Saint mildreds biography
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She later found her way, quite by accident, into my doctoral thesis, for Cnut-related reasons. Heo wæs wuduwena and steopcilda arigend, and ealra earmra and geswincendra frefiend, and on eallum þingum eaðmod and stille.M.
The abbess, fearing that her evil deeds should be made known, would, on no account, give permission for her departure.
There was, however, another set of relics which were said to have been hidden at Lyming, with those of her sister, Mildgytha, during the Viking devastation. On St. Ermenburga's death, Mildred succeeded her as Abbess of the community, to whom she set a holy example and by whom she was much beloved. She was given the veil by Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, at the same time as seventy other nuns.
A statue of St Mildred was installed on the tower at Lincoln on Ascension Day, 2009:
The things which look like fighter jets are actually geese, with which St Mildred (like other female saints, including St Werburgh) is particularly associated.
In St Michael at the Northgate, the parish's old connection with St Mildred is remembered in the Lady Chapel, where a statue of Mildred, made in the 1930s, stands in the reredos alongside the Virgin and Oxford's St Frideswide:
Mildred is on the right of this picture, a willowy figure with an abbess' staff:
A decorated notice, describing the history of the chapel, bears what I take to be the crest of Minster Abbey:
And above the reredos, as chance would have it, is late-medieval glass of a lily crucifix:
Such iconography had not even been thought of when Mildred lived, or when Goscelin wrote, but it's a felicitous chance.
Mildred is represented in art holding a church and accompanied by three geese, as she was protector against damage by such wild birds.
Saint Mildred of Thanet
Saint’s Life Story
Her Saintly Family Background
Mildred was the daughter of King Merewald of Magonset and his wife, Saint Ermenburga (also known as Domne Eafe or Domneva).
The reliquary of St. Mildred's grace-bearing relics at ThanetShe was succeeded by St. At an early age, her mother sent Mildred to be educated by an abbess at Chelles in France, where many English ladies were trained to a saintly life.
Marriage Proposal Turned to Miracle
A young nobleman, related to the Abbess of Chelles, asked the abbess for her hand in marriage.
Mildred, whose name means ‘peaceful counsel’, led her community with wisdom and love for more than 30 years. She was succeeded by Saint Edburga of Minster-in-Thanet. It's almost synonymous with mild, the first element of Mildred's name, but with an added suggestion of quietness or stillness. It's the only pre-Conquest church surviving within the city walls (St Martin'sis much older - it predates Mildred herself - but is outside the walls), and it looks like this:
It's not open very often, but I managed to sneak in last Easter while they were doing some building work, and found this window of Mildred, depicted as a mature abbess rather than a young princess:
And in medieval glass:
Mildred's abbey at Minster was refounded on the same site in 1937 by a community of nuns leaving Nazi Germany, and it's still going strong, in one of the oldest inhabited buildings in England.
In the Anglo-Saxon period Thanet was an island, separated from the mainland by the Wantsum Channel (since silted up), which was marked at either end by the monumental ruins of Roman forts at Reculverand Richborough. All the abbess’s advice, threats and blows failed to persuade Mildred from entering into marriage. Soon after her death people started coming in pilgrimage to her tomb.
Queen Saint Ermenburga immediately sent ships to fetch her daughter.
The abbess, fearing that her evil deeds should come to light, would not permit Mildred to leave. For instance, legend said when she returned to Thanet from France to join her mother's nunnery, she landed at Ebbsfleet (the same place Augustine had landed - that's the ancient Ebbsfleetand not the modern one) and left the print of her foot permanently in the rock where she disembarked.
The abbess tried to persuade her, but Mildred said her mother had sent her there to be taught, not to be married, and all the abbess's advice, threats and blows failed to persuade her to accept the alliance offered to her.
Legend
An old story is recorded that one night, while Mildred was praying in the church of her monastery, the devil blew out her candle, but an angel drove him away and re-lighted it for her.
Her Death
Around early 700’s, Mildred died at Minster-in-Thanet, Kent, England from a lingering illness.
It was pulled down in the fifteenth century, and the parish was absorbed into that of St Michael at the Northgate. I've posted more on the wonderful origin-legend of the abbey, deer and blasphemers and royal murderers and all, here. Either way, it shows Mildred taking the part of a royal woman like herself against an act of cruelty from the king (which did actually happen, as recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chroniclefor 1043), a kind of solidarity across three centuries.
Let's have a look at some manuscripts of Goscelin's writings on Mildred.