Saint Hilda of Whitby

English abbess

• Born: 614
• Birthplace: Northumbria, England
• Died: November 17, 0689
• Place of death: Whitby, Yorkshire, England

One of the most important women of her day, Hilda founded and headed monasteries, advised leaders of church and state, mediated ecclesiastical disputes, and promoted learning and literary production.

Early Life

Hilda (HIHL-duh) was born a member of the royal household of Deira, one of the two kingdoms in Northumbria, in northern England. Her father, Hereric, was an Anglo-Saxon, and her mother, Breguswith, a Celt; thus even at her birth Hilda represented the union of two peoples whose cultures were often at war with each other.

Hilda’s early life was marked by turmoil. When Deira was seized by the ruler of Bernicia, the other Northumbrian kingdom, her family had to flee. They took refuge at Elmete, in Yorkshire, but shortly thereafter, her father, Hereric, was poisoned by the petty king Cerdic. It was reported, however, that her mother, Breguswith, was consoled by a dream in which she was desperately searching for her missing husband. Though she never reached him, she did find under her clothing a necklace holding a jewel so bright that it illuminated all of Britain. She knew that the jewel signified her young daughter Hilda.

In 616, Hereric’s uncle, Edwin, defeated the Bernicians and united both their county and Deira into a single kingdom, Northumbria, and the two-year-old Hilda went to live at his court. There she was taught to worship the pagan gods. However, when his first wife died in 625, King Edwin married Æthelburgh, the daughter of the king of Kent, where Saint Augustine was based. As part of the marriage agreement, she was permitted to continue worshiping as a Christian. She brought with her to Northumbria the monk Paulinus, who had been sent from Rome to Kent so that he could assist Augustine in his mission of converting the pagans. At first Edwin resisted Christianity, but after surviving an assassination attempt, he agreed to change his faith. On April 12, 627, Paulinus baptized the king and most of his court, including his great-niece Hilda, in the river at York.

When Hilda was eighteen, her great-uncle was killed in battle, and the queen, her daughter Eanfled, and most of the court fled to Kent. Paulinus, who had been the archbishop of York, was among the refugees. Thus, northern England was left under the control of the Celtic Christians rather than of those who followed the dictates of Rome.

It is not known what happened to Hilda between 632 and 647. It is very possible that she married and then, after being widowed, resolved to end her days in a convent. The lives of many noblewomen followed this pattern. Hilda’s sister Hereswith, the widow of the king of East Anglia, was now in a French convent at Chelles near Paris. At any rate, whether or not Hilda had once been married, at thirty-three she was considered well past middle age. It would have seemed logical that she retire from the world and become a nun like her sister.

As it turned out, Hilda did not join Hereswith as she had planned. Although she would take holy orders, she would not retire from the world.

Life’s Work

In 647, Hilda went to East Anglia, where her nephew was now the king, for a final year at court. However, shortly before she was to leave for France, she was summoned to Northumbria by Bishop Aidan, a Celtic monk who had founded the monastery at Lindisfarne. At his request, Hilda helped to form a small religious house on the bank of the River Wear. In 649, Aidan appointed her abbess of the large “double” monastery at Hartlepool, so termed because the community included both men and women.

With her close connections to the court, it was inevitable that Hilda’s progress in her vocation would often be influenced by political developments. For example, in 655, Oswiu, the king of Bernicia, who had married Edwin’s daughter Eanfled, promised that if God would give him victory in battle, thus making him king of a united Northumbria, he would dedicate his one-year-old daughter Elfleda to the church and also would provide enough land for twelve new monasteries. After Oswiu triumphed, he fulfilled his vow. Princess Elfleda was sent to Hartlepool and put in the care of her kinswoman, and Hilda was given some twelve hundred acres at Streonashalh (or Whitby, as it was renamed by the Danes), where she was to establish another double monastery and become its first abbess. Princess Elfleda, whom she took with her, eventually became a nun and later, abbess of Whitby.

In 657, Hilda founded what would be the most important religious house in northeast England. Because of her reputation for godliness as well as worldly wisdom, Hilda was consulted by kings and princes, as well as by Church leaders, who met at Whitby to discuss important issues and to seek Hilda’s counsel. Thus, she become one of the most influential figures in the Church of her time. However, Hilda, who came to be known as “mother,” was just as accessible to the poor and destitute as to those of high social rank.

At Whitby, as at Wear and at Hartlepool, Hilda established a rule of life that included the usual monastic virtues of poverty, chastity, and devotion but, above all, stressed charity and peace. From the beginning, the abbess herself had been known as a peacemaker. This quality was to serve her well in one of the great crises of the medieval church, the conflict between the practices of the Celtic churchmen, who had been converting pagans in the northern regions of Britain before 300, and those of the missionaries sent from Rome in the fifth and sixth centuries, whose influence prevailed in the south and east.

Even though Hilda had been baptized by the Roman monk Paulinus and may have spent some time in Kent a center of Roman influence with Queen Æthelburgh who was strongly committed to Rome in later life Hilda turned to the Celtic traditions that prevailed in the north, where all of the religious houses with which she was associated were located. Among her closest friends were the great Celtic leader Aidan; Finan, who succeeded him as bishop of Lindisfarne; and Colman, who was Finan’s successor and who, like the other two, had come to Northumbria from Ireland, which still observed Celtic traditions. As a native of the island of Iona, which lies off the west coast of Scotland, King Oswiu also held to Celtic ways. However, like her mother Æthelburgh, Oswiu’s wife Eanfled was convinced that Rome was right.

It should be stressed that the Celtic Christians and the Romans did not disagree on doctrine; their two major differences were the following: Which calendar should be used to calculate the date of Easter and how should the tonsures of monks be shaped. The Easter question was especially troublesome; as dissension escalated, in some places Easter was observed twice. However, there was an underlying issue that would influence the course of history: whether or not the English Church should submit to Roman governance.

Eventually the leaders of the Roman faction, which included Queen Eanfled, her son Prince Alhfrith, and her protegé Wilfred, who had been made bishop of York, succeeded in putting enough pressure on Oswiu so that in 664 he called a meeting of Church leaders in order to get their differences settled. Because this historic gathering was held at Hilda’s monastery, it came to be known as the Synod of Whitby. Although Hilda strongly supported the Celtic position, the Synod voted to abide by Roman practices. Bishop Colman was so furious that he resigned his see. However, Hilda accepted the decision and even tried to make peace between the two parties, though she would be an outspoken opponent of Wilfred her entire life.

Under Hilda’s direction, Whitby became known as a great center of learning, offering students access to a fine library and instruction in Latin language and literature. Because those in her charge were so well-versed in the Holy Scriptures and so well-trained in godly behavior, the men were in great demand as priests. According to Saint Bede the Venerable, Whitby produced no less than five bishops.

Hilda was also responsible for encouraging an illiterate cowherd named Cædmon, who was employed at Whitby, to become England’s first great poet. Tradition says that Cædmon had always left the room at times when it was his turn to sing. However, one night he dreamed that when someone ordered him to sing about the glory of God, he obeyed. On awakening, not only did he recall the verses he had sung, but he even found himself adding to them. He reported these strange events to the reeve, or steward, of Whitby, who promptly informed Hilda. After examining him, Hilda became convinced that Cædmon had been touched by the grace of God and ordered him to take monastic vows. Then she saw to it that he was taught sacred history, which Cædmon then turned into magnificent verse. Because his poetry was written in the Anglo-Saxon vernacular, it became popular with the common people, who did not know Latin. Cædmon’s verses were said to be responsible for converting many from paganism.

Hilda remained at Whitby until her death in 680. Even though she was ill during the last seven years of her life, Bede tells us that up to the end, she kept on instructing her flock and exhorting them to live in godliness and peace. According to Bede, on the night that Hilda died, a nun in a monastery thirty miles away had a vision in which she saw the abbess being welcomed into Heaven. Saint Hilda is commemorated in the Roman calendar on November 17.

Significance

Hilda was a pivotal figure in the development of Christianity in seventh century England. It can hardly be overestimated how much her promotion of learning, her patronage of poetry, and the wise counsel she offered so freely to commoners, bishops, princes, and kings changed her world for the better. Thirteen centuries after her death, she is still admired as a woman who was fully involved in her world and her church but never forgot that her primary allegiance was to her Maker.

Bibliography

Bede. The Ecclesiastical History of the English People; The Greater Chronicle; Bede’s Letter to Egbert. Edited by Judith McClure and Roger Collins. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Bede’s history, completed in 731, is the primary source for information about the medieval English church. Two chapters are devoted to Hilda and her protegé Cædmon.

Macdonald, Iain, ed. Saints of Northumbria: Cuthbert, Aidan, Oswald, Hilda. Edinburgh: Floris Books, 1997. A collection of seventh and eighth century texts, which not only relate supernatural events associated with the saints but also discuss their involvement in political and ecclesiastical disputes.

Pullen, Bruce Reed. Discovering Celtic Christianity: Its Roots, Relationships, and Relevance. Mystic, Conn.: Twenty-Third/Bayard, 1999. An informative account of the author’s pilgrimage to Celtic religious sites in Great Britain and Ireland. Includes historical charts, illustrations, and bibliography, as well as travel suggestions.

Sellner, Edward C. Wisdom of the Celtic Saints. Notre Dame, Ind.: Ave Maria Press, 1993. The lives of twenty Celtic saints of the sixth to the ninth centuries. The stories collected by this prominent Catholic scholar reveal the importance of women such as Hilda in the Celtic church. A thought-provoking study. Illustrated.

Smith, Lesley, and Jane H. M. Taylor, eds. Women, the Book, and the Godly: Selected Proceedings of the St. Hilda’s Conference, 1993. Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 1995. Explores women’s roles in the medieval church in England, including as readers, biblical scholars, writers, and religious authorities.

Szarmach, Paul E., ed. Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints’ Lives and Their Contexts, edited by Paul E. Szarmach. Vol. 3. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. Excellent background essays. Hilda is discussed at length in an essay entitled “Saints and Companions to Saints: Anglo-Saxon Royal Women Monastics in Context.” Good indexes.

Walsh, James Joseph, comp. These Splendid Sisters. 1927. Reprint. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1970. Despite its dated style, this brief essay would be a good starting point for general readers. Includes a chapter on Hilda.