By Sister Theovouli
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In this blog:
St. Egwin was born in Worcester¹ to a noble family, and was related to the Mercian kings, believed to have been a nephew of King Æthelred, a formidable warlord. King Æthelred strengthened Mercian dominance of the Midlands, which grew into a stable and prosperous region².
St. Egwin was born to Christian parents who baptised him as a child. When he was seven, he started learning to read by studying the Psalms – the usual teaching method at that time, he went on to become a noted scholar. From his youth, his piety and ascesis had marked him out – he wore a hair shirt most of his life – and he was soon called to the priesthood. He was quietly ordained and fulfilled the duties of his state with outstanding care and reverence. Among the clergy, he was an example of uncontentious holiness, building, as his biographer says, ‘a pleasant mansion for the Holy Ghost in the court of his Heart’.
Several years after his ordination the See of Worcester fell vacant and he was unanimously chosen as bishop, despite his reluctance. In the early years of the Mercian church, Worcester had been part of the huge diocese of Lichfield. During Archbishop Theodore’s³ reforms, the diocese of Worcester was separated out. Its borders conterminous with Whicce, a province in Mercia which was comprised of Worcestershire, Gloucestershire east, Warwickshire south, and Bristol.
St. Egwin was the third bishop of Worcester⁴ and set about his task with his usual whole heartedness, preached with great vigour, and as his reputation grew, so did his humility. The King respected him greatly for his upright character, impartiality, prudence and learning.
Despite his popular beginning, it was not long before he ran into problems. Many of his flock were nominal converts, who still retained their pagan ways. Particular thorny problems were polygamy, incest and marriages with close family members, often conducted for property purposes. Another was attending the Liturgy merely as a social event, and to do business. Although St. Egwin was a gentle and affable man, he had no hesitation in taking the disorderly congregation to task. In fact, he made himself so unpopular, by preaching about the abuses he found and the Last Judgement, that they rebelled. They not only complained to the King and Archbishop, but took their grievances to the Pope, with such effect that he was suspended and summoned to Rome to explain himself.
St. Egwin, assuming responsibility for the problem, undertook the journey as a penance. To show his contrition, he put on ankle chains for the journey, throwing the key into the Avon River⁵. He took some friends with him on his journey, together they walked for months. When they got to Rome, he set off to visit the tombs of the Apostles while his companions went fishing in the Tiber. After the Liturgy in St. Peter’s, they met up and prepared a good size fish to eat – and found the key to the ankle chains inside!
St. Egwin gave thanks that his sins were forgiven and unlocked his fetters in the presence of a growing crowd. News of the miracle spread through Rome like wildfire, crowds gathered to ask his blessing, and the Pope sent for him. Not allowing him to make pyrokinesis, the Pope asked for his blessing and sat with him as an equal. He was invited to celebrate the Liturgy and over the course of a number of private meetings the Pope learnt the true state of affairs. He sent him back to England with Apostolic letters restoring him to the See of Worcester.
The Archbishop and the King were delighted, St. Egwin was entrusted with the education of the King’s sons (to whom he gave a classical education). The congregation, suitably impressed, welcomed him back. His preaching grew even more powerful and was accompanied by miracles. From time to time he withdrew to a solitary spot, in a wild wooded area, with an ancient chapel, where he could pray undisturbed⁶. He begged the King to give him the place and one approval installed some flocks and a few herdsmen. This was the humble beginning of the great abbey of Evesham.
One day in 702AD, a swineherd, Eoves, was looking for a lost pig in the woods, when he saw three beautiful maidens, singing canticles with heavenly voices. He rushed off to tell the bishop, who concluded it was a heavenly vision and set out fasting and barefoot, with three cantors, singing psalms and hymns. When he came to the place the most beautiful of the three – the Holy Virgin, held out a book and a cross to him, blessed him and vanished. During his excommunication, St. Egwin had vowed to build a church, but he wasn’t sure where. Now, with substantial funding from King Ethelred, he built a church and monastery where the Virgin had blessed him and made over to it many villages and pastureland. Soon after, the king abdicated, in favour of his nephew, Kenred, and became a monk at Bardney⁷.
King Kenred followed his father, as patron of the new monastery. In 708AD, he and Offa (king of the East Saxons) went on pilgrimage to Rome, taking the bishop with them. When they were crossing the Alps, they had no water and were running out of supplies. At St. Egwin’s prayers, a fountain sprang up and the supplies multiplied. Pope John VI granted the petition of the two Kings and the bishop, endorsing the vision of the Blessed Virgin, and making Evesham a monastery of pontifical right (i.e.stavropegic) ⁸. St. Egwin returned alone, because both kings renounced their crowns and became monks.
Soon after he got back to England, on May 25th 709AD, St. Egwin saw a vision of the soul of his close friend and fellow bishop, Aldhelm of Malmesbury, ascending to heaven. Aldhelm was already an abbot when he was called to become a bishop: St. Egwin was a bishop who had founded a monastery and would become its abbot. St. Egwin told the brethren and set out at once for Dulting, in Somerset, where Aldhelm had died. He accompanied the body back to Malmesbury, and celebrated the Requiem. At every place where the body rested, a cross was erected.
Later in 709AD, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Brithwald⁹, called a Council at Alcester¹⁰
near Evesham. This comprised of secular lords and bishops, including Wilfrid of York. At it, the deeds St. Egwin had received from the Pope were ratified. Afterwards Archbishop Wilfrid consecrated the new Abbey church, and dedicated it to our Blessed lady, Ss. Peter & Paul & All Saints¹¹. The founding monks of Evesham were probably from Peterborough, or another monastery under Wilfrid’s jurisdiction.
This marked a change in St. Egwin’s life. The next year, 710AD, he left the ministry of his See in the hands of a suffragen¹², and entered the monastery, quickly becoming its first abbot. In monastic life, St. Egwin grew in holiness; he had the grace of continuous prayer, his detachment was such that no temporal loss disturbed him, and he was often visited by the angels and saints, and was devoted to the Mother of God, “his most intimate Lady.”
St. Egwin’s gifts as a miracle worker continued to grow, and this was especially evident in the months of illness before his death. Although ill and suffering himself, he healed many sufferers by the touch of his hands and the invocation of the Blessed Trinity.
Lying in his hair shirt, in dust and ashes, he gave himself even more ardently to fasting and continuous prayer, keeping his mind and heart fixed in heaven, and calling on the saints to come and lead him to his eternal home.
In these last days, he taught the brethren with even more fervour, exhorting them in the way of perfection, and they responded so fully that visitors observed that they were like ‘the multitude of believers,’ in Acts, ‘who had one heart and one soul.’ With his last breath, he told them to ‘Follow after peace and holiness, without which, as the Apostle says, no man can see God.’
He was mourned throughout Mercia and was buried at Evesham Abbey in a place he had chosen himself. His funeral was attended by so many that it was like a triumph, which joyful canticles ringing out above the lamentations of the mourners. The saint was so venerated after his death that he was still considered to be abbot, and following abbots were only allowed to wear the abbatial ring when celebrating the Liturgy.
The church was plundered by the Danes, and later collapsed in 960AD, but the shrine was found intact among the debris. A new shrine was not made till 1039AD, when the bishop of London, Aelward, who had previously been a monk of Evesham, got caught in a storm in the English Channel. He prayed to St. Egwin for rescue and promised to celebrate his feast with greater solemnity and make him a new shrine. The sea fell calm, the bishop completed his mission (to offer the English crown to Hardicanute)¹³, made good his promise, and translated the saints’ relics to the new shrine.
The shrine was again replaced in 1044AD, during its construction, a workman pierced his hand with a tool, and the saint healed it. The new shrine was soon plundered by a noble visitor Algitha, who enlisted the help of two boys to steal a tooth and part of an arm. St. Egwin visited her in her sleep three times to complain. After she had ignored him for the third time, she was suddenly blinded and, still being obstinate, remained blind for the rest of her life. Some years later the relics were accidentally discovered by the then abbot and returned to Evesham¹⁵.
The next danger to the shrine came from Queen Edith, wife of Edward the Confessor, who was addicted to collecting relics and used her position to collect the best of them at Gloucester: the monks substituted the relics of another saint, Odulph, for St. Egwin , and sent the reliquary. The King and Queen spent Christmas at Gloucester, and as soon as she touched the reliquary, she was struck blind: unlike Algitha, she repented and returned the relics, and her sight was restored.
In 1207AD, the church tower fell in, but all three shrines – of Ss. Egwin, Odulph and Credan were miraculously preserved, although some ornaments were damaged. After this St. Egwin and his shrine remained in peace, and many miracles were wrought through his intercession¹⁶, until the Reformation. The tomb and the abbey church were destroyed in 1540AD, in the Dissolution of the monasteries. There is no account of what happened to the relics, and no account of their destruction.
¹ Worcester (Roman -Branonium, Branogenian; Saxon – Weogareceaster, Wireceaster: after Norman conquest – Wigornia, Vigornia ) was a Roman town, then the capital of Hwiccan, a province of Mercia
² Ethelred was a son of Penda of Mercia and came to the throne in 675, when his brother, Wulfhere of Mercia, died from an illness. In his early years as king, he tried to reclaim and expand Mercian territory, invading Kent and destroying Rochester. In 679 he defeated his brother-in-law, Ecgfrith of Northumbria, at the Battle of the Trent: the battle was a major setback for the Northumbrians and effectively ended their military involvement in English affairs south of the Humber. It also permanently returned the Kingdom of Lindsey to Mercia’s possession.
³ The initiative came from Oshere, the Ruler of the Wiccians. It was founded by Ethelred of Mercia, with the Archbishop’s approval.
⁴ King Ethelred supported Theodore in his reforms He established the new diocese and was king during the tenure of the first three bishops. The first two bishops of Worcester were Bosel and Ostfor, monks of Whitby Abbey. Bishop Ostfor had studied at St. Theodore’s school at Canterbury, and in Rome: he wrote several works, all of which, except a book of Homilies, perished in the Danish invasions.
⁵At Homme /Hethomme/ Hruddingpol.
⁶This was the same place in which he threw the key into the river – Homme /Hethomme/ Hruddingpol.
⁷Saint Ethelred, May 4th.
⁸This seems to have included the land deeds being transferred to the Holy See.
⁹Saint Brithwald /Berhtwald 693-731
¹⁰After the Council at Alcester, St. Egwin conceived a desire to convert the inhabitants of the town, which was one of the last pagan strongholds. It was a centre for iron worker and they got so fed up of Egwin harassing them that they set up a concert of hammers and anvils to drown him out., Egwin sadly left and saw a vision of the judgement of the people and the trade of ironworking soon died out!
¹¹The Archbishop had a special connection with Mercia: during one of his periods of banishment he had been received by King Ethelred, and had acted as Bishop of Lichfield during a vacancy in the See. It was probably Wilfrid who encouraged King Ethelred to renounce his crown to become a monk.
¹²I have assumed a suffragen for regular matters in the diocese, because he remained Bishop of Worcester till his death, Wilfrith of Worcester following on in 718.
¹³After the death of Harold Harefoot. Hardicanute was in Flanders.
¹⁴Children being educated in the monastery.
¹⁵Algitha did confess her crime to the abbot, asked his permission to keep the relics and promised she would make a shrine for them. Of the boys – similarly unrepentant – one drowned and the other was ill for the rest of his life. In her will she gave a bequest to the abbey and ordered that the shrine be returned, but her son refused to do it. Eventually the next abbot secured the land and, happening across the shrine at Worcester, carried it back to Evesham.
¹⁶Extensive records remain.
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