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Osyth
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'''Osyth''' or '''Osith''' (died
653 AD) was an English
saint. She is primarily commemorated in the village of
St Osyth St. Osyth, Essex near
Colchester. Alternative spellings of her name include "Othith" and "Ositha".
Born in
Quarrendon,
Buckinghamshire (at that time part of
Mercia), she was the daughter of Frithwald, a sub-king of Mercia in Surrey, and was the niece of
Saint Edith St. Edith and Saint
Edburga of Bicester. Her mother was Wilburga, the daughter of the
paganism pagan King
Penda of Mercia.
Raised in a
convent in
Warwickshire under the direction of
Saint Modwen[http://journals.aol.co.uk/jeanno43/Family/entries/1158], her ambition was to become an
abbess, but she was too important as a dynastic pawn to be set aside: forced by her father into a dynastic marriage with
Kingdom of Essex King Sighere of Essex. She did her dynastic duty and produced him a son, then, eventually, perhaps after Sighere's death, she established a convent at place called Chich, in Essex, where she ruled as first abbess.
She was murdered by
Dane Danish Viking marauders in 653.
Her death was accounted a
martyrdom by some, but
Bede makes no mention of Saint Osyth. The 13th-century chronicler
Matthew Paris repeats some of the legend that had accrued around her name. The site of her martyrdom became transferred to the holy spring at Quarrendon. The holy spring at Quarrendon, mentioned in the time of Osyth's aunts, now became associated with her legend, in which Osyth stood up after her execution, picking up her head like Saint
Denis in Paris and walking with it in her hands, to the door of a local convent, before collapsing there.
Later, Chich (St. Osyth) was assumed as part of his royal
demesne by the Dane King
Canute, who granted it to
Earl Godwin, and by him it was given to
Canterbury Cathedral Christ Church,
Canterbury, Kent Canterbury. At the
Norman Conquest Conquest it was transferred to the Bishopric of London.
On the site of the former nunnery, Richard de Belmeis of London, in the reign of
Henry I of England Henry I founded a priory for
Augustinian Canons canons of St. Augustine, and his remains were buried in the chancel of the church in 1127: he bequeathed the church and tithes to the canons, who elected as their first abbot or prior
William de Corbeil, afterwards
Archbishop of Canterbury (died in 1136). His benefactions, charters and privileges granted by
Henry II of England Henry II, made the Canons wealthy: at the Dissolution of the monasteries in 1536, its revenues were valued at £758 5s. 8d. yearly. A gatehouse and so-called "Abbot's Tower" and some ranges remain.
Osyth's burial site at
Mary, the mother of Jesus St Mary's Church in
Aylesbury was a site of great
pilgrimage. However, following a
pope papal decree in
1500, the bones were removed from the church and buried in secret. The ''Catholic Encyclopedia'' gave St. Osyth no mention. Undeterred, according to the 17th century curious antiquary
John Aubrey (author of the ''Brief Lives'') "in those days, when they went to bed they did rake up the fire, and make a X on the ashes, and pray to God and St. Sythe (that is St. Osyth) to deliver them from fire, and from water, and from all misadventure." A house in Aylesbury is still called St. Osyth's House in her honour.
Her
feast day is
October 7. She is normally depicted carrying her own head.
External links
-
St. Osyth, Essex: Official Site: "About St. Osyth" has some historical detail
-
''Picturesque England'': St. Osyth's priory, with details of her legend (text)
-
''Encyclopaedia Britannia'' "Lives"
* Butler, ''Lives of the Saints''
Category:Roman Catholic nuns
Category:Anglo-Saxon saints
Category:653 deaths
Category:Natives of Buckinghamshire
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