ABSTRACT
When, some years ago now, I first read the account of St Æthelthryth’s life in Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica, 1 I was startled by what seemed to me at the time an astonishing claim, namely, that, though married twice, Æthelthryth remained a virgin. Nor have I been the only one to be incredulous. To admit to a friend or colleague unacquainted with Bede’s Historia that one is writing about an anglo-Saxon queen who preserved her virginity through two marriages is to invite at least a raised eyebrow and, more probably, an incredulous guffaw. Such a possibility strikes our modern temperament, with its confident notions of healthy sexuality, as simply incredible; but to the participants in, and observers of, the first century of Christianity in England, it appears not to have been so implausible. Not that there were no sceptics even in Bede’s time; but Bede himself assures us that, though such an achievement required special grace, there were precedents. In Book 4, Chapter 19 of the Historia he says:
nor need we doubt that this [i.e., preservation of virginity] which often happened in days gone by, as we learn from trustworthy accounts, could happen in our time too through the help of the Lord, who has promised to be with us even to the end of the age. 2
