Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

to God as ‘superi rector Olimpi’ [‘the ruler of high Olympus’], recalling the ‘superi
regnator Olympi’ of Aeneid II, 79. 80 The construction of her letter demonstrates how well
Ecgburg had been educated in the use of rhetoric to describe her suffering to Boniface;
the subject of learning is returned to below, at 193-4.
Ecgburg also felt profound grief for her sister Wethburg, not because the latter
had died but because of her enclosure in the cell of a recluse in Rome. For Ecgburg, this
was ‘a new wound and a new grief; she with whom I had grown up, whom I adored and
who was nursed at the same mother's breast - Christ be my witness, everywhere was grief
and terror and the dread of death. Gladly would I have died if it had so pleased God from
whom no secrets are hidden, or if slow-coming death had not deceived me’. 81 Ecgburg's
acknowledgement of her sadness at the loss of her sister is a striking counterpoint to the
vast number of texts glorifying a life dedicated to God, and simultaneously reinforces
impressions of religious life as typically a family enterprise. This is a useful context in
which to place the rules of Caesarius or Benedict which tried to discourage close
connections with relatives outside the monastery.
Another letter reveals the networks of influence between such well-educated
Anglo-Saxon dedicated women and churchmen as Boniface. In their letter to Boniface,
Eangyth and Bugga requested that the former might welcome their nephew Denewald
and, as they put it, ‘that you will send him on with your blessing and a favourable
recommendation to the venerable brother, priest, and confessor Berhthere, who has long
been occupied in that mission [in Germany]’. 82 Clearly these women were aware that
Boniface held them in such esteem that such a request would not be unreasonable.
The correspondence of Eangyth and her daughter Heahburg (Bugga) reveals the
worry and responsibility attached to the position of abbess. Eangyth and Bugga
summarise their plight: ‘there are those external worldly affairs, which have kept us in
80 Epist. 13, ed. Dummler MGH Epp. III, 259-60.
81 Epist. 13, MGH Epp. III, 259, tr. Emerton, The Letters of Saint Boniface, 34.
82 Epist. 14, MGH Epp. III, 263, tr. Emerton, The Letters of Saint Boniface, 39.
191