Bede’s record
Ethelburga’s life is lovingly recorded in St Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which introduces her as the sister of Earconwald, “bishop of the East Saxons, in the city of London”.
In around 660 Bishop Earconwald built two monasteries, one under his own leadership and the other for women, ruled by Ethelburga.
The abbey was at Bercingum, whose name has only changed slightly (to Barking) in the last 1,350 years.
Ethelburga’s stint as abbess was blessed with many miracles and divine communications. During a particularly lethal plague, the community were trying to decide where to bury the dead. While they were singing the praises of God one day, Bede tells us, a heavenly light, “like a great sheet, came down upon them all, and struck them with so much terror, that they, in consternation, left off singing”.
But the light then moved to the south side of the monastery, which they took as a sign of where to place the cemetery.
Plague in the monastery
On another occasion, a toddler who had been raised in the monastery, called Esica, caught the plague and as he died called out “Eadgith! Eadgith! Eadgith!” – the name of one of the Sisters. She was immediately seized with the fever, “and departing this life the same day on which she had been called, followed him that called her into the heavenly country”.
Death and the next life
Ethelburga probably died in the late 680s – and (to quote Bede again) “her life is known to have been such that no person who knew her ought to question but that the heavenly kingdom was open to her, when she departed from this world”.
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