THECLA, ST.

Member of the Anglo-Saxon mission to Germany, also given as Tecla; b. England; d. ca. 790. She became a nun at wimborne. At the request of St. boniface, one of whose extant letters (No. 67) is addressed to her, she was sent by her abbess, Tetta, to work with lioba in Germany. At first she lived in the Abbey at Bischofsheim, over which Lioba, her relative, presided. Later, Boniface made her abbess of Ochsenfurt, and still later she succeeded Hadeloga (?), the foundress and abbess of Kitzingen. Thecla's name, however, does not appear in the extant list of abbesses of that house, but possibly it is she who is listed simply as "Heilga," the saint. During her years in Germany, she worked diligently for the spread of Christian culture. Her relics were scattered during the Peasants' War in the 16th century.

Feast: Oct. 15.

Bibliography: Acta Sanctorum Oct. 7.1:59–64. j. b. stamminger, Franconia sacra (Würzburg 1889–) 1:79–86. willibald of mainz, Vita quarta Bonifatii, ed. w. levison, Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Berlin 1826–), Scriptores rerum Germanicarum Ser. 6, 53:95. a. m. zimmermann, Kalendarium Benedictinum: Die Heiligen und Seligen des Benediktinerorderns und seiner Zweige, 4 v. (Metten 1933–38) 3:182–183. r. bauerreiss, Kirchengeschichte Bayerns (2d ed. Munich 1958–) 1:56, 99. a. j. festugiÈre, tr., Sainte Thècle, saints Côme et Damien, saints Cyr et Jean, saint Georges (Paris 1971). s. misser, El libro de Santa Tecla (Barcelona 1977). g. dagron and m. duprÉ la tour, trs. and eds., Vie et miracles de sainte Thècle (Brussels 1978). c. nauerth, Thekla, ihre Bilder in der frühchristlichen Kunst (Wiesbaden 1981). r. al brecht, Das Leben der heiligen Makrina auf dem Hintergrund der Thekla-Traditionen: Studien zu dem Ursprüngen des weiblichen Mönchtums im 4. Jahrhundert in Kleinasien (Göttingen 1986). m. migliarini, Alle origini del Duomo: la basilica e il culto di santa Tecla (Milan 1990). s. j. davis, The Cult of Saint Thecla (Oxford 2001).

[l. meagher]