tearing her hair. At last she threw herself from a height and perished miserably. The king, deprived of the solace of Canera's presence, turned his palace into a church in her honour, and endowed it. St. Willibrod, in 698, promised the inhabitants of Bhenen to make a translation of their saint, but forgot it while engaged in preaching and converting the Germans. Some time afterwards, he was nearly drowned in a storm on the Rhine. He humbly prayed for help, and his ship arrived safely at Bhenen. Then he remembered his promise, and confessed his neglect. He raised the body of the holy virgin from the ground, with all fitting ceremony and solemnity. (This was equivalent to canonization.)
Papebroch considers the legend ill put together, and parts of it unlikely. He thinks it more probable that Cunera lived about the year 700, and says that her being one of the companions of St. Ursula is mere conjecture.
AA,SS. Cahier. Forbes, Scottish Kalendars.
St. Cungild, or Cunhild, Guntild.
St. Cunichildis, Guntild.
St. Cunihilt, Guntild.
St. Cuniza, Cuneound (3).
St. Cunnyburrow, Kyneburga.
St. Cuntild, Guntild.
St. Curach, Corcair.
St. Curielle, Euriela.
St. Cuthbritha, Cuthburga.
St. Cuthburga, Aug. 31 (Cudburg, Cudburh, Cuthbritha, etc.). † c. 720. Queen of Northumberland and abbess of Wimborne. She was the daughter of Quenred, brother of Ceadwalla, king of Wessex (685-688). Her brothers were Ingild, great-great-grandfather of Egbert, and direct ancestor of Alfred the Great, and St. Ina, king of Wessex. (See Ethelburga (2).) Her sisters were Quiburga, Edburga, and Tetta. Ceadwalla became a Christian in 688, and went to Rome to be baptized, resigning the throne to his nephew Ina. Cuthburga was a pupil of St. Hildelid, second abbess of Barking. Cuthburga married Aldfrid, or Alfrith, king of Northumberland (685-705). He was the illegitimate son of Oswin, king of Northumberland, and was educated among the monks of Ireland, or Iona. He was learned in the Scriptures, and was the friend of Adamnan and of St. Bennet Biscop.
There is some discrepancy in the accounts of the married life of St. Cuthburga, as she is confounded with St. Kyneburga (1), who married Alofrith. It has been said, on the one hand, that Aldfrid and Cuthburga lived a celibate life as brother and sister; on the other, that she was the mother of his son Osred, and perhaps of St. Osanna. Another account has it that she was the wife of Osred, whom she left on account of his godless and dissolute life. Aldfrid and Cuthburga separated from religious motives. Cuthburga took the veil with her sister, St. Quimburga, at Barking. This nunnery was famous for the zeal of the nuns in the study of sacred and classic literature. Ina, now king of Wessex, seeing that his sisters had devoted themselves to the service of God, and desiring to build a church for the good of his soul and the advantage of his people, built a monastery, between 700 and 705, for Cuthburga, at Wimborne, in Dorsetshire, near his own residence. Cuthburga was its first abbess. Quimburga was a nun there with her.
Wimborne soon became even more famous than Barking as a training-school for learned and active women.
Thence went, in the next generation, St. Lioba, St. Walburga, and others, at the call of Boniface, the great English apostle of Germany, to help in his grand mission. The abbey of Wimborne was destroyed by the Danes about the year 900, and afterwards restored, dedicated anew in the name of St. Cuthburga, and given to secular canons. St. Cuthburga's burial-place is still shown under the wall of the chancel. AA.SS. Lappenberg, Hist. England under Anglo-Saxon Kings, Strutt, Chronicle of England. Smith and Wace. Dict. Christian Biog. Montalembert, Monks of the West, Bede. Alford, Annales Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ. Capgrave, Legenda Angliæ. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
St. Cwenburh, Quimburga.
St. Cwick, Kew.
St. Cwyllog. 6th century. Sup-
