Saints Alive!

Welcome to the blog about Saints - in particular St Frideswide the patron saint of Oxford.

According to this....

"Two twelfth-century Latin manuscripts (edited by John Blair)^[4] present two Middle English accounts of the Life of Saint Frithuswith, which are included in the South English Legendary.^[5] Both accounts differ slightly in their story. The shorter tale recounts that Frithuswith was born to Didan (an Anglo-Saxon sub-king) and his wife Safrida around AD650. With the help of her father, Frithuswith founded a priory (St Frideswide's Priory) while still young, but even though Fritheswith was bound to celibacy, Algar (that is, Æthelbald), aMercian king, sought to marry her. When Frithuswith refused him, Algar tried to abduct her.

A longer tale is attributed to Robert of Crickdale, then prior of Oxford, and was later recorded by William of Malmsbury.^[3] According to this account (recorded in the South English Legendary), Fritheswith flees to Oxford. There she finds a ship sent by God which takes her to Bampton. Meanwhile the King searches for her in Oxford, but the people refuse to tell him where she is. When he has searched the whole town but cannot find her, he becomes blind.^[6] In the shorter version, Frithuswith hides in a forest outside Oxford, but when Algar comes to look for her, she sneaks back into the town. The king follows her, but just outside the Oxford city gates he falls off his horse and breaks his neck.^[7]

In the longer life, the nuns in Binsey complain of having to fetch water from the distant River Thames, so Frideswide prays to God and a well springs up. The well water has healing properties and many people come to seek it out. This well can still be found today at the Church of St Margaret in Binsey, a few miles upriver from Oxford."

In fact,, on the subject of blindness there is a play coming up very soon called 'St Frideswide cures the blind' by Joel Kaye - more on that later.