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Biography

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Frithuswith, also known as Frideswide or Frideswida (Old English Friðuswīþ), was an Anglo-Saxon princess and abbess venerated as the patron saint of Oxford and of the University of Oxford. According to medieval hagiographical tradition she was the daughter of Didan (or Dida), a Mercian sub-king or nobleman who held authority in the Oxford region, and of his wife Safrida (Sefrida). The precise year of her birth is unknown; she is generally placed in the later seventh century. From an early age she is said to have been drawn to the religious life. With her father's support she established a monastery at Oxford, a minster of a type typical of the early English Church, and became its abbess. The community she founded is regarded as the earliest religious institution at Oxford and as a nucleus around which the later town developed.

The most famous episode in her legend, recorded in twelfth-century vitae (notably those associated with Robert of Cricklade, prior of St Frideswide's) and alluded to by William of Malmesbury, concerns a royal suitor usually named Algar, described as a king of Leicester or a Mercian prince. Determined to marry her despite her vow of virginity, he sought to seize her by force. Frithuswith fled Oxford and took refuge in hiding, with traditions locating her retreat at Binsey near Oxford, or alternatively at Bampton or other sites in the upper Thames valley. At Binsey she is credited with causing a spring to rise by her prayers; the well, later known as St Margaret's Well, became a place of pilgrimage. When Algar persisted in his pursuit and approached Oxford, he was struck blind (in some versions killed) as a divine punishment. Some accounts add that Frithuswith later restored his sight. She then returned to her monastery and continued as abbess.

She is traditionally said to have died at Oxford on 19 October 727, though the year is not attested by contemporary records and some older authorities give 735. She was buried in her monastic church. By the eleventh century her resting place was already noted in English lists of saints' shrines. After the refoundation of the house as an Augustinian priory in the early twelfth century, her relics were solemnly translated to a new shrine in 1180, an event that established a major pilgrimage. A further translation took place in 1289. The medieval shrine was destroyed at the Reformation. In a notorious episode of 1561-62, the remains of Catherine Dammartin, wife of the Protestant reformer Peter Martyr Vermigli, were buried in Frithuswith's grave as a calculated insult; later the bones were mixed. A restored shrine stands today in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, which occupies the site of the medieval priory church.

Although the miracle stories belong to later legend, most modern historians accept that Frithuswith was a historical abbess of the late seventh or early eighth century who founded a minster at Oxford. Her cult was well established in the Middle Ages and survived in Oxford after the Reformation in civic and academic memory. She remains the patron saint of the city and university of Oxford. Her principal feast is kept on 19 October, with additional commemorations in some calendars of the translation of her relics (12 February and 15 May). She is represented in art as an abbess, often with a pastoral staff and with an ox that, according to a folk etymology, gave Oxford its name, or with the spring she is said to have called forth.

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