Osyth
Encyclopedia
Osgyth (died 700 AD) was an English saint
. She is primarily commemorated in the village of Saint Osyth, Essex
, near Colchester
. Alternative spellings of her name include Sythe, Othith and Ositha.
(at that time part of Mercia
), she was the daughter of Frithwald, a sub-king of Mercia in Surrey, and was the niece of Saint Edith and Saint Edburga of Bicester
. Her mother was Wilburga, the daughter of the pagan
King Penda of Mercia
.
Raised in a convent
in Warwickshire
under the direction of Saint Modwen
her ambition was to become an abbess
, but she was too important as a dynastic pawn to be set aside.
Forced by her father into a dynastic marriage with Sighere
, King of Essex
, she did her dynastic duty and produced him a son. While her husband ran off to hunt down a beautiful white stag, Osgyth persuaded two local bishops to accept her vows as a nun. Then, eventually, perhaps after Sighere's death, she established a convent at Chich, in Essex, where she ruled as first abbess.
She was murdered by Danish Viking
marauders in 700.
Her death was accounted a martyrdom by some, but Bede
makes no mention of Saint Osgyth. The 13th-century chronicler Matthew Paris
repeats some of the legend that had accrued around her name. The site of her martyrdom became transferred to the holy spring at Quarrendon. The holy spring at Quarrendon, mentioned in the time of Osgyth's aunts, now became associated with her legend, in which Osgyth stood up after her execution, picking up her head like Saint Denis
in Paris, and other cephalophoric martyrs
and walking with it in her hands, to the door of a local convent, before collapsing there. Some modern authors link the legends of cephalophores miraculously walking with their heads in their hands to the Celtic
cult of heads.
by the Dane King Canute, who granted it to Earl Godwin
, and by him it was given to Christ Church
, Canterbury
. At the Conquest it was transferred to the Bishopric of London
.
On the site of a former nunnery at Chich, Richard de Belmeis of London, in the reign of Henry I
founded a priory for canons of Saint Augustine, and dedicated it to Saint Osgyth; his remains were buried in the chancel of the church in 1127: he bequeathed the church and tithes to the canons, who elected as their first abbot or prior William de Corbeil
, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury
(died in 1136).
His benefactions, and charters and privileges granted by Henry II
, made the Canons wealthy: at the Dissolution of the monasteries
in 1536, its revenues were valued at £758 5s. 8d. yearly. In 1397 the abbot of St Osgyth was granted the right to wear a mitre
and give the solemn benediction, and, more singularly, the right to ordain priests, conferred by Pope Boniface IX
. The gatehouse (illustrated), the so-called 'Abbot's Tower' and some ranges of buildings remain.
Osgyth's burial site at Saint Mary's Church in Aylesbury
became a site of great, though unauthorized pilgrimage
; following a papal decree in 1500, the bones were removed from the church and buried in secret. The Catholic Encyclopedia
(1913) gives Saint Osgyth no mention. Undeterred, according to the curious 17th-century antiquary John Aubrey
(author of the Brief Lives), "in those days, when they went to bed they did rake up the fire, and make a X on the ashes, and pray to God and Saint Sythe to deliver them from fire, and from water, and from all misadventure." A house in Aylesbury is still called Saint Osgyth's House in her honour.
Her feast day is 7 October. She is normally depicted carrying her own head
.
Saint
A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...
. She is primarily commemorated in the village of Saint Osyth, Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
, near Colchester
Colchester
Colchester is an historic town and the largest settlement within the borough of Colchester in Essex, England.At the time of the census in 2001, it had a population of 104,390. However, the population is rapidly increasing, and has been named as one of Britain's fastest growing towns. As the...
. Alternative spellings of her name include Sythe, Othith and Ositha.
Life
Born in Quarrendon, BuckinghamshireBuckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
(at that time part of Mercia
Mercia
Mercia was one of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was centred on the valley of the River Trent and its tributaries in the region now known as the English Midlands...
), she was the daughter of Frithwald, a sub-king of Mercia in Surrey, and was the niece of Saint Edith and Saint Edburga of Bicester
Edburga of Bicester
Eadburh of Bicester was an English saint from the 7th century. A daughter of King Penda of Mercia, Edburga was a nun for most of her life....
. Her mother was Wilburga, the daughter of the pagan
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
King Penda of Mercia
Penda of Mercia
Penda was a 7th-century King of Mercia, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom in what is today the English Midlands. A pagan at a time when Christianity was taking hold in many of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Penda took over the Severn Valley in 628 following the Battle of Cirencester before participating in the...
.
Raised in a convent
Convent
A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...
in Warwickshire
Warwickshire
Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...
under the direction of Saint Modwen
Saint Modwen
Modwen, or Modwenna, was an English nun and saint, who founded Burton-on-Trent Abbey in Staffordshire, England, in the 7th century.She was an Irish noblewoman by birth, and founded the abbey on an island in the River Trent. Modwenna spent seven years at the abbey with two other Irish nuns called...
her ambition was to become an abbess
Abbess
An abbess is the female superior, or mother superior, of a community of nuns, often an abbey....
, but she was too important as a dynastic pawn to be set aside.
Forced by her father into a dynastic marriage with Sighere
Sighere of Essex
Sighere was the joint king of the Kingdom of Essex along with his brother Sebbi from 664 to 683. He was outlived by Sebbi, who became the sole ruler of Essex after his death. Sighere and Sebbi were cousins of their predecessor Swithelm. While Sighere returned to paganism, Sebbi remained...
, King of Essex
Kingdom of Essex
The Kingdom of Essex or Kingdom of the East Saxons was one of the seven traditional kingdoms of the so-called Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was founded in the 6th century and covered the territory later occupied by the counties of Essex, Hertfordshire, Middlesex and Kent. Kings of Essex were...
, she did her dynastic duty and produced him a son. While her husband ran off to hunt down a beautiful white stag, Osgyth persuaded two local bishops to accept her vows as a nun. Then, eventually, perhaps after Sighere's death, she established a convent at Chich, in Essex, where she ruled as first abbess.
She was murdered by Danish Viking
Viking
The term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...
marauders in 700.
Her death was accounted a martyrdom by some, but Bede
Bede
Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...
makes no mention of Saint Osgyth. The 13th-century chronicler Matthew Paris
Matthew Paris
Matthew Paris was a Benedictine monk, English chronicler, artist in illuminated manuscripts and cartographer, based at St Albans Abbey in Hertfordshire...
repeats some of the legend that had accrued around her name. The site of her martyrdom became transferred to the holy spring at Quarrendon. The holy spring at Quarrendon, mentioned in the time of Osgyth's aunts, now became associated with her legend, in which Osgyth stood up after her execution, picking up her head like Saint Denis
Denis
Saint Denis is a Christian martyr and saint. In the third century, he was Bishop of Paris. He was martyred in connection with the Decian persecution of Christians, shortly after A.D. 250...
in Paris, and other cephalophoric martyrs
Cephalophore
A cephalophore is a saint who is generally depicted carrying his or her own head; in art, this was usually meant to signify that the subject in question had been martyred by beheading....
and walking with it in her hands, to the door of a local convent, before collapsing there. Some modern authors link the legends of cephalophores miraculously walking with their heads in their hands to the Celtic
Celtic polytheism
Celtic polytheism, commonly known as Celtic paganism, refers to the religious beliefs and practices adhered to by the Iron Age peoples of Western Europe now known as the Celts, roughly between 500 BCE and 500 CE, spanning the La Tène period and the Roman era, and in the case of the Insular Celts...
cult of heads.
Veneration
Later, the manor of Chich (now St Osyth) in Essex was assumed as part of his royal demesneDemesne
In the feudal system the demesne was all the land, not necessarily all contiguous to the manor house, which was retained by a lord of the manor for his own use and support, under his own management, as distinguished from land sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants...
by the Dane King Canute, who granted it to Earl Godwin
Earl Godwin
Earl Godwin is the name of:* Earl Godwin , American radio newsman, commentator, and announcer* Godwin, Earl of Wessex , one of the most powerful lords in England under the Danish king Cnut the Great and his successors...
, and by him it was given to Christ Church
Canterbury Cathedral
Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England and forms part of a World Heritage Site....
, Canterbury
Canterbury
Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....
. At the Conquest it was transferred to the Bishopric of London
Bishop of London
The Bishop of London is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of London in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers 458 km² of 17 boroughs of Greater London north of the River Thames and a small part of the County of Surrey...
.
On the site of a former nunnery at Chich, Richard de Belmeis of London, in the reign of Henry I
Henry I of England
Henry I was the fourth son of William I of England. He succeeded his elder brother William II as King of England in 1100 and defeated his eldest brother, Robert Curthose, to become Duke of Normandy in 1106...
founded a priory for canons of Saint Augustine, and dedicated it to Saint Osgyth; his remains were buried in the chancel of the church in 1127: he bequeathed the church and tithes to the canons, who elected as their first abbot or prior William de Corbeil
William de Corbeil
William de Corbeil or William of Corbeil was a medieval Archbishop of Canterbury. Very little is known of William's early life or his family, except that he was born at Corbeil in the outskirts of Paris and that he had two brothers...
, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...
(died in 1136).
His benefactions, and charters and privileges granted by Henry II
Henry II of England
Henry II ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France. Henry, the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, was the...
, made the Canons wealthy: at the Dissolution of the monasteries
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
in 1536, its revenues were valued at £758 5s. 8d. yearly. In 1397 the abbot of St Osgyth was granted the right to wear a mitre
Mitre
The mitre , also spelled miter, is a type of headwear now known as the traditional, ceremonial head-dress of bishops and certain abbots in the Roman Catholic Church, as well as in the Anglican Communion, some Lutheran churches, and also bishops and certain other clergy in the Eastern Orthodox...
and give the solemn benediction, and, more singularly, the right to ordain priests, conferred by Pope Boniface IX
Pope Boniface IX
Pope Boniface IX , born Piero Tomacelli, was the second Roman Pope of the Western Schism from November 2, 1389, until October 1, 1404...
. The gatehouse (illustrated), the so-called 'Abbot's Tower' and some ranges of buildings remain.
Osgyth's burial site at Saint Mary's Church in Aylesbury
Aylesbury
Aylesbury is the county town of Buckinghamshire in South East England. However the town also falls into a geographical region known as the South Midlands an area that ecompasses the north of the South East, and the southern extremities of the East Midlands...
became a site of great, though unauthorized pilgrimage
Pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...
; following a papal decree in 1500, the bones were removed from the church and buried in secret. The Catholic Encyclopedia
Catholic Encyclopedia
The Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia and the Original Catholic Encyclopedia, is an English-language encyclopedia published in the United States. The first volume appeared in March 1907 and the last three volumes appeared in 1912, followed by a master index...
(1913) gives Saint Osgyth no mention. Undeterred, according to the curious 17th-century antiquary John Aubrey
John Aubrey
John Aubrey FRS, was an English antiquary, natural philosopher and writer. He is perhaps best known as the author of the collection of short biographical pieces usually referred to as Brief Lives...
(author of the Brief Lives), "in those days, when they went to bed they did rake up the fire, and make a X on the ashes, and pray to God and Saint Sythe to deliver them from fire, and from water, and from all misadventure." A house in Aylesbury is still called Saint Osgyth's House in her honour.
Her feast day is 7 October. She is normally depicted carrying her own head
Cephalophore
A cephalophore is a saint who is generally depicted carrying his or her own head; in art, this was usually meant to signify that the subject in question had been martyred by beheading....
.
Further reading
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
- Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain.
- Geoffrey of Burton's life of Modwenna includes material on Osgyth.
- Bethell's "Lives of St. Osyth of Essex and St. Osyth of Aylesbury", Analecta Bollandiana 88 (1970).
- Bailey, "Osyth, Frithuwold and Aylesbury" in Records of Buckinghamshire 31 (1989)
- Hohler, "St Osyth and Aylesbury", Records of Buckinghamshire 18.1 (1966).
External links
- St. Osyth, Essex: Official Site: "About St. Osyth" has some historical detail
- Picturesque England: St. Osyth's priory, with details of her legend (text)
- Britannia.com "Lives"
- St Osyth's Spring Animated and Narrated Edition of the St Osyth Story
- Alban ButlerAlban ButlerAlban Butler , English Roman Catholic priest and hagiographer, was born at Appletree, Northamptonshire.He was educated at the English College, Douai, where on his ordination to the priesthood in 1735 he held successively the chairs of philosophy and divinity...
, Lives of the Saints. St Osyth, martyr