Edburga of Bicester

Edburga of Bicester (Eadburh of Bicester) (d. c.650). Claimed to be a daughter of Penda, king of Mercia (although her name is absent from the usual lists), this Edburga, who helped to train Osith in the religious life, was a nun and perhaps abbess of Aylesbury, although the Legend states that she lived at Adderbury (Oxon.), some thirty miles away, a place-name which means ‘Eadburg's burh’. Edburga's relics were translated to Bicester (Oxon.), a house of Austin Canons founded in 1182, which was dedicated to Our Lady and St. Edburga. The splendid base of the shrine, made in 1320, survives in the church of Stanton Harcourt (Oxon.). Feast: 18 July, which by an unfortunate coincidence is also the translation feast of Edburga of Winchester. Edburga of Bicester also appears in litanies and, possibly in the Liber Vitae of Durham.

Bibliography
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• Stanton, pp. 346–7, 662 (confused); C. Hohler, ‘St. Osyth and Aylesbury’, Records of Bucks, xviii, part 1 (1966), 61–72; E. A. G. Lamborn, ‘The Shrine of St. Edburg’, Reports of Oxford Archaeol. Soc., lxxx (1934), 43–52. J. Leland, Itinerary, v. 167–72