73. SAINT MILDGYTHA, NUN, OF NORTHUMBRIA

Our holy mother Mildgytha was the youngest daughter of King Merewald of Mercia and his wife St. Ermenburga, and the younger sister of Saints Mildburga and Mildred. According to a tenth-century tradition, she became a nun in Northumbria and was buried there, «where her miraculous powers were often exhibited and still are». Goscelin, writing in about 1100, confirms this, and adds: «She cherished her folk with pious beneficence and was a benefit to her faithful people.» However, according to another, thirteenth-century tradition she became a nun at Eastry and the successor of St. Mildred as abbess of that monastery, whence her relics were transferred to Lyminge in Kent in about 840, and then, in 1085, to St. Gregory's hospital, Canterbury.

Holy Mother Mildgytha, pray to God for us!

(Sources: An Old English manuscript Caligula A. xiv (10th century); St. Mildred and her Kinsfolk, Ramsgate: Monastery Press, 1950; Mary Gifford Brown, An Illuminated Chronicle: Some Light on the Dark Ages of Saint Milburga^]s Lifetime, Bath University Press, 1990, p. 46; David Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1978, p. 279)