Edburga (Wessex) of Wessex (abt. 918 - 960)

Born about 0918 in Wessex, England

Ancestors

Died 15 Jun 0960 at about age 42 in Winchester, Hampshire, England

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Edburga (Wessex) of Wessex is a member of the House of Wessex.

Biography

Edburga was the daughter of King Edward the Elder and Eadgifu.^[1][2]

She became a nun at Nunnaminster Abbey, Winchester, Hampshire (subsequently St Mary's Abbey).^[1][2] Osbert de Clare wrote a life of her in the 12th century in which he said she was placed as an oblate in Nunnaminster Abbey at the age of 3.^[3] One story has it that, when she was three, her father had not decided whether or not she should enter a religious community. He sat her on his knee, with jewellery on one side of him and, on the other, a chalice and a copy of the Gospels, and asked her to choose between them: she prostrated herself before the chalice and Gospels book, and her vocation was thereby determined.^[4]

In 939 her half-brother King Athelstan granted her some land, at Droxford, Hampshire.^[5] This did not pass on her death to her abbey^[6] even though the gift was "eternaliter" - in perpetuity.^[5]

She died on 15 June 960 and was buried at Nunnaminster Abbey.^[1][2] Her remains were subsequently transferred to Pershore Abbey, Worcestershire.^[2]

She came to be venerated as a saint.^[1][2] According to Osbert de Clare, this was because of a miracle of a window which mysteriously refused to be closed. The first known record of her being recognised as a saint dates from the 970s.^[6]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3} Charles Cawley. Edward the Elder child 14, Eadburga, entry in "Medieval Lands" database, accessed 12 January 2021
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4} Alison Weir. Britain's Royal Families, new edition, Pimlico, 2002, p.14-15
3. ↑ Wikipedia: Eadburh of Winchester
4. ↑ Thomas Hervey. The Bishops of Winchester in the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman Periods, privately printed, 1877, pp. 91-92, Internet Archive
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1} Transcript of grant here on the Anglo-Saxons.net website, accessed 12 January 2021
6. ↑ ^{6.0 6.1} Lin Foxhall and Gabriele Neher. Gender and the City before Modernity, John Wiley and Sons, 2012, pp. 174-175, Google Books

• David Hugh Farmer (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 5th edition, Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 134, entry for 'Edburga of Winchester', Google Books