Monks Praise the Female Saints of Anglo-Saxon England: Hild of Whitby and Edith of Wilton
Abstract
Female saints and abbesses made powerful contributions to the conversion of England in the seventh and eighth centuries and to its religious life in the tenth and eleventh centuries. However, the documentary record about these women is not only sparse, but also mediated mostly through hagiographies written by men. It has been argued on the basis of these hagiographies that minimal respect was accorded to English female saints during the early medieval period. This thesis tests that assertion by studying the lives of two eminent examples from the beginning and the end of the Christian Anglo-Saxon era: Hild of Whitby (d.680) and Edith of Wilton (d.987). Reading the historical record with sensitivity to context and culture supports the view that female sanctity was honoured fairly consistently by both genders from late antiquity through to the Middle Ages.