made
purposely for her, and the place for the head, which was fashioned separately,
appeared exactly shaped to the measurement of her head.
Elge is in the province of the East Angles, a district of about six hundred
families, of the nature of an island, encompassed, as has been said, with
marshes or waters, and therefore it has its name from the great plenty of eels
taken in those marshes; there the aforesaid handmaid of Christ desired to have a
monastery, because, as we have before mentioned, she came, according to the
flesh, of that same province of the East Angles.
