Edith of Polesworth
| Edith, Eadgyth | |
|---|---|
| Born | England |
| Died | unknown |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism |
| Major shrine | Tamworth, Staffordshire, England |
| Feast | 15 July |
Saint Edith of Polesworth (also known as Editha or Eadgyth; d. ?c.960s ) is an obscure Anglo-Saxon abbess associated with Polesworth (Warwickshire) and Tamworth (Staffordshire) in Mercia. Her historical identity and floruit are uncertain. Some late sources make her a daughter of King Edward the Elder, while other sources claim she is the daughter of Egbert of Wessex. Her feast day is 15 July.
Edith (Ealdgyth) is included in the first section of the late Old English saints' list known as Secgan, which locates her burial place at Polesworth. The question of St Edith's historical identity is fraught with difficulties.
The tradition which was written down at the monastery of Bury St Edmunds in the 12th century and was later re-told by Roger of Wendover (d. 1236) and Matthew Paris (d. 1259) asserts that she was a sister of King Æthelstan, who gave her in marriage to Sihtric Cáech, the Danish king of southern Northumbria. It then suggests that the marriage was never consummated. When Sihtric broke his side of the agreement by renouncing the Christian religion and died soon thereafter, she returned south and founded a nunnery at Polesworth, not far from the Mercian royal seat at Tamworth, spending the rest of her life as a devout nun and virgin.
The story appears to take its cue from an earlier source, the D-version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which confirms that on 30 January 926 King Æthelstan married his sister to Sihtric (d. 927) and attended the wedding feast at the Mercian royal centre of Tamworth. The Chronicle, however, gives no name. Reporting on the same event in the early part of the 12th century, William of Malmesbury identified her as a daughter of Edward the Elder and Ecgwynn, and therefore a full-blooded sister to Æthelstan, but says that he was unable to discover her name in any of the sources available to him. A variant version of the Bury tradition, which locates her burial place at Tamworth rather than Polesworth, identifies this Edith as a daughter of Ælfflæd, Edward's second wife, and hence Æthelstan's half-sister. However, another late source drawing upon earlier material, the early 13th-century Chronicle of John of Wallingford, names Sihtric's wife Orgiue.
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