SAINT MODWENA, A NOBLE IRISH VIRGIN

HAVING led a religious life several years in her own country, she came into England in the reign of king Ethelwolf, about the year 840. That pious and great king being acquainted with her sanctity, committed to her care the education of his daughter Editha, and founded for her the monastery of Pollesworth, near the forest of Arden in Warwickshire, which flourished till the dissolution, bearing usually the name of St. Editha, its patroness and second abbess. St. Modwena had before established two famous nunneries in Scotland, one at Stirling, the other in Edinburgh. She made some other pious foundations in England, but to apply herself more perfectly to the sanctification of her own soul, she led during seven years in anachoretica life in an isle in the Trent, which was called Andresey from the apostle St. Andrew, in whose honor she procured her oratory to be dedicated. When the great abbey of Burton-upon-Trent was founded in the year 1004, it was dedicated under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin and St. Modwena, and was enriched with the relics of this saint, which were translated thither from Andresey; whence Leland calls the monastery of Burton Modwenestow. See Pinius the Bollandist, t. 2, Julij, p. 241. Tanner’s Notitia Mon. &c.