Fritheswith

Frithuswith hiding with swine. From a stained glass in the Lady Chapel At Gloucester Cathedral.

Frithuswith or Fritheswith ( or , Latinized Frideswide; died 19 October 727) was an English princess and abbess who became the patron saint of Oxford and its university. She is credited as the foundress of a monastery later incorporated into Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. She was the daughter of a sub-king of Mercia named Dida of Eynsham whose lands occupied western Oxfordshire and the upper reaches of the River Thames.

Life

The earliest narrative of the saint is the Life of Saint Fritheswith the Virgin preserved in a manuscript from the early twelfth century, copied in the hand of John of Worcester. A longer adaptation of this work is attributed to Robert of Cricklade, head of the Priory of St Frideswide, Oxford.

The story recounts that Frideswide was born to King Didan and his wife Safrida. She founds a monastery with her father's assistance while still young. Her parents die soon after. Algar, king of Leicester seeks to marry her in spite of her vow of celibacy. When she refuses him, Algar attempts to abduct her, and Frideswide flees into the wilderness. On fleeing, she finds a ship sent by God which takes her to Bampton, Oxfordshire. Algar searches for her in Oxford, but the people refuse to tell him where she is, and he is struck blind.

Two Middle English adaptations of the Life of Frideswide are included in the South English legendaries. These include several minor variants on the narrative.

The priory

St Frideswide's Priory, a medieval Augustinian house (some of the buildings of which were incorporated into Christ Church, Oxford following the dissolution of the monasteries) is claimed to be the site of her abbey and relics. From early times the abbey appears to have been an important landowner in the area; however, it was destroyed in 1002 during the events of the St. Brice's Day massacre.

In 1180, the Archbishop of Canterbury Richard of Dover translated Frithuswith's remains to a new shrine in the monastery church, an event that was attended by King Henry II of England. The later history of the monastery was chequered, but it remained sufficiently prominent that Catherine of Aragon visited the shrine during her final pregnancy.

The priory seal, designed in the late 1180s, depicts Frideswide with a lily and a set of wax tablets.

Henry Chichele, the archbishop of Canterbury, officially declared Frideswide the patron saint of Oxford and the University of Oxford in 1440. Her feast day is 19 October, the traditional day of her death; the date of her translation is commemorated on 12 February; and the invention (discovery) of her relics on 15 May.

In modern tradition Frideswide remains the patron saint of Oxford and its university, and there is a revived tradition of pilgrimages to Christ Church. In later art, she is depicted holding the pastoral staff of an abbess with a fountain springing up near her and an ox at her feet. She appears in medieval stained glass, and in Pre-Raphaelite stained glass by Edward Burne-Jones in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, in the chapel where her shrine is also located.

Elizabeth Goudge's 1938 historical novel, Towers in the Mist (Gerald Duckworth, London, 1938) describes the disinterment and eventual reburial of Catherine Dammartin comingled with the remains of St Frideswide in Chapter 8 "Sunday", Part 2. Goudge's novel is set in Oxford during 1565 and 1566, culminating in the first visit to Oxford by Queen Elizabeth I.