Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

written sometime before 738, Boniface mentions Wethburg’s life in Rome as an example
of how best to proceed:
It would seem to me better, if you can in no wise have freedom and a quiet
mind at home on account of worldly men, that you should obtain freedom of
contemplation by means of a pilgrimage, if you so desire and are able, as
our sister Wethburg did. 96 She has written me that she has found at the
shrine of St Peter the kind of quiet life which she has long sought in vain.
With regard to your wishes, she sent me word, since I had written to her
about you, that you would do better to wait until the rebellious assaults and
threats of the Saracens who have recently appeared about Rome should have
subsided. God willing she will then send you an invitation. 97
It is tempting (if somewhat unkind) to believe that the absence of the ‘quiet life’
Wethburg had sought in England may have been in part due to the presence of her sister
Ecgburg. More seriously perhaps, Wethburg’s status as a recluse (at least in the eyes of
Ecgburg) did not prevent her from long-distance communication and a practical
awareness of the precarious situation of Rome at the time. Also, Wethburg does not
appear to have set out for Rome with the express intention of becoming a recluse (unless
it was understood that going ‘on pilgrimage’ to Rome was a one-way trip). It may have
been a sudden decision to remain in Rome which provoked Ecgburg's description of their
‘bitter and unexpected separation’.
The abbess Bugga, who seems to have had a long and varied monastic career,
appears to have altered her desire to go on pilgrimage with her mother Eangyth to a wish
to become a recluse. However, she evidently wrote to Boniface informing him that all
was not calm contemplation in her new life, as his response to her is extant: ‘I have
learned from many reports of the storms of troubles which with God's permission have
befallen you in your old age. I have deeply regretted that after you had thrown off the
96
In Talbot’s translation, Wethburg is given as ‘Wiethburga’. For the sake of clarity I have amended this to
the form used in the Prosopography.
97
Epist. 27, MGH Epp. III, 277-8, tr. Emerton, The Letters of Saint Boniface, 56-7.
196