St Milburga – pious, posh and sadly lost

God works in mysterious ways. For example, about 900 years ago this was via two Shropshire lads, who while naughtily playing on a building site amidst the monastic ruins at Wenlock, fell into a pit and discovered the long-lost relics of St Milburga, Anglo-Saxon princess and abbess. It’s her feast day today, and Milburga’s rich life and legend provide, depending on your mood and piety, either an edifying tale suitable for the Lenten season, or an entertaining distraction from the cold and austerities of late winter. 

Born with the finest of silver spoons in her mouth, Milburga was daughter of King Merewalh, ruler of the Magonsaete, a sub-kingdom of Mercia. Merewalh converted to Christianity in 660, marrying Domne Eafe (also called Domneva or Ermenburga; d. c.700), a Kentish princess whose lineage included King Ethelbert (d. 616) who had welcomed St Augustine on his mission to convert the English in 597. 

Milburga’s family was as pious as it was posh. Her mother and two sisters (Mildred and Mildgyth), all became abbesses and were destined for sainthood, while the bloody deaths of her maternal uncles Ethelred and Ethelbricht meant that they were counted the martyrs. Milburga’s father, like any good Christian king, affirmed his faith — and augmented his power — by founding monasteries. 

Foremost among these was the abbey at Wenlock, or  Wimnicas as it was then know. Founded between 670-80, this was a so-called “dual-house,” its community consisting of both monks and nuns with an abbess at its head.  In common with other dual houses, such as St Hild’s (d. 680) monastery at Whitby, the monks and nuns at Wenlock would have worshipped in their own churches and would also have had separate dormitories and refectories.

Wenlock was doubtlessly founded with the intention that Milburga would one day rule as its abbess, an office that she indeed fulfilled with distinction. The so-called “Testament of St Milburga”, composed by the saint towards the end of her life and preserved in a 12th-century source, details how she expanded the estates of her monastery, receiving gifts from princes, prelates and peasants.

Milburga was well acquainted with leading figures in the Anglo-Saxon Church, including St Theodore (d. 690), archbishop of Canterbury. The monastery at Wenlock also achieved fame thanks to a miraculous event that occurred there. A letter written by St Boniface (d. 754), Anglo-Saxon monk and missionary to Frisia, recounts the vision of the afterlife experienced by a monk at Milburga’s abbey, and how while his brother monks were singing prayers over his lifeless corpse, he ‘returned to [his] body at first light having left it at first cockcrow.’

Milburga died in c.715 and was buried in the nuns’ church at Wenlock. The community there venerated her as a saint. Her feast on 23 February, likely the anniversary of her death, was observed at several Anglo-Saxon abbeys. An early 11th-century list of the “resting places” of saints says that her relics were still preserved at Wenlock. By this time, however, nuns had long since ceased to be part of the community at Wenlock, which became a minster under the care of priests.

Monastic life at Wenlock was revived in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest by Roger of Montgomery, earl of Shrewsbury, a leading Norman warlord anxious to cleanse his blood-stained soul from sin. Between 1080 and 1082, Roger refounded Wenlock as a priory for French Cluniac monks. By this time, the former nuns’ church at Wenlock was ruinous, and the location of St Milburga’s tomb and relics forgotten and lost.

But the monks took an immediate interest in the saint and her relics. These were rediscovered in the summer of 1101, their unearthing described in a contemporaneous document apparently written by a cardinal who was sent from Rome to verify the momentous events. 

The document tells how the monks were disappointed to discover that a silver casket they hoped contained the relics of St Milburga in fact held nothing more than ashes and old rags. Around the same time one Raymond, a lay brother of the monastery, was helping to restore the ruinous church of the Holy Trinity, which had likely been that of the nuns. During his work, he discovered an old box containing a document written in English. This said that the grave of St Milburga was located in this church, close to an altar which had since been destroyed. After obtaining permission from Anselm (d. 1109), archbishop of Canterbury, the monks set about excavating the church to find the relics. Their quest was soon overtaken by events. On the night of 23 June, two boys playing amidst the ruins of the church of the Holy Trinity feel into a pit. The next morning, the monks dug there, finding the bones of St Milburga exactly where the document said she was buried. The bones were washed and placed with due reverence in a new shrine, or casket. 

Pilgrims flocked to Wenlock, the authenticity of the relics confirmed by a series of miraculous cures. Two people, had their sights restored, while two others were cured of leprosy. Another vomited forth an enormous worm after drinking the water used to wash the saint’s relics. 

At around the same time one Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, a Benedictine monk and jobbing hagiographer, composed a “Life,” or idealised biography, of St Milburga. This tells how she resurrected the dead and banished geese that were devouring the abbey’s corn — a miracle also attributed to her near contemporaries, St Hild at Whitby and St Werburgh at Chester. 

St Milburga also reached down from heaven to smooth tensions between the French conquerors and the vanquished Anglo-Saxons. The French monks used veneration of her relics to confer legitimacy on their priory, which had a joint dedication to St Milburga and St Michael. The relics were “translated” or moved to a specially built shrine, likely behind the high altar, in the monastery’s cathedral-like church, the ruins of which still have the power to impress. A 13th-century source recounts how the holy bones were removed each Whitsuntide and carried in solemn procession around the nearby town. 

For the rest of the Middle Ages, the Wenlock monks held their patron saint in the highest esteem. Her image adorned the priory’s seal, while manuscripts in its library contained prose and poetry written in her honour. In January 1540, however, Wenlock fell victim to Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries. Gold and silver from St Milburga’s shrine rapidly found its way into the royal treasury. Targeted for destruction, the saint’s relics were once again lost. We’re still waiting for a couple of naughty boys to stumble upon them. Stranger things have happened.