Wihtburh

Wihtburh (or Withburga) (died 743) was an East Anglia saint, princess and abbess who was possibly a daughter of Anna of East Anglia, located in present-day England. She founded a monastery at Dereham in Norfolk. A traditional story says that the Virgin Mary sent a pair of female deer to provide milk for her workers during the monastery's construction. Withburga's body is supposed to have been uncorrupted when discovered half a century after her death: it was later stolen on the orders of the abbot of Ely. A spring appeared at the site of the saint's empty tomb at Dereham.

Family

Tradition describes Wihtburh as the youngest of the daughters of Anna of East Anglia, but she is not mentioned by Bede. He was well-informed about and described her elder sistersSeaxburh of Ely, Æthelthryth and Æthelburh of Faremoutiers and Sæthryth, her older half-sister.

Legend of Saint Wihtburh and the does

After her father's death (c.653), Wihtburh built a convent in East Dereham, Norfolk. A traditional story relates that while she was building the convent, she had nothing but dry bread to give to the workmen. She prayed to the Virgin Mary and was told to send her maids to a local well each morning. There they found two wild does which were gentle enough to be milked; they provided nutritious drink for the workers. This allowed the workers to be fed.

East Anglia

East Anglia is an area in the East of England. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a tribe that originated in Angeln, northern Germany. Today it is legally defined as a NUTS 2 statistical region, comprising the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, including the city of Peterborough unitary authority area.

History

The kingdom of East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of the East Anglian princess Etheldreda, the Isle of Ely also became part of the kingdom.

The kingdom of the East Angles, formed about the year 520 by the merging of the North and the South Folk (Angles who had settled in the former lands of the Iceni during the previous century), was one of the seven Anglo-Saxon heptarchy kingdoms (as defined in the 12th century writings of Henry of Huntingdon). For a brief period following a victory over the rival kingdom of Northumbria around the year 616, East Anglia was the most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England, and its King Raedwald was Bretwalda (overlord of the Anglo-Saxons kingdoms). But this did not last: over the next forty years, East Anglia was defeated by the Mercians twice, and it continued to weaken relative to the other kingdoms until in 794, Offa of Mercia had its king Æthelberht killed and took control of the kingdom himself.