Venerable Æbbe, Abbess of Minster-in-Thanet

Saint Æbbe of Minster

The nineteenth of November in the Orthodox Church is the feast day of Holy Mother Æbbe [i.e. Domne Eafe, Domneva or occasionally Eormenburg], the great-granddaughter of the saintly monarchs Æþelberht and Berhte; the earthly mother of three monastic Saints Mildþrýð, Mildburg and Mildg‎ýð; and the heavenly mother besides of many nuns, including Holy Mother Éadburg. Holy Mother Æbbe is indeed a true mother of the English Church after the model of the Theotokos.

Saint Æbbe was born to Eormenræd King of Kent and his wife Óslaf (sister of Saint Æþelþrýð and Saint Seaxburg); and she had a sister named Eormengýð who also married and also later became a nun. Æbbe was given in marriage to Merewalh King of Magonsætan, son and heir of the infamous Penda. The sisters of Merewalh were Cyneburg and Cyneswíþ, and his brother Wulfhere was the husband of Æbbe’s cousin, Saint Eormenhild of Ely. As we can see, Saint Æbbe was surrounded by God-fearing family. We can also see that the court Saint Æbbe was entering was no longer a heathen stronghold, but deeply committed to Christ. By the time she and Merewalh wed, Merewalh had ruled over the Magonsætan (modern-day Herefordshire and Shropshire) for about three years.

However, a tragœdy soon occurred in Æbbe’s life. Her two baby brothers Æþelberht and Æþelræd, had been committed as fosterlings to the care of Eorcenberht King of Kent and Saint Seaxburg. However, Eorcenberht died of a pestilent illness in 664, and his grieving widow Seaxburg left the world to seek a nun’s vocation at Ely. The regency of these two young princes then fell to Ecgberht, the husband of Saint Æþelþrýð, who was not nearly as kindly as Eorcenberht had been. Ecgberht jealously feared these two young boys as a threat to his hold on power. And so he had one of his þegnas, a man named Þunor, murder them, just as the wicked Svyatopolk murdered Saints Boris and Gleb. Once this was done, Ecgberht directed Þunor to hide the bodies of the princes under the floorboards of the royal hall in on the Isle of Thanet. The deed did not stay hidden for long.

A series of wonders from God pointed to where the bodies of the two slain boys lay. An eerie, heavenly light shone constantly on the spot where the two boys’ bodies had been stored, and thus they were discovered. It was not long before, under examination, the whole of the truth came out. Saint Theodore of Tarsos and Saint Hadrian of Canterbury, horrified at this crime, went before Ecgberht King along with a delegation of the common folk of Kent, demanding that the King repair to Saint Æbbe – as their sister, the closest living kin of the two dead boys – to beg her forgiveness and make restitution in the form of weregild, after the ancient Teutonic custom.

Saint Æbbe, however, travelled herself to Kent. When Ecgberht appeared before her in repentance and begged her forgiveness, she readily forgave him. She would not accept any of his offers of blood money, however. What she asked of him was a small stead on the Isle of Thanet itself, and at that for the express use of building a monastery. Ecgberht asked her how much land she would have, and she replied to him: ‘As much land as my deer can pass over in a single run.’

Ecgberht agreed to this, and Saint Æbbe brought her deer to Westgate-on-Sea, where the beast was let loose to run. Saint Æbbe’s hagiography has it that the king and his þegnas, and many of the common folk of Kent besides, were all much amused and astounded at watching the swift-footed deer bound away… all but one, that is. That one being Þunor, the murderer of the two young boys, who cried aloud that Æbbe must be a witch, and that Ecgberht was a fool to be so led by the wiles of a woman to give away so much good land by the will of a brute animal. Þunor took to his horse and rode out to slay Saint Æbbe’s deer. However, his horse foundered nearby an old chalk-pit, and Þunor was thrown headlong – or, as some of the folk who watched accounted it, ‘the earth opened and swallowed him’. This spot was afterward known as ‘Þunor’s Leap’. At the sight of this divine judgement it was said that Ecgberht ‘very much feared and trembled’ for his soul.

Ecgberht, who had been watching from a promontory that later on became a beacon-hill under the jurisdiction of Minster Abbey, watched on as the deer coursed around the island from one end of it to the other on a single wind, encircling eighty sulungs of land. A fearful Ecgberht, seeing the judgement of God upon him, meekly accepted to give the whole tract to Saint Æbbe, and signed over the deed to that land, which was witnessed by Saints Theodore and Hadrian. It was given over to Æbbe and all her posterity in charter, to which was affixed a frightful curse upon anyone who dared break it.

Saint Æbbe thereafter founded Minster Abbey, the work on which was completed around the year 670. With the consent of her understanding husband, she also withdrew from her marriage and took the cowl, becoming a nun herself in a religious community in Mercia. She then held the land of Thanet as abbess. She recalled her daughter Mildþrýð, who was then being educated in Gaul and had taken the veil there, to join the new monastery.

Saint Æbbe reposed in the Lord on the nineteenth of November, 690. After her repose, Saint Mildþrýð, who had gained a reputation for her gentle wisdom and deep affection for her sisters, was unanimously chosen to succeed her mother as abbess. This was blessed and hallowed by Saint Theodore, who consecrated Æbbe’s daughter as abbess of the new monastery, and with her seventy nuns who took up the holy life therein. Holy Mother Æbbe, wise foundress of Thanet, pray unto Christ our God for the salvation of our souls!