commemoration of st. frideswide

with the feast of luke the evangelist and iconographer and the new martyrs of russia available for consideration, why should i choose to mention the somewhat obscure 8th century mercian abbess frideswide? i chose to write about her because the history of the modern western church seems to be described by the history of her foundation. i can probably do no better than to quote her story from fr. beverly c. hughson o.h.c.'s athletes of god, pp. 335-336:

"this saint was a mercian abbess, the daughter of a prince who lived at oxford early in the eighth century. the old story is that algar, a neighboring prince, sought her hand in marriage. fearing lest her father would compel her to accept his addresses, she fled from oxford with two nuns in a boat, rowed by an angel in the likeness of a young man clothed in white, and took refuge in a wood near abingdon. many stories similar to this are told of this holy virgin. there is no question, however that she founded a convent at oxford and for many years devoted herself to the service of the poor and outcast. her convent was in later times given to the augustinian canons, and it was acquired by cardinal wolsey for his cardinal college, which afterwards became christ church. the chapel of this college, which was built in the twelfth century, is now the cathedral church of the oxford diocese. the bones of the saint were cast out of their tomb [see photo above] in the chapel in the reign of edward vi, and those of the wife of peter martyr, the reformer, enshrined in their stead. under queen mary the bones of the intruding lady were removed, and the relics of st. frideswide restored. when elizabeth came to the throne, she ordered the former to be returned to the shrine without disturbing those of the saint. so now it is said that they both rest in the same shrine, and those who go to venerate the relics of the saint have opportunity of contemplating the remains of her strange bedfellow."

monasticism in its early days was often an attempt to escape from the growing worldly politics in which the church was becoming engaged. frideswide's refusal of a political marriage and the privileges it would provide were well understood and appreciated in the early british church. consider the legend of the seven desert fathers who brought monastic christianity to wales and cornwall, and the popularity of the visit of st. anthony to st. paul as the bottom image on standing crosses.

but monasticism, too, came to be a source of power, rather than of seeking one thing: to know god. st. frideswide's abbey became an augustinian house. then the royally established episcopacy took over, and cardinal woolsey made it into a "college." at first colleges were legitimate institutions for christian learning, one may hope. but the despotic rule of henry, which the reformers thought they could turn to their advantage, made cardinal college a royal establishment instead, although cleverly named not king's (that would happen at the even more protestant cambridge) but christ college.

now even the bones of the monastic foundress were removed, and those of a foreign-born scholar replaced them. with the elizabethan settlement, all the bones were thrown in together, a somewhat macabre pre-curser of the claims of the history channel, for example, which claims that truth is to be found simply by considering everyone's "opinions." it is sad to consider that the pharisees have prevailed in so much of the modern church.