La Fuite de Sainte Frithuswith, vitrail de la cathédrale Christ Church, Oxford
Sainte Frideswide
Moniale
en Angleterre (✝ 720)
Elle fonda un
monastère à Thorbury en Angleterre et fut enterrée à Oxford, raison pour
laquelle elle est la patronne céleste de l'Université.
À Oxford, vers 730, sainte Frideswide, vierge. De famille royale, elle devint abbesse et gouverna un double monastère, l'un d'hommes, l'autre de moniales.
Martyrologe
romain
Saint Frideswide
Also
known as
- Fredeswida
- Fredeswinda
- Frévisse
- Friday
- Frideswida
- Frideswith
- Friðuswiþ
- Fris
- Fritheswithe
- Frithuswith
Profile
Daughter of Prince Didan. When a
neighbouring noble, Prince Algar, as for her hand
in an arranged marriage, Frideswide fled to Thomwry Wood,
Birnsey,England where she lived as a hermitess. Benedictine nun. Founded Saint Mary’s Convent, and served as its abbess. The monastery is now Christ Church College, University of Oxford, and the convent church became Oxford cathedral.
Born
- c.735 of natural causes
- in 1561 Calfhill, Canon of Christ Church, desecrated and
destroyed her relics
- Benedictine nun with an ox
St. Frideswide
Virgin, patroness of Oxford, lived from
about 650 to 735. According to her legend, in its latest form, she was the
child of King Didan and Safrida, and was brought up to holiness by Algiva. She refused the proffered
hand of King Algar, a Mercian, and fled from him to Oxford. It was in vain that
he pursued her; a mysterious blindness fell on him, and he left her in her
cell. From this eventually developed the monastery, in which she died in 19 October
(her principal feast), and was buried. The earliest written life now extant was
not composed until four hundred years after her death, but it is generally
admitted that the substance of the tradition has every appearance of
verisimilitude. From the time of her translation in 1180 (commemorated 12 Feb.)
from her original tomb to the great shrine of her church,
her fame spread far and wide; for the university was now visited by students from all
parts, who went twice a year in solemn procession to her shrine and kept her
feasts with great solemnity. Cardinal Wolseytransformed her monastery into Christ Church College, King
Henry made her church into Oxford cathedral, but her shrine was dismantled, and
her relics, which seem to have been preserved,
were relegated to some out-of-the-way corner. In the reign of Edward VI,
Catherine Cathie was buried near the site of her shrine. She was a runaway nun, who had been through the form of
marriage with Peter Martyr, the ex-friar. The Catholics, as was but natural, ejected her
bones in the reign of Queen Mary. But after Elizabeth had reinstated Protestantism, James Calfhill, appointed Canon of
Christ Church in 1561, dug up Cathie's bones once more, mixed them up (in
derision of the Catholics) with the alleged remaining relics of the saint, and buried them both together amid
the plaudits of his Zwinglian friends in England and Germany, where two relations of his
exploit, one in Latin and one in German, were published in 1562. The Latin
relation, which is conveniently reprinted in the Bollandists, is followed in the original by a
number of epitaphs on the theme Hic
jacet religio cum superstitione, but it does not seem that these words
were incised on thetomb, though it is often said that they were. The episode
strikingly illustrates the character of the continuity between the ancientfaith and the reformed religion of England.
Sources
Acta SS.,
Oct., VIII, 533-564; MABILLON, Acta
SS. Ben. (1672), III, I, 561; HOLE in Dict.
Christ. Biog., s.v.; HUBERT, Historia
Bucerii, Fagii, item C. Vermiliæ (1562);
PARKER, Early Oxford,
727-1100 (1885); PLUMMER, Elizabethan Oxford (1887).
Pollen,
John Hungerford. "St. Frideswide." The Catholic
Encyclopedia. Vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton Company,1909. 19 Oct. 2019 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06303b.htm>.
Transcription. This article
was transcribed for New Advent by Steven Fanning.
Ecclesiastical
approbation. Nihil Obstat. September 1, 1909. Remy Lafort,
Censor. Imprimatur. +John
M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.
Butler’s Lives of the Saints – Saint
Frideswide, Virgin, Patroness of Oxford
She was daughter of
Didan prince of Oxford, and the neighbouring territory, and learned from her
cradle that most important Christian maxim, that “whatsoever is not God, is
nothing.” Her mother’s name was Safrida. From her infancy she exerted all her
powers and strength, and made it her whole study to please him alone. Her
education was intrusted to the care of a virtuous governess, named Algiva, and
in the early period of her life her inclinations led her strongly to a
religious state. Riches, birth, beauty, and whatever appeared flattering and
dazzling in the eyes of the world, made no weight in the scales with her,
unless it was to make her dread more the dangers and snares into which they
often betray souls. In the duties of an active life she feared, in the
dissipation and hurry of external duties, she should not have strength so well
to stand her ground, but her heart would suffer some division. Every virtuous
and just interest may and ought ultimately to terminate in God: thus are
worldly duties to be made the objects of pure virtue, directed by the divine
love. But to live in the world in such a manner that her affections should
contract nothing of its dust, seemed to Frideswide a difficult task: and the
contemplative life of Mary presented charms with which her pure soul was
infinitely delighted. She therefore desired earnestly to devote her virginity
to God in a monastic state. Her mother was then dead, and her most religious
father rejoiced in the choice which his daughter had made of the better part;
and, about the year 750, he founded at Oxford a nunnery, in honour of Saint
Mary and all the saints, the direction of which was committed to her care.
Sincere love or charity
consists not in words, but in deeds. The holy virgin therefore considered, that
to profess in words that she belonged wholly to God, would be a base
dissimulation, and criminal hypocrisy, unless, by most strenuous endeavours,
she made good her solemn promise to God, and studied to be entirely his in her
whole heart, and in all her actions. The devil envying her happy progress,
assailed her virtue with implacable rage; but his fury rendered her victories
more glorious. Algar, a Mercian prince, smitten with her beauty and virtues,
and not being able to overcome her resolution of chastity, gave so far a loose
to the reins of his criminal passion, as to lay a snare to carry her off. The
holy virgin escaped his pursuits by concealing herself a long time in a
hog-stye. The prince is said to have been miraculously struck with blindness
just as he entered the city, and to have recovered his sight by his repentance
and the prayer of the saint. After this accident, the holy virgin, to shun the
danger of applause, and live more perfectly to God in closer retirement, built
herself a little oratory at Thornbury, near the town, where, by the fervour and
assiduity of her penance and heavenly contemplation, she made daily advances
towards God and his kingdom. The more she tasted of the sweetness of his holy
love, the more she despised the straws and dung of earthly vanities, and the
more earnestly she sighed after the light of the children of God. The fountain
which the saint made use of in this place was said to have been obtained by her
prayers. Saint Frideswide died before the end of the eighth century, was
honoured by many miracles, and the church in which she was buried became famous
for the treasure of her relics, and took her name. Wood and others mention,
that Martin Bucer’s Dutch wife, whom he brought over in the reign of Edward VI.
was buried, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, in the spot where the relics of
Saint Frideswide had been scattered, with this inscription: Hic jacent religio
et superstitio: the obvious meaning of which would lead us to think these men
endeavoured to extinguish and bury all religion. Saint Frideswide was honored
as the patroness of the city and university of Oxford; also of Bommy near
Terouenne in Artois, and some other religious houses abroad.
MLA Citation
- Father Alban Butler.
“Saint Frideswide, Virgin, Patroness of Oxford”. Lives of
the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints, 1866. CatholicSaints.Info.
19 October 2013. Web. 19 October 2019. <https://catholicsaints.info/butlers-lives-of-the-saints-saint-frideswide-virgin-patroness-of-oxford/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/butlers-lives-of-the-saints-saint-frideswide-virgin-patroness-of-oxford/
Santa Fridesvida di Oxford Badessa
m. Binsey, 735
Martirologio
Romano: A Oxford in Inghilterra,
santa Fridesvida, vergine, che, nata da stirpe regale e divenuta badessa, resse
due cenobi, l’uno di monaci, l’altro di vergini consacrate.
Nasce nel Regno di Mercia: per tradizione ad Oxford, ma forse a Didcot.
Era di nobili natali, nobiltà di stirpe come pure di sentimenti: il padre, Dida
di Eynsham, contribuì molto alla diffusione del monachesimo nel suo Regno,
facendo costruire molte chiese abbaziali. In accordo con la moglie, Sefrida,
affidò la piccola alle cure di una santa donna di nome Aelfgith che la crebbe
al motto «Quello che non è Dio è nulla», inclinandola così in modo deciso alla
vita spirituale. Il padre fece costruire per
lei una chiesa con annesso Monastero dove la Santa prese il velo con 12 compagne.
Un’Abbazia attorno alla quale sorse un agglomerato urbano e dove lei si ritirò
conducendo vita di carità e amore per la clausura.
La storia narra che il conte di Leicester, Aelfgar si invaghì di lei, per la
sua bellezza, ma anche mirando alle sue ricchezze, e, respinto cortesemente,
progettò di rapirla; scoperto il piano dalle spie del padre, la Santa dovette
fuggire; con due compagne trovò una barca custodita da un giovane che era un
Angelo che con essa fece discendere alle tre il fiume Abingdon fino a giungere
in una località imprecisata, ora identificata con Bampton (Oxfordshire) ora con
Frilsham (Berkshire). Vi rimase tre anni in un ricovero di porci, nutrendosi di
ghiande e bevendo l’acqua sgorgata da una fonte apparsa per le sue preghiere.
Il pretendente non demordette e cominciò a cercarla mettendo infine sotto
assedio Oxford. Qui due tradizioni si separano per riunirsi alla fine: una
prima afferma che, sfondate le mura della città il principe fu colpito da
cecità improvvisa, essendosi la Santa affidata alla protezione delle Sante
Caterina e Cecilia.
Secondo altra versione, il popolo di Oxford, impaurito ne rivelò il rifugio e
prima rimasero ciechi due messi del principe, poi lui stesso. Per questo motivo
per secoli i Re d’Inghilterra considerarono a loro proibito entrare in Oxford;
sino ad Enrico III che ruppe la tradizione e molti attribuiscono a questo atto
le sciagure che lo colpirono in seguito. Tornando alle vicende della Santa, il
principe guarì per intercessione della stessa Fridesvita, dopo aver manifestato
pentimento. Di santa Fridesvida si narrano anche altri miracoli, come quello di
aver guarito un lebbroso con un casto bacio durante il suo ritorno ad Oxford.
Tornata al suo convento, la santa raccolse attorno a sé numerose giovani
sassoni e monaci, rendendo il doppio monastero di una certa importanza sia per
la vita religiosa che amministrativa, tanto che alcuni vi pongono le origini
dell’Università di Oxford, di cui comunque la Santa è protettrice, come pure
della città.
Morì nell'anno 735 nell’eremo di Binsey dove si era ritirata in ultimo.
Sepolta nella cappella del suo Monastero, poi trasformatasi nella Cattedrale di
Oxford, dopo varie vicende e traslazioni il suo sacrario è stato
definitivamente distrutto da protestanti calvinisti nel 1561.
Autore: Marco Faraldi
