The Bonifacian mission and female religious in Wessex

Early Medieval Europe

Volumn 7, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 145-172

  Yorke, Barbara ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CULTURAL HISTORY; GENDER ROLE; RELIGION;

ENGLAND; UNITED KINGDOM; WESSEX;

EID: 0031768019     PISSN: 09639462     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1468-0254.00023     Document Type: Article

References (147)

1. Charters of St Augustine's [Abbey, Canterbury and Minster-in-Thanet], ed. S. Kelly (Oxford, 1995); see also D. Rollason, [The] Mildrith Legend. [A Study of Early Medieval Hagiography] (Leicester, 1982).
2. P. Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature [ in Western England, 600-800] (Cambridge, 1990).
3. Vita Leobae Abbatissae Biscofesheimensis auctore Rudolfo Fuldensi, ed. G. Waitz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica [MGH] Scriptures XV, (Hanover, 1887), pp. 118-31 [henceforth, Vita Leobae]. The Life is translated in C.H. Talbot, The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany (London, 1954) [henceforth, Talbot], pp. 204-26.
4. J.T. Schulenberg, 'Strict Active Enclosure and its Effects on the Female Monastic Experience (ca. 500-1100)', in J.A. Nichols and L.Y. Shank (eds.) Medieval Religious Women I, Distant Echoes (Kalamazoo, 1984), pp. 51-86;
5. S. Hollis, Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church (Woodbridge, 1992), pp. 271-300.
6. Aldhelmi Opera Omnia, ed. R. Ehwald, MGH Auaores Antiquissimi XV (Berlin, 1919), pp. 14-18; M. Lapidge and J. Rosier, Aldhelm: The Poetic Works (Woodbridge, 1985), pp. 40-9; and see further below.
7. Asser's Life of King Alfred, ed. W.H. Stevenson (Oxford, 1904, repr. 1959), ch. 49, pp. 36-7; and see further below.
8. M. Tangl (ed.), Die Briefe des heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, MGH Epistolae Selectae I (Berlin, 1916) [hereafter Tangl]. English translations of selected letters are to be found in E. Kylie, The English Correspondence of St Boniface (London, 1924) [Kylie], E. Emerton, The Letters of St Boniface (New York, 1940) and Talbot, pp. 64-149. For further details of the manuscript traditions and the main letters used in this article, see appendix I.
9. Vita Bonifatii auctore Willibaldo in Vitae Sancti Bonifatii, ed. W. Levison MGH Scriptores rerum Germanicarum LVII (Hanover and Leipzig, 1905) [henceforth Vita Bonifatii], pp. 1-58; trans. Talbot, pp. 25-62.
10. K.P. Witney, '[The] Kentish Royal Saints: [An Enquiry into the Facts behind the Legends]', Archaeologia Cantiana 101 (1984), pp. 1-22;
11. Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature, pp. 211-42.
12. R. McKitterick, Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany, Vaughan Paper no. 36 (Leicester, 1990, pp. 21-4.
13. Omitted from this discussion are female religious based in Germany with whom Boniface and Lull corresponded (with the exception of Leoba with whom Boniface's correspondence began before she left Wessex). The omissions included Boniface's letter to Cena (Tangl no. 97), the letter from Lull to Switha (Tangl no. 128) and the letters to unnamed female religious attributed to Lull by Tangl (nos. 98 and 140). Tangl considered that the correspondents of no. 98 (whose names appear to be revealed within the letters as Fufanna and Erkenchind) were based in England, but I would agree with Christine Fell's judgement that 'one or two phrases suggest Lull is writing to fellow exiles': C. Fell, '[Some Implications of the] Boniface Correspondence', in H. Damico and A.H. Olsen (eds.), New Readings on Women in Old English Literature (Indiana, 1990), pp. 29-43, at p. 39. The letters which are relevant for a study of women in England are summarized in appendix I.
14. C. Clark, 'Onomastics', in R.H. Hogg (ed.), The Cambridge History of the English Language. Volume I. The Beginnings to 1066 (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 452-89.
15. Witney, 'Kentish Royal Saints'; Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature, pp. 211-42.
16. W. Stubbs, 'Bugga', in W. Smith and H. Wace (eds.), A Dictionary of Christian Biography, 4 vols. (London, 1877-87), I, pp. 355-6.
17. W. Hunt, 'Eadburga', in L. Stephen (ed.), Dictionary of National Biography (London, 1885-90), VI, p. 305.
18. Tangl no. 14; Kylie no. 8. The letter is addressed to Wynfritho cognomento Bonifatio.
19. Tangl no. 71.
20. Tangl no. 15; Kylie no. 4.
21. Tangl no. 27; Kylie no. 9.
22. Tangl no. 94; Kylie no. 29.
23. Tangl no. 105; Kylie no. 38.
24. Tangl no. 117; her depositio was 27 December, but the year of death is not known.
25. The five major royal nunneries of Kent were Folkestone, Hoo, Lyminge, Minster-in-Thanet and Sheppey. We can only say with any certainty that Eangyth and Bugga are unlikely to have been associated with Minster-in-Thanet whose eighth-century abbesses are known from other sources; see below.
26. Vita Bonifatii, ch. 4; trans. Talbot, pp. 33-4. Alternatively Boniface could have met their relatives in Rome referred to in Tangl no. 14.
27. Tangl no. 29; Kylie no. 23.
28. Vita Leobae, pp. 122-5; Talbot, pp. 207-13. For Tetta see further below and for a general history of Wimborne, P.H. Coulstock, The Collegiate Church of Wimborne Minster (Woodbridge, 1993).
29. Tangl nos. 67, 96 and 100; for no. 67 sec appendix 2.
30. Tangl no. 29; Kylie no. 23.
31. Tangl no. 10; Kylie no. 13. See also K. Sisam, 'An Old English Translation of a Letter from Wynfrith to Eadburga', Modem Language Review 18 (1923), pp. 253-72, and Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature, pp. 243-72.
32. Tangl no. 35; Kylie no. 14.
33. Ibid. and Tangl no. 30; Kylie no. 35.
34. Tangl no. 65; Kylie no. 28.
35. Tangl no. 70: Kylie no. 29.
36. For Aldhelm, see M. Lapidge and M. Herren, Aldhelm: The Prose Works (Woodbridge, 1979) and Lapidge and Rosier, Aldhelm: Poetic Works; for his influence on Boniface, Lull and their correspondents see Fell, 'Boniface Correspondence'.
37. Vita Bonifatii, ch. 2: Talbot, p. 31.
38. P. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters. An Annotated List and Bibliography (London, 1968) [S], 91;
39. Kelly, Charters of St Augustine's, no. 51, pp. 175-8.
40. S 50; Kelly, Charters, no. 50, pp. 172-3; see also discussion of no. 49, pp. 168-72. It is not possible to be certain from the charter evidence that Eadburg of Thanet was abbess in the 7305 when Boniface was writing to an Abbess Eadburg.
41. Historia Monasterii S. Augustini Cantuariensis by Thomas of Elmham, ed. C. Hardwick, Rolls series (London, 1858), p. 220. See also Rollason, Mildrith Legend, 20-4.
42. However, Oxford Bodleian Library, Selden Supra 30 [3418], a copy of the Acts of the Apostles written in Kentish uncial of the first half of the eighth century, has the initials EADB cut into one page. Bernhard Bischoff has suggested that this could be a reference to Abbess Eadburg of Thanet and be linked with Boniface's request to Abbess Eadburg to copy for him St Peter's Epistles (Tangl no. 35); see E.A. Lowe, Codices Latini Antiquiores II, 2nd edn (Olten and Lausanne, 1972), no. 257, p. 38, and discussion by R. McKitterick, 'Nuns' Scriptoria [in England and Francia in the Eighth Century]', Francia 19 (1992). pp. 1-35, at p. 26.
43. Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature, p. 212;
44. Hollis, Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church, pp. 275-6.
45. Alternatively, one could speculate that Eadburg moved to Thanet to become abbess after a spell as teacher at Wimborne, but the implication of that would be that she was Kentish and probably a member of the royal house in which case one would not expect her to have spent time in a West Saxon nunnery.
46. Thecla is mentioned as a source in Rudolph's prologue and her kinship with Leoba is recorded in Vita Leobae, p. 128, Talbot p. 219.
47. Vita Bonifatii, ch. 2; Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature, pp. 177-8 and 233. One should also take into account the recent warfare between Kent and Wessex following Caedwalla's invasion of Kent in 686 which might have lessened the likelihood of sending a young, well-connected West Saxon girl to a religious community in a potentially hostile province. For the general political situation see F.M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd edn (Oxford, 1971), pp. 70-3; D.P. Kirby, The Earliest English Kings (London, 1991), pp. 120-4 and B.A.E. Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (London, 1990), pp. 137-8.
48. Tangl no. 13; Kylie no. 7.
49. Felix's Life of Saint Guthlac, ed. B. Colgrave (Cambridge, 1956), ch. 48, pp. 146-9 and ch. 50, pp. 156-7.
50. D.H. Haigh, 'The Monasteries of S. Heiu and S. Hild', Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Journal 3 (1875), pp. 349-91, at p. 375; Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature, p. 224.
51. Witney, 'Kentish Royal Saints', pp. 17-22, which also conflates her with Eadburg of Thanet and the Kentish and West Saxon Princess Bugga (for the last see below).
52. Tangl no. 14; Kylic no. 8.
53. Tangl no. 27; Kylie no. 9.
54. H.P.R. Finberg, Early Charters of the West Midlands, 2nd edn (Leicester, 1972), pp. 175-7.
55. Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature, p. 223.
56. Tangl no. 29; Kylie no. 23.
57. Tangl no. 129.
58. Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature, p. 224.
59. S. Foot, 'Glastonbury's Early Abbots', in L. Abrams and J. Carley (eds.), The Archaeology and History of Glastonbury Abbey (Woodbridge, 1991), pp. 162-89, at p. 175. The form of the name in the memorial list is 'Wiccea', but the reasons for equating him with Tica/Ticcea are fully discussed in Foot's article and Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature, pp. 225-9.
60. J. Scott, The Early History of Glastonbury: An Edition, Translation and Study of William of Malmesbury's De Antiquitate Glastonie Ecclesie (Woodbridge, 1981), pp. 104-6 and 146; S 1680.
61. S 96. Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature pp. 225-8, questions whether Eanbert was abbot of Malmesbury, but in favour of the identification are the facts that first, Malmesbury is recorded as having an estate at Tockenham in Domesday Book (see also S 306); second, Eanbert is likely to be identical with Abbot Eaba, the teacher of Lull and another unknown monk at Malmesbury as referred to in Tangl no. 135 (Eaba is a possible abbreviated form of Eanbert); third, Eanbert is probably also the 'Æambriht' in a Malmesbury commemorative list; for details see Sims-Williams (above) and H. Edwards, [The] Charters of the [Early] West Saxon Kingdom, British Archaeological Reports, British Series no. 198 (Oxford, 1988), pp. 82-3 and 124-7.
62. Tangl no. 49; Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature pp. 239-42 (with translation at p. 240); Hollis, Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church, pp. 162-3.
63. Tangl no. 135.
64. Tangl no. 114 - 'quoque non inmerito ob cognationis nostrae".
65. See n. 57 above.
66. Tangl no. 55.
67. Foot, 'Glastonbury's Early Abbots', pp. 164-5.
68. Tangl no. 101; Kylie no. 25.
69. For another misreading of an Anglo-Saxon name in the letter-collections see W. Levison, England and the Continent [in the Eighth Century] (Oxford, 1946), p. 288.
70. S 95; Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature, pp. 238-42.
71. L. v. Padberg, Heilige und Familie. [Studien zur Bedeutung familiengebundener Aspekte in don Viten des Verwandten- und Schülerkreises um Willibrord, Bonfatius und Liudger] (Essen, 1980), pp. 35-6.
72. However, her name only appears in post-Conquest sources; see Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People ed. B. Colgrave (Oxford, 1969) [henceforth HE] III, 7, n. 2.
73. His kinsman Bishop Cyneheard (n. 60) and aunt Cynehild (n. 89).
74. Aldhelmi Opera Omnia, ed. Ehwald, pp. 14-18; Lapidge and Rosier, Aldhelm: The Poetic Works, pp. 40-1 and 47-9.
75. S 1673; Edwards, Charters of the West Saxon Kingdom, pp. 69-70.
76. Lapidge and Rosier, Aldhelm: The Poetic Works, pp. 40-1; however, their proposal that Princess Bugga should be equated with Bugga who founded a monastery at Withington (Gloucs) (S1255 and 1429) is unlikely as that monastery lay in Hwiccian territory.
77. M. Lapidge, 'Some Remnants of Bede's Lost Liber Epigrammatum', English Historical Review 90 (1975), pp. 798-820, at pp. 815-17.
78. Aldhelmi Opera Omnia, ed. Ehwald, p. 497; Lapidge and Herren, Aldhelm: The Prose Works, pp. 148 and 166-7. The letter is preserved in manuscript 3 of the 'Boniface letter-collection'; see appendix I.
79. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle s.a. 718; J.M.J. Fletcher, 'The Marriage of St Cuthburga, who was Afterwards Foundress of the Monastery at Wimborne', Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club 34 (1931), pp. 167-85. She may also be the 'Cuthburga' who appears in the Durham Liber Vitae under 'queens and abbesses': H. Sweet (ed.), The Oldest English Texts, Early English Text Society (London 1885; reprinted 1957), p. 154.
80. Lapidge and Herren, Aldhelm: The Prose Works, pp. 55 and 59.
81. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle s.a. 718.
82. D.W. Rollason, 'Lists of Saints' Resting-Places in Anglo-Saxon England', Anglo-Saxon England 7 (1978), pp. 61-93.
83. Vita Leobae, p. 123. A possible candidate is Æthelburh, the wife of King Inc. In a Glastonbury charter (S 260) she is identified as a sister of King Æthelheard who succeeded Ine, but as it stands the charter is a blatant forgery though possibly with some more authentic material behind it. If the identification could be accepted Æthelburh would be an attractive proposition as both the sister of a king and someone with a possible claim on Wimborne which had been founded by or for her husband's sister Cuthburg. However, according to William of Malmesbury, Æthelburh retired to Rome with her husband; Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi De Gestis Regum, ed. W. Stubbs (London, 1887), I, p. 39. It is unlikely that Tetta can be equated, as some writers have claimed, with Cuthburg, the foundress of Wimborne and sister of King Ine; Rudolph says Tetta became abbess post nonnullas abbatissas et spiritales maires. It is, of course, possible that Rudolph was confusing her royal sisterhood with that of Cuthburg; on the other hand, one would expect a prominent royal foundation to be ruled by members of the royal house.
84. Tangl no. 101; Kylie no. 25.
85. Tangl no. 55; see n. 62.
86. In the letter sent to the community of Glastonbury, Wihtbert, writing from Germany, asked that greetings be sent to 'the brothers roundabout', including Abbot Ingeld 'and our community' and to mater mea Tetta, perhaps implying that they were not too distant from Glastonbury. A northern Wessex location may also be implied by the letter of confraternity in which Abbot Aldhun together with Abbess 'Cneuburga' (putatively Lull's abbess Cyneburg) addressed Abbot Coengils of Glastonbury and Abbot Ingeld presumably the abbot of this name referred to in Wihtbert's letter. Wihtbert is also addressed in the confraternity document and we learn that Aldhun had once been Wihtbert's abbot and that Eta was a kinswoman of Aldhun.
87. S 254; Edwards, Charters of the West Saxon Kingdom, pp. 138-40.
88. S 1410; Edwards, Charters of the West Saxon Kingdom, pp. 41-5.
89. S 1683, 1687 and 1691; Edwards, Charters of the West Saxon Kingdom, pp. 73-4.
90. Tangl no. 55.
91. Vita Leobae, pp. 122 and 128.
92. Waldburg was the sister of Willebald and Wynnebald and succeeded the latter as head of the monastery of Heidenheim - Vita Wynnebaldi, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH Scriptures XV, (Hanover, 1887), pp. 106-17, at p. 116. The siblings were related to Boniface (Vita Wynnebaldi, p. 109) and Hugeburc, who wrote the Lives of Willebald and Wynnebald, seems to have been their kinswoman - Vita Willibaldi, p. 87; v. Padberg, Heilige und Familie, pp. 36-7.
93. Their relationship with Lull is known only from Otloh's Vita Bonifatii who lists the religious women who came to assist Boniface as 'the maternal aunt of St Lull named Cynehild, and her daughter Berhtgyth, Cynethryth and Tecla, Leoba and Waldburg, the sister of Willibald and Wynnebald' - Vitae Sanai Bonifatii, ed. W. Levison, p. 138. Letters from Berhtgyth to her brother Baldhard survive - see Fell, 'Boniface Correspondence', pp. 37-41.
94. A Thecla is among the nuns at Barking addressed by Aldhelm in De Virginitate (Lapidge and Herren, Aldhelm: The Prose Works, p. 59), but she was probably a different generation from Leoba's kinswoman. Many of the other female missionaries have been claimed by later writers to have been at Wimborne partly on the strength of Tangl no. 67 (see appendix 2) and partly, one suspects, because it was the only well-known West Saxon nunnery.
95. See n. 6.
96. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle s.a. 786.
97. H.M. and J. Taylor (eds.), Anglo-Saxon Architecture, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1965), pp. 634-7, plate 602; R. Gem, 'Architecture of the Anglo-Saxon Church 735 to 870: From Archbishop Ecgberht to Archbishop Ceolnoth', Journal of the British Archaeological Association 146 (1993), 29-66, at 39-41.
98. A further possible location which should be considered is Beaminster (Dorset) - Bebingmynster 'minster of Bebba' - which is first referred to in an extremely dubious Gloucester charter of 862 (S 209 and 1782) in which King Burgred of Mercia is said to have confirmed earlier gifts including that of Beaminster and Portland (Dorset) to Abbess Eafe of Gloucester in the late seventh century. Tettanminster (Tetbury) is a possibly analogous minster founded by a woman in this period; see Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature, pp. 91-3, 385 and appendix 2.
99. For a more detailed summary of the evidence, see B.A.E. Yorke, Wessex [in the Early Middle Ages] (London, 1995), pp. 171-6; HE III, 7 and IV, 16 are key texts.
100. G. Speake, A Saxon Bed Burial at Swallowcliffe Down, English Heritage archaeological report no. 10 (London, 1989).
101. A recent full survey will be found in D.B. Schneider, 'Anglo-Saxon Women [in the Religious Life: A Study of the Status and Position of Women in an Early Mediaeval Society]', PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 1985.
102. For instance, the introduction of lawcodes, foundation of Hamwic and development of shires under ealdormen - see Yorke, Wessex, pp. 52-93 passim.
103. For a summary of Aldhelm's career see Lapidge and Herren, Aldhelm: Prose Works pp. 5-14 and 152-70. For Osburg, see above, n. 72.
104. HE IV, 6-10; C.R. Hart, The Early Charters of Eastern England (Leicester, 1966), pp. 117-45.
105. Ine refers to Eorcenwald as 'my bishop' in the prologue to his laws; F.L. Attenborough, [The] Laws [of the Earliest English Kings] (Cambridge, 1922), pp. 36-7. For Eorcenwald's role in the development of the charter in Wessex see P. Wormald, Bede and the Conversion of England: The Charter Evidence, Jarrow lecture (Newcastle, 1984).
106. European examples of bishops and other leading churchmen founding churches for female relatives, of course, go back much further and many parallels could be found from Francia (see n. 106 below). The confraternity letter (Tangl no. 55) may provide another example, though here the male house seems to be linked with two female communities - on the problems in interpreting this arrangement, see Schneider, 'Anglo-Saxon Women', p. 18-23.
107. For Cuthberg, see above.
108. HE IV, 19.
109. HE IV, 16 and V, 7; The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanas, ed. B. Colgrave (Cambridge, 1927), ch. 42, pp. 84-5. For other examples of the influence of Bishop Wilfrid on the West Saxon church see P. Sims-Williams, 'St Wilfrid and Two Charters Dated AD 676 and 680', Journal of Ecclesiastical History 39 (1988), pp. 163-83.
110. The links are conveniently discussed in J. Campbell, Essays in Anglo-Saxon History (London, 1986), pp. 57-9 and P. Sims-Williams, '[Continental Influence at] Bath [Monastery in the Seventh Century]', Anglo-Saxon England 4 (1975), pp. 1-10.
111. 'Vita Bertilae Abbatissae Calensis', ed. W. Levison, in Passiones Vitaeque Sanctorum Aevi Merovingici, ed. B. Krusch and W. Levison MGH Scriptures rerum Merovingicarum VI (Hanover, 1913), pp. 106-7.
112. McKitterick, 'Nuns' Scriptoria', pp. 1-35 (see n. 39).
113. Sims-Williams, 'Bath', and Religion and Literature, pp. 110-13.
114. McKitterick, 'Nuns' Scriptoria", p. 28, n. 80, where the problems with this proposed identification are discussed fully.
115. Vita Willibaldi Episcopi Eichstetensis, MGH Scriptures XV, I, ed. O. Holder-Egger (Hanover, 1887), pp. 86-106. Walburg's own Lives are relatively late and have little to say about her English background, but she and Hugeburc only seem to have come to Heidenheim after the death of Wynnebald in 761 (Vita Wynnebaldi, p. 114). It is sometimes stated that she was trained at Wimborne (e.g. M. Bateson, 'Walburga', Dictionary of National Biography, 20, p. 466), but this seems to be based only on inference from the surviving sources (including Tangl no 67; see appendix 2) by the Bollandists - Acta Sanctorum 3, 25 February, pp. 511-72. Bradfield (Berks) has been omitted from the discussion because although it may possibly have some claims to have been founded as a double monastery that would appear to have been under Mercian rather than West Saxon patronage and its early history is at best obscure - see J. Blair, Anglo-Saxon Oxfordshire (Stroud, 1994), pp. 59-60 and 64. Berkshire was only intermittently a West Saxon possession in the period under discussion.
116. P.H. Hase, 'The Mother Churches of Hampshire', in J. Blair (ed.), Minsters and Parish Churches (Oxford, 1988), pp. 45-66.
117. Attenborough, Laws, pp. 36-61; Yorke, Wessex, pp. 64-73.
118. On the problem of Boniface's place of birth see N. Orme, 'The Church in Crediton from Saint Boniface to the Reformation', in T. Reuter (ed.), The Greatest Englishman: Essays on St Boniface and the Church at Crediton (Exeter, 1980), pp. 95-131. His kinship with the family of Willibald and Wynnebald could mean that his family's original links were with Hampshire. That could explain why Boniface went from Exeter to Nhutscelle (probably Nursling, Hants); although kinship is not mentioned in any of our sources it should be noted that Wynbert, abbot of Nhutscelle, shares a first name-element with Boniface (Wynfrith).
119. The Life of Bishop Wilfrid, ed. B. Colgrave, pp. 36-7. Yorke, Wessex, pp. 149-81; P.H. Hase, 'The Church in the Wessex Heartlands', in M. Aston and C. Lewis (eds.), The Medieval Landscape of Wessex (Oxford, 1994), pp. 47-82. Little is known about the organization of the church in western Wessex in the sub-Roman period, but the apparent link between some churches and villas could be suggestive of strong connections with the landowning aristocracy - R. Morris and J. Roxon, 'Churches on Roman buildings', in Temples, Churches and Religion: Recent Research in Roman Britain, ed. W. Rodwell, British Archaeological Reports 77(i) (Oxford, 1980), pp. 175-209.
120. S. Hilpisch, Die Doppelklöster: Entstehung und Organisation (Munster, 1928); Schneider, 'Anglo-Saxon Women', and 'Die angelsächsischen Doppelklöster', in K. Elm and M. Parisse (eds.), Döppelklöster und andere Formen der Symbiose männlicher und weiblicher Religiosen im Mittelalter, Berliner Historische Studien 18 (Berlin, 1992), pp. 57-79.
121. See Asser's Life of King Alfred, eh. 41 and Anglo-Saxon Chronicle sa 900. For the history of the foundation, see Coulstock, Wimborne Minster.
122. It is likely that Wulfwyn the kinswoman of Ealdorman Æthelmaer (who was descended from King Æthelred I) referred to in S 911 was the same person as Abbess Wulfwyn of Wareham whose death is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 982 - H.E. Salter (ed.), The Cartulary of the Abbey of Eynsham (Oxford, 1907), p. 22. Wareham was also used as a royal mausoleum in the tenth century when the murdered Edward the Martyr was buried there in 978 before being transferred to Shaftesbury - C.E. Fell, Edward King and Martyr (Leeds, 1971), pp. 7-8 and Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
123. B.A.E. Yorke, '"Sisters Under the Skin?" [Anglo-Saxon Nuns and Nunneries in Southern England]', Reading Medieval Studies 15 (1989), pp. 95-118.
124. Yorke, Wessex, pp. 62-4 and 192-7. Glastonbury, for instance, became for a while an eigenkloster of a branch of the Mercian royal house.
125. Yorke, '"Sisters under the skin?"', D.N. Dumville, Wessex and England from Alfred to Edgar (Woodbridge, 1992), pp. 177-8; P. Halpin, 'Women religious in late Anglo-Saxon England', The Haskins Society Journal 6 (1994), pp. 97-110.
126. S 806 - 'famulis famulabusque Domini on Ceodre degentibus'; see J. Blair, 'Palaces or Minsters? Northampton and Cheddar Reconsidered', Anglo-Saxon England 25 (1996), pp. 97-122, esp. pp. 118-19.
127. D. Meritt (ed.), 'Old English entries in a manuscript at Bern', Journal of English and Germanic Philology 33 (1934), pp. 343-51 - the witnesses to a manumission include the nun Æthelthryth.
128. Memorials of St Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. W. Stubbs, Rolls series (London, 1874), pp. 17-18.
129. See n. 88. Heidenheim was apparently the only foundation of the Anglo-Saxon missionaries in Germany to contain both monks and nuns - Levison, England and the Continent, p. 81.
130. Baedae Opera Historica, ed. C. Plummer, 2 vols. (1896), I. pp. 413-14; English Historical Documents c. 500-1042, ed. D. Whitelock, 2 vols., 2nd edn (London, 1979), I, pp. 804-6. See Schneider, 'Anglo-Saxon Women', pp. 81-108; Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature, pp. 115-43; Anglo-Saxons settling in the province of the Hwicce are also likely to have taken over British estates with established churches.
131. The first generation of Anglo-Saxon missionaries to Germany from Northumbria, where Christianity was embraced by Anglo-Saxon settlers somewhat earlier than in Wessex, could be interpreted as having occurred at a similar stage of development - Levison, England and the Continent pp. 45-69.
132. Hollis, Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church, passim.
133. However, one can trace Boniface and Lull modifying their original views as they came into contact with a broader range of ecclesiastical culture and literature on the Continent - see v. Padberg, Heilige und Familie, passim and Hollis, Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church pp. 130-50 and 283-97.
134. Tangl, 'Introduction', pp. vi-xxxi; Levison, England and the Continent pp. 280-90.
135. Some of the additional letters in MS 3 are interpolated into this arrangement.
136. In addition MS 3 includes a letter from Abbess of Whitby to Abbess Adola of Pfalzel (no. 8) and two letters Berhtgyth to her brother Balthard (nos. 147-8) as well as letters of Aldhelm (see Lapidge and Herren, Aldhelm: The Prose Works).
137. Although domina could be used of an abbess, it would not be incompatible with some other position of authority at Wimborne such as prioress.
138. Tangl nos. 30 and 35.
139. Vita Leobae, pp. 124-6; Talbot, pp. 211-14.
140. Vita Leobae, p. 126; Talbot, p. 214.
141. Tangl no. 67; Kylie no. 36. The letter has sometimes been cited as evidence for Thecla and Cynehild having been at Wimborne before their departure for Germany.
142. Tangl no. 29; Kylie no. 23. Boniface was working in Thuringia and Hesse as bishop 723-c.735, and Tauberbischofsheim (in Hesse) could have been founded at that time. However, some commentators have felt that Boniface's work was not sufficiently secure at that stage for women to have joined him and that the foundation should be dated to after the creation of Wurzburg as a bishopric in 741/2 and the foundation of Fulda in 744. For reviews of Boniface's career in Germany, see W. Levison, England and the Continent; T. Reuter, 'Saint Boniface and Europe', in Reuter (ed.), The Greatest Englishman, pp. 69-94; L.E. v. Padberg, Wynfreth-Bonifatius (Wuppertal, 1989).
143. Tangl no. 101; Kylie no. 25; see above p. 159.
144. It is less plausible that she moved from Wimborne to be abbess of Minster-in-Thanet; see n.41.
145. Hollis, Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church, pp. 275-6.
146. HE II, 9; Clark, 'Onomastics', pp. 459-60. This diminutive may not have been that unusual in seventh- and eighth-century England; for a Tetta who is presumed to have founded a monastery at Tettanminster/Tetbury (Gloucs) probably in the late seventh century, see S 73 and Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature, pp. 91-3 and 385. Tetbury is close to Malmesbury and the Hwiccian/West Saxon border making it uncertain whether it was a West Saxon or Hwiccian foundation.
147. I would like to thank John Blair, Katy Cubitt and Alan Thacker for their help and advice in the preparation of this article.