Mildred

Mildred (d. c.700), abbess. A daughter of Merewald, king of Mercia, and Ermenburga, princess of Kent, she was educated at the convent of Chelles, near Paris, to which she had retired to avoid the attentions of an unwelcome suitor. She then returned to become a nun at Minster‐in‐Thanet. This abbey had been founded by Ermenburga on land provided by Egbert of Kent in compensation for the murder of her brothers Ethelred and Ethelbricht. She became abbess before 694, when she attended a council in Kent. Goscelin (late 11th century) attributed to her the conventional virtues of tranquillity of temper and generosity to the poor, especially widows and children. She died after a long illness; her tomb became a place of pilgrimage. In 1035 her relics were translated to St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, whence some of them were given to Deventer (Holland). However, a rival set of relics was given by Lanfranc to his hospital of St. Gregory, Canterbury. In modern‐times a Benedictine nunnery has been revived at Minster by the Benedictines of Eichstatt (Bavaria), founded by Walburga. Feast: 13 July; translation, 18 May; also 20 February.

Bibliography
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• AA.SS. Iul. III (1723), 512–23
• N.L.A., ii. 193–7
• G.R., i. 267; M. L. Colker, ‘A hagiographic polemic’, Medieval Studies, xxxix (1977), 60–108
• D. W. Rollason, The Mildrith Legend (1983)
• id. (translation text) in Medieval Studies 48 (1986), 139–210