Ethildrita. Gnuérin says that Ediltrude is also a name of Ethelfleda, widow at Glastonbury, Oct 23. (See Eligiva (3).)
St. Edina, or Edana, invoked for women in child-bed. Pettigrew, Medical Superstitions. Probably Modwenna.
St. Edinia, Cilinia.
Edith. This name has various forms, amongst others, Edita, Editha, Eadithe, Eadgith, Edgyth, Eggyth. All the SS. Edith are English, and nearly all are of royal birth.
SS. Edith (1) and Edburga (2). (See Edburga.)
Edith (2), M. with Alfrida.
St. Edith (3), March 15. 871. First abbess of Polesworth, in Warwickshire. Daughter of Egbert, king of England (828-836). Sister of Ethelwolf. Aunt of Alfred the Great. Polesworth was one of two towns or estates granted by Ethelwolf to Sr. Modwenna for monasteries. Osithe and Atea were nuns under Edith. Book of Hyde. Dugdale, Monasticon, i. 197. Lives of the Women Saints of our Contrie of England.
St. Edith (4), July 15. Queen of Northumberland. 1th century. Eldest daughter of Edward the Elder, king of England (901-925). Her mother’s name was Egwenna, a beautiful lady whom Edward met at his nurse’s house, and who was the mother of his successor, Athelstane. In 926 Athelstane gave his sister Edith in marriage to Sithric, or Siric, king of the Danes in Northumberland, who was tributary to the English crown. Sithric died the following year. Edith became a nun at Polesworth, and died in the monastery she built at Tamworth. She was half-sister of Kings Edmund (940-946) and Edred (946-955), and of SS. Edburga (6) and Elfleda, a nun either at Rumsey or Wilton. Of her other half-sisters, one married Otho tho Great, king of Germany and emperor, another was Queen of France, being the wife of Charles the Simple, and the three others made marriages nearly as illustrious. William of Malmesbury, De Gestis Pontificum. Book of Hyde. Stevenson, Church Hist. of Enyland. Memorial of Ancient British Piety. Watson, Eng. Mart.
B. Edith (5), Jan. 26. Queen of Germany. † 946. Daughter of Edward the Elder, king of England (901-925). First wife of Otho I, the Great, king of Germany and emperor. His father, Henry I, the Fowler, sent to ask Athelstane for one of his sisters as a wife for his eldest son. Athelstane sent two, Edith, who married Otho, and Edgiva, or Elgiva, who was married to "a prince near the Alps." Edith was a pious and exemplary woman. She had a son Lindolf, and a daughter Liutgard. Otho’s second wife was St. Adelaide, empress.
Edith does not seem to be called Saint by any reliable authority. She appears in a list of sainted English queens preserved in Analecta Juris Pontificii, iii. col. 1823. She is called Blessed by Arturus du Monstier, on the alleged authority of Baronius, who, however, does not so style her. She is not in the Manipulus, where every possible English princess is inserted.
St. Edith (6) the Younger, Sept. 16. 961-984. Patron of Wilton. Daughter of Edgar, king of England (958-175), son of St. Elgiva (4), and grandfather of Edward the Confessor. Edith’s mother was St. Wulfrida, a nun of noble birth whom Edgar forcibly carried off from her monastery at Winchester. Under St. Dunstan’s direction, he did penance for this crime by not wearing his crown for seven years. As soon as Walfrida could escape from him, she returned to her cell, and there Edith was born. Educated with great care, she became a wonder of beauty, learning, and piety. After his wife’s death, Edgar would have married Wulfrida, but she preferred to remain anun at Wilton, where she received the veil from the hands of St. Ethelwold, bishop of Winchester, and made such progress in all virtues that she was chosen abbess, and eventually honoured as a saint. Edith took the veil very early with her father’s consent; he made her abbess of three different communities, but she chose to remain under her mother at Wilton, where she was a Martha with regard to her sister nuns, and a Mary in her devotion to Christ. In 979 Edith dreamt
