Icon of St. Werburga of Chester from the parish of St Elisabeth the New Martyr, Wallasey

Celts to the Crèche

Abbess Werburga of Chester

c 630-February 3, 699 AD

On this 32nd day of our journey with the Celts to the Crèche, we meet Abbess Werburga of Chester which is in Northwest England near Wales.

Life: Werburga (Werburgh, Wærburh) is the patron saint of Chester, England and was the Abbess of several abbeys in England. She was born at Stone in Mercia in the mid 7th century. She had quite a royal pedigree. Her father was Wulfhere,  King of  Mercia and her mother was Eormenhilda. Werburga’smaternal grandparents were Eorcenberht, King of Kent and Seaxburga, daughter of the much-loved King Anna of East Anglia.

The earliest account of Werburga’s  life was recorded by  the Flemish monk Goscelin at Canterbury in the late 900’s.  William of Malmesbury later used this account to produce his writings about her.

Gorgeous huge Stained Glass of Celtic Saints. Chester Cathedral. photo from a postcard sold at the Cathedral

You may desire to continue reading more about Werburga or go on to the Meditation towards the end of this page.

Calling as a Nun and Abbess: Princess Werburga felt a call to be a nun and not be married. She entered the famous Abbey of Ely in East Anglia  which had been founded by her great-aunt Etheldreda (Audrey) who was the current abbess at the time. It is said that when Werburga was ordained as a nun at Ely that not only her father, King Wulhere was in attendance, but that many kings and princes were there also.

It is interesting that Werburga’s Grandmother Sexburga succeeded her sister Etheldreda as Ely’s Abbess.  After King Wulfhere’s death in 674/5, his wife and Werburga’s mother, Queen Eormenhilda became Abbess of Minster-in-Sheppey. She later joined her daughter at Ely where she became the Abbess of Ely. Anglo-Saxon scholars have noted that often when royal husbands died, the widow was sent to live in a convent or double monastery connected in some way to their maternal lineage.

Later,  Werburga’s uncle Æthelred became King of Mercia and invited her to return home to Mercia and become Abbess of the all the convents in his kingdom. Werburga transformed the existing abbeys and founded new convents and double monasteries (a double monastery is where men and women live in the same monastery under an Abbess) including those at Hanbury, Trentham, Threekingham (dedicated to St. Etheldreda), and Weedon. She was also likely the Abbess of Repton in Derbyshire.

A Wild Goose Chase: Legend says that St. Werburga brought a goose or flock of geese back to life. There are several stories of how the goose/geese died.

Carving of St. Werburga with the flock of geese on the misericord in Chester Cathedral. Photo taken in 2009 by author

Often geese are displayed with St. Werburga on icons and carvings including the pilgrim badges that medieval visitors to her shrine collected.

Place of Resurrection: Werburga passed away on February 3rd,  in 690 or 699 AD at her convent  at Trentham, or some scholars say she died at Threekingham. She had wanted to die and be buried at Hanbury, but the nuns at Trentham refused to give up her body and carefully protected her coffin.  A group from Hanbury came in the stealth of night, stole  her body, and took her back to Hanbury.

By the year 708 Werburga’s brother Coenred  (Coelred)had succeeded Æthelred as king of Mercia and decided to move her body to a more conspicuous place within the church at Hanbury.

Her Shrine Goes Traveling: About nine years after her death, when Weburga’s coffin was opened during the transition to another part of the church, her body was found to be incorrupt, still looking the same as she did the day she died.  Her brother, King Coenred was so effected by this miracle of incorruption of his sister’s body that he decided to abdicate and enter holy orders himself. With that miracle, her tomb became an object of veneration and a center for pilgrimage.

Werburga’s shrine remained at Hanbury for the next century and a half,  but was moved in 875  to the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul that was located within the city walls of Chester on the border between western England and northeastern Wales for more protection from the voracious Viking raids.

St. Werburga’s Shrine in Lady Chapel in Chester Cathedral. I visited there often in Sept/Oct. 2009 as it is a short bus ride from Gladstone’s Library where I stayed and studied for 3 weeks. Photo by author.

With Abbess Werburga’s shrine in Chester, it became a place of pilgrimage. The church’s name was rededicated to St. Werburgh and St. Oswald, probably about 975 when a monastery was founded there and dedicated to those two saints.

In the 14th century, an elaborate brightly painted shrine was constructed featuring 34 carved figures and a number of niches where supplicants could kneel in prayer to the saint. Her coffin was jewel encrusted. With the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Werburga’s shrine was destroyed and her remains scattered.

Later some of the shrine’s remains were gathered up and built into the Bishop’s throne. In 1876, Sir A. W. Bloomfield  who was in charge of the restoration of Chester Cathedral used the rest of the remains to reconstruct her shrine. These can be seen in the Lady Chapel of Chester Cathedral.

It is thought that there may be seventeen churches dedicated to Werburga in England, together with one in Dublin, St Werburgh’s Church (established 1178); St. Werburgh’s Church in Barker in Western Australia; a St. Werburga School in Bvumba, Zimbabwe; and the Lady Chapels at the Chester and Lichfield cathedrals. 

What a joy it was when I stayed and studied at Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden, Wales in September 2009 as I was able to go several times to the Chester Cathedral to visit Werburga’s  shrine. It was a short bus ride from Hawarden to the historical and beautiful city of Chester.

Stained Glass window of St. Werburga in Chester Cathedral. Photo from Wikipedia

 Meditation

Feast Day February 3

The Spirit gives us each gifts to use for the kingdom. Werburga was blessed with the gift of administration and spiritual leadership. With these gifts and skills, she was able with strength, courage, wisdom, and deep faith to transform and reform the religious houses in Mercia.

Prayer: O Spirit of the living God, thank you for Celtic St. Werburga who as part of the Communion of Saints is journeying with us to the crèche. Please use the gifts we have been bestowed with by Your Spirit to bring blessing to God’s kingdom on earth. Amen.

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© Brenda G. Warren and http://www.saintsbridge.org, 2018-2029. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Brenda G. Warren and http://www.saintsbridge.org (Celts to the Creche) with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Some Resources:

BBC News. On the Trail of the Mercian Anglo-Saxon Saints. 

Bradshaw, Henry, Goscelin of St. Bertin. The Life of Saint Werburge of Chester. London: Pub. for the Early English Text Society by N. Trübner & Co., 1887.

Chester Cathedral.com

Crook, John. English Medieval Shrines. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2011.

David Nash Ford’s Early British Kingdoms. St. Werburga of Chester: Abbess of Ely.

Goscelin of St. Bertin. Rosalind C. Love, ed. The Hagiography of the Female Saints of Ely. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 2004.

“Werburg, St” by Paul Anthony Hayward in Lapidge, Blair, Keynes, and Scragg. The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2001.

Ridyard, Susan J. The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England: A study of West Saxon and East Anglian Cults.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Schoenbechler, Roger. “Anglo-Saxon Monastic Women,” in Magistra: A Journal of Women’s Spirituality in History, Vol. 1, Number 1

The Shrine of St. Werburgh. Chester Cathedral.

Yorke, Barbara. Nunneries and the Anglo-Saxon Royal Houses. London, UK: Continuum, 2003.