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Æthelflæd of Romsey
10th-century English Abbess
Saint Æthelflæd of Romsey (also Ælflæd and Æthelflæda) was a late tenth-century abbess of Romsey Abbey. She is recognized as the patron saint of the Abbey Church of St Mary and St Ethelflaeda (fmr. Romsey Abbey) in Romsey, England.
Life
Her identity is obscure, though in later stories she was said to be the daughter of a tenth-century nobleman Æthelwold or King Edgar of England. Æthelflæd's mother is recorded as either being Æthelwold's first wife Brithwina or his second wife Ælfthryth.
Æthelflæd became abbess of Romsey Abbey in c. 1003 after St. Mærwynn and Elwina according to Reverend H.G.D. Liveing's “Records of Romsey Abbey.” She was known for "chanting psalms whilst standing naked in the River Test at night." She is credited with several miracles as a youth: seeing her teacher outside gathering switches through the abbey wall, and light coming from her fingers once her lamp went out that allowed her to finish reading her lesson.
Her feast day is 23 October.
Æthelflæd appears in a small number of eleventh- and twelfth-century monastic calendars.
Legacy
St Ethelflaeda's tomb is in the Abbey Church's St. Ethelflaeda Chapel. The "abbess’s crozier... [is] down the side of the tombstone." The chapel also contains a late 15th century "painted panel of a kneeling priest," a statue of St Benedict, and a "list of vicars of Romsey."
The Ethelflaeda festival is held at Abbey Church in her honor. A controversial diptych of her life created in 2016 by Christopher Gollon was added to the Abbey Church in 2018.