Everilda

Saint Everild of Everingham (Old English: Eoforhild)[1] was an Anglo-Saxon saint of the 7th century who founded a convent at Everingham, in the English county of the East Riding of Yorkshire. All we know of her comes from the York Breviary.[2]

St Everilda's Church (Church of England) at Everingham

There are two churches dedicated to St Everilda: St Everilda's Church, Nether Poppleton, and Ss Mary & Everilda, Everingham.

She was converted to Christianity by Saint Birinus, along with King Cynegils of Wessex, in 635. Her legend in the York Breviary states that she was of the Wessex nobility. She fled from home to become a nun, and was joined by Saints Bega and Wuldreda. Saint Wilfrid of York made them all nuns at a place called the Bishop's Dwelling, later known as Everildisham. This place has been identified with present-day Everingham. She gathered a large community of some eighty women.

Veneration

Her name appears in the Martyrology of Usuard as well as in the church calendars of York and Northumbria.

Her feast day is 9 July.

Notes
  1. "Everilda" in Frances Egerton Arnold-Forster, Studies in church dedications: or, England's patron saints, 1899:403f, based on Acta Sanctorum, "setting forth three lessons on the saint". Also Everildis.
  2. David Hugh Farmer, ed. The Oxford Dictionary Of Saints, s.v. "Everild (Everildis, Averil)".
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