| SS. KYNEBURGE, KYNESWIDE, AND TIBBA. |
| March 6
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| The two
first were daughters of Penda, the cruel pagan king of Mercia, and sisters to
three successive Christian kings, Peada, Wulfere, and Ethelred, and to the pious
prince Merowald. Kyneburge, as Bede informs us,1 was married to Alcfrid, eldest
son of Oswi, and in his father's life-time king of Bernicia. They are said to
have lived in perpetual continency. By his death she was left a widow in the
bloom of life, and, renouncing the world, governed a nunnery which she built;
or, according to others, found built by her brother Wulfere, in a moist fenny
place, on the confines of the counties of Huntingdon and Northampton, then
called Dormundcaster, afterwards, from her, Kyneburgecaster, now Caster. The
author of her life in Capgrave says, that she lived here a mirror of all
sanctity, and that no words can express the bowels of charity with which she
cherished the souls which served God under her care; and how watchful she was
over their comportment, and how zealous in instructing and exhorting them; and
with what floods of tears she implored for them the divine grace and mercy. She
had a wonderful compassion for the poor, and strongly exhorted her royal
brothers to alms-giving and works of mercy. Kyneswide and Kynedride (though many
confounded the latter with St. Kyneburge) were also daughters of Penda, left
very young at his death. By an early consecration of their virginity to God,
they devoted themselves to his service, and both embraced a religious state.
Kyneswide took the holy veil in the monastery of Dormundcaster.
The bodies of these saints were translated to Peterborough, where their festival was kept on the 6th of March, together with that of Saint Tibba, a holy virgin, their kinswoman, who, having spent many years in solitude and devotion, passed to glory on the 13th of December. Camden informs us,' that she was honored with particular devotion at Rihal, a town near the river Wash, in Rutlandshire. See Ingulphus, Hist. p. 850; Will. of Malmesbury, 1. 4, de Pontif. p. 29; Capgrave and Harpsfield, saec. 7, c. 23. Endnotes 1 Bed. Hut 1. 3, c. 21. (Taken from Vol. III of "The Lives or the Fathers, Martyrs and other Principal Saints" by the Rev. Alban Butler, the 1864 edition published by D. & J. Sadlier, & Company) |
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