Æthelthryth

Also known as Audrey, Etheldreda, Æþelðryþe, Ethelreda, Ediltrudis, Athelthryth, Etheldreda de Ely, Santa audrey

Æthelthryth (or Æðelþryð or Æþelðryþe; 4 March 63623 June 679) 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 was "in turns, princess, wife, queen, nun and abbess, enjoying every possible position of power a woman could claim in early Anglo-Saxon England".

Key facts

Saint.honorific_prefix: Saint
Saint.name: Æthelthryth
Saint.birth_date: 4 March 636
Saint.feast_day: 23 June (Catholic),17 October (Anglican)
Saint.venerated_in: Eastern Orthodox Church, True Orthodox ChurchCatholic ChurchAnglican Communion
Saint.image: St-aethelthryth.jpg
Saint.caption: Saint Æthelthrythfrom Benedictional of St Æthelwold, 10 C British Library
Saint.birth_place: Exning, Suffolk
Saint.death_place: Ely, Cambridgeshire
Saint.titles: Virgin, Abbess of Ely
Saint.attributes: Abbess holding a model of Ely Cathedral
Saint.patronage: Throat complaints
Saint.major_shrine: St Etheldreda's Church, Ely Place, Holborn, London; Originally Ely Cathedral (now destroyed)

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Wikidata facts

Image: Salisbury Cathedral St Etheldreda.jpg

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Commons category: Æthelthryth of East Anglia, Queen of Northumbria
date of birth: 0636-01-01
date of death: 0679-00-00
name in native language: Æthelthryth, Etheldreda

Sources (3)

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Article

13 sections

Contents

Hagiography
Life
Death, burial, and miracle
Legacy
Festival
Namesake Churches
Language
Visual art and fiction
See also
References
Sources
Further reading
External links

== Hagiography == 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 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.