Hildelith

Saint Hildelith
Abbess
Feast	22 December (Martyrologium Anglicanum), 24 March.

Hildelith of Barking, also known as Hildilid or Hildelitha, was an 8th-century Christian saint, from Anglo-Saxon England but of foreign origin.

Very little is known of her life; however, she is known to history mainly through the hagiography of the Secgan Manuscript, and the Life of St Hildelith written in 1087 by the Medieval Benedictine hagiographical writer Goscelin. She was abbess of the nunnery at Barking in England. She was also the superior to Cwenburh of Wimborne prior to that saint's founding of Wimborne Abbey.

Earconwald is said to have engaged Hildelith to instruct his sister Æthelburh, abbess of the monastery which he had founded at Barking. Hildilid succeeded her pupil as abbess at some date later than 692, if we accept the charter of Æthelred to Æthelburga given under that date (Kemble, Codex Dipl. i. 39). According to another account it must have been after the death of Earconwald (693), who died on a visit to his sister. Florence of Worcester, however, gives her accession under 664, but again mentions it under 675 (i. 27, 33).

Bede speaks of Hildilid's long rule, of her translation of the bones of saints into the church of St. Mary and of a miraculous cure of a blind man which took place in her time.

It is not known who replaced her as the next known abbess is Wulfhild of Norway, three centuries later and just prior to the Norman Invasion. She was unique in that under her control the abbey acted as a double monastery.

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