Cwenburh of Wimborne

Cwenburh of Wimborne was, according to some sources, an Anglo-⁠Saxon saint of the eighth century, a sister of King Ine of Wessex and of Saint Cuthburh. Her veneration as a saint is uncertain, as the sources below show, and the years in our record (601 and 710) cannot rest on testimonies. We present her only because she appears in the Anglo-⁠Saxon tradition. We have no Orthodox act of canonization.

Her sister Cuthburh was married to King Aldfrith of Northumbria and then became the first abbess of Wimborne monastery. Very little information survives about Cwenburh. She is known primarily from a mention in a single annal of the Anglo-⁠Saxon Chronicle, for the year 718, in which she appears among the children of Cenred of Wessex. She is also included in the genealogical preface to the Chronicle in one copy, as part of a pedigree for the ninth-⁠century King Æthelwulf of Wessex, father of King Alfred the Great. It is possible that Cwenburh succeeded her sister as abbess after the latter's death.

The name of Cuthburh is mentioned again later in a list entitled "On the Resting-⁠Places of the Saints", found in two eleventh-⁠century manuscripts. In one version of the list the words "and Cwenburh" appear after Cuthburh. According to Felix Liebermann, who made an edition of the text in the nineteenth century, this appears to be a later addition, and the next clause remains grammatically singular, referring only to Saint Cuthburh. For this reason we cannot say that Cwenburh was venerated as a saint in ancient times. Abbess Tetta is sometimes regarded as a familiar name for Cwenburh, or as a third sister.