Saint Eadburh (died June 15, 960) was the daughter of King Edward the Elder of England and his third wife, Eadgifu of Kent. There is little contemporary information for her life, but in a Winchester charter

Anglo-Saxon Charters

Anglo-Saxon charters are documents from the early medieval period in Britain which typically make a grant of land or record a privilege. The earliest surviving charters were drawn up in the 670s; the oldest surviving charters granted land to the Church, but from the eighth century surviving...

 dated 939, she appears as the beneficiary of land in Hampshire granted by her brother King Athelstan.

She was a nun at, and possibly abbess of, the Nunnaminster in Winchester where she was buried. Following her canonisation in 972, some of her remains were transferred to Pershore Abbey

Pershore Abbey

Pershore Abbey, at Pershore in Worcestershire, was an Anglo-Saxon abbey and is now an Anglican parish church.-Foundation:The foundation of the minster at Pershore is alluded to in a spurious charter of King Æthelred of Mercia...

 in Worcestershire

Worcestershire

Worcestershire is a non-metropolitan county, established in antiquity, located in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire" NUTS 2 region...

, which is dedicated to her. Her feast is celebrated June 15.

In the twelfth century, a Latin Life

Hagiography

Hagiography is the study of saints.From the Greek and , it refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though less common...

was written for her by Osbert de Clare, who became prior of Westminster in 1136 (and who also wrote a Life of King Edward the Confessor). Her cult continued to flourish to judge by the Lives written in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Sources

• Sawyer no. 446
• Osbert de Clare, Vita Edburgae, MS. Laud Misc. 114, f. 85–120 (Bodleian, Oxford), ed. S.J. Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England. A Study of West Saxon and East Anglian Cults. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought 4. Cambridge, 2008. 253 ff (Appendix).
• Anonymous, De vita sanctae Edburgae virginis, preserved in the early fourteenth-century MS Lansdowne 436, f. 41v-43v (British Library
  British Library
  The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
  
  , London), ed. Laurel Braswell, "Saint Edburga" (see below). 329-33.
• Lectiones in Breviary of Hyde Abbey
  Hyde Abbey
  Hyde Abbey was a medieval Benedictine monastery just outside the walls of Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was dissolved and demolished in 1538....
  
   (late 13th century), Rawlinson liturg. E I and Gough liturg. 8 (Bodleian, Oxford)
• Middle English
  Middle English
  Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
  
   Life (late 13th century), Egerton 1993, f. 160-1 (BL
  British Library
  The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
  
  , London); Eng. Poet. A I f. 32-32v and Bodley 779, f. 282-293v (Bodleian
  Bodleian Library
  The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
  
  , Oxford), ed. Laurel Braswell, "Saint Edburga" (see below). 329-33.

Further reading

• Ridyard, S.J. The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England. A Study of West Saxon and East Anglian Cults. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought 4. Cambridge, 2008.
• Braswell, Laurel. "Saint Edburga of Winchester. A study of her cult, A.D. 950-1500, with an edition of the fourteenth-century Middle English and Latin lives." Mediaeval Studies 33 (1971): 292-333.