order to escape the marauders. The Danes, in fury at the loss of their prey, burned the monastery to the ground, and all that remains to mark the site is a small ruined chapel.

At Ely there was also a double monastery founded by Aethelthryth,[26] later known as S. Awdrey. She was the daughter of Anna, King of the East Angles, and therefore a niece of the great abbess Hild. She was married, for the second time, probably for political reasons, when over thirty years old to King Egfrith of Northumbria, then a boy of fifteen. After living with him for twelve years, she left him and went to Coldingham, where she received the veil. Whether Egfrith agreed to this or not, it is impossible to say. There are reasons for believing that he was, at any rate, unwilling; for Bede says that she had long requested the king to permit her to lay aside worldly cares and serve God in a monastery and that she at length, with great difficulty, prevailed.

She remained at Coldingham for a year and then went to Ely, the island in the fens given to her by her first husband; and there she built a monastery, of which she became abbess.

She renounced all the splendours and even ordinary comforts of her former royal life. Bede says that from the time that she entered the monastery, she wore no linen, but only woollen garments, rarely washed in a hot bath, unless just before any of the great festivals, such as Easter, Whitsuntide, and the Epiphany; and then she did it last of all, after having, with the assistance of those about her, first washed the other nuns.

After presiding over the monastery six or seven years, she died of a tumour in her throat, which she used to say was sent as a punishment for her excessive love of wearing necklaces in her youth. Hence the "tawdrey lace" of "The Winter's Tale" and elsewhere, which was a necklace bought at S. Awdrey's Fair, held on the day of her festival, October 17th. She was succeeded by her sister, Seaxburh, the widow of Erconberht, King of Kent, who had founded a double monastery at Sheppey, of which she was the first abbess. There is no mention of monks as well as nuns before her reign. Her daughter, Ermengild, succeeded her as Abbess of Sheppey, and at her mother's death, of Ely. Ermengild's daughter, Werburh (the famous S. Werburh of Chester), also became abbess of Sheppey and Ely in succession.

In the same way, Minster in Thanet remained in the family of its foundress, Eormenburg or Domneva, as she is sometimes called, the wife of the Mercian prince Merewald. According to tradition she received the land from Egbert of Kent, as wergild for the murder of her two brothers. She asked for as much land as her tame deer could cover in one course, and she thus obtained about ten thousand acres, on which she built her monastery. Her daughter, Mildred, who succeeded her as abbess, acquired greater fame. She was educated at Chelles, and was there cruelly ill-treated by the abbess, who was inappropriately named Wilcona, or Welcome. She wished to marry Mildred to one of her relatives, and when the girl refused, she put her into a furnace. When that punishment failed, she pulled her hair out. Mildred adorned her psalter with the ravished hair and sent it to her mother. Finally she escaped and returned home. Her name is among the five abbesses who signed a charter granting church privileges at a Kentish Witanagemot.[27] Her successor, Eadburg, or Bugga, built a splendid new church in the monastery, which is described in a poem attributed to Aldhelm.[28] The high altar was hung with tapestries of cloth of gold, and ornamented with silver and precious stones. The chalice, too, was of gold, and set with jewels; there were glass windows, and from the roof there hung a silver censer. Mention is made of the united singing of the monks and nuns in the church.

Eadburg and her mother, a certain Abbess Eangyth, were both friends of Boniface, the great English missionary bishop of Mainz, the "Apostle of Germany." Eangyth writes to him of her troubles as abbess of a double monastery, of the quarrels among the monks, the poverty of the house, and the excessive dues which had to be paid to the king and his officials. In one letter Boniface thanks Eadburg for books and clothes, and asks if she will write out for him in gold letters the Epistles of S. Peter, that he may have the words of the Apostle before his eyes when he preaches.

Repton was another double monastery under an abbess, though nothing is known of its foundation. Some information about it is gained from the Life of S. Guthlac by Felix. Guthlac was a noble of Mercia, and in his youth a great warrior; but at the age of twenty-four, he went to Repton and received the tonsure under the abbess Aelfthryth. Her rule was apparently very strict, for we find Guthlac getting into trouble for breaking a rule by not drinking wine.

Several chapters in Bede's Ecclesiastical History are devoted to stories of the double monastery at Barking, which was one of the most famous. It was founded by Erconwald, who afterwards became bishop of London. He built one for himself at Chertsey, and one for his sister Aethelburg at Barking, and, as Bede says, "established them both in regular discipline of the best kind." This monastery included both a hospital and a school, under the energetic rule of its first abbess.

Hildelith succeeded Aethelburg, and it was for her and her companions that the scholar Aldhelm, bishop of Sherborne, wrote his work, "De Laudibus Virginitatis."[29] He speaks of the nunnery as a hive where the nuns work like little bees, for they collect everywhere material for study. Their industry is not confined to the study of Holy Scripture. He speaks of them as searching carefully into the writers of history, as having a knowledge of ancient law and chronography, and in writing, of the rules of grammar and orthography, punctuation, metre, together with the use of allegory and tropology; all of which goes to prove that the field of secular knowledge was not particularly limited for nuns in those days. Aldhelm enlarges on the charms of their peaceful life in the nunnery, and the opportunities for thought and study it affords them. He recommends the works of Cassian and Gregory for their reading, and warns them against pride, a special temptation to those who have adopted the religious life.

Again there comes the warning against worldliness in both monk and nun. Some of the men, he says, contrary to the rule of the regular life, wear gay clothing. "The appearance of the other sex, too, corresponds: a vest of fine linen of hyacinth blue is worn, and above it a scarlet tunic with hood and sleeves of striped silk; on the feet are little shoes of red leather; the locks on the forehead and temples are waved with a curling-iron; the dark grey head-veil has given place to white and coloured head-dresses, the folds of which are kept in place by fillets and reach right down to the feet; the nails are pared to resemble the talons of a falcon." Aldhelm condemns all this, but hastens to add that of course he