ETHELREDA, QUEEN OF NORTHUMBRIA, ST.

Abbess, most popular of Anglo-Saxon women saints; b. Exning, Suffolk, England, c. 630; d. Ely, June 23, 679. Etheldreda (Ediltrudis or Ethelreda) was the daughter of Anna, King of East Anglia. While young she was married to Tonbert, a prince of the Gyrvii who endowed her with the land now called the Isle of Ely. She apparently lived in virginity with him, and after his early death she formally embraced the religious life for five years. Diplomatic considerations brought her out of the convent, and she was married to Egfrid, ultimately king of Northumbria. She seems never to have lived in wedlock with her husband, although there was a spirited argument about her marital duties in which St. wilfrid apparently supported her vocation to virginity. After 12 years Egfrid consented to her return to the convent, and she took the veil at Coldingham from Wilfrid. A year later she returned to ely where she became abbess. After her death from the plague (which she foretold), her shrine became one of the principal sites of pilgrimage in England. The later form of her name "Audrey" gave rise to the word "tawdry" because of the cheap souvenirs hawked at her shrine. The church bearing her name in London's Ely Place is the only Catholic church in the metropolis whose structure dates to the Middle Ages. In art, St. Etheldreda is frequently represented as a crowned abbess.

Feast: June 23.

Bibliography: Acta Sanctorum June 5 (1863) 417–495. bede, Ecclesiastical History 4.3. Liber Eliensis, ed. e. o. blake (Camden 3d ser., v.92; London 1962). Liber Eliensis, ed. e. o. blake (London 1962), attributed variously to thomas of ely and richard of ely. c. w. stubbs, Historical Memorials of Ely Cathedral (New York 1897) 1–94.

[j. l. druse]