Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Event Information

Ethelburga

The life and after-life of a Princess of Kent and Queen of Northumbria in a newly Christian Age

Rob Baldwin

Lecture on Zoom – see below for joining information

Ethelburga was born around 605 in the Kingdom of Kent. Only a few years previously, her mother Bertha, a Christian Frankish Princess, had encouraged her father King Æthelberht to invite the Pope in Rome to send a Christian mission, and this arrived in 597 under the leadership of St Augustine. Ethelburga, as she was growing up, witnessed the first stages of the conversion, which began in Kent with the foundation of a cathedral and an abbey at Canterbury and continued initially with further dioceses created at Rochester and London.

While still a teenager, Ethelburga saw how the mission faced a crisis when her brother, and probably also her father, rejected Christianity. But the mission persisted and when her brother, now King, embraced the Christian faith, Ethelburga became a significant player in the power-politics of the time, marrying the pagan King Edwin of Northumbria on the understanding that he would himself consider conversion. In his Ecclesiastical History of the English, the Venerable Bede says that Ethelburga received correspondence from the Pope, so important was her role seen to be in seeking Edwin’s conversion. Following Edwin’s baptism in York in 627, there followed a brief flowering of Northumbrian power, and important foundations of Christian culture were laid. But this first Christian northern Kingdom was snuffed out in 633 when Edwin was killed in battle at the hands of the combined forces of Mercia and Gwynedd.

Ethelburga returned to Kent with her children and there she was granted a royal estate at Lyminge, south of Canterbury. In the last two decades, archaeology has dramatically revealed the feasting halls at the centre of the estate that Ethelburga would have known and where she probably lived, as well as the stone church she almost certainly built with the help of masons and materials from France. It was here she was buried around 650. Lyminge became a significant minster church with a monastic community in the 8th and 9th Centuries. It was a centre of pilgrimage following the translation of the relics of St Eadburg around 800, and this continued until after the Norman Conquest when the relics of both Ethelburga and Eadburg were translated to Canterbury.

This talk will draw on the tiny number of near-contemporary literary sources that describe Ethelburga’s life to show what we can reasonably know about her. It will also consider the substantial amount of new archaeological information that has become available very recently, not all of which is yet fully published. This will be utilised to amplify our understanding of how Ethelburga lived as a Christian dowager queen at Lyminge, one of the first secular patrons of the Christian church and a promoter of continental architectural style. The talk will also show reconstructions of Ethelburga’s church created by the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture at the University of York, which are available to view only in Lyminge Parish Church.

Rob Baldwin is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and holds a degree in archaeology from the University of Cambridge. From 2017-2022 he managed the National Lottery Heritage–Funded project that exposed the 7th Century church in Lyminge for re-evaluation. He is currently Chair of Lyminge Historical Society and editor of the society’s annual publication Lyminge a History, as well as author of numerous papers on the local history of the Lyminge area. He has also written the heritage information available for visitors on the Lyminge Parish Council website and on information panels installed around the village.

This lecture will be held on Zoom at 7.30pm (GMT) and invitations will be sent to YPS members and the general mailing list two days before the event. This is a free event but non members can help to cover our lecture programme costs by donating here:

https://www.ypsyork.org/donate-to-yps/

Creative Commons Image: Lyminge church excavation 

Member’s report

The name of Queen Ethelburga is already well known to people in York, whether it be through the school or her marriage to King Edwin of Northumbria in AD 625 and his conversion to Christianity and the building of the first York Minster. What is less known is Ethelburga’s life as a widow in AD633 and her return to Kent with her priest Paulinus. Ethelburga was the daughter of Aethelbert the then paramount king or Bretwalda, a title assumed later by first Raedwald and then Edwin. When Edwin was killed in battle by Penda, Ethelburga’s brother, Eadbald, gave her land in Lyminge where she settled. Archaeological investigations have revealed buildings of great prestige in the Royal Estate Centre with the largest collection of vessel glass in the country and the spectacular Kingston brooch found some eight miles north of Lyminge.

In 1861, the Rector of Lyminge, Robert Jenkins, started excavating in the churchyard of the 11th century church in Lyminge, hoping to find evidence of a 7th century church, presumed to be Ethelburga’s. What he did find was an apse and other evidence of building to the west which led him to believe that he had found a three arched basilica as shown in his published plans including several conjectural walls. His views were not universally accepted but as the evidence was covered up it was impossible to investigate further until 2019 when, with the aid of a £300,000 grant, work recommenced with the proviso that no graves were to be disturbed. Archaeologists uncovered the apse at the East End leading to a slightly wider nave with two column bases. Excavating further west was difficult but some evidence was found under the Norman church’s porch while a further single fragment confirmed the exact length of the building. It was established that the columns were made from oolitic limestone, probably from France whilst fragments of red and white plaster indicated the internal decoration. This was a well built edifice by professionals, probably from the Frankish kingdom and it is known that the Kentish Royal family maintained close connections with the Franks. It became clear that this was not a basilica as proposed by Jenkins, who has conflated two buildings of quite different dates, but a typical 7th century church.

Rob Baldwin suggested that it was quite likely that Ethelburga’s first wish on her return to Kent was for a church and this dating of the mid to late 7th century lends credence to this theory. It is further believed that Ethelburga herself was buried there in or around 650. Unfortunately Archbishop Lanfranc removed all the relics in 1085 to his church of St Gregory’s in Canterbury and following the church’s destruction in the time of Henry VIII they were subsequently reburied secretly. Further circumstantial evidence for Ethelburga’s influence might also lie in the naming of St Oswald’s Church at Paddlesworth, some two and a half miles from Lyminge, as Ethelburga’s daughter was married to St Oswald’s brother. This is the sole pre-conquest church to be so dedicated in the south of England.

There is now a heritage trail around Lyminge for visitors to explore more about Ethelburga and her legacy.

Dorothy Nott