Saint Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury was the first wife of King Edmund of England, by whom she bore two future kings, Eadwig, r. 955-959 and Edgar. Like her mother Wynflæd, she had a close & special connection with the royal nunnery of Shaftesbury, Dorset, founded by King Alfred, where she was buried and soon revered as a saint. According to a pre-Conquest tradition from Winchester, her feast day is 18 May. Her mother was an associate of Shaftesbury Abbey called Wynflæd. A charter of King Edgar, in which he confirmed the grant of an estate at Uppidelen/Piddletrenthide, Dorset, made by his grandmother Wynflæd to Shaftesbury. She may well be the nun or vowess/religiosa femina of this name in a charter dated 942 and preserved in the abbey's chartulary. It records that she received and retrieved from King Edmund a handful of estates in Dorset, namely Cheselbourne and Winterbourne Tomson, which ended up in the possession of the community. Wynflæd drew up a will in the md-10th century, after Ælfgifu's death. This lady held many estates scattered across Wessex in Somerset, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Hampshire and was well connected with the nunneries at Wilton and Shaftesbury, both of which were royal foundations. The sources do not record the date of Ælfgifu's marriage to Edmund. The eldest son Eadwig, who had barely reached majority on his accession in 955, born around 940, gives us only a very rough terminus ante quem for the betrothal. Although as the mother of two future kings, Ælfgifu proved to be an important royal bed companion.. In the single extant document witnessed by her, a Kentish charter datable between 942 and 944, she subscribes as the king's concubine concubina regis, with a place assigned to her between the bishops and ealdormen. By comparison, Eadgifu subscribes higher up in the witness list as mater regis, after her sons Edmund and Eadred but before the archbishops and bishops. It is only towards the end of the 10th century that Æthelweard the Chronicler styles her queen/regina, but this may be a retrospective honour at a time when her cult was well established at Shaftesbury. Much of Ælfgifu's claim to fame derives from her association with Shaftesbury. Her patronage of the community is suggested by a charter of King Æthelred, dated 984, according to which the abbey exchanged with King Edmund the large estate at Tisbury Wiltshirefor Butticanlea. Ælfgifu received it from her husband and intended to bequeath it back to the nunnery, but such had not yet come to pass as her son Eadwig demanded that Butticanlea was returned to the royal family first. Ælfgifu predeceased her husband in 944. Her body was buried and enshrined at the nunnery. Ælfgifu was venerated as a saint soon after her burial. Æthelweard reports that manymiracles had taken place at her tomb up to his day, and these were apparently attracting some local attention. Lantfred of Winchester, who wrote in the 970's and so the earliest known witness of her cult, tells of a young man from Collingbourne, Kingston, Wiltshire, who in the hope of being cured of blindness travelled to Shaftesbury and kept vigil. What led him there was the reputation of “thevenerable St Ælfgifu at whose tomb many bodies of sick person receive medication through the omnipotence of God”. Despite the new prominence of Edward the Martyr as a saint interred at Shaftesbury, her cult continued to flourish in later Anglo-Saxon England, as evidenced by her inclusion in a list of saints' resting places, at least 8 pre-Conquest calendars and 3 litanies from Winchester. Ælfgifu is styled a saint/Sancte Ælfgife in the D-text of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle mid-11th century at the point where it specifies Eadwig's and Edgar's royal parentage. Her cult was fostered and used to enhance the status of the royal lineage, more narrowly that of her descendants. Lantfred attributes her healing power both to her own merits and those of her son Edgar. It may have been due to her association that in 979 the supposed body of her murdered grandson Edward the Martyr was exhumed and in a spectacular ceremony, received at the nunnery of Shaftesbury, under the supervision of ealdorman Ælfhere. Ælfgifu's fame at Shaftesbury seems to have eclipsed that of its first abbess, King Alfred's daughter Æthelgifu. Children: #Edwig King of England #Edgar King of England
Zij heeft/had een relatie met Edmund I "The Magnificent" King of England.
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