{"id":7889,"date":"2020-02-20T14:44:11","date_gmt":"2020-02-20T14:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/?p=7889"},"modified":"2020-02-20T14:44:13","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T14:44:13","slug":"st-mildred-and-other-saints-fascinating-stories-and-contested-identities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/st-mildred-and-other-saints-fascinating-stories-and-contested-identities\/","title":{"rendered":"St Mildred and other saints – fascinating stories and contested identities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\nthought I would begin with some news and then turn to the planning for the\nexhibition at Eastbridge Hospital on \u2018Kentish Saints and Martyrs\u2019 in late\nAugust\/early September 2020. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

As you may have gathered 2020 is a major anniversary for many things in addition to Thomas Becket, and among these it is a century since the establishment of what was initially the Canterbury Archaeological Society, but which several years ago was changed to the Canterbury Historical and Archaeological Society [CHAS]. To mark this, CHAS has teamed up with the Centre and we will be holding a joint conference in February 2021. As it will be after Becket 2020, which as well as marking Becket\u2019s murder (1170) will highlight his Translation (1220), the Centre\/CHAS conference will focus on significant Canterbury events each century from 1320 to 2020. Plans are at an early stage but having had a meeting this week with the chairman of CHAS, I hope to be able to announce the date in February very shortly and maybe the names of some, at least, of the eight speakers. This is an exciting venture and I\u2019ll keep you posted as things develop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Note Becket’s image on the side<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So to the exhibition, and I met up with Stephanie Barnes, a taught Masters MEMS student, and Dr Diane Heath yesterday (Wednesday) to think about how we might tackle the issue of engaging with a potentially diverse audience at Eastbridge. Having put on a very successful exhibition on \u2018Medieval Faversham\u2019 in that town a couple of summers ago, we would like to repeat that success nearer to home. We will use as our base line the six talks in various parish churches that highlight various aspects of the cult of saints and without duplicating the information, we will adopt a complementary thematic approach for our pop-up banners or similar. For the talks, please see: https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/kentish-saints-using-archaeology-texts-and-material-culture\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is all very exciting and Diane is determined that medieval animals will feature somewhere, whether it is the falcon saved by St Thomas, or a starling \u2013 or is it a chough? (and there were also a couple of pigs). The Thanet deer [hind] will probably be in evidence, too, whereby the isle was divided in the famous story for the benefit of the monastery that Domne Eafe, the daughter of King Eormenred of Kent, wished to establish following the murder of her two brothers by their cousin (or his chief minister). The land (48 hides) to be given to Domne Eafe by her contrite cousin as a way to end the family feud and any further bloodshed. This monastery of Minster-in-Thanet had as its first abbess Domme Eafe and she was followed by Mildred (Mildrith), her daughter, first as a nun and later as the second abbess \u2013 who became St Mildred. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pilgrims in the Becket Miracle Windows<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From\nthe Canterbury perspective, this gets even more interesting in the 11th<\/sup>\nand 13th<\/sup> centuries because the relics of St Mildred became a bone of\ncontention (sorry) between St Augustine\u2019s Abbey, Lanfranc\u2019s guild of priests\nwho were followed by the Augustinian canons of St Gregory\u2019s Priory, and Christ\nChurch Priory. In 1030 St Augustine\u2019s Abbey claimed the relics of St Mildred as\npart of its annexing of the monastic estates which had belonged to the house at\nMinster-in-Thanet. The abbot at St Augustine\u2019s met considerable opposition from\nthe Thanet islanders who did not wish to lose \u2018their\u2019 saint, but having the\nking\u2019s backing the abbot was able to translate the relics to Canterbury, though\nnot before he had promised to celebrate her feast at St Augustine\u2019s on the same\nscale as that of the abbey\u2019s most important saints and to ensure that a mass\nwas celebrated daily over her relics. This promise was apparently kept, at\nleast after 1091, because even though her relics spent some time in the north porticus<\/em>,\nafter the rebuilding at the abbey church her relics, along with those of\nseveral Anglo-Saxon archbishops, were translated to altars in the new choir.\nAccording to later sources, the altar of St Mildred was the fourth on the north\nside from that of St Augustine, placing it in the chapel of the Holy Innocents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, others had their eyes on these female Anglo-Saxon royal saints, and, according to chronicle evidence, in 1085 \u2018Archbishop Lanfranc had the body of St Eadburg at Lyminge (another early Anglo-Saxon monastery) translated to St Gregory\u2019s\u2019, but within four years the clerks were claiming that they had the relics of St Eadburg of Minster-in-Thanet and her predecessor, St Mildred. In order to highlight their claim to St Mildred, the clerks kept her feast day (13 July) with great ceremony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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St Gregory’s Priory seal [from the British Library]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Lanfranc\u2019s\napparently greater enthusiasm in later life for his saintly Anglo-Saxon\npredecessors may, therefore, have extended to these female royal saints. In\naddition, the resulting scribal \u2018war\u2019 between monks at Christ Church Priory and\nSt Augustine\u2019s over the fate of St Mildred\u2019s relics \u2013 Osbern seemingly the monk\nat Christ Church cited by Goscelin as having \u2018defamed St Mildreth by arguing\nthat St Gregory\u2019s Priory in Canterbury, not St Augustine\u2019s Abbey, possessed\nMildreth\u2019s genuine relics\u2019 \u2013 is an interesting development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I\nwrote in 2012, things had not really been resolved when the canons arrived in\n1133, for they entered what was already a fairly-congested spiritual landscape\nand this space would become even more crowded over the next one hundred and\nfifty years. At the heart of this conflict was the resting place of St\nMildred\u2019s relics, for as we have seen both houses claimed that they had the\nbody of this Anglo-Saxon saint, and it is the canons\u2019 creative use of their\nclaim through the production of a foundation charter, its inclusion in their\ncartulary, and the making of a seal that I focused on in the article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being unable to produce a legend about the foundation of Lanfranc\u2019s religious house, the canons were able to put forward a foundation charter, or at least they had a copy of this \u2018charter\u2019 as the first entry in their cartulary which was produced in the early 13th<\/sup> century. According to the \u2018foundation charter\u2019, Lanfranc had established St Gregory\u2019s for his soul and that of King William, the house receiving the relics of the virgin saints St Eadburg and St Mildred, and the body of Ethelburg, queen of Northumbria, who was said to be St Eadburg\u2019s sister, the relics having been in the church of Lyminge from ancient times. The \u2018charter\u2019 also mentions the relics of certain, unnamed Anglo-Saxon archbishops that came to St Gregory\u2019s from Canterbury Cathedral to bring honour on the new foundation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Carved heads at St Mildred’s church, Canterbury<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Two\nother events had taken place just prior to the latest date of c.1240 for the\ncartulary. Firstly, in 1224, according to a Canterbury chronicle fragment, the\n\u2018elevation\u2019 of certain relics took place at St Gregory\u2019s Priory, and the relics\ninvolved were those of the abbesses St Eadburg and St Mildred, and Queen\nAelburg (sic<\/em>) of Northumbria, the daughter of King Ethelbert. Very soon\nafter the canons replaced their house\u2019s seal. The new seal has a more complex\ndesign, including Lanfranc seated on a throne with mitre and pall, and on\neither side of him are smaller niches in which saints sit on thrones, that on\nhis right being St Eadburg, that on his left St Mildred. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we put these three events together, and remembering what had happened in Canterbury Cathedral in 1220, things become fascinating. For Becket\u2019s translation had been witnessed by the king, members of the aristocracy, prelates, monks, and probably the prior and canons of St Gregory\u2019s, who over the next couple of years must have been aware of the growth in the number of pilgrims and the financial implications for the Christ Church monks. Furthermore, they were presumably aware of the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, which included the prohibition of venerating relics not authenticated by the Roman church. Taking these points together, for the canons the evidence of the financial advantages of reviving their saints\u2019 cults might have been overwhelming but it had to be done in accordance with the papal directive to be successful. This was especially true because the abbot at St Augustine\u2019s, their rival in terms of St Mildred, was intending to embark on an ambitious rebuilding scheme, which was likely to draw potential funds away from St Gregory\u2019s that could not match the prestige of the great abbey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From cathedral priory to abbey and beyond St Martin’s church<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Even if only some of these factors were significant, they may help to explain the canons\u2019 actions. In terms of the relics themselves those of St Mildred were presumably the most valuable because, even though it is difficult to gauge how important she was locally and regionally, there were three parish churches dedicated to her in the Canterbury diocese, including, of course, one in Canterbury not far from the castle that was held by St Augustine\u2019s. Also, it is worth noting that Mildred remained relatively popular as a female name in Kent during the Middle Ages. Although it is impossible to know where her altar (and chapel) would have been located in the priory\u2019s church, it seems highly likely it would have been at\/near the east end; that is, the area reconstructed again in the early thirteenth century after the second fire at the priory. Consequently, the \u2018elevation\u2019 of 1224, the (re)telling of the house\u2019s foundation, and probably the celebration of her feast day re-established St Gregory\u2019s as a place of veneration for St Mildred, a position that was enhanced by linking her to St Eadburg, as well as Queen Ethelburg, because it drew attention to the connections between the two ancient royal monasteries of Minster-in-Thanet and Lyminge, and the archiepiscopal foundation of St Gregory\u2019s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Domne Eafe’s hind – Minster-in-Thanet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Of\ncourse, how far such activities by the canons can be seen as \u2018successful\u2019 is a\nmoot point but in terms of building work there, the second quarter of the\nthirteenth century, the \u2018elevation\u2019 in 1224 and associated activities were a\nsignificant part of the initiative to provide their saints with suitable\nresting places in the twice-rebuilt priory church. Moreover, the canons\ncontinued to maintain that they held St Mildred\u2019s relics into the fifteenth\ncentury, though whether such claims furthered their building plans in the later\nperiod is far from clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now\ntoday I have largely concentrated on the later controversies associated with\njust one of Canterbury\u2019s saints, but I hope you can see that these individuals\nare as fascinating post mortem<\/em> as in\nlife, and, in our exhibition, we hope you will find \u2018our\u2019 saints and martyrs\nequally interesting.   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I thought I would begin with some news and then turn to the planning for the exhibition at Eastbridge Hospital on \u2018Kentish Saints and Martyrs\u2019 in late August\/early September 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6665,"featured_media":7890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[973,6021,2374,822,1001,977,818,5394,5762,982,1162,986,1029,817],"tags":[3505,7610,7238,5401,9,317,1573,457,3066,7606,2438,273,845,4497,7613,6325,7617,289,5101,1350,2310,1129],"class_list":["post-7889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic","category-anglo-saxon","category-archaeology","category-blog-posts","category-canterbury","category-conference","category-events","category-exhibition","category-heritage","category-kent","category-lecture","category-local-and-regional-history","category-middle-ages","category-news","tag-archbishop-lanfranc","tag-augustinian-canons","tag-becket-2020","tag-beckets-miracle-windows","tag-canterbury","tag-canterbury-cathedral","tag-canterbury-historical-and-archaeological-society","tag-chas","tag-christ-church-priory","tag-domne-eafe","tag-dr-diane-heath","tag-eastbridge-hospital","tag-lyminge","tag-medieval-faversham","tag-medieval-pilgrims","tag-minster-in-thanet","tag-northumbria","tag-st-augustines-abbey","tag-st-gregorys-priory","tag-st-martins-church","tag-st-mildred","tag-st-mildreds-church"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"authorName":"Sheila Sweetinburgh","featuredImage":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/445\/2020\/02\/001_regular_canons_sweetinburgh_WITH_IMAGES.jpg","postExcerpt":"I thought I would begin with some news and then turn to the planning for the exhibition at Eastbridge Hospital on \u2018Kentish Saints and Martyrs\u2019 in late August\/early September 2020.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6665"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7889"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7894,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7889\/revisions\/7894"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}