Wulfthryth of Wilton

Saint Wulfthryth (Wilfrida), abbess of Wilton Abbey in England, was an Anglo-⁠Saxon noblewoman, mother of Saint Edith of Wilton and, according to some sources, the wife or, according to others, the mistress of King Edgar of England. She died on 21 September, probably in the year 1000. She is commemorated on 13 September. Our sources call her a saint of the Roman Catholic Church and say that she was regarded as a saint at Wilton, but her cult did not spread more widely; they show no Orthodox canonization.

Life

She was an Anglo-⁠Saxon noblewoman, a younger cousin of Saint Wulfhild of Barking, and was educated at Wilton Abbey. King Edgar, rejected by her cousin, carried her off, according to the sources, from the convent and took her to his residence at Kemsing, near Sevenoaks, in Kent. There she bore a daughter, Edith, around 962. Goscelin and William of Malmesbury say that Edgar married her but that she left the marriage soon after Edith's birth. Historians do not agree whether she was his wife or his mistress. According to the sources, Archbishop Dunstan did not approve of the union and refused to crown the king; according to early monastic texts, Edgar did penance, not wearing his crown for seven years, and as part of the penance gave Wulfthryth six estates in Wiltshire and the Isle of Wight, which she passed to Wilton Abbey in 965.

After at least a year Wulfthryth returned to Wilton with Edith, whom she dedicated from childhood to the monastic life. Edith received the habit at fifteen. Wulfthryth became abbess of the abbey and outlived her daughter, who died in September 984, at about twenty-⁠two, perhaps of fever. The scholar Katie Ann-⁠Marie Bugyis points out that she shows the spiritual fruitfulness of a mother as monastic leader: that she had been a mother did not stop her from being an abbess. After her return to Wilton she still had considerable influence over Edgar: she stopped the bailiffs who wished to seize a thief who had taken refuge in the abbey and obtained the release of two Wilton priests imprisoned by the reeve.

The abbess

As abbess she built a stone wall around the abbey and used her wealth to increase its collection of relics. Goscelin calls her the "hidden treasure and light" of the abbey. Miracles in her lifetime and almsgiving are attributed to her. She died at Wilton on 21 September, probably in the year 1000, and was buried before the main altar of the abbey church. She and her daughter Edith were regarded as saints after death. Her day is 13 September.