Frideswide (c.680–727), virgin, patron of Oxford. There is no early Life, but recent historical and archaeological research has clarified the background and some details of the traditional Legend. Frideswide was almost contemporary with Bede, but much less is generally known of the Wessex–Mercia border than of Northumbria. It seems that a territory of west Oxfordshire was ruled in the late 7th century by a sub-king under Mercian overlordship called Dida of Eynsham. Here, and at Bampton and Oxford he endowed minster churches. His daughter Frideswide was first abbess of the Oxford double monastery. This was on the site of Christ Church and it became the nucleus of the town of Oxford.
The Legend, recorded by William of Malmesbury from a version attributed to Robert of Cricklade (then prior of Oxford) makes her the intended victim of seduction by Æthelbald of Mercia. She escaped his attentions by flight into a forest retreat at Binsey and then to Oxford. He was temporarily blinded, but was cured at Bampton by her intercession. It is noteworthy that Oxford, Bampton, and Binsey are all on the river Thames. The Thames valley in her lifetime was under the control of Mercia in spite of the early importance of Dorchester (a Wessex border-town) evangelized by Birinus. Frideswide's monastery at Oxford, where she died and was buried, became an important landowner in the area. Unfortunately most of its early records were destroyed in 1002 when the church was set on fire with Scandinavians inside it in the attempted massacres triggered by Ethelred II.
The existence of her shrine is formally attested by R.P.S. in the 11th century: in the early 12th century her monastery was refounded as a house of Austin Canons. Her relics were translated in 1180 and in 1289. Her cult was strengthened by her being formally adopted as patron of Oxford University in the early 15th century. Twice a year her shrine was solemnly visited; perhaps this academic connexion inspired the choice of St. Hilda and St. Catherine as subjects of the stained glass in her shrine chapel.
Before the general dissolution of English monasteries Cardinal Wolsey suppressed Frideswide's monastery to provide revenues for his Cardinal College (now Christ Church), built on the same site. To achieve this, two bays of the west end of the nave were demolished, but Frideswide's shrine was left undisturbed. In 1538, however, it was despoiled by Henry VIII's commissioners. In 1546 this church became (and still remains) the cathedral church of the new diocese of Oxford. The shrine was restored under Queen Mary, but in 1558 it was desecrated by Frideswide's relics being inextricably mixed with those of Catherine Dammartin, wife of the Zwinglian theologian Peter Martyr Vermigli, formerly an Austin Canon and subsequently Regius professor of Divinity. This was achieved by James Calfhill, a Calvinist divine, intent on the suppression of the cult.
In modern times part of the shrine has been reconstructed from remains discovered in a well at Christ Church and it still attracts pilgrims, especially on her two feasts of 19 October and 12 February (translation).
Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.
- AA.SS. Oct. VIII (1853), 533–90; G.P., pp. 315–16; J. Blair, ‘Saint Frideswide Reconsidered’, Oxoniensia, lii (1987), 71–127, and St. Frideswide's Monastery at Oxford (1990); F. M. Stenton, ‘St. Frideswide and her Times’ in Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon England (1970), pp. 224–33; E. F. Jacob, St. Frideswide, the patron saint of Oxford (pamphlet); H. M. Mayr-Harting, ‘Functions of a Twelfth-Century Shrine: the miracles of St. Frideswide’, in Studies in Medieval History presented to R. H. C. Davis (1985)
