Saints Edith and Aethelthryth

The Wilton Chronicle starts with the history of Wilton Abbey, embedded in a survey of Anglo-Saxon history, up to the reign of King Edgar. After the loss of an unknown number of folios in the unique manuscript, the text continues with a Life of St Edith, Edgar's daughter (lines 1023–4977). Both Edith and her mother Wulfthryth were nuns at Wilton, where Edith was eventually venerated as the abbey's principal saint. The Chronicle is followed by a Life of St Æthelthryth (of some 1109 lines), Ely's principal saint. Both texts are in vernacular verse; they were composed presumably in the first quarter of the fifteenth century, possibly by the same author, who seems to have been closely connected with Wilton Abbey: perhaps one of the priests administering to the nuns or, perhaps, one of the nuns themselves. The poems are preserved as the third (originally independent) part of London, B.L. Cotton Faustina B.iii, written c.1425, probably at Wilton

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