vendredi 3 février 2017

Sainte WERBURGA (WEREBURGE, WERBURGH) de CHESTER, abbesse bénédictine

Saint Werburga (detail). Chester (England). Cathedral: Refectory - Eastern window (1916)


Sainte Wereburge

Abbesse d'Ely (+ 703)

On dit qu'elle fut chargée par le roi Ethelred d'Angleterre de rétablir la discipline monastique dans tous les couvents du royaume. Ce qu'elle aurait fait avec succès et, à sa mort, son corps fut enterré dans l'un d'eux, à Chester.

À Threckingham dans le royaume de Mercie en Angleterre, vers 700, le trépas de sainte Werburge, abbesse d’Ely, qui fonda ou restaura plusieurs autres monastères, dont celui où elle mourut. Selon son désir, elle fut inhumée à Hanbury.

Martyrologe romain

SOURCE : http://nominis.cef.fr/contenus/saint/560/Sainte-Wereburge.html

Miracles of St Werburgh, including the resurrection of the goose, depicted on a misericord at Chester Cathedral

Werburga of Chester, OSB V (AC)

(also known as Werburg, Werebrurge, Werbyrgh)

Born at Stone, Staffordshire, England; died at Threckingham, England, c. 690-700; feast of her translation at Chester, June 21.

The patroness of Chester, England, Saint Werburga, was born of a line of kings, being a daughter of Wulfhere, King of Mercia. From her mother, the saintly Ermingilde (Ermenilda), she learned as a child the Christian faith. By temperament she was pious and virtuous, and her beauty attracted many admirers, among them a prince of the West Saxons, who offered her rich gifts and made flattering proposals, and also Werbode, a powerful knight of her father's court. But refusing all her suitors, she secured, after much persuasion, her father's permission to enter a convent (or she did so after her father's death).

When the time came, he and his courtiers escorted her in great state to the abbey of Ely, where they were greeted at the gates by her aunt, the royal abbess, Ethelreda, and her nuns. Werburga fell upon her knees and asked that she might be received as a novice, and to the chanting of the Te Deum they entered the cloister, where she was stripped of her costly apparel, exchanged her coronet for a veil, and in a rough habit began her new life.

She made good progress, and after many years, at the request of her uncle, King Ethelred, was chosen to superintend all the convents of his kingdom. This opened to her a large and fruitful sphere of duty, and the religious houses under her care became models of monastic discipline. Through the wealth and influence of her family she also founded new convents at Trentham in Staffordshire, Hanbury near Tutbury, and Weedon in Northamptonshire, and secured the interest of Ethelred in establishing the collegiate Church of Saint John the Baptist in Chester, and in giving land to Egwin for the great abbey of Evesham.

Werburga won many from dissipation and vice, and God crowned her life with many blessings. Her work was deeply rooted in prayer and discipline. She took but one meal daily and that only of the coarsest food; she set before her the example of the desert fathers; and she recited the whole of the Psalter daily upon her knees.

She lived to a ripe age, and before her death she journeyed to all her convents, paying to each a farewell visit; she then retired to Trentham (Threckingham in Lincolnshire), where she died. She was buried in the monastery of Hanbury in Staffordshire. Later, her remains were transferred with great ceremony in the presence of King Coolred and many bishops to a costly shrine in Leicester, which attracted many pilgrims.

In 875, for fear of the Danes, her relics were removed to Chester. In 1095, they were translated within Chester, where in the course of time a great church, now the cathedral, was built over it, and where the remains of it may still be seen, carved with the figures of her ancestors, the ancient kings of Mercia. On its four sides the deep niches remain, where the pilgrims knelt, seeking healing, afterwards receiving a metal token to show that they had visited her shrine. This final translation was the occasion for Goselin to write her vita. The shrine was destroyed under King Henry VIII, although part of its stone base survives. Twelve ancient English churches were dedicated to her, including Hanbury and Chester (Attwater, Benedictines, Encyclopedia, Farmer, Gill).

In art Saint Werburga holds the abbey, while her crown lays at her feet. Sometimes there are wild geese near her (Roeder), because, according to Goselin she restored one to life (see below); however, the writer borrowed the story from his own vita of the Flemish Saint Amelburga (Farmer). She is, of course, the patroness of Chester (Roeder).

Like a cheerful gossip, William of Malmesbury writes this tale of a local miracle wrought by Saint Werburga:

"It was in the city of Chester that the girl Werburga, daughter of Wulfhere, King of Mercia, and Ermenilda . . . took her vows, and her goodness shone for many years. The story of one miracle done by her I now shall tell, which made a great stir and was long told about the countryside.

"She had a farm outside the walls, where the wild geese would come and destroy the standing corn in the fields. The stewart in charge of the farm took all shifts to drive them off, but with small success. And so, when he came to wait upon his lady, he added his complaint of them to the other tales he would tell her of the day.

"'Go,' said she, 'and shut them all into a house.' The countryman, dumbfounded at the oddness of the command, thought that his lady was jesting: but finding her serious and insistent, went back to the field where he had first spied the miscreants, and bade them, speaking loud and clear, to do their lady's bidding and come after him. Whereupon with one accord they gathered themselves into a flock, and walking with down-bent necks after their enemy, were shut up under a roof. On one of them, however, the rustic, with no thought of any to accuse him, made bold to dine.

"At dawn came the maid, and after scolding the birds for pillaging other people's property, bade them take their flight. But the winged creatures knew that one of their company was missing; nor did they lack wit to go circling round their lady's feet, refusing to budge further, and complaining as best they could, to excite her compassion. She, through God's revealing, and convinced that all this clamor was not without cause, turned her gaze upon the steward, and divined the theft.

"She bade him gather up the bones and bring them to her. And straightway, at a healing sign from the girl's hand, skin and flesh began to come upon the bones, and feathers to fledge upon the skin, till the living bird, at first with eager hop and soon upon the wing, launched itself into the air. Nor were the others slow to follow it, their numbers now complete, though first they made obeisance to their lady and deliverer.

"And so the merits of this maid are told at Chester, and her miracles extolled. Yet though she be generous and swift to answer all men's prayers, yet most gracious is her footfall among the women and boys, who pray as it might be to a neighbor and a woman of their own countryside" (Malmesbury). 


Chester Cathedral. Shrine of saint Werburga, 1340


Saint Werburgh of Chester


Also known as

  • Werburga
  • Wereburge

Memorial

Profile

Born a princess, the daughter of King Wulfhere of Mercia and his queenSaint ErmenildaNun. Spiritual student of Saint Etheldreda. Worked for reform in female religious houses throughout England. Reported to read minds.

Born

Died

Canonized

Patronage

SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/saint-werburgh-of-chester/


St Werburgh's pilgrimage badge, showing geese


St. Werburgh

 (WEREBURGA, WEREBURG, VERBOURG).

Benedictine, patroness of ChesterAbbess of Weedon, Trentham, Hanbury, Minster in Sheppy, and Ely, born in Staffordshire early in the seventh century; died at Trentham, 3 February, 699 or 700. Her mother was St. Ermenilda, daughter of Ercombert, King of Kent, and St. Sexburga, and her father, Wulfhere, son of Penda the fiercest of the Mercian kings. St. Werburgh thus united in her veins the blood of two very different races: one fiercely cruel and pagan; the other a type of gentle valour and Christian sanctity. In her, likewise, centred the royal blood of all the chief Saxon kings, while her father on the assassination of his elder brother Peada, who had been converted to Christianity, succeeded to the largest kingdom of the heptarchy. Whether Wulfhere was an obstinate pagan who delayed his promised conversion, or a relapsed Christian, is controverted, but the legend of the terrible and unnatural crime which has been imputed to him by some writers must here be dismissed on the authority of all earlier and contemporary chroniclers, as the Bollandists have pointed out. The martyrs, Sts. Wulfald and Ruffin, were not sons of Wulfhere and St. Ermenilda, nor victims of that king's tyranny. Ermenilda at once won the hearts of her subjects, and her zeal bore fruit in the conversion of many of them, while her influence on the passionate character of her husband changed him into a model Christian king. Werburgh inherited her mother's temperament and gifts. On account of her beauty and grace the princess was eagerly sought in marriage, chief among her suitors being Werebode, a headstrong warrior, to whom Wulfhere was much indebted; but the constancy of Werbrugh overcame all obstacles so that at length she obtained her father's consent to enter the Abbey of Ely, which had been founded by her great- aunt, St. Etheldra, and the fame of which was widespread.

Wulfhere did not long survive his daughter's consecration. On his death, St. Ermenilda took the veil at Ely, where she eventually succeeded her mother, St. Sexburga, as abbessKenred, Werburgh's brother, being a mere child at his father's death, his uncle Ethelred succeeded to the throne. This king invited St. Werburgh to assume the direction of all the monasteries of nuns in his dominion, in order that she might bring them to that high level of discipline and perfection which had so often edified him at Ely. The saint with some difficulty consented to sacrifice the seclusion she prized, and undertook the work of reforming the existing Mercian monasteries, and of founding new ones which King Ethelred generously endowed, namely, Trentham and Hanbury, in Staffordshire, and Weedon, in Northamptonshire. It had been the privilege of St. Werburgh to be trained by saints; at home by St. Chad (afterwards Bishop of Lichfield), and by her mother, and in the cloister by her aunt and grandmother. Her position worked no change in the humility which had always characterized her, so that in devotedness to all committed to her care she seemed rather the servant than the mistress. Her sole thought was to excel her sisters in the practice of religious perfection. God rewarded her childlike trust by many miracles, which have made St. Werburgh one of the best known and loved of the Saxon saints. That of the stolen goose appealed most to the popular imagination. The story, immortalized in the iconography of St. Werburgh, relates that by a simple command she banished a flock of wild geese that was working havoc in the cornfields of Weedon, and that since then none of these birds has been seen in those parts. She was also endowed with the gifts of prophecy and of reading the secrets of hearts. knowing how devoted her different communities were to her and how each would endeavour to secure the possession of her body after death, she determined to forestall such pious rivalry by choosing Hanbury as her place of burial. But the nuns of the monastery of Trentham determined to keep the remains. They not only refused to deliver them to those who came from Hanbury, but they even locked up the coffin in a crypt and set a guard to watch it. The people of Hanbury sent out anew a large party to make good their claims. Reaching Trentham at midnight all the bolts and bars yielded at their touch, while the guards were overpowered by sleep and knew not that the coffin was being carried to Hanbury.

So numerous and marvellous were the cures worked at the saint's tomb that in 708 her body was solemnly translated to a more conspicuous place in the church, in the presence of her brother, Kenred, who had now succeeded King Ethelred. In spite of having been nine years in the tomb, the body was intact. So great was the impression made on Kenred that he resolved to resign his crown and followed in his sister's footsteps. In 875, through fear of the Danes and in order to show greater honour to the saint, the body was removed to Chester. The Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, on the site of the present cathedral of Chester, was rededicated to St. Werburgh and St. Oswald, most probably in the reign of Athelstan. The great Leofric, Earl of Mercia (who was likewise styled Earl of Chester), and his wife, Lady Godiva, repaired and enlarged the church, and in 1093, Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, richly endowed the abbey and its church. By the instrumentality of this noble, Chester, which had been in the hands of secular canons, became a great Benedictine abbey, the name of St. Anselm, then a monk at Bee, being associated with this transformation. They abbey possessed such immense influence and position that at the time of the suppression under Henry VIII the Earl of Derby was the abbot's seneschal. In the vast wave of iconoclasm that swept over the country in that tyrant's reign the cathedral was sacked by apostates who scattered St. Werburgh's relics. Fragments of the shrine were used as the base of an episcopal throne. Many of the labels and figures had been mutilated, and while restoring them the workmen by mistake placed female heads on male shoulders and vice versa. Only thirty of the original figures remain, four having been lost. Late all these fragments were removed to the west end of the south choir aisle, where they have been placed nearly in the original position of the shrine, which is 10 feet high. St. Werburgh's feast is celebrated 3 February.

Sources

Acta SS., I FEB.; BRADSHAW, Metrical Holy Lyfe and History of Saynt Werburge, etc., ed. HAWKINS (printed in facsimile for the Chetham Society, 1848); BUTLER, Lives of the Saints (London, 1833); DUGDALE, Monasticon anglicanum (London, 1846); DUNBAR, Dict. of Saintly Women (London, 1905), s.v.; HIATT, Chester, the Cathedral and See (London, 1898); LELAND, Collectanea (London, 1770); LEWIS, Topographical Dict. of England (London, 1831), s.v.; Nova legenda Angliae, ed. HORSTMAN (Oxford, 1901); SPELMAN, Hist. and Fate of Sacrilege (London, 1895); TANNER, Notitia Monast. (London, 1744). SISTER GERTRUDE CASANOVA.

Casanova, Gertrude. "St. Werburgh." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 18 Dec. 2020 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15588b.htm>.

Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Michael T. Barrett. Dedicated to Judy Van Horn.

Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.

Copyright © 2020 by Kevin Knight. Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

SOURCE : https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15588b.htm


Chester Cathedral. Shrine of saint Werburga, 1340

Butler’s Lives of the Saints – Saint Wereburge, Virgin and Abbess, in England, Patroness of Chester


Article

Seventh Age.

Saint Wereburge was daughter of Wulfere, king of Mercia, by Saint Ermenilde, daughter of Ercombert, king of Kent, and Saint Sexburge. In her was centred the royal blood of all the chief Saxon kings; but her glory was the contempt of a vain world, even from her cradle, on the pure motive of the love of God. She had three brothers, Wulfade and Rufin, who died martyrs, and Kenred, who ended his life at Rome in the odour of sanctity. Her father, Wulfere, resided near Stone, in Staffordshire. His eldest brother Peada, had begun to plant the faith in Mercia. Wulfere promised at his marriage to extirpate the remains of idolatry, and was then a Christian; but worldly motives made him delay the performance of his promise. Ermenilde endeavoured to soften the fierceness of his temper; but she found it a far more easy task to dispose the minds of her tender nursery to be faithful to divine grace; and, under her care, all her children grew up fruitful plants in the garden of the saints. Wereburge excelled the rest in fervour and discretion. She was humble, obedient, and meek; never failed of assisting with her mother at the daily performance of the whole church office: besides spending many hours on her knees in private devotion in her closet. She eagerly listened to every instruction and exhortation of piety. At an age in which youth is the fondest of recreations, pleasures, and vanities, she was always grave, reserved, and mortified. She was a stranger to any joy but that which the purity of her conscience afforded her; and in holy compunction bewailed before God, without ceasing, her distance from him, and her other spiritual miseries. She trembled at the thought of the least danger that could threaten her purity; fasting and prayer were her delight, by which she endeavoured to render her soul acceptable to her heavenly bridegroom. Her beauty and her extraordinary qualifications, rendered more conspicuous by the greater lustre of her virtue, drew to her many suitors for marriage. But a mountain might sooner be moved than her resolution shaken. The prince of the West-Saxons waited on her with rich presents; but she refused to accept them or listen to his proposals, saying, she had chosen the Lord Jesus, the Redeemer of mankind, for the Spouse of her soul, and had devoted herself to his service in the state of her virginity. But her greatest victory was over the insidious attempts of Werbode, a powerful wicked knight of her father’s court. The king was greatly indebted to the valour and services of this knight for his temporal prosperity, and entertained a particular affection for him. The knight, sensible of this, and being passionately fond of Wereburge, made use of all his interest with the king to obtain his consent to marry her, which was granted on condition he could gain that of the royal virgin. Queen Ermenilde and her two sons, Wulfade and Rufin, were grievously afflicted at the news. These two princes were then upon their conversion to Christianity, and for this purpose resorted to the cell of Saint Chad, bishop of Litchfield, under pretence of going a hunting; for the saint resided in an hermitage, situate in a forest. By him they were instructed in the faith, and baptized. Werbode, finding them an obstacle to his design, contrived their murder, for which he is said to have moved the father to give an order in a fit of passion, by showing him the young princes returning from the bishop, and incensing him against them by slanders: for the king was passionate, and had been likewise prevailed on by his perfidious minister to countenance and favour idolatry. Werbode died miserably soon after, and Wulfere no sooner heard that the murder was perpetrated, but, stung with grief and remorse, he entered into himself, did great penance, and entirely gave himself up to the advice of his queen and Saint Chad. He destroyed all the idols, converted their temples into churches, founded the abbey of Peterborough, and the priory of Stone, where the two martyrs were buried, and exceedingly propagated the worship of the true God, by his zealous endeavours and example.

Wereburge, seeing this perfect change in the disposition of her father, was no longer afraid to disclose to him her earnest desire of consecrating herself to God in a religious state of life. Finding him averse, and much grieved at the proposal, she pleaded her cause with so many tears, and urged the necessity of preparing for death in so pathetic a manner, that her request was granted. Her father even thanked God with great humility for so great a grace conferred on her, though not without many tears which such a sacrifice cost him. He conducted her in great state to Ely, attended by his whole court, and was met at the gate of the monastery by the royal abbess Saint Audry, with her whole religious family in procession, singing holy hymns to God. Wereburge, falling on her knees, begged to be admitted in quality of a penitent. She obtained her request, and Te Deum was sung. She went through the usual trials with great humility and patience, and with joy exchanged her rich coronet, purple, silks, and gold, for a poor veil and a coarse habit, and resigned herself into the hands of her superior, to live only to Christ. King Wulfere, his three brothers, and Egbright, or Egbert, king of Kent, and Adulph, king of the East-Angles, together with the great lords of their respective states, were present at these her solemn espousals with Christ, and were entertained by Wulfere with a royal magnificence. The virgin here devoted herself to God with new fervour in all her actions, and made the exercises of obedience, prayer, contemplation, humility, and penance, her whole occupation, instead of that circle of vanities and amusements which employ the slaves of the world. King Wulfere dying in 675, was buried at Litchfield. Kenred, his son, being then too young to govern, his brother Ethelred succeeded him. Saint Ermenilde was no sooner at liberty, but she took the religious veil at Ely, under her mother, Saint Sexburge, at whose death she was chosen third abbess, and was honoured in England among the saints on the 13th of February. Her daughter, Saint Wereburge, at her uncle King Ethelred’s persuasion, left Ely to charge herself, at his request, with the superintendency of all the houses of religious women in his kingdom, that she might establish in them the observance of the most exact monastic discipline. By his liberality she founded those of Trentham in Staffordshire; of Hanbury, near Tutbury, in the county of Stafford, (not in the county of Huntingdon, as some mistake,) and of Wedon, one of the royal palaces in Northamptonshire. This king also founded the collegiate church of Saint John Baptist, in the suburbs of West-Chester, and gave to Saint Egwin the ground for the great abbey of Evesham; and after having reigned twenty-nine years, embraced the monastic state in his beloved monastery of Bardney, upon the river Witham, not far from Lincoln, of which he was afterwards chosen abbot. He resigned his crown to Kenred his nephew, brother to our saint, having been chosen king only on account of the nonage of that prince. Kenred governed his realm with great prudence and piety, making it his study, by all the means in his power, to prevent and root out all manner of vice, and promote the knowledge and love of God. After a reign of five years, he recommended his subjects to God, took leave of them, to their inexpressible grief, left his crown to Coelred, his uncle’s son, and making a pilgrimage to Rome, there put on the monastic habit in 708, and persevered in great fervour till his happy death.

Saint Wereburge, both by word and example, conducted to God the souls committed to her care. She was the most perfect model of meekness, humility, patience, and purity. Besides the church office, she recited every day the psalter on her knees, and, after matins, remained in the church in prayer, either prostrate on the ground, or kneeling till day-light, and often bathed in tears. She never took more than one repast in the day, and read with wonderful delight the lives of the fathers of the desert. She foretold her death, visited all places under her care, and gave her last orders and exhortations. She prepared herself for her last hour by ardent invitations of her heavenly bridegroom, and languishing aspirations of divine love, in which she breathed forth her pure soul on the 3rd of February, at Trentham, about the end of the seventh century. Her body, as she had desired, was interred at Hanbury. Nine years after, in 708, it was taken up in presence of King Coelred, his council, and many bishops, and being found entire and uncorrupt, was laid in a costly shrine on the 21st of June. In 875 her body was still entire; when, for fear of the Danish pirates, who were advanced as far as Repton, in the county of Derby, a royal seat (not Ripon, as Guthrie mistakes) within six miles of Hanbury, (in the county of Stafford,) her shrine was carried to West-Chester in the reign of King Alfred, who marrying his daughter Elfleda to Ethelred, created him first earl of Mercia, after the extinction of its kings. This valiant earl built and endowed with secular canonries a stately church, as a repository for the relics of Saint Wereburge, which afterwards became the cathedral. His lady rebuilt other churches, walled in the city, and fortified it with a strong castle against the Welch. The great kings, Athelstan and Edgar, devoutly visited and enriched the church of Saint Wereburge. In the reign of Saint Edward the Confessor, Leofrick, earl of Mercia, and his pious wife, Godithe, rebuilt many churches and monasteries in those parts, founded the abbeys of Leonence, near Hereford, also that of Coventry, which city this earl made free. At Chester they repaired the collegiate church of Saint John, and, out of their singular devotion to Saint Wereburge, rebuilt her minster in a most stately manner. William the Conqueror gave to his kinsman, and most valiant knight, Hugh Lupus, the earldom of Chester, with the sovereign dignity of a palatinate, on condition he should win it. After having been thrice beaten and repulsed, he at last took the city, and divided the conquered lands of the country among his followers. In 1093, he removed the secular canons of Saint Wereburge, and in their stead placed monks under an abbot, brought over from Bec in Normandy. Earl Richard, son and heir to Lupus, going in pilgrimage to Saint Winefrid’s at Holywell, attributed to the intercession of Saint Wereburge his preservation from an army of Welchmen, who came with an intention to intercept him. In memory of which, his constable, William, gave to her church the village of Newton, and founded the abbey of Norton on the Dee, at the place where his army miraculously forded that great river to the succour of his master, which place is still called Constable Sondes, says Bradshaw. The same learned author relates, from the third book of the Passionary of the Abbey, many miraculous cures of the sick, and preservations of that city from the assaults of the Welch, Danes, and Scots, and, in 1180, from a terrible fire, which threatened to consume the whole city, but was suddenly extinguished when the monks carried in procession the shrine of the virgin in devout prayer. Her body fell to dust soon after its translation to Chester. These relics being scattered in the reign of Henry VIII, her shrine was converted into the episcopal throne in the same church, and remains in that condition to this day. This monument is of stone, ten feet high, embellished with thirty curious antique images of kings of Mercia and other princes, ancestors or relations of this saint. See Cooper’s remarks on each.

MLA Citation

  • Father Alban Butler. “Saint Wereburge, Virgin and Abbess, in England, Patroness of Chester”. Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints1866CatholicSaints.Info. 2 February 2013. Web. 18 December 2020. <https://catholicsaints.info/butlers-lives-of-the-saints-saint-wereburge-virgin-and-abbess-in-england-patroness-of-chester/>

SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/butlers-lives-of-the-saints-saint-wereburge-virgin-and-abbess-in-england-patroness-of-chester/


Chester Cathedral. Shrine of saint Werburga, 1340

Virgin Saints and Martyrs – Saint Werburga


The words of Montalembert deserve to be transcribed and re-read, so true are they as well as graceful.

“Nothing had more astonished the Romans than the austere chastity of the German women; the religious respect of the men for the partners of their labours and dangers, in peace as well as in war; and the almost divine honours with which they surrounded the priestesses or prophetesses, who sometimes presided at their religious rites, and sometimes led them to combat against the violators of the national soil. When the Roman world, undermined by corruption and imperial despotism, fell to pieces like the arch of a cloaca, there is no better indication of the difference between the debased subjects of the empire and their conquerors, than that sanctity of conjugal and domestic ties, that energetic family feeling, that worship of pure blood, which are founded upon the dignity of woman, and respect for her modesty, no less than upon the proud independence of man and the consciousness of personal dignity. It is by this special quality that the barbarians showed themselves worthy of instilling a new life into the West, and becoming the forerunners of the new Christian nations to which we all owe our birth.

“Who does not recall those Cimbri whom Marius had so much trouble in conquering, and whose women rivalled the men in boldness and heroism? Those women, who had followed their husbands to the war, gave the Romans a lesson in modesty and greatness of soul of which the future tools of the tyrants and the Caesars were not worthy. They would surrender only on the promise of the consul that their honour should be protected, and that they should be given as slaves to the Vestals, thus putting themselves under the protection of those whom they regarded as virgins and priestesses. The great beginner of democratic dictatorship refused: upon which they killed themselves and their children, generously preferring death to shame.

“The Anglo-Saxons came from the same districts, bathed by the waters of the Northern Sea, which had been inhabited by the Cimbri, and showed themselves worthy of descent from them, as much by the irresistible onslaught of the warriors as by the indisputable power of their armies. No trace of the old Roman spirit which put a wife in manu, in the hand of her husband – that is to say, under his feet – is to be found among them. Woman is a person, and not a thing. She lives, she speaks, she acts for herself, guaranteed against the least outrage by severe penalties, and protected by universal respect. She inherits, she disposes of her possessions – sometimes even she deliberates, she fights, she governs, like the most proud and powerful of men. The influence of women has been nowhere more effectual, more fully recognised, or more enduring than among the Anglo-Saxons, and nowhere was it more legitimate or more happy.”

Britain had been invaded, and subdued. From the wall of Antonine that connected the Firth of Forth with the Clyde, to what was now to be called the English Channel, all the east coast and centre of the island was occupied by the conquerors from Germany. The Britons had been rolled back into the kingdoms of Strathclyde, Rheged, Wales, and Cornwall and Devon.

The conquerors had coalesced into three great kingdoms – Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex.

From the island of Iona, missionaries of the Irish Church had effected the conversion of the Northumbrians. Augustine with his handful from Rome had introduced Christianity into the little subject Kingdom of Kent. From Northumbria the disciples of Iona penetrated Essex and made converts also there. But in Mercia Mid-England paganism was supreme, and the terrible Penda made himself paramount from the Thames and Wash to the Severn. The West Saxons were cowed.

But Saint Oswald, the Northumbrian king, restored the older domination of Northumbria, only to fall again. For thirty years Penda flung himself with fury against the Northern kingdom, and devastated it with fire and sword. Towards the end of his long reign he entrusted the government of the Mid-Angles to his son Peada, who married Alcfleda, daughter of the Northumbrian king, and at the same time received baptism from the hands of the Celtic bishop Finan.

Thus Christianity began to infiltrate into Mid-England also from the North and from the Celtic Church; and missionaries from Lindisfarne followed him into his principality.

The savage old pagan Penda acquiesced – perhaps he thought it inevitable that England should become Christian. The Britons to a man believed. All Northumbria had submitted to the Cross; the conversion of the East Saxons and of Wessex was in full progress. Penda raised no opposition, but poured forth the vials of his scorn upon such as had been baptised, and who did not live up to their baptismal promises. “Those who despise,” said he, “the laws of the God in whom they believe, are despicable wretches.”

But, notwithstanding the union by marriage between the families, the rivalry between Mercia and Northumbria could not be allayed; it must be decided on the battlefield. It was only when driven to desperation by the encroachments and insults of Penda, that Oswy resolved to engage in a final conflict with the man who had defeated and slain his two predecessors, Edwin and Oswald. During the thirteen years that had elapsed since the overthrow of Oswald, Penda had periodically subjected Northumbria to frightful devastations. Oswy, knowing his weakness, when the eighty-year-old pagan had got as far north as Bamborough, entreated for peace, and sent him a present of all the jewels and treasures of which he could dispose. Penda set them aside roughly, resolved, so it was believed, to root out and destroy the whole Northumbrian people. Then, in his despair, Oswy vowed – should God strengthen his hand and lead him to victory – that he would give his infant daughter to God and endow twelve monasteries. “Since the pagan will not take our gifts,” he said, “let us offer them to One who will.”

The battle of Winwaed resulted in the complete rout of the Mercians and their wholesale destruction, and Penda himself fell.

For the moment the ruin of Mercia seemed complete, and Oswy extended his supremacy over the whole of it. For three years the Mercians endured this foreign rule; but in 659 they surged up in revolt, drove the Northumbrian thanes from the land, and raised Wulfhere, a younger son of Penda, to the throne.

Under the able arm of this new king Mercia rose once more into a power even greater than that under Penda. Oswy died in 670, and thenceforth no Northumbrian king made any attempt to obtain the dominion over the Mid or Southern English.

During the three years after the death of Penda, Oswy had poured missionaries into Mercia. Peada had already brought the Irish monk Diuma with him, and he became bishop in Mercia. He was followed by another Irishman, Ceolach, a disciple of Saint Columba. The third bishop was Trumhere, a Northumbrian abbot, consecrated at Lindisfarne. His successors, Jaruman and Ceadda, had also been ordained by the Scots.

In 658 Wulfhere had married Ermenilda, daughter of Ercombert, King of Kent, and of his wife Saint Sexburga. This was just before the revolt which raised him to the throne. He does not seem to have been a Christian like his brother Peada, but to have felt much like old Penda, his father.

By her he had four children – Werburga, Ceonred, Rufinus, and Wulfhad.

Under a pious mother, Werburga grew up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; and from an early age her great desire was to embrace the religious life, and spend her days in the peace of the cloister. It was a lawless and godless time. Men were coarse and cruel, the palace was a scene of drunkenness and riot, from which her gentle spirit shrank. She is described as being very lovely and sweet in manner. She daily assisted with her mother at Divine Service, and spent much of her time in reading and in prayer.

When she came of age to be married, her hand was sought by one Werebod, a thane about the court, but she refused him.

Now we come to a story about which some difficulties exist. In the twelfth century one Robert of Swaffham wrote an account of the death of Rufinus and Wulfhad, sons of Wulfhere and brothers of Saint Werburga. The authority is late, too late to be trusted, as we do not know whence the writer drew his narrative.

According to this story, when Rufinus and Wulfhad heard of Werebod’s proposal, they scouted it, and told him to his face that he was not worthy to have her. Werebod dissembled his mortification, and waited an opportunity for revenge. The princes were then at Stone, in Staffordshire, where Wulfhere had a palace.

One day Wulfhad was out hunting, when the stag he was pursuing brought him to the cell of Saint Ceadda or Chad, who exhorted him to receive the faith of Christ and be baptised. Wulfhad answered that he would do so if the stag he had been pursuing would come of its own accord, with a rope round its neck, and present itself before him. Saint Chad prayed, and the stag bounded through the bushes to the spot, with the rope as Wulfhad desired. Saint Chad baptised the prince, and next morning communicated him. Rufinus was led by his brother to receive holy baptism, and when Werebod learned this, he told the king of it, and Wulfhere, in a fit of fury, pursued his sons to the cell of Saint Chad, and killed them with his own hands.

The story as it stands is impossible. There is no early notice of it, so that it reposes on a late tradition. Nevertheless, that there is a basis of truth is most probable, if not certain. The Church of Kinver is dedicated to Saints Rufinus and Wulfhad, and it stands under the Kefnvaur, the great red sandstone ridge on which are earthworks where Wulfhere had one of his strongholds. This is probably the site of the murder. That the two princes in their youthful pride scouted the suit of Werebod and insulted him is likely enough. That they had received lively impressions of reverence for Christianity from their mother is also very probable. That they had placed themselves under instruction by Saint Chad, and had been baptised by him, is also very likely. But that their father should have killed them on that account is inadmissible. Werebod may have poisoned his mind against his sons, and represented them as plotting against him with the Northumbrian king and using Chad as an intermediary, and he may have goaded Wulfhere into ordering their death on that account; or there may have been a violent scene between them which ended in the king killing them; or, more likely still, Werebod may himself have waylaid and assassinated them whilst out hunting. It took very little among the Anglo-Saxons to transform any one who died a violent death into a martyr; and when two royal princes had been killed, some excuse for regarding them as witnesses to the faith was sought and invented.

The bodies of the princes were conveyed to Stone, so called because of a memorial set up over them by Wulfhere, an inscribed pillar-stone; but, moved by compunction, he founded there a religious house for women. Wulfhere himself was baptised, and gave his consent to his daughter retiring from the world. He also founded the great monastery of Medehamstead, afterwards Peterborough, as some expiation for his crime.

Before this, Wulfhere had been constantly engaged in extending the power of Mercia. He detached from Northumbria all the district south of the Mersey, and with it got hold of Chester, of which place in later times his daughter was to be regarded as patroness. He gained a hold on the whole of the Severn valley and the Wye, our Herefordshire, over which he set his brother Merewald as under-king. Then he fought the West Saxons under Cenwalch in 661, and defeated them in a signal battle, and extended his ravages into the heart of Wessex as far as Ashdown. Then he turned his arms east along the Thames valley, and brought the East Saxons and London under his sway. Still unsatisfied, he crossed the river into Surrey, subdued it, and invaded Sussex and forced the King Ethelwalch to submit, and to receive baptism. Werburga resolved to retire to Ely where her great-aunt Etheldreda was abbess. Wulfhere and his court conducted her thither, in great state.

We cannot now see Ely in anything like its ancient condition. Then the entire district from Cambridge to the Wash was one broken sheet of water dotted with islets. In places there were shallows where reeds grew dense, the islands were fringed with rushes and willows. The vast mere was a haunt of innumerable wild birds, and the water teemed with fishes. The vast plain of the fens – which is now in summer one sea of golden corn, in winter a black dreary fallow cut up like a chess-board into squares by dykes – was then a tangle of meres, rank growth of waterweeds and copses of alders and grey poplars. The rivers Cam and Nen lost themselves in the waste of waters. Trees torn up, fallen into the water, floated about, formed natural rafts, lodged, and diverted what little current there was in the streams.

Here and there poles had been driven into the stiff clay that formed the bottom of the swamp, cross-pieces had been tied to them, then platforms erected six, ten feet above the surface of the water, and on these platforms huts had been constructed of poles and rushes, in which lived families, their only means of communication with each other and with the firm land being by boat. On the water and by the water they lived, tilling little bits of land left dry in summer but submerged in winter.

The islets were outcrops of fertile land, natural parks, covered by the richest grass and stateliest trees, swarming with deer and roe, goat and boar, as the water around swarmed with otter and beaver, and with fowl of every feather and fish of every scale.

Of all these islets none could compare with Ely, not, as has been supposed, named from the eels that were found about it, but from the elves who were supposed to have chosen it for their own and to dance in the moonlight on its greensward.

Better, purer beings than elves, had taken possession of this enchanted isle – Saint Etheldreda and her nuns; and it was through them that the wild fen-dwellers, those who lived on platforms above the water, received the rudiments of the faith, and were ministered to in their agues and rheumatic paralysis.

Etheldreda did not found her monastery here till 673. As Wulfhere died in 675, he can have accompanied his daughter there only very shortly after Etheldreda’s settlement in the place. There is no stone anywhere near, every block that has been employed on the glorious cathedral has been brought from a distance, mostly from Barwell, in Northamptonshire.

Etheldreda constructed her monastery and church entirely of wood. Great trunks had been split and these split logs formed the sides of her church, and it was thatched with reeds from the marshes. The king came by boat; the oars flashed in the sun, and the water rippled as the vessels were driven through it to the landing stage. Werburga, eager, stood looking forward to the lovely island that seemed to float on the water; if, as is probable, she was born some time before Wulfhere became king, she would then be between twenty-eight and thirty. At the landing-stage was her great-aunt with her nuns, in black habits with white veils; and no sooner had Werburga descended from the boat than they struck up the Te Deum, and advanced, leading the way, singing, to their wooden church.

Now followed the usual trials: Werburga was first stripped of her costly apparel, her coronet was exchanged for a linen veil, purple and silks were replaced by a coarse woollen habit, and she resigned herself into the hands of her superior, her great-aunt, Saint Etheldreda.

We know the form of the ceremonial, and the prayers used on such an occasion, but we do not know who the bishop was who consecrated Werburga. She was led to the foot of the altar, after the reading of the Gospel, and was then asked for two public engagements which were indispensable to the validity of the act: in the first place, the consent of her parents, and in the next her own promise of obedience to himself and his successors. When this had been done he laid his hands upon her to bless her and consecrate her to God. After prayers he placed the veil on her head, saying, “Maiden, receive this veil, and mayest thou bear it stainless to the tribunal of Christ before whom bends every knee in heaven and on earth.”

By the rules of the Anglo-Saxon Church the taking of the irrevocable vows was not suffered till the postulant had reached her twenty-sixth year, but we cannot be sure that this rule prevailed so early. The Celtic Church allowed it at the age of twelve.

When Wulfhere died, then Werburga’s mother came also to Ely, and on the death of Saint Etheldreda, in 679, her grandmother Sexburga, widow of Ercombert, king of Kent, became abbess, and ruled till 699, when she died, whereupon Werburga’s mother succeeded. At one time three generations of princesses of the blood of Hengest and Odin were seen together in the peaceful isle of Ely, wearing the same monastic habit, and bowing in prayer in the same wooden church. Werburga lived long and happily as a simple nun under her grandmother’s and mother’s kindly rule and direction, till, on her mother’s death, she was summoned to take the place of abbess.

It is very important for us to understand what was the moving principle at this period which led to the foundation of so many religious settlements. The Saxons and Angles had been a people living in war, loving war, and regarding the cutting of throats and the destruction by fire of every house and city as the highest vocation of a man. But when they had occupied the greatest portion of Britain, and further, when they had embraced Christianity, a change took place in their opinions. They came to see that there was some charm in peace, and dignity in the cultivation of the soil. But it was only after a struggle that they could stoop to take hold of the plough and lay aside the spear. They could be brought to this only by example, and it was this which the monks and nuns issuing from their own princely, royal families showed them.

“In the monastic movement of this time,” says Mr. Green, “two strangely contrasted impulses worked together to change the very aspect of the new England and the new English society. The one was the passion for solitude, the first outcome of the religious impulse given by the conversion; a passion for communing apart with themselves and with God which drove men into waste and woodland and desolate fen. The other was the equally new passion for social life on the part of the nation at large, the outcome of its settlement and well-doing on the conquered soil, and yet more of the influence of the new religion, coming as it did from the social civilisation of the older world, and insensibly drawing men together by the very form of its worship and its belief. The sanctity of the monastic settlements served in these early days of the new religion to ensure for them peace and safety in the midst of whatever war or social trouble might be disturbing the country about them; and the longing for a life of quiet industry, which we see telling from this moment upon the older English longing for war, drew men in crowds to these so-called monasteries.”

Wulfhere was succeeded in 675 by his brother Ethelred, a quiet, unambitious king, who devoted his energies to the foundation of monasteries, dotting them about Mercia with the object of softening and civilising a people that had the instincts of the beasts of prey. He entrusted his niece Werburga with a sort of general supremacy over all the nunneries in his kingdom. She visited them, regulated them, and brought them into order, before her mother’s death and her own appointment to the abbacy of Ely. Thus she resided for a while at the head of the communities of Weedon, Trentham, and Hanbury.

One incident of her story may be quoted.

It happened that a shepherd at Weedon was being brutally maltreated by the steward. The daughter of a king flew to the spot, threw herself between the overseer and the poor wretch he was beating and kicking, and arrested his arm and thrust him back, and held him from his victim, till his passion subsided, and he retired shamefaced.

Werburga died at a ripe age at Trentham, on February 3rd, 699.

Two centuries later, in order to save her remains from the Danes, they were conveyed to Chester, where there was a collegiate church that had been founded by her father at her request. Her body was, however, laid in what is now the Cathedral.

– text and illustration taken from Virgin Saints and Martyrs, by Sabine Baring-Gould, F Anger, illustrator, published in New York, 1901

SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/virgin-saints-and-martyrs-saint-werburga/


St. Werburgh's RC Church, Birkenhead


The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts – Saint Werburgh and her Goose


I

Saint Werburgh was a King’s daughter, a real princess, and very beautiful. But unlike most princesses of the fairy tales, she cared nothing at all about princes or pretty clothes or jewels, or about having a good time. Her only longing was to do good and to make other people happy, and to grow good and wise herself, so that she could do this all the better. So she studied and studied, worked and worked; and she became a holy woman, an Abbess. And while she was still very young and beautiful, she was given charge of a whole convent of nuns and school-girls not much younger than herself, because she was so much wiser and better than any one else in all the countryside.

But though Saint Werburgh had grown so famous and so powerful, she still remained a simple, sweet girl. All the country people loved her, for she was always eager to help them, to cure the little sick children and to advise their fathers and mothers. She never failed to answer the questions which puzzled them, and so she set their poor troubled minds at ease. She was so wise that she knew how to make people do what she knew to be right, even when they wanted to do wrong. And not only human folk but animals felt the power of this young Saint. For she loved and was kind to them also. She studied about them and grew to know their queer habits and their animal way of thinking. And she learned their language, too. Now when one loves a little creature very much and understands it well, one can almost always make it do what one wishes – that is, if one wishes right.

For some time Saint Werburgh had been interested in a flock of wild geese which came every day to get their breakfast in the convent meadow, and to have a morning bath in the pond beneath the window of her cell. She grew to watch until the big, long-necked gray things with their short tails and clumsy feet settled with a harsh “Honk!” in the grass. Then she loved to see the big ones waddle clumsily about in search of dainties for the children, while the babies stood still, flapping their wings and crying greedily till they were fed.

There was one goose which was her favorite. He was the biggest of them all, fat and happy looking. He was the leader and formed the point of the V in which a flock of wild geese always flies. He was the first to alight in the meadow, and it was he who chose the spot for their breakfast. Saint Werburgh named him Grayking, and she grew very fond of him, although they had never spoken to one another.

Master Hugh was the convent Steward, a big, surly fellow who did not love birds nor animals except when they were served up for him to eat. Hugh also had seen the geese in the meadow. But, instead of thinking how nice and funny they were, and how amusing it was to watch them eat the worms and flop about in the water, he thought only, “What a fine goose pie they would make!” And especially he looked at Grayking, the plumpest and most tempting of them all, and smacked his lips. “Oh, how I wish I had you in my frying-pan!” he said to himself.

Now it happened that worms were rather scarce in the convent meadow that spring. It had been dry, and the worms had crawled away to moister places. So Grayking and his followers found it hard to get breakfast enough. One morning, Saint Werburgh looked in vain for them in the usual spot. At first she was only surprised; but as she waited and waited, and still they did not come, she began to feel much alarmed.

Just as she was going down to her own dinner, the Steward, Hugh, appeared before her cap in hand and bowing low. His fat face was puffed and red with hurrying up the convent hill, and he looked angry.

“What is it, Master Hugh?” asked Saint Werburgh in her gentle voice. “Have you not money enough to buy to-morrow’s breakfast?” for it was his duty to pay the convent bills.

“Nay, Lady Abbess,” he answered gruffly; “it is not lack of money that troubles me. It is abundance of geese.”

“Geese! How? Why?” exclaimed Saint Werburgh, startled. “What of geese, Master Hugh?”

“This of geese, Lady Abbess,” he replied. “A flock of long-necked thieves have been in my new-planted field of corn, and have stolen all that was to make my harvest.” Saint Werburgh bit her lips.

“What geese were they?” she faltered, though she guessed the truth.

“Whence the rascals come, I know not,” he answered, “but this I know. They are the same which gather every morning in the meadow yonder. I spied the leader, a fat, fine thief with a black ring about his neck. It should be a noose, indeed, for hanging. I would have them punished, Lady Abbess.”

“They shall be punished, Master Hugh,” said Saint Werburgh firmly, and she went sadly up the stair to her cell without tasting so much as a bit of bread for her dinner. For she was sorry to find her friends such naughty birds, and she did not want to punish them, especially Grayking. But she knew that she must do her duty.

When she had put on her cloak and hood she went out into the courtyard behind the convent where there were pens for keeping doves and chickens and little pigs. And standing beside the largest of these pens Saint Werburgh made a strange cry, like the voice of the geese themselves, – a cry which seemed to say, “Come here, Grayking’s geese, with Grayking at the head!” And as she stood there waiting, the sky grew black above her head with the shadowing of wings, and the honking of the geese grew louder and nearer till they circled and lighted in a flock at her feet.

She saw that they looked very plump and well-fed, and Grayking was the fattest of the flock. All she did was to look at them steadily and reproachfully; but they came waddling bashfully up to her and stood in a line before her with drooping heads. It seemed as if something made them stay and listen to what she had to say, although they would much rather fly away.

Then she talked to them gently and told them how bad they were to steal corn and spoil the harvest. And as she talked they grew to love her tender voice, even though it scolded them. She cried bitterly as she took each one by the wings and shook him for his sins and whipped him – not too severely. Tears stood in the round eyes of the geese also, not because she hurt them, for she had hardly ruffled their thick feathers; but because they were sorry to have pained the beautiful Saint. For they saw that she loved them, and the more she punished them the better they loved her. Last of all she punished Grayking. But when she had finished she took him up in her arms and kissed him before putting him in the pen with the other geese, where she meant to keep them in prison for a day and a night. Then Grayking hung his head, and in his heart he promised that neither he nor his followers should ever again steal anything, no matter how hungry they were. Now Saint Werburgh read the thought in his heart and was glad, and she smiled as she turned away. She was sorry to keep them in the cage, but she hoped it might do them good. And she said to herself, “They shall have at least one good breakfast of convent porridge before they go.”

Saint Werburgh trusted Hugh, the Steward, for she did not yet know the wickedness of his heart. So she told him how she had punished the geese for robbing him, and how she was sure they would never do so any more. Then she bade him see that they had a breakfast of convent porridge the next morning; and after that they should be set free to go where they chose.

Hugh was not satisfied. He thought the geese had not been punished enough. And he went away grumbling, but not daring to say anything cross to the Lady Abbess who was the King’s daughter.

St Werburgh's parish church, Blackwell, Derbyshire, seen from the south

II

Saint Werburgh was busy all the rest of that day and early the next morning too, so she could not get out again to see the prisoned geese. But when she went to her cell for the morning rest after her work was done, she sat down by the window and looked out smilingly, thinking to see her friend Grayking and the others taking their bath in the meadow. But there were no geese to be seen! Werburgh’s face grew grave. And even as she sat there wondering what had happened, she heard a prodigious honking overhead, and a flock of geese came straggling down, not in the usual trim V, but all unevenly and without a leader. Grayking was gone!

They fluttered about crying and asking advice of one another, till they heard Saint Werburgh’s voice calling them anxiously. Then with a cry of joy they flew straight up to her window and began talking all together, trying to tell her what had happened.

“Grayking is gone!” they said. “Grayking is stolen by the wicked Steward. Grayking was taken away when we were set free, and we shall never see him again. What shall we do, dear lady, without our leader?”

Saint Werburgh was horrified to think that her dear Grayking might be in danger. Oh, how that wicked Steward had deceived her! She began to feel angry. Then she turned to the birds: “Dear geese,” she said earnestly, “you have promised me never to steal again, have you not?” and they all honked “Yes!” “Then I will go and question the Steward,” she continued, “and if he is guilty I will punish him and make him bring Grayking back to you.”

The geese flew away feeling somewhat comforted, and Saint Werburgh sent speedily for Master Hugh. He came, looking much surprised, for he could not imagine what she wanted of him. “Where is the gray goose with the black ring about his neck?” began Saint Werburgh without any preface, looking at him keenly. He stammered and grew confused. “I – I don’t know, Lady Abbess,” he faltered. He had not guessed that she cared especially about the geese.

“Nay, you know well,” said Saint Werburgh, “for I bade you feed them and set them free this morning. But one is gone.”

“A fox must have stolen it,” said he guiltily.

“Ay, a fox with black hair and a red, fat face,” quoth Saint Werburgh sternly. “Do not tell me lies. You have taken him, Master Hugh. I can read it in your heart.” Then he grew weak and confessed.

“Ay, I have taken the great gray goose,” he said faintly. “Was it so very wrong?”

“He was a friend of mine and I love him dearly,” said Saint Werburgh. At these words the Steward turned very pale indeed.

“I did not know,” he gasped.

“Go and bring him to me, then,” commanded the Saint, and pointed to the door. Master Hugh slunk out looking very sick and miserable and horribly frightened. For the truth was that he had been tempted by Grayking’s fatness. He had carried the goose home and made him into a hot, juicy pie which he had eaten for that very morning’s breakfast. So how could he bring the bird back to Saint Werburgh, no matter how sternly she commanded?

All day long he hid in the woods, not daring to let himself be seen by any one. For Saint Werburgh was a King’s daughter; and if the King should learn what he had done to the pet of the Lady Abbess, he might have Hugh himself punished by being baked into a pie for the King’s hounds to eat.

But at night he could bear it no longer. He heard the voice of Saint Werburgh calling his name very softly from the convent, “Master Hugh, Master Hugh, come, bring me my goose!” And just as the geese could not help coming when she called them, so he felt that he must go, whether he would or no. He went into his pantry and took down the remains of the great pie. He gathered up the bones of poor Grayking in a little basket, and with chattering teeth and shaking limbs stole up to the convent and knocked at the wicket gate.

Saint Werburgh was waiting for him. “I knew you would come,” she said. “Have you brought my goose?” Then silently and with trembling hands he took out the bones one by one and laid them on the ground before Saint Werburgh. So he stood with bowed head and knocking knees waiting to hear her pronounce his punishment.

“Oh, you wicked man!” she said sadly. “You have killed my beautiful Grayking, who never did harm to any one except to steal a little corn.”

“I did not know you loved him, Lady,” faltered the man in self-defense.

“You ought to have known it,” she returned; “you ought to have loved him yourself.”

“I did, Lady Abbess,” confessed the man. “That was the trouble. I loved him too well – in a pie.”

“Oh, selfish, gluttonous man!” she exclaimed in disgust. “Can you not see the beauty of a dear little live creature till it is dead and fit only for your table? I shall have you taught better. Henceforth you shall be made to study the lives and ways of all things which live about the convent; and never again, for punishment, shall you eat flesh of any bird or beast. We will see if you cannot be taught to love them when they have ceased to mean Pie. Moreover, you shall be confined for two days and two nights in the pen where I kept the geese. And porridge shall be your only food the while. Go, Master Hugh.”

So the wicked Steward was punished. But he learned his lesson; and after a little while he grew to love the birds almost as well as Saint Werburgh herself.

But she had not yet finished with Grayking. After Master Hugh had gone she bent over the pitiful little pile of bones which was all that was left of that unlucky pie. A tear fell upon them from her beautiful eyes; and kneeling down she touched them with her white fingers, speaking softly the name of the bird whom she had loved.

“Grayking, arise,” she said. And hardly had the words left her mouth when a strange thing happened. The bones stirred, lifted themselves, and in a moment a glad “Honk!” sounded in the air, and Grayking himself, black ring and all, stood ruffling his feathers before her. She clasped him in her arms and kissed him again and again. Then calling the rest of the flock by her strange power, she showed them their lost leader restored as good as new.

What a happy flock of geese flew honking away in an even V, with the handsomest, grayest, plumpest goose in all the world at their head! And what an exciting story he had to tell his mates! Surely, no other goose ever lived who could tell how it felt to be made into pie, to be eaten and to have his bones picked clean by a greedy Steward.

This is how Saint Werburgh made lifelong friendship with a flock of big gray geese. And I dare say even now in England one of their descendants may be found with a black ring around his neck, the handsomest, grayest, plumpest goose in all the world. And when he hears the name of Saint Werburgh, which has been handed down to him from grandfather to grandson for twelve hundred years, he will give an especially loud “Honk!” of praise.

Dear Saint Werburgh! One would almost be willing to make a goose of himself if so he might see her again, with all her feathered friends about her.

– from The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts, by Abbie Farwell Brown, illustrations by Fanny Y. Cory, 1900

SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/the-book-of-saints-and-friendly-beasts-saint-werburgh-and-her-goose/

St Werburgh's parish church, Lynmouth Road, Bristol


Catholic Truth Society of London – Saint Werburgh


(died 699)

About the beginning of the seventh century, when England was earning for herself the most glorious of her titles, that of “Island of the Saints,” a little girl was born in Staffordshire who was to be the object of the love and devotion of her countrymen, until the chill blast of heresy and unbelief swept away nearly all that was best and holiest from the land. Vet even the Reformation was not able entirely to extinguish the fame of Saint Werburgh: her name is still familiar in some parts, and Chester Cathedral is dedicated to her.

She united in her veins the blood of two widely different races: one the very essence of all that was pagan, fierce and cruel; the other the perfection of all that was Christian, holy, and gentle. Her father, Wulfhere, was the son of the famous or shall we not rather say in famous? Penda, King of the Mercians, who, by the countless victims of his unholy wars, swelled the white-robed army of martyrs, foremost amongst whom were the five kings, Saint Oswald, Egric, Annas, Sigebert, and Edwin. He is described by the chronicler as a man who breathed nothing but fury and war, and loved to tread in ways stained with blood. At length, in 655, he was slain in battle by King Oswin, the brother of Saint Oswald, who had promised that if he got the victory he would consecrate his daughter to serve God in perpetual virginity. Though the pagan army was thirty times as large as the Christian, yet the pagans were cut to pieces and their leaders and generals slain. King Oswin, mindful of his vow, offered his daughter to God in holy religion; “and having spent three score years in our Lord’s service, the happy virgin hastened to the embraces of the heavenly Bridegroom.” Penda was succeeded by his son Peada, who became a Christian, but was assassinated three years later; and Wulfhere then became the rightful heir to the largest kingdom of the Heptarchy.

Saint Werburgh’s birth happened most probably many years before Wulfhere’s accession, as the course of the narrative will show. Wulfhere was married to the saintly and beautiful Ermenilda, daughter to Erconbert, King of Kent, and of Sexburga his wife. The latter was the daughter of the King Annas, of holy memory, who was slain by Penda. Wulfhere and Ermenilda were strangely matched, for if Wulfhere had inherited his father’s courage and military prowess, he had likewise inherited his violent and cruel temper. We wonder how Saint Sexburga could have entrusted her gentle young daughter to a man of such character, and, above all, to a pagan; yet she may have foreseen that Ermenilda’s influence would at length prevail, and that the leaven of her virtues would gradually impregnate the whole country over which she would one day be queen. Besides, it was not the first time in history that the “leopard was to lie down with the kid, and the wolf with the lamb” (Isaias 11:6); a Patricius and a Monica, a Clovis and a Clotilde come readily to mind.

Wulfhere and Ermenilda had four children. Werburgh was the eldest and the only girl; the boys were Ulfald, Rufifin, and Kenred: the last seems to have been much younger than the others. Wulfhere probably did not interfere with the religion of his daughter, since she was baptized and allowed openly to profess her faith. He no doubt thought Christianity good enough for women: but with his sons it was a very different matter. He wished them to be fond of war, to shed blood without scruple, and to shrink from no means so long as they attained their end. Ermenilda was therefore obliged to use her influence with the utmost tact, and to instill Christian principles into them without allowing their father to suspect what she was doing. Fortunately the children all inherited their mother’s temperament and virtues; and she did not cease to water and tend with the utmost care the tender plants entrusted to her, endeavouring to enkindle within their hearts the undying flame of charity, and to impress on their minds the imperishable truths which lead to life eternal.

Werburgh must very soon have noticed the contrast between the violent nature of her pagan father and the gentle sweetness of her Christian mother, since we read of her that she had a serious thoughtfulness beyond her years, and took no pleasure in the usual enjoyments of a child. Her chief delight was to sit by her mother’s side, to learn from her to love God and His Saints, and to go with her to assist at the celebration of Mass and the Divine Office, during which she would kneel the whole time out of reverence. Divine Providence had constituted Ermenilda the refuge of all in distress and the mother of the poor and needy; and in all her exercises of charity she found a constant companion and a ready assistant in Werburgh.

At that time Saint Chad, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield, was living as a hermit in closest union with God in a neighbouring forest. Saint Ermenilda desired very much that her sons should have him for their master in the spiritual life now that they were growing into man’s estate; yet she dreaded her husband’s violence if he should come to know of her plan, and endeavoured to carry it out with the greatest secrecy. It was therefore agreed that the two elder boys should go out on pretence of hunting expeditions, and that in the course of the chase they should slip away and seek out the hermit’s cell. This happened several times, no one apparently suspecting anything; and their young hearts being inflamed by Saint Chad’s instructions, they begged him not to defer their Baptism. At length the Saint acceded to their request, and, pouring upon their heads the regenerating water, washed their souls white in the Blood of the Lamb.

In the meanwhile Werburgh had reached a marriageable age, and on account of her striking beauty and sweet ways, she was eagerly sought after by suitors for her hand. But her chronicler tells us that though her beauty of form made her exceedingly in request, the still greater beauty of her mind caused her to care only for Him who is beautiful above the sons of men; and that the vehement longing she had to taste of His inestimable sweetness caused her heart to pant after Him as a thirsty stag, heated in the chase, pants for water. She had therefore bound her virginity by vow to Christ, and with angelic purity repulsed all suitors, God Himself dwelling in her as sole Master of all her affections.

Among those who sought her in marriage was a powerful nobleman named Werebode. Wulf here was greatly indebted to this man, and was anxious to keep on good terms with him from motives of policy as well as of gratitude. He therefore readily agreed to give him his daughter, provided she herself would agree to the union. Werebode was a headstrong, haughty man, unaccustomed to be thwarted, and with a very exalted idea of his own attractions. When, therefore, Werburgh turned a deaf ear to his proposals, he was stung to the quick, and being mad with passion, his love speedily turned into hate. He understood that it was her religion which had raised a barrier between them, and he determined to be revenged both on Werburgh and her faith. He had noticed the mysterious disappearance of the two young princes in the forest, and had secretly watched their interviews with Saint Chad. He therefore formed the diabolical plan of com passing their ruin.

He sought out their father and poured out a story full of slander and cunning about the deceit of his sons, telling him how they had deserted the gods of their ancestors, Odin and Thor, and had embraced the religion of the Crucified, and how they were plotting to seize their father’s crown and kingdom to make it Christian too. It was easy enough to rouse Wulfhere’s passionate nature, and Werebode so worked upon his feelings that he became beside himself with rage. “Come,” said Werebode, “and I will give you proof of my story;” and with that the two rode off into the forest. It happened that at the moment they reached the hermit’s cell the two boys were kneeling in the rude chapel, having but now received holy Baptism from the hands of Saint Chad. Their souls were clad in the white robe of innocence, a look of unearthly peace and joy lighted up their fair faces. The King was exasperated, and, breaking in violently upon them, demanded angrily of them to renounce their superstition and give up their foolery. But no threats could move them, and the father in his fury bade Werebode murder his own sons. Werebode had attained his end, but his triumph was to be short-lived, for soon after he perished miserably.

We may well imagine the grief, not unmingled with joy, of the holy mother at the news of this martyrdom: grief at the terrible crime committed by her husband, and at the loss of two who were dearer to her than life, yet joy and gratitude for the martyrs death which had won for her sons an immortal crown. Taking Werburgh with her, Ermenilda set out for the hermitage, and there found Saint Chad keeping vigil by the precious relics. Ulfald and Ruffin lay locked in each other’s embrace, apparently wrapped in a deep sleep, for no trace remained on their countenances to tell of the violence of their death; rather the smile which lingered there betokened the souls awakening to gaze for ever on the Master for whom their lives had been sacrificed. Tenderly and reverently Saint Chad, assisted by Ermenilda and Werburgh, laid them in their last resting-place, which was soon to become so favourite a place of pilgrimage. Then the mother and daughter retraced their steps homewards with heavy hearts, not knowing what to expect, scarce knowing what to hope for. But the dying prayer of the sons for their father had not been in vain; the blood which they had shed cried for mercy and -not for vengeance, and even Wulf here’s hard nature could not withstand the flood of grace which the little martyrs obtained for him. Remorse, keen and deep, had taken possession of him, and he bitterly deplored the fearful result of his passion. Humbled and crushed, he listened the more readily to the words of hope spoken to him by Ermenilda and Werburgh, and consented to go to Saint Chad to confess his sin and be instructed by him in the faith for which his sons had died. Finally he embraced Christianity, and with the sacred waters of Baptism expiated his crime. He caused a priory built of stone to be erected on the scene of the martyrdom which has given its name to the place (Stone, Staffordshire); and he undertook to finish and amply endow the monastery of Peterborough, begun by his brother, as a lasting monument of his sin and repentance.

From henceforth he was a changed man, and when in 658 he was proclaimed King of the Mercians, three years after his brother’s death, he utterly rooted out of his kingdom “the pagan worship of devils,” commanding the name of Christ to be preached everywhere and many churches to be built. William of Malmesbury says of him “that at his first accession to the throne, to the end that he might not deceive the expectation of his subjects, he spared no diligence, study, or labour to show himself a good prince who sought the profit and happiness of his kingdom. Moreover that by his favour and counte nance he earnestly advanced the Christian faith, then gasping for life as being but a little before brought in by his brother.” Capgrave, speaking of Saint Ermenilda, says that she was so zealous in promoting the Christian faith that by her persuasion, kindness, and holy example, the rude and perverse nation of the Mercians was brought to submit to the sweet yoke of Christ; while her husband Wulfhere, complying with her desires, assisted her in extirpating idolatrous superstition and filling the kingdom with churches and priests.

Meanwhile, however, Werburgh sighed after a higher and better life than that of the Court. Both she and her mother despised riches; the gold, precious stones, and embroidered robes which form the paraphernalia of royalty were far more burdensome than honourable to them, and while at times of regal state they were obliged to submit to be thus bedecked, they grieved to feel that they were still held prisoners by such vanity.

At length Werburgh obtained her father’s consent to follow the call which had so long sounded in her heart to give herself unreservedly to God and His service in a monastery. The fame of the Abbey of Ely in Cambridgeshire, which had been founded by her great-aunt, the beautiful and gifted Etheldreda, or Audry, was already widespread; but to Werburgh it must have been well known, for besides her aunt, her grandmother had recently taken the veil there. Her grandfather, King Ercombert, died in 664, and Harpsfield tells us how her grandmother, Saint Sexburga, “like a bird which had been a long time enclosed in a cage gladly escaped out of it, and divesting herself of all her royal ornaments and marks of royal pomp and pride betook herself first to the Abbey of Sheppey, and later to the society of holy virgins in the city of Ely governed by her sister the most glorious virgin Etheldreda.” It was, then, most natural that Ely should have been singled out as the future home of Werburgh, and that Wulfhere and Ermenilda should have chosen to entrust their daughter to those who by every title would love and cherish her.

Wulfhere himself escorted Werburgh to Ely, accompanied by a large suite of noblemen and retainers. Upon their arrival they were met in state at the great door of the Abbey by the Abbess and her nuns, Saint Chad, now Bishop of Lichfield, and a number of ecclesiastics. The reception of such a postulant was no small event in the annals of the Monastery, for Wulfhere was the most powerful of all the kings of the Heptarchy, and, besides, there was not one who did not marvel at the generosity of the fierce old Saxon monarch, subdued by penance, and bowed down by the remem brance of a crime forgiven but not forgotten, who thus sacrificed to God his only daughter in all her youth and beauty. Werburgh fell upon her knees before the com munity, and with great humility asked to be received as a postulant into the Abbey. Her request being granted, she was led in procession into the church. When she had laid aside her royal robes, Saint Chad cut off her hair, and gave her the coarse habit of religion in exchange for her rich garments, and the veil of virginity in place of the royal diadem. The “Te Deum” was then sung, and the humble novice, resigning herself entirely into the hands of her superiors, sought to divest herself interiorly, as well as exteriorly, of all that savoured of the world, and to hasten as a pilgrim to her eternal home. Wulfhere left her with many tears, yet found it in his heart to thank God for choosing his daughter for His bride; and how much he valued the honour thus bestowed was showed when he returned the follow ing year to be present at her Profession. He invited for the occasion the King” of Kent, the King of the East Angles, with all the great lords of their kingdoms, and his own three brothers with their retinues. All these he entertained with a magnificence suited to such an occasion as that of the Espousals of the Son of God with his daughter.

Wulfhere did not long survive Werburgh’s consecration: he had reigned seventeen years, and by his zeal for the faith in the latter years of his life had rendered himself beloved both to God and man, when in 675 he was transferred, as we may hope, from an earthly to an eternal kingdom. His widow, while she mourned his loss, rejoiced to be able to cut the chain which bound her to the world, and to embrace the religious state after which she had so long sighed; and she subjected herself to the sweet yoke of Christ together with her daughter in the Monastery of Ely. Here she lived unweariedly in all holiness, giving to the nuns an example of every virtue. Mother and daughter vied with one another in humility, each desiring, to be subject to the other: the mother, honouring the virginity of her daughter, would have Werburgh be the first, while Werburgh naturally desired to give place to her mother. The chronicler gives this account of Saint Werburgh’s life and conduct at this period:’s Her only diligence and solicitude was employed in avoiding all things which might displease the eyes of her heavenly Bridegroom, for whose love she despised gold, jewels, rich attire, and all other vanities admired by the world. All her thoughts were busied in this one thing, how she might excel her religious sisters in observing silence, abstinence, watchings, devout reading, and prayers. Which holy design having compassed, insomuch as she was as far exalted above them in these and all other virtues as in the nobleness of her descent, yet she thought so meanly of herself, and was so free from any arrogance or pride, that she showed herself always ready and willing to obey all, and cheerfully undertook the vilest offices, among which a charitable care of the poor and needy, to whom she was a pious and tender mother, took the principal place. In a word, through the whole course of her life her conversation was such as showed that though her body moved on earth yet her mind was always fixed in heaven.”

In 679 Werburgh and the nuns of Ely suffered a grievous loss in the death of their Abbess Saint Etheldreda, after she had governed the monastery for seven years, and had been to her spiritual children a model of piety and virtue. Venerable Bede relates of her that she rarely eat more than once a day except on great solemnities or when her infirmities forced her to do otherwise; and that from midnight Matins until break of day she would remain in the church absorbed in prayer. He specially mentions her mortification in wearing coarse woollen garments, and in denying herself the luxury of warm baths to which she had been accustomed. She suffered much before her death from a very painful tumour on her neck; but she rejoiced in this humiliating infirmity, saying to those who compassionated her, “I know that I am justly pained in my neck because when I was a young maid I wore about my neck weighty chains of jewels; therefore God in His mercy has thus punished me, that the fierce heat and redness of the swelling in my neck may satisfy for my former pride and levity.”

Saint Werburgh’s grandmother Sexburga was unanimously chosen to succeed her sister in the abbatial office. For fifteen years she had lived under religious discipline and had been all the more assiduous in her devotions and rigorous in her mortifications in that she had come so late in life to the school of perfection. But if she had come late to religion it was from no lack of desire on her part, for her biographer tells us that God thought fit to delay the execution of her aspirations that she might, with no less merit and far more labour in her condition as a sovereign, afford examples of virtue to all her subjects. This she had performed in an admirable manner, being, as Capgrave describes her, “a most reverenced mother to the great ones and a kind patroness to the poor. The former observed her as a princess, the latter as a mother, those venerated her majesty, these admired her humility. To the nobles she was awful, and to meaner persons seemed equal; to all she was amiable and to all venerable, rarely seen in throngs but frequent in churches.” After twenty-five years of married life, her husband, King Ercombert, died, and she retired to the Isle of Shoppy in Kent, where she had founded a monastery for nuns known as “the Minster,” and there received the veil from Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury. As foundress, the reins of government were at once given into her hands, but she longed to live in subjection as a simple nun; so no sooner did she hear of the foundation made at Ely by Saint Etheldreda, her younger sister, than she determined to go and join her. Therefore assembling the nuns about eighty in number she thus addressed them:’s Farewell, my daughters; I leave you Jesus for your protector, the angels for your companions, and I have chosen one among you to be superior in my place. As for me, I go to the place of my birth to live under the rule of my sister Etheldreda, and to share her labours on earth that I may likewise share her crown in heaven.” She was received with the greatest possible joy by her sister, and though her senior in age and probably also in experience of religious life, she lived for some years in perfect obedience and submission to her, until such time as God, having called Etheldreda to Himself, laid once again upon her shoulders the burden of government. In her office as Abbess she was more than ever watchful over herself and more fervent in her prayers, remember ing that she had to give an account to Clod of many souls besides her own.

After she had governed her monastery to the great edification and contentment of all for sixteen years, mindful of the great sanctity of her sister, she desired to translate the body of the latter to a more honourable resting-place, and to substitute a coffin of stone for the simple wooden one in which Etheldreda had been laid to rest. A fitting church had now been built to receive the body of the venerable foundress, and all that remained was to procure suitable stone for the coffin. Venerable Bede tells how “Saint Sexburga commanded certain of the monks from the adjoining monastery to search out a stone commodious for that purpose. Now, the region of Ely being all encompassed with rivers and marshes afforded no such stones of a convenient largeness. They therefore, taking boat, went to a certain city not far distant which lay desolate, where presently near the walls they found a coffin of white marble elegantly made and fitly covered with a stone of the same. Perceiving hereby that God had prospered their journey, they with great joy and thankfulness brought the coffin to the Monastery. Now when the sepulchre was opened and the sacred body of the holy virgin and Spouse of Christ discovered, it was found as free from any corruption as if she had been buried the same day. The religious virgins therefore washed the Saint’s body, and putting new vestments on it, carried it into the church, placing it in the marble coffin lately brought thither. And, which was very strange, the said coffin was found so exactly fit for the holy virgin’s body, as if it had been made on purpose for her. The place likewise of the head, which was distinctly framed, did properly suit with the measure of the virgin’s head.” On account of this striking testimony to Saint Etheldreda’s heavenly glory, her feast is usually kept in October on the anniversary of her translation, and not on June 23rd, the day of her death.

After Saint Sexburga had performed this office of devotion and love for her sister, she herself was called to her reward at a very advanced age, and her daughter, Saint Ermenilda, Werburgh’s mother, was, on account of her great humility and other virtues, chosen by her religious sisters, to whom she had so endeared herself, to be their mother and mistress. How long they enjoyed her gentle government is not known, for though she is mentioned in the Martyrology on February 13th, no year for her death is given. Saint Ermenilda had one other sister, Earthongata, who, as a young girl, desiring to lead a perfect life, went over to a French monastery with two of her aunts, because at that time there were very few religious houses in England. Of her, Venerable Bede writes as follows:’s Many things are related very miraculous concerning Earthongata, but we will only mention briefly her death and the wonders succeeding it. When the day approached on which she was to be called out of this world to eternal happiness, she went about the monastery visiting the cells of the religious virgins, especially such as were more ancient and eminent for piety, to whose prayers she humbly recommended herself, not concealing from them that she was taught by revelation that her departure was at hand. Now on the same night at break of day, she passed from the darkness of this world to the heavenly light. Many of the monks whose lodgings were adjoining the monastery report that they heard distinctly a melody of angels singing and a noise as it were of a great multitude entering the monastery. Whereupon going forth to see what the matter was, they saw a wonderful great light from heaven, in which that holy soul, when delivered from the prison of her body, was conducted to eternal joys. Three days after her burial they, having a mind to take up the stone which covered her sepulchre and raise it higher, as they were busy about this, a sweet odour of so wonderful a fragrance exhaled from beneath, that it seemed to the religious men and sisters there assisting as if a cellar full of precious balm was then opened.”

But to return to Saint Werburgh. At the death of her father her brother Kenred was still so young that her uncle Ethelred succeeded to the kingdom. He had a very high opinion of the sanctity and intellectual capacity of his niece, and was most anxious that all the convents in Mercia should be placed under her direction in order that she might establish in them that perfection of religious discipline which to his great edification he had often witnessed at Ely. This, at length, the Saint consented to undertake, though it must have cost her dearly to leave her mother and the peaceful seclusion she had enjoyed at Ely, to devote herself to the welfare of strangers and to the work of reform, which so often proves a fruitless task. But she did not hesitate before sacrifice, and it was sufficient to her that God had made known to her His will by means of her superiors; while He so blessed her efforts as to make them bring forth fruit a hundredfold. Her uncle, eager in every way to further her pious designs, enabled her to found three new monasteries, one at Trentham, one at Hanbury in Staffordshire, and one at Weedon in Northamptonshire; the latter was a royal palace which Ethelred placed at her disposal.

Werburgh’s exalted position in no wise changed the humility which characterized her, and she seemed to be rather the servant than the mistress of those over whom she ruled, putting herself on the same footing as the very least of her subjects, and seeking as far as was compatible with her office to take the lowest place. She carried all her daughters in her heart, loving them as though they were indeed her own children, and teaching them virtue by her own example. She possessed in their fulness the spirit of peace, kindness, joy, and love. She was cheerful in tribulation, overcoming all difficulties by faith, and rising above earthly trials by fixing her heart on heaven. She preferred fasting to feasting, watching to resting, holy reading and prayer to recreation and dissipation. In God she possessed all things: He was her consolation in sorrow, her counsel in doubt, her patience in trial, her abundance in poverty, her food in fasting, her medicine in sickness.

It was no wonder, says her biographer, that her spiritual children rendered her such ready obedience and loving service, for even the irrational creatures obeyed her. There is a famous legend illustrative of this, which is related even by Protestant historians. It happened that when she was at Weedon, just before the harvest, the cornfields were being greatly injured by a flock of wild geese which the steward had done his best to drive away, but in vain. At last he came to complain of the matter to his mistress. Werburgh, with childlike trust in God, told the steward quite simply to go and call the geese and shut them up in the great barn. The man looked at her amazed, thinking that she must be speak ing in jest, and began muttering to himself about the absurdity of such an order. How could he possibly be expected to confine birds in a barn who had wings to carry them to heaven? “Of course,” he grumbled, “the instant I come up they will all be off like the wind!” But Werburgh urged the command, telling him again to call them in her name and put them into confinement. He dared not disobey any longer; so off he went to the fields where, as usual, the geese were feasting on the corn. “Go all of you to my mistress!” he shouted incredulously; when, to his surprise, they meekly collected and waddled off in front of him like so many naughty children. Not one of the flock raised a wing, and all were imprisoned in the barn to await Werburgh s pleasure. That night after Matins she prolonged her prayer as usual till after daylight, when very early she was roused from her meditation by a tremendous cackling which came from the geese who were getting tired of their confinement. The Saint, who was kindness itself to all God’s creatures, went to set them free, telling them she did so on condition they were never seen again in the place. But one of the farm boys had during the night stolen one of the birds, intending to kill and eat it; the result was that the flock settled on the roof of the church making a dreadful noise, as though demanding restitution of the missing bird. Werburgh either guessed what had happened, or knew by inspiration, for she found the culprit and bade him release his captive. The boy went off much ashamed at being thus convicted, and restored the missing goose. The Saint then cried out, “Bless the Lord, all ye birds of the air,” upon which they flew off without more ado, and no bird of that kind was ever after seen in those parts. “Rightly indeed,” exclaims her biographer,’s did the birds obey one who had always obeyed their Creator with such zeal and love.”

How lowly she was in her own eyes, and how pleasing in the sight of God is known by a miracle of a very touching character. Among the labourers on the Abbey estate was one who was remarkable for his holiness of life. His name was Alnotus. One day some trifling oversight on his part roused the steward’s indignation to such a degree that he completely lost his temper and began beating the poor fellow most unmercifully. At that moment Werburgh arrived on the scene, and was naturally much distressed to see the ungovernable temper of her steward thus venting itself on an innocent man. In her eagerness to bring him to his senses, she threw herself at his feet crying, “Spare an innocent man who is far more pleasing than we are to God who seeth all things.” The steward, however, who was evidently beside himself, paid no attention; upon which Werburgh turned to God for help, and immediately the offender fell paralyzed to the ground. It was now his turn to cry for mercy, acknowledging his sin with many tears. Werburgh, satisfied with his contrition, restored him to his natural strength. The labourer afterwards became a hermit in the forest of Stow, not far from Weedon, where he was martyred by robbers; and how acceptable he was to God was afterwards proved by miracles.

God deigned to show how much Werburgh was beloved by Him and how much power her prayers had with Him, by making her the instrument of many miraculous cures upon the sick and maimed. He also endued her with a spirit of prophecy and the power of discerning spirits and reading the secrets of hearts. At length she felt that her useful and holy life was soon to have an end, and she thought well to prepare her daughters for her departure and arrange about the place of her burial. She knew well how devoted the nuns were to her; each of her monasteries had some claim on her motherly heart; each would have had her always with them, and she was perfectly aware of the pious rivalry which would arise among them as to the possession of her body after death. She therefore determined to forestall all dispute by choosing Hanbury as her last resting-place, probably because it was the largest, and the nearest to Ely her first monastic home. She gave strict orders on this point, saying that no matter where she died her body was to be taken to Hanbury.

On 3 February 699, the day so long desired arrived a day which was to put an end to all the toils and pains of earth and admit her to eternal joys: the day of eternity which was to dissipate all shadows and cause the light of eternal glory to shine upon her. Her blessed soul exulted when the summons came to invite her to the Marriage-Feast; she rejoiced to leave exile for home, a prison for a kingdom, captivity for liberty, the tyranny of this world for the Spouse whom she loved and longed for. She died at Trentham, and her soul was carried by Angels to heaven and admitted among the company of glorious virgins who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth,and who sing the canticle which none but themselves can sing. God willed that she should end her earthly course in this Monastery in order that by a wonderful prodigy He might bear witness to her holiness. The nuns of Trentham, setting aside the last wishes of their Abbess with regard to her burial-place, determined to keep her precious remains among them at any cost. To those who came from Hanbury to claim the body, they gave a decided refusal, and even went so far as to lock up the coffin in a crypt and set a guard over it. However, the people of Hanbury were equally determined not to be done out of their treasure; and when they heard of the nuns refusal to give it up, a whole party of them set out to insist on their claim. They reached Trentham in the middle of the night, and, by an interposition of Providence, all the bolts and bars of the Abbey and its crypt opened at their touch. They found the guards over powered by a deep sleep, and without any opposition were able to carry off the coffin in triumph to Hanbury. Here the holy virgin was buried with great solemnity, while the many miracles which followed clearly showed that her soul reigned in heaven, and that her prayers were powerfully pleading for the people whom she had left in exile to mourn her loss. “In this place,” writes a contemporary, “sick persons recover health, sight is restored to the blind, hearing to the dumb, the lepers are cleansed, and persons oppressed with several other diseases do there praise God for their recovery.”

On account of these marvels, devotion to the Saint very naturally increased, and the people felt that so great a light should not be buried under a bushel, but should be placed in a conspicuous place in a suitable shrine, where the pilgrims could pay their devotions in a proper manner. They therefore referred the matter to Kenred, King of the Mercians, and younger brother to Saint Werburgh. In 704, Ethelred, Kenred’s uncle, had abdicated in favour of his nephew, and retired into the Monastery of Bardeney, in Lincolnshire. He had grown more and more tired of government and the burden of secular affairs. The death of his niece had made him even more eager to devote all his energies to the sanctification of his soul and the acquirement of an eternal crown. He therefore handed over his kingdom to Kenred, and became a simple monk in the Benedictine Abbey that he himself had founded, where, after ten years of exem plary life, he died the death of a Saint. Kenred readily acceded to the request of the people to provide a fitting shrine for his sister, and in 708 he came in person with a great concourse of ecclesiastics and nobles to assist at the translation of the relics. As the body had rested for nine years in the earth, no one expected to find any thing but dry bones; what was then their amazement when the holy virgin’s body appeared absolutely intact, as though she had but now fallen into a refreshing sleep. Her garments were as spotless and unruffled as though freshly placed upon her, and when the Celebrant, in the sight of all present, removed the veil from her face and a gentle flush was seen upon it like that of a summer rose, a great shout of admiration and thanksgiving rent the air, and the whole crowd praised God for His wonderful works. The priests, clad in the richest vestments, reverently raised her upon their shoulders and carried her to the shrine prepared for her, where as a beacon of light she continued to shed her lustre over her faithful people.

This miracle made a very deep impression on King Kenred, and deepened the desire he had for some time cherished of following in the footsteps of his sister, who had despised all the kingdoms of the earth as dirt in comparison with the pearl of great price which she had obtained. Another occurrence of a less pleasing but not less impressive nature fixed his resolution. Among his suite there was a knight to whom he was greatly attached, who had fought side by side with him in many a battle, and had vied with him in performing deeds of valour, for both were endowed with great courage. Unfortunately, however, this knight was utterly reckless with regard to his soul, and many and many a time Kenred, who was always good and loyal to his God, had exhorted him to mend his ways and attend to the affairs of his soul as faithfully as he did to those of his King. The knight took the admonitions in good part, but always put off his conversion, saying he would have plenty of time to attend to his soul when he was old and past work. But he was struck down by the plague in the prime and vigour of his manhood, and had most terrible sufferings, doubtless sent him by God to recall him to a better mind. When the King heard of his condition, he hastened to his bedside and begged him with all possible earnestness not to delay his confession and to make his peace with God before it was too late. To these charitable entreaties the sick man only replied that nothing would induce him to go to confession until he got better, for his comrades would laugh at him for being chicken-hearted and doing that for fear of death which he had not been willing to do when in health.

The following day the King determined to renew his efforts to save that unhappy soul, but the grace of God had knocked and knocked in vain, and now the miser able man was a prey to the most frightful despair. He told the King that during the night two beautiful young men had entered his room carrying a book in which were written all the good actions he had ever done, but their number was very small, and none of them were of very great merit. Then a host of demons burst into the room carrying a book of enormous size and weight, containing all the crimes, evil words, and sinful thoughts of his life. The chief of these demons turned to the young men and exclaimed, “Why stay you here, for you must see that this soul is ours?” “It is true,” they answered; “take him and make him partaker of your damnation.” “Thus,” says Venerable Bede, “died this unhappy, despairing man, and now being for all eternity tormented, he practises without any fruit repentance which he neglected to do in his lifetime, when a short penance might have procured his pardon.”

This terrible death made Kenred resolved to secure his own salvation at any cost; and, knowing by experience the very grave dangers and temptations which beset the life of a monarch, he felt inspired to follow the example of his uncle Ethelred, and abdicate in favour of his cousin, after a short reign of five years, during which he had administered his kingdom with great piety and justice. In order that his sacrifice might be the more complete, he resolved to go right away from a country where his name was famous and where he would always be treated with honour. Early in the year 709 he put on pilgrim’s garb, and in company of two others set out for Rome, to end his days as a humble suppliant at the Tomb of the Apostles. He was accompanied by King Ina, of the East Saxons, who in all the bloom of his youth left his home, his betrothed, his kingdom, and a people who idolized him, to become the servant of the King of kings. These two arrived in Rome after travelling the whole distance on foot, the journey taking the best part of a year. There, kneeling before the Confession of Saint Peter’s, they were tonsured and clothed with the monastic habit by the reigning Pontiff Constantius; and after living for some years in the practice of prayer and penance they died in the odour of sanctity and found awaiting them in Paradise the crowns which they had sacrificed in this world that they might wear them for all eternity in the next.

For many a long year Saint Werburgh rested peacefully among her faithful daughters at Hanbury; but in 875 England was invaded by the Danes, and it was deemed prudent to carry her precious body to a more secure haven than Hanbury, which was in imminent peril of being ravaged by the pagan invaders. Under no other circumstances would the people of Hanbury have consented to part with their treasure, but they were terrified at the approach of the Danes and dreaded desecration for the still incorrupt body of the Saint. King Alfred the Great was then reigning, and he had given his daughter in marriage to Ethelred, whom he had constituted first Earl of Mercia, the race of its kings being extinct. This pious nobleman had Saint Werburgh’s shrine conveyed with the utmost care to Chester, where he caused a fine church to be built for its reception, which he amply endowed, and placed canons there to guard the holy virgin’s body. This church afterwards became the cathedral of the city, and the inhabitants honoured Saint Werburgh as their own special patroness. The Saxon kings and nobles continued to pay homage to the Saint, to visit her shrine, and to enrich it with costly gifts. In the reign of Saint Edward the Confessor the Minster was rebuilt on a more magnificent scale by Leofric, another Earl of Mercia, and a most devoted client of the Saint. On the accession of William the Conqueror, Chester was offered to him by his cousin, Hugh Lupus, on condition that he should fairly win it from the Saxons, which after three attempts he succeeded in doing. He it was who, in 1093, replaced the secular canons, entrusted with the care of Saint Werburgh’s shrine, by a community of Benedictine monks from Bee. It was for the settling and ordering of this monastery that Saint Anselm was first invited to England. Saint Werburgh seems to have kept a watchful care over the city committed to her, and the people of Chester ascribed to her intercession their almost miraculous escapes from the ravages of Danes, Scots, and Welsh. Many sick still sought and found health at her shrine, and in 1180, a terrible fire having broken out in Chester which threatened to destroy the city, the inhabitants fled to her for protection; upon which the monks, taking up her body, carried it in procession to meet the raging flames, which immediately subsided, and the town was saved.

In the course of ages her body fell to dust, probably that it might be saved from pollution, when, in the reign of Henry VIII, the reformers sacked the cathedral and scattered her relics. The shell of her tomb may still be seen in Chester Cathedral. It is ten feet high and embellished with thirty quaint old bas-reliefs of the kings of Mercia and others of her ancestors.

But if her relics are lost to us the fragrance of her virtues still lingers around the land of her birth. While she continues to intercede for her countrymen in heaven, the example of her life is still before us to teach us to live like her a life of faith; to remind us that we have not here a lasting city, but seek one that is to come; and finally to encourage us so to detach our hearts from this world that after her we may be brought with gladness and rejoicing into the temple of the King.

– text taken from the booklet Saint Weburgh, author unknown, published by the Catholic Truth Society of London

SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/catholic-truth-society-of-london-saint-werburgh/


St Werburgh's Church, Derby


Santa Vereburga Badessa

3 febbraio

650 – 700 circa

Emblema: Bastone pastorale, Oca

Martirologio Romano: A Chester nella Mercia in Inghilterra, santa Verburga, badessa di Ely, fondatrice di vari monasteri.

La santa principessa Vereburga (o Wereburga) discendeva da una famiglia di santi. Venerate come tali erano infatti sua madre Ermenilda (Ermengilda), sua zia Ercongota, sua nonna materna Sexburga, le sorelle di quest’ultima Eteldreda, Etelburga e Vitburga, nonché la sorellastra Santa Setrida. Eteldreda, Sexburga ed Ermenilda si susseguiro nella carica di badessa di Ely e la tradizione vuole che dopo di esse giunse il turno per Vereburga nel ricoprire il prestigioso incarico.

Nata nel 650 dal re Wulfhere di Mercia e da Santa Ermenilda, nel 675 alla morte del padre Vereburga rinunciò ai fasti della corte e si ritirò nell’abbazia di Ely. Il fratello del defunto, Etelredo, succedutogli al trono, fece tornare la nipote per affidarle un gruppo di case per religiose nelle contee dell’Inghilterra centrale, con lo specifico compito di introdurvi una più rigida osservanza. Tra questi monasteri figuravano quello di Weedon nel Nothamptonshire, già abitazione reale che la santa poi trasformò in monastero, Trentham nel Lincolnshire, ove ella morì, ed Hanbury nello Staffordshire, in cui desiderò essere sepolta. Le reliquei di Vereburga furono poi traslate a Chester, assai probabilmente per salvarle dalla profanazione durante le invasioni danesi. Qui il suo sacrario, posto nella cattedrale cittadina, divenne frequentatissima meta di pellegrinaggi.

Santa Vereburga deve gran parte della sua popolarità ad una romanzesca leggenda, secondo la quale la bella principessa respinse le avances di non pochi corteggiatori onde salvaguardare la sua consacrazione al Signore. A Werbod, suo principale ammiratore, il sovrano concesse la figlia in sposa, purché egli riuscisse ad ottenere il libero consenso da parte di Vereburga. Il pretendente era però pagano e quindi già la regina Ermenilda ed i suoi figli si opposero all’eventualità di questa unione, suscitando però in tal modo la sua ira. I principi erano stati educati da San Chad, vescovo di Lichfield, che viveva in una foresta e dava perciò loro la possibilità di mascherare le visite rivoltegli con delle spedizioni di caccia. Werbod denunciò questo fatto al re e questi non esitò a farli uccidere. Anche Werbod, però, ben presto andò incontro ad una miserabile morte ed il sovrano, roso dal rimorso, mutò in positivo i suoi rapporti con la sua santa consorte e con San Chad. Questi eventi incoraggiarono Vereburga nel suo proposito e chiese allora il permesso al padre di poter entrare ad Ely.

Un’altra antica leggenda spiega il perchè l’oca sia divenuto l’emblema principale di questa santa: un gruppo di oche selvatiche devasto i raccolti di Weedon e Vereburga le fece catturare, ma dopo che nottetempo un servo ne uccise una e la cucinò, la santa la riportò in vita. Lo stormo di animali poi fuggì, senza più tornare a rovinare i raccolti. Le reliquie di Santa Vereburga vennero nuovamente traslate nella cattedrale di Chester nel 1095, cioè pressapoco quando Goscelino scrisse la sua Vita, ove questa leggenda è raffigurata su una mensola d’appoggio di un sedile del coro: al centro vi è la santa con un bastone pastorale in mano, mentre un servo le porge un’oca; sulla destra un uomo confessa di aver rubato l’animale, mentre a sinistra si scorgono le altre oche rinchiuse. Questa storiella in realtà era già stata utilizzata dallo stesso autore nella Vita di Santa Amalberga.

Santa Vereburga è festeggiata dal Martyrologium Romanum al 3 febbraioi, presumibilmente data della morte, mentre il 21 giugno ricorre l’anniversario della traslazione delle reliquie nella cattedrale di Chester, della quale è protettrice. Attrazione per numerosi pellegrini, il suo sacraio fu però distrutto sotto il regno di Edoardi VIII d’Inghilterra, nel contesto della Riforma Protestante e della nascita della Chiesa Anglicana.

Autore: Fabio Arduino

SOURCE : http://santiebeati.it/dettaglio/39475