- Cuthburg
Saint Cuthburga or Cuthburg (died c. 718) was the first abbess of
Wimborne Minster . She was the sister of Ine, King ofWessex and was married to theNorthumbria n kingAldfrith .King Osred was Cuthburg's son; whether King Osric, and the Offa killed in Eadberht's reign, were also her sons is less certain.
According to a report by "
Florence of Worcester ", writing long afterwards, at some time before Aldfrith's death in 705 he and Cuthburg "renounced connubial intercourse for the love of God." Following this, Cuthburg entered AbbessHildelith 's nunnery atBarking Abbey . The dedication ofAldhelm 's treatise "De virginitate" includes Cuthburg, who was then at Barking; it is thought that she was in some way related to Aldhelm.After Aldfrith's death, Cuthburg and Cwenburg established a double-monastery in her brother's kingdom of
Wessex , atWimborne inDorset .She is described as austere, and she communicated with prelates through a little hatch in the nunnery at Wimborne. Among
Saint Boniface 's surviving letters is an anonymous account of a vision of Abbess Cuthburg in hell. Thefeast day associated with her isAugust 31 .No early
hagiography is known, that which survives was composed after theNorman Conquest .ee also
*
House of Wessex family tree ources
* Farmer, David Hugh, "The Oxford Dictionary of Saints." (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 96.
* Lapidge, Michael, "Cuthburg", in M. Lapidge et al, "The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England." (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999)
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