This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Constructing Gender and Locality in Late Medieval England The Lives of Anglo-Saxon and British Female Saints in the South English Legendaries Kanno, Mami Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). 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Sep. 2021 Constructing Gender and Locality in Late Medieval England: The Lives of Anglo-Saxon and British Female Saints in the South English Legendaries Mami Kanno Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English Faculty of Arts and Humanities King’s College London 2016 Abstract This thesis examines the construction of gender and locality in late medieval England through the lives of Anglo-Saxon and British female saints in the South English Legendaries (SELS). Focusing on a distinctive characteristic of the SELS, the inclusion of native saints, it examines a group of native female saints in the British Isles, who appear in the fourteenth and fifteenth-century manuscripts of the SELS. All female saints covered in this study were monastic women, who were nuns and abbesses, from various parts of England and Wales, living between the seventh and tenth centuries. The thesis, consisting of five chapters, explores the vitae of these saints in turn, namely Frideswide of Oxford, Æthelthryth of Ely, Mildred of Minster-in- Thanet, Edburga of Winchester, and Winifred of Gwytherin, focusing on topics distinctive to each vita. Through reading their vitae, this study aims to shed light on aspects of gender, and particularly virginity, of these medieval female saints, analysing various literary motifs such as enclosure, incorrupt bodies, and danger of rape. By comparison with classical virgin martyr legends, it examines how the virginity of medieval insular women in some ways followed but at others most significantly departed from the classical models in order to present a new form of female sanctity. This thesis is not only a detailed study exploring medieval English abbesshood in hagiography, but also provides insights into the roles of the vitae of native female saints in the formation of localities and nationality, looking at issues such as the translation of relics and local cult activities. Given that the SELS are one of the post- Conquest hagiographic collections, that aimed to present saints from Anglo-Saxon, British, Irish, or Celtic backgrounds, as ‘English’ saints, this study demonstrates how the SELS present a late medieval view of the nation composed of various localities of saints. 2 Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………………….2 Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………..5 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………8 1. Female Saints in the SELS 2. The SEL Manuscripts of Monastic Women’s Lives 3. Narratives of Medieval Monastic Women Chapter 1 Saint Frideswide of Oxford and Topoi of Virginity…………………...42 1. Introduction 2. Temptation of a Virgin 3. A Virgin and a City 4. From the City into the Wood 5. A Saint as a Local Miracle Worker Chapter 2 Saint Æthelthryth of Ely and Making of a Local Saint……………….91 1. Introduction 2. A Virgin Wife 3. A Virgin Abbess: Æthelthryth and Hild of Whitby 4. Canonisation and Saint-Making Activities 5. From a Regional to a National Saint Chapter 3 Saint Mildred of Minster-in-Thanet and Female Relationships within the Cloisters……………………………………………………………………….134 1. Introduction 2. Female Saintly Kinship 3. The Other Woman beyond the Sea 4. A Woman in a Strange Land 3 Chapter 4 Saint Edburga of Winchester: Women’s Status and Male Authorities………………………………………………………………………...181 1. Introduction 2. Edburga’s Royal Genealogy 3. Edburga’s Chalice and Gospel Book 4. Male Saints in Winchester 5. Women’s Religious Status 6. The SELS and the Cult of Edburga in and outside Winchester Chapter 5 Saint Winifred of Gwytherin: Body, Rape, and Translation………..229 1. Introduction 2. Virginity, Rape, and the Body 3. Monastic Identity 4. Translation of the Body 5. Translation of Texts 6. Making an English Saint Conclusion………………………………………………………………………...282 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………….286 4 Acknowledgements This thesis has been written with the help of various people. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to the archivists and specialists who work at the saints’ churches and shrines in England and Wales: Ms Sue Copp (archivist and librarian in Holywell), Rev. John L’aiguille (custodian of St Winifride’s Well), and Ms Suzanne Foster (archivist of Winchester College). For their assistance with consulting with medieval manuscripts and rare books, I am grateful to the librarians at the British Library, Bodleian Libraries, Cambridge University Library, and Cardiff University Library. I should also like to thank Dr James Ryan Gregory, who kindly made his unpublished doctoral thesis on St Winifred available to me. My three-year study at King’s College London would not have been completed without the generous sponsorship from the long-term Student Exchange Support Program of the Japan Student Services Organization. I am also grateful to King’s for small research grants; Keio University and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for research grants at the early stage of this project before I came to King’s. I read the SELS for the first time in 2009 when I was a MA student at Durham University, working on the saints’ legends of the Katherine Group. Almost overwhelmed by the amount of previous research on the Katherine Group, my supervisor, Professor Neil Cartlidge, suggested that I consider the SELS as a possible topic for my Ph.D. Although I still had to read the overwhelming amount of secondary literature relating to the SELS, I was fortunate to have been given this topic for my long term project and to be working on it to this day without losing my passion. Having moved to King’s, I have been more than fortunate to work under my two supervisors. My interest in female saints began when I read academic works by Dr Sarah Salih. As 5 a supervisor, she generously shared her deep expertise in medieval hagiography with me, and always made my ideas even more interesting. Dr Lawrence Warner taught me how to improve my writing and how to transcribe medieval manuscripts, and always assured me that I was doing the right thing. Thanks to their support and encouragement, the whole process of writing this thesis was full of delight and intellectual stimuli, enthusing me to discover and learn something new. I am also immensely indebted to my academic mentors in Japan. I greatly owe thanks for what I am today to Professor Takami Matsuda of Keio University. He first introduced me to the world of medieval literature when I was an undergraduate student who had no idea about what to major in at a small liberal arts college in Tokyo. Since then, he has always shown me the path to becoming a medievalist. Professor Emeritus Toshiyuki Takamiya of Keio University trained me in how to handle medieval manuscripts, and generously allowed me to investigate his private manuscript collection in Tokyo, including a SEL manuscript. Professor Naoë Kukita Yoshikawa of the University of Shizuoka introduced me to international academic communities and encouraged me to study at King’s. My thanks also go to my friends and colleagues at King’s, especially members of the CLAMS, as well as those at IES and Keio, who exchanged their ideas on my project with me, as medievalists and non-medievalists. Dr Jeremy Lowe kindly read the whole draft of this thesis and helped me edit my English writing. Since I started my study at King’s, Yoshinobu Kudo shared a lot of time with me discussing numerous academic and non-academic topics. Without his keen insights as a medievalist and his honest and patient personality, I could never have completed my project. My deepest gratitude, as always, goes to my father and mother, who financially 6 and mentally supported me for three years. This thesis is dedicated to them, as well as to the memory of my grandmother. Sadly she could not see it completed, but her love and belief always gave me confidence. 7 Introduction 1. Female Saints in the SELS ‘Why are not all women saints even if they are virtuous enough?’ – A late thirteenth-century poet raises this question about female saints in one of the temporale texts of the South English Legendaries (SELS). What he insists on is the superiority of women over men in terms of their chastity: And hou is hit þen of wommen, þat men blameþ hem so In songis and in rimis, and in bokis þerto, To segge þat hy fals beþ, and iuyl also to ileue, Vikel ek and leþir inouhh, mony mon to greue? … Where wostou so stable mon, þat hif a fayr woman come, Gent and hende, and hym bysouht of folye ilome Þat he nolde torne his þouht to folye at fyne? For hif he ne dede me wold hym holde worþy to ligge in crine.