Curiously, work in 2022 on a manuscript of the Acts of the
Apostles that we know was created in Kent during Eadburh’s lifetime revealed
her name incised in the parchment no fewer than 15 times. The name also appeared preceded by a
cross. These incisions were very faint
and difficult to see with the naked eye, but they have been revealed clearly
using special photographic techniques.
We do not know who this Eadburh was, but she was in possession of this
book and felt attached to it sufficiently to write her name multiple
times. The cross preceding her name
could be taken to indicate she was an Abbess.
So there is a possibility that this manuscript is actually autographed
by St Eadburh. We may not ever know this
for certain, but this is a fascinating discovery that if nothing else confirms
that literate women were possessing and using books in Kent in the first half
of the 8th Century.
As abbess, Eadburh set to work promoting the cult of St Mildrith and building for her a new abbey in which she created a shrine. This work was clearly successful, as St Mildrith gained considerable popularity and was the subject of high levels of pilgrimage from within England and the Low Countries. It certainly encouraged the Abbot of St Augustine’s Abbey to want to have her relics at his abbey in Canterbury.
Until recently, little more could be said about
Eadburh. However, a manuscript in the Cathedral Library at Hereford has
recently been identified as the sole surviving copy of a Life and Miracles of St Eadburh.
It was first published in 2019. This is
a manuscript dating to around the year 1000, and it relates that the shrine of
St Eadburh, Abbess of Minster, is at Lyminge. This is curious, but we
know from charter evidence that Lyminge and Minster were under the rule of a
single abbess, Selethryth, in the early 9th Century and that the blessed
Eadburh was buried at Lyminge by 804. Selethryth is an unusual name, and
it seems highly likely that she was the same Selethryth who was sister to one
of the powerful nobles at the court of the King of Mercia. At this time,
it was Mercia that was dominating the Early Medieval Kingdoms of England, and
there is good reason to see Selethryth as securing the interests of the King of
Mercia through prayer, just as royal women had been doing for the past century
and half for the Kings of Kent.
It is quite possible that Selethryth moved Eadburh’s relics to Lyminge as part of a plan to promote her cult there and develop pilgrimage, just as Eadburh herself had done with St Mildrith in Minster. Although this does not seem to have been quite as successful as the efforts with Mildrith, the profile of Eadburh must have been sufficiently great to justify the creation of a hagiography (or holy biography) around the year 1000. By this time Lyminge was in the possession of Christ Church, the monastic house associated with the Cathedral in Canterbury. Not long afterwards in 1085, Archbishop Lanfranc thought Eadburh’s relics were of sufficient value to justify translating them to his new foundation dedicated to St Gregory in Canterbury, along with those of Queen Æthelburh. Shortly thereafter, we can see St Eadburh’s feast day being inserted into the liturgical calendar used in Canterbury Cathedral, so she was sufficiently important to be celebrated at the very heart of Christianity in England.
But over time, it was gradually forgotten who Eadburh
was. The church at Lyminge remained dedicated to St Mary and St Eadburg,
but it was also well-known that the church had been founded by Queen
Æthelburh. It came to be thought that the name Eadburh (or in Latin
Edburga) must be a variant of the name Æthelburh (or in Latin
Ethelburga), so it came to be believed that the church in Lyminge was in
reality dedicated to St Mary and St Ethelburga. Eventually, in 1897, the
Rector of Lyminge actually started calling the church St Mary and St
Ethelburga, and this is the dedication it holds to this day. Sadly, for
many years, St Eadburh, the Abbess of Minster, has been forgotten.
Through the Royal Saxon Way, we hope to bring her back into the spotlight and
restore her rightful position as the patron saint of Lyminge, alongside the
founder St Ethelburga. In 2020, the Parish Council in
Lyminge voted to restore the ancient name of the spring, the source of the Nailbourne stream, close to
the church. This spring features in some of the miracles of St Eadburg,
so we have good reason to believe this was St Eadburg’s Well for well over a
thousand years. It is once again.