Filename: saxonss.txt
Title: Saxon Sisters
Author: oosh@gmx.net
Keywords: lesbian,history,true

25 June 2002

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I am publishing this seven and a half years after I wrote it.
I don't think I can write any more. But this, from the time when I could
write, is perhaps interesting. It was originally written in response to
the question below.

---

What date would be appropriate for the annual celebration of women who
love women?

Katie McN asked me this question, quite by coincidence, on 23 June
2002. Naturally, I looked to history to provide us with some sort of
significant anniversary. My researches took me back 1,323 years -
almost to the day!

The Silence of History

We take our name from Sappho, and the Greek island where she lived; yet
we know almost nothing about her - certainly no dates. Her memory, and
most of her work, have been all but extirpated by millennia of
suspicion, repression and - well, patriarchy. The invention of the
illegitimate word "herstory" points to a still greater illegitimacy.

Of course, looking for Lesbians in antiquity is doubly difficult: women
in history are shadowy enough, defined by their relationship(s) with
men or their impact on the men's world. So when we opt for the company
of our own sex, we are almost sure to vanish from the record.

Some, following Michael Foucault, have theorized that "homosexuality"
is a culture-relative category, one that has appeared only in modern
times. This seems mistaken, given that homosexual practices were
apparently widespread - and treated as scarcely worthy of comment - in
ancient Greece. But more exactly, what Foucault seems to say is that in
the ancient world, humankind was not classified into "straight" and
"gay": relationships might be same-sex, but people were people.

There is some evidence to the contrary, notably in Plato's /Symposium/.
In Aristophanes's speech, he explains love (eros) by means of a
delightful myth. Originally, he tells us, people were joined in pairs,
man/woman, man/man or woman/woman. As a punishment for misbehaviour,
the gods cut every one in half and mixed them up, so that now humans
are compelled to search throughout humanity for their missing half.
This does seem to suggest that in the ancient world, people were
regarded as having a specific orientation to one sex or another.

While Foucault may not be entirely correct, it is probable that
"Lesbianism" as an orientation only became truly noticeable when it
came into conflict with a world-view that saw women's role as mother of
a nuclear family, the lifelong exclusive possession of one man. Perhaps
"Lesbianism" only became an alternative lifestyle when society
presented women with no alternative. If, to the normal heterosexual,
Lesbianism seems something artificial or "unnatural", then perhaps it
is because for some, it is the only possible response to a norm that is
equally artificial and unnatural.

Arguably, the lesbian community is most sharply defined in the
Protestant west. While I don't doubt that WLW have always existed
everywhere, it is in the Protestant west that we have been coerced into
a binary choice - for or against an exclusive heterosexual
relationship. In polygamous societies, and wherever the truly extended
family exists, there are opportunities for women to experience
tenderness with members of their own sex. Even in Tudor England, before
the Reformation, it was commonplace for women and girls to sleep naked
together.

The Alternative

But until quite recently, and ever since the advent of Christianity in
the west, there has been an alternative role for women, an alternative
lifestyle that was not only respected but celebrated in legend. The
records of early Christianity, overlaid though they are with fantastic
elaborations, clearly show that the advent of the new religion brought
in its wake the promise of a freer lifestyle for those women who sought
to go beyond their existing role as breeding-machine and as chattel.

The escape route was monasticism, and the enthusiasm and constancy with 
which some women sought it suggests that for them, it presented the only 
path to personal survival. Could I perhaps find, among their number, one 
who might stand out as a noble representative for those of us who prefer 
the intimacy of our own sex?

Into the Past

And so I took a look in the calendar of saints, to see if I could find
a suitable feast day there. And I'm glad to say that I found a couple
of suspects - from seventh-century England, as it happens. Whether they
recommend themselves to you as much as they do to me is another
question, but I hope and believe that you will find them interesting.

The seventh century was a turbulent time for the church in England. I
have been able to piece together from some of the lives a fairly clear
picture, and before I focus in upon an interesting couple, I should
perhaps give a very cursory overview of the religious and political
situation at the time.

England was not a single state in those days. Different areas (Mercia, 
Cumbria, Kent, Wessex) were each administered by kings. Bishops jostled 
with kings for land and power - although on the whole it was the kings 
who called the shots.

England had been evangelized twice. The first wave of evangelization
was in the third and fourth century, and didn't make a great
impression. It seems that Christianity succeeded more with the Celts
than with the Saxons (the sassenachs): the Celts tended to trade more
with one another than with the Germanic invaders. The first
evangelizers of Ireland seem to have been Welsh missionaries, and
Ireland swiftly became a bastion of Christian culture and learning. We
owe much early history (and the invention of lower-case letters) to the
monastic chronicles of old Ireland. But perhaps because of its
isolation, Celtic Christianity began to get out of joint with Head
Office in Rome.

And then, in 537, S. Augustine's mission to England brought with it a
different, more Roman, version of the faith. Augustine based himself in
the far south, at Canterbury. Meanwhile, missionaries from Ireland were
working along the western seaboard, setting up monasteries and
cathedrals such as S. David's in Pembroke, Whitby in Northumbria and of
course Lindisfarne.

By the seventh century, the political situation in England was
relatively stable. Commerce with the continent was increasing, and the
discrepancy between continental Christianity and the old Celtic version
became an issue. Some began to feel that if it were to be truly
Catholic and part of the universal church, then the Celtic church
should conform itself to the ways of Rome. The discrepancy was most
noticeable in England, where the two traditions came into conflict -
and particularly over the matter of the Christian calendar. The Celts
had a different system for reckoning the date of Easter (and it is now
believed that it was closer to the system used by the Jews at the time
of Christ for fixing the date of Passover).

One bastion of the Celtic tradition was Northumbria, where King Oswy 
sought to resist the Roman influence. He was the champion of S. Hilda, 
abbess of Whitby - a Celtic foundation. Oswy was particularly keen to 
see matters resolved, because his queen was from the south and adamantly 
accepted the Roman calendar. so while Oswy was feasting, his queen was 
still fasting.

The protagonist of Rome was S. Wilfrid, a young and dynamic organizer 
who had visited Rome and was keen to promote closer fidelity to - and 
better communications with - the See of Rome.

Things came to a head with the Synod of Whitby in 664. Wilfrid appealed
to the authority of the See of Peter and the Council of Nicaea, and it
was the Roman view that prevailed. Oswy adopted the Roman calendar, and
from that time on the Celtic church became progressively Romanized. But
in the period of interest, we can see that there were two cultural
traditions, with the Celtic grudgingly and gradually ceding to the
Roman.

Saint Etheldreda

S. Etheldreda was of the family of the Uffings, the royal race of East
Anglia. Her father, King Anna, married a sister of S. Hilda, of Celtic
Whitby in Northumbria. She was famous for her beauty and for her love
of jewellery, particularly adornments of the neck. Her name was really
Aethelthryth; she is better known today by her Latinized name, and also
by the popular contraction "Audrey".

Tombert was prince of the Grwyians, a Saxon marshland colony on the
border of Anglia and Mercia. He is reputed to have been tender and
generous, and he obtained from King Anna the hand of his lovely
daughter. Etheldreda, however, being resolved to follow the example of
the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to consecrate herself wholly to God,
resisted to the utmost the will of her father, and succeeded in
preventing the consummation of her marriage. After three years, Tombert
died, and Etheldreda thought herself free for ever. But this was not to
be. Egfrid, son of Oswy, Prince of Northumbria, became enamoured of her
in his turn; and in 659, Etheldreda was compelled by her uncle (now
king of Anglia) and her family to marry again, since they were anxious
to ally themselves to the powerful Northumbrians. And so, in turn,
Egfrid was to learn to his cost that he had married not a wife, but a
nun. Succeeding his father Oswy as king, he showered her with gifts -
including Hexham, which Etheldreda gave to S. Wilfrid (now Bishop of
York).

This was a smart move: York was the ecclesiastical capital of
Northumbria. Etheldreda sought Wilfrid's protection, and he secretly
encouraged her to stand firm and insist on her virginity. Meanwhile,
the frustrated Egfrid sought Wilfrid's support and asked him to
intercede for him with his recalcitrant wife. Wilfrid pretended to go
along with this, while secretly conniving with Etheldreda and
encouraging her to hold fast to her virginity. (A number of
commentators have drawn attention to Wilfrid's rather unsaintly
duplicity, and have felt understandable sypathy for the unfortunate
Egfrid.)

Eventually, after twelve years of /mariage blanc/, in 671 Egfrid
grudgingly agreed to a separation, and Etheldreda skipped off to the
monastery at Coldingham, which was governed by Egfrid's aunt Ebba. But 
Egfrid changed his mind, and came to Coldingham to reclaim his wife. 
Ebba, realizing that she wouldn't be able to stand up to her nephew, 
advised the queen to flee. So, disguised in the dress of a poor woman, 
and accompanied by two nuns, Etheldreda left Coldingham on foot. She 
could not very well seek refuge at Whitby, because her aunt Hilda was 
not exactly friends with Wilfrid, who had acted as Etheldreda's 
protector. Instead, she passed southward. Legend has it that she first 
went to Colbert's Head, hotly pursued by the king. It is said that the 
tide rose so high as to render it inaccessible for seven successive 
days, until the king abandoned his pursuit. After a thousand such
difficulties and adventures (of which I long to learn more), she crossed 
the river out of Northumbria.

Now Etheldreda had some land granted her by her first husband in the
marshland between Anglia and Mercia. It was quite extensive, supporting
some six hundred households. Their position was almost that of an
island, surrounded by fens, which could be crossed only by boat. The
island was known as Ely, or the Island of Eels. Etheldreda built a
monastery there, among the native alders, and it thrived. Many
Anglo-Saxon virgins joined her there, including many of her sister
princesses. Mothers confided their daughters to her to education. Men,
too, came to Ely, and Etheldreda found herself in charge of those
remarkable double monasteries of men and women that were not uncommon
in Saxon times.

Few details exist of this period of her life; but it is said that she 
was surrounded by an odour of sanctity, so that she took a hot bath only 
on the vigils of the four great feasts of the year, and even then only 
after she had with her own hands washed the rest of the community.

Wilfrid was a frequent visitor at Ely. Egfrid never forgave him, and in 
678, with the consent of the Archbishop of Canterbury, deprived Wilfrid 
of his see and divided the diocese into three.

Etheldreda predicted her own death. There was a swelling in her throat: 
"God has sent me this suffering to expiate the frivolity of my youth, 
when I remember wearing with so much pleasure necklaces of pearls and 
gold on the neck now so swollen and burned by illness." At the end, 
surrounded by the sisters of the community, "she implored them never to 
let their hearts rest on the earth, but to taste beforehand, by their 
earnest desires, that joy in the love of christ which it would not be 
given to them to know perfectly here below." She submitted to a painful 
operation in the throat, but three days later she died, on 23 June 679.

Sixteen years later, in 695, her sister (more of her anon) caused her
remains to be unearthed from her simple wooden coffin and rehoused in a
marble mausoleum of stone from Grantchester (an old Roman city near
Cambridge). Her body was found incorrupt. She seemed to be asleep. The
surgeon who had opened the tumours in her neck was present, and was
able to recognize the incisions that he had made.

So I give you Saint Etheldreda, Virgin, Queen and Abbess. Her feast day, 
17 October, is the supposed date of the translation of her relics in 695.

Now for the sister.

She was the elder by some years, and was married to Ercombert, king of
Kent. She had two daughters, Ermenilda and Earcongotha, both numbered
with the saints. (Ermenilda was to become third Abbess of Ely, and
Earcongotha abbess of Faremoutier in Brie.) After 24 years of conjugal
life, her husband left her a widow in 664. Her son Egbert was not yet
old enough to reign, so she became regent. When, in 668, she was able
to resign in favour of her son, she founded a monastery in the Isle of
Sheppey, where she was clothed and veiled by Theodore, Archbishop of
Canterbury. She there ruled a community of 77 nuns, until she heard
that her sister had founded the community at Ely.

But when, in 671, she heard that Etheldreda had founded the community
at Ely, she at once became consumed with a longing to live under her
sister's crosier as a simple nun. "Farewell, my daughters," she is
reputed to have said, "I leave you Jesus for your protector, His holy
angels for companions, and one of my daughters for your superior... I
go to East Anglia where I was born, in order to have my glorious sister
Etheldreda for my mistress, and to take part immediately in her labours
here below, that I may share her recompense above."

I conclude by quoting from Baring-Gould's /Lives/, upon which scholarly
work I have relied throughout: "She was received with enthusiasm at
Ely; the whole community came forth to welcome her, and the two
sister-queens wept for joy when they met. They lived togther afterwards
in the most tender union." After Etheldreda's death, the sister became
the second Abbess of Ely, where she reigned for twenty years. And her
name?

I give you Saint Sexburga, Queen and Abbess - feast day, 6 July.