Venerable (Monastic) 7th century

Hereswith of Northumbria

7th century

Also known as Hereswitha · sister of St. Hilda of Whitby

A Northumbrian princess, sister of St. Hilda, who after widowhood became a nun at Chelles in Gaul (c. 690)

Feast Day

September 3

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Commemorated as

Our Venerable Mother Hereswith of Northumbria

Life

Hereswith of Northumbria was a princess of the royal house of Deira and the elder sister of St. Hilda of Whitby. Born in the early seventh century, she was a daughter of Hereric, a nephew of King Edwin of Northumbria, and of Beorhtswith (Breguswith). With her household she received baptism from Paulinus of York at York in 627. After marrying into the royal house of East Anglia and later being widowed, she withdrew to Gaul to live as a nun, and is venerated among the pre-schism saints of the West honoured as Orthodox. Her feast is kept on September 3.

Hereswith is known chiefly through the witness of the Venerable Bede, who records that Hilda intended to join her widowed sister at the monastery of Chelles before she was instead recalled to Northumbria by Aidan of Lindisfarne. By tradition Hereswith herself remained at Chelles, near Paris, for the rest of her life, living under the monastic Rule. Through her marriage she was the mother of Ealdwulf (Aldwulf), king of the East Angles, whose reign tradition places in the later seventh and early eighth centuries.

Although she has long stood in the shadow of her more celebrated sister, Hereswith's own course — from a royal marriage uniting two Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, through widowhood, to the monastic life in Gaul — marks one of the early threads binding the Northumbrian and East Anglian royal houses to the monastic renewal of the age. The details of her husband's identity and of her exact resting place are reported variously in the sources.

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Family and Royal Connections

Hereswith belonged to the royal line of Deira and was, by Bede's account, a great-granddaughter of Aelle, king of Deira. Her father Hereric was a nephew of King Edwin of Northumbria, and her younger sister was St. Hilda, the founding abbess of Whitby. The baptism of Hereswith and her household by Paulinus of York at York in 627 placed the family among the first generation of Northumbrian Christians.

She married into the royal house of East Anglia, a union that helped bind the two kingdoms. The sources differ on her husband's name: some identify him as Aethelric (or Ecgric), while the Catholic Encyclopedia names Aethelhere, king of East Anglia, and notes that the Liber Eliensis's identification of her husband as King Anna is in error. Her son Ealdwulf (Aldwulf) became king of the East Angles; some accounts also name a second son, Alfwold, and number later East Anglian kings and abbesses among her descendants.

Monastic Life in Gaul

After her husband's death, Hereswith left England and travelled to Gaul to embrace the religious life. By the most common tradition she entered the abbey of Chelles, near Paris, where she remained until her repose. Bede preserves her memory in connection with his account of St. Hilda, relating that Hilda spent a year in East Anglia intending to follow Hereswith abroad to Chelles before Aidan of Lindisfarne summoned her back to Northumbria. Some modern writers have proposed that Hereswith may instead have settled at Faremoutiers, though this remains conjecture.

Sources: Latin Saints of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Rome