Saint Eormenhild (or ''Ermenilda'', ''Ermenildis'', ''Ermengild'', all meaning "battle-great", from eormen- "great", hild- "battle") (died about 700/703) is a 7th-century

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

saint venerated in the

Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main Branches of Christianity, branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholic Church, Catholicism and Protestantism ...

and

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

churches.

Life

She features in the genealogies of various 11th- and 12th-century versions of the

Kentish Royal Legend The Kentish Royal Legend is a diverse group of Medieval texts which describe a wide circle of members of the royal family of Kent from the 7th to 8th centuries AD. Key elements include the descendants of Æthelberht of Kent over the next four ge ...

. These describe her as the daughter of King

Eorcenberht of Kent Eorcenberht of Kent (also Ærconberht, Earconberht, or Earconbert) (died 14 July 664) was king of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Kent from 640 until his death, succeeding his father Eadbald. The Kentish Royal Legend (also known as the Mildrith leg ...

and St

Seaxburh of Ely Seaxburh, also Saint Sexburga of Ely (died about 699), was an Anglo-Saxon queen and abbess, venerated a saint of the Christian Church. She was married to King Eorcenberht of Kent. After her husband's death in 664, Seaxburh remained in Kent to ...

, and wife to

Wulfhere of Mercia Wulfhere or Wulfar (died 675) was King of Mercia from 658 until 675 AD. He was the first Christian king of all of Mercia, though it is not known when or how he converted from Anglo-Saxon paganism. His accession marked the end of Oswiu of North ...

,Casanova, Gertrude. "St. Werburgh." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 4 Dec. 2013
/ref> with whom she had a daughter, St Wærburh, and a son, Coenred. Eormenhild became a

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service and contemplation, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 5 ...

after her husband died in 675. In due course, she became

abbess An abbess (Latin: ''abbatissa'') is the female superior of a community of nuns in an abbey. Description In the Catholic Church (both the Latin Church and Eastern Catholic), Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, Lutheran and Anglican abbeys, the mod ...

Minster-in-Sheppey Minster is a town on the north coast of the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, south-east England. It is in the Swale administrative district, and within that, in the parish of Minster-on-Sea. According to the 2021 Census, the population of Minster w ...

, which her mother had founded. Later, she became abbess of Ely. There are almost no contemporary records for her life. When discussing Wulfhere,

Bede Bede (; ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, Bede of Jarrow, the Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable (), was an English monk, author and scholar. He was one of the most known writers during the Early Middle Ages, and his most f ...

mentions neither her nor her daughter Wærburh. However, her name is mentioned as an abbess in a (copy of a)

charter A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the ...

of King

Wihtred of Kent Wihtred () ( – 23 April 725) was king of Kent from about 690 or 691 until his death. He was a son of Ecgberht I and a brother of Eadric. Wihtred ascended to the throne after a confused period in the 680s, which included a brief conque ...

, dated 699, along with three other abbesses present at the occasion when the charter was issued: "Irminburga, Aeaba et Nerienda".Sawyer no. 20
/ref> Her

feast day The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context does n ...

is 13 February.

References

Primary sources

*Charter of King Wihtred
Sawyer no. 20 (AD 699)
*The ''

'', also known as ''Þá hálgan'' (Cambridge,

CCC CCC may refer to: Arts and entertainment * CCC, the production code for the 1970 ''Doctor Who'' serial ''The Ambassadors of Death'' * Color Climax Corporation, a Danish pornography producer * Comics Campaign Council, a British pressure grou ...

, MS 201,), ed. Felix Liebermann, ''Die Heiligen Englands''. Hanover, 1889. 1–10. Editio
transcribed by

Alaric Hall Alaric Hall (born 1979) is a British philologist who is an associate professor of English and former director of the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds. He has, since 2009, been the editor of the academic journal '' Leeds ...

. *''Kentish Royal Legend'' / ''Þá hálgan'' (London, Lambeth Palace 427, f. 211)
transcribed by Alaric Hall
*Anonymous Old English ''Life'' of St.

Mildrith Saint Mildrith, also Mildthryth, Mildryth and Mildred, () (born c. 660, died after 732), was a 7th- and 8th-century Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon abbess of the Abbey at Minster-in-Thanet, Kent. She was declared a saint after her death, and, in 1030, ...

(Caligula), ed. and tr. Oswald Cockayne, ''Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England'', vol. 3. London, 1866. 422-9 (Caligula), 428-32 (MS Lambeth Palace)
Caligula text partially transcribed by Alaric Hall
and Cockayne's volume available as PDF from Google Books. *

Goscelin Goscelin of Saint-Bertin (or Goscelin of Canterbury, born c. 1040, died in or after 1106) was a Benedictine hagiographical writer. He was a Fleming or Brabantian by birth and became a monk of St Bertin's at Saint-Omer before travelling to Engla ...

, ''Vita Deo delectae virginis Mildrethae'', 11th century. Published in Latin, in Rollason, D, (1982) ''The Mildrith Legend'', Leicester University Press. *Charter of

King Cnut Cnut ( ; ; – 12 November 1035), also known as Canute and with the epithet the Great, was King of England from 1016, King of Denmark from 1018, and King of Norway from 1028 until his death in 1035. The three kingdoms united under Cnut's rul ...

Sawyer no. 958
(AD 1022), possibly a forgery. *

, ''Lectiones in natale S. Eormenhilde'', ed. and tr. Rosalind C. Love, ''Goscelin of Saint-Bertin. The Hagiography of the Female Saints of Ely''. OMT. Oxford, 2004. 11 ff. *''Liber Eliensis'', ed. E.O. Blake, ''Liber Eliensis''. Camden Society 3.92. London, 1962; tr. J. Fairweather. ''Liber Eliensis. A History of the Isle of Ely from the Seventh Century to the Twelfth.'' Woodbridge, 2005.

External links

* *
Ermenilda at Catholic Online
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ermenilda of Ely 7th-century births Year of birth unknown 700s deaths Year of death uncertain 7th-century Christian saints 7th-century English people Abbesses of Ely Anglo-Saxon royal consorts Kentish saints 7th-century English women House of Kent Female saints of medieval England People from Minster, Swale