Eadgyth of Aylesbury

Eadgyth of Aylesbury also known as Eadridus was a Dark Ages Catholic saint from Anglo-Saxon England.

She is known to history mainly through the hagiography of the Secgan Manuscript, but also the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle She is sometimes associated with St Osyth.

A Saint Edith is also mentioned in Conchubran's Life of Saint Modwenna, a female hermit who supposedly lived near Burton-on-Trent. The text, written in the early 11th century, mentions a sister of King Alfred by the name of Ite, a nun who served as the Kings tutor and had a maidservant called Osid. Although an Irish nun called St Ita was active in the 7th century, Ite's name has been interpreted as "almost certainly a garbling of Edith" and that of Osid a rendering of Osgyth.

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Eadgyth

Edith of England (Old English: Ēadgȳð) (910 – 26 January 946), also spelt Eadgyth or Ædgyth, was the daughter of Edward the Elder, and the wife of Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor.

Life

Edith was born to the reigning English king Edward the Elder by his second wife, Ælfflæd, and hence was granddaughter of Alfred the Great. Nothing is known of her until in order to seal an alliance between two Saxon kingdoms, her half-brother, King Athelstan of England, sent two of his sisters (Eadgyth and Eadgifu of Wessex) to Germany, instructing the Duke of Saxony (later Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor) to choose whichever one pleased him best. Otto chose Edith and married her in 930. The remaining sister Algiva or Adiva was married to a "king near the Jupiter mountains" (the Alps). The precise identity of the husband of this sister is debated.

In 936 King Henry I of Germany died and his eldest son, Eadgyth's husband, was crowned at Aachen as King Otto I. There is a surviving report of the ceremony by Widukind of Corvey which makes no mention of his wife having been crowned at this point, but according to Thietmar of Merseburg's chronicle Eadgyth was nevertheless anointed as queen, albeit in a separate ceremony. As queen, Eadgyth undertook the usual state duties of "First lady": when she turns up in the records it is generally in connection with gifts to the state's favoured monasteries or memorials to holy women and saints. In this respect she seems to have been more diligent than her now widowed and subsequently sainted mother-in-law Queen Matilda whose own charitable activities only achieve a single recorded mention from the period of Eadgyth's time as queen. There was probably rivalry between the Benedictine Monastery of St Maurice founded at Magdeburg by Otto and Eadgyth in 937, a year after coming to the throne and Matilda's foundation at Quedlinburg Abbey, intended by her as a memorial to her husband, the late King Henry I.

Eadgyth (disambiguation)

Eadgyth (died 946) was a princess and wife of Holy Roman Emperor Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor.

Eadgyth may also refer to:

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Aylesbury

Coordinates: 51°49′00″N 0°48′45″W / 51.8168°N 0.8124°W / 51.8168; -0.8124

Aylesbury /ˈeɪəlzbri/ is the county town of Buckinghamshire, England. In 2011, it had a population of 58,740.

History

The town name is of Old English origin. Its first recorded name Æglesburgh is thought to mean "Fort of Ægel", though who Ægel was is not recorded. Since earliest records there have been 57 variations of the name.

Excavations in the town centre in 1985 found an Iron Age hill fort dating from the early 4th century BC. Aylesbury was one of the strongholds of the ancient Britons, from whom it was taken in the year 571 by Cutwulph, brother of Ceawlin, King of the West Saxons; and had a fortress or castle "of some importance, from which circumstance probably it derives its Saxon appellation".

Aylesbury was a major market town in Anglo-Saxon times, the burial place of Saint Osyth, whose shrine attracted pilgrims. The Early English parish church of St. Mary (which has many later additions) has a crypt beneath. Once thought to be Anglo-Saxon, it is now recognised as being of the same period as the medieval chapel above. At the Norman conquest, the king took the manor of Aylesbury for himself, and it is listed as a royal manor in the Domesday Book, 1086. Some lands here were granted by William the Conqueror to citizens upon the extraordinary tenure that the owners should provide straw for the monarch's bed, sweet herbs for his chamber and two green geese and three eels for his table, whenever he should visit Aylesbury.

HM Prison Aylesbury

HM Prison Aylesbury (full title Her Majesty's Young Offender Institution (HMYOI) Aylesbury) is a Young Offender Institution situated in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England. The prison is located on the north side of the town centre, on Bierton Road. The prison is operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service.

History

There has been a prison or gaol of some description in Aylesbury since 1810. The current prison is of early Victorian design and has been on its present site since 1847 following extensive public building in the area that also included the workhouse (now the Tindal Centre). Since construction, it has gone through a variety of changes, starting as a county gaol, then became an adult women's prison in 1890, changing to a girls' borstal in the 1930s, and between 1959-1961 was an adult male prison, after which it became a male YOI, and since 1989 has held only male long term prisoners.

In 1998 Aylesbury Prison was criticised after an inspection report highlighted its poor health regime (the jail saw the rapid turnover of five senior medical officers in two years). The report opened up a wider debate about the pay of medical staff in UK prisons compared to those in the NHS.

Aylesbury Hundred

Coordinates: 51°49′00″N 0°48′45″W / 51.8168°N 0.8124°W / 51.8168; -0.8124

Aylesbury Hundred was a hundred in the ceremonial county of Buckinghamshire, England. It was situated in the centre of the county and was bounded on the east by Hertfordshire and on the west by Oxfordshire.

History

Until at least the time of the Domesday Survey in 1086 there were 18 hundreds in Buckinghamshire. It has been suggested however that neighbouring hundreds had already become more closely associated in the 11th century so that by the end of the 14th century the original or ancient hundreds had been consolidated into 8 larger hundreds. Aylesbury became the name of the hundred formed from the combined 11th century hundreds of Aylesbury, Risborough and Stone although these original names still persisted in official records until at least the early part of the 17th century. The court leet for Aylesbury hundred was located at Aylesbury.

Parishes and hamlets

Aylesbury hundred comprised the following ancient parishes and hamlets, (formerly medieval vills), allocated to their respective 13th century hundred: