Pandionia (died ; also known as Pandiona or Pandwyna) was an

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 ...

nun and

Christian saint In Christianity, Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of sanctification in Christianity, holiness, imitation of God, likeness, or closeness to God in Christianity, God. However, the use of the ...

, possibly a

virgin Virginity is a social construct that denotes the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. As it is not an objective term with an operational definition, social definitions of what constitutes virginity, or the lack thereof ...

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', 'witness' Word stem, stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external party. In ...

. 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 26 August.

Life

Little is known about Pandionia, but by tradition she was the daughter of a minor Irish prince or Scottish king who fled to England to escape her father following persecution of her

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

and her desire to serve God in celibacy. She sought refuge with a kinswoman who was prioress of a nunnery in

Eltisley Eltisley is a village and civil parish in South Cambridgeshire, England, on the A428 road about east of St Neots and about west of the city of Cambridge. The population in 2001 was 421 people, falling slightly to 401 at the 2011 Census. Hist ...

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfor ...

and there became known for her holiness, though other sources suggest she lived for a time in

Usselby Usselby is a hamlet in the civil parish of Osgodby, in the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. It is approximately north-west from the town of Market Rasen. In 1931 the parish had a population of 54. On 1 April 1936 the parish was ...

, Lincolnshire. Following her death in around 904 she was buried near a

well A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

which bore her name, and canonized soon after. In 1344 her remains were exhumed and reburied beneath the altar of the parish church in Eltisley, which is still dedicated to 'St Pandionia and St

John the Baptist John the Baptist ( – ) was a Jewish preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century AD. He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist ...

'. It is rare for a parish church to retain the relics of a saint, as the much wealthier monastic institutions would usually acquire them. In 1575, in the fervour of the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the papacy and ...

which sought to rid the church's association with saints, the remains of her well were destroyed by the Rector Roger Palmer amid claims that they were the site of "idolatrous and popish practices". The site of the well is no longer known.

References

{{authority control 900s deaths 9th-century Christian saints Anglo-Saxon saints Female saints of medieval England