[Roman Martyrology, Usuardus, &c. Authority:—A very ancient anonymous life, of which Restarius, Canon of S. Vito, who flourished in 887, made use in his "Hist. brevis episcoporum Virdunensium.">[
This saint, a native of Autun, and not, as some have maintained, of Flanders, was of noble birth. He received an excellent education in his youth, whereby his parents, unintentionally, prepared him for the service of the church, their desire being that he should distinguish himself in the world. But he, despising the pomps and pleasures of a secular life, retired into the Vosges mountains, and lived as a hermit on that mountain which has since borne his name, the Paulsberg, within sight of Trèves. On one occasion, having visited the monastery of Tholey, near S. Wendelin, he was so moved by the piety of the monks, and their earnest desire to number him amongst them, that he entered the monastery, where he soon endeared himself to all the brethren by his gentleness and holy example. Amongst the pupils at Tholey was Grimo, a kinsman of king Dagobert, on whose property the monastery was situated. On the death of Ermenfried, bishop of Verdun, on the recommendation of Grimo, Paul was nominated to the vacant see. He found that on account of the disorder of the times, his church was in the most profound debasement. The cathedral was without clergy to celebrate mass and recite the psalter, and it was served occasionally by a priest who visited it at wide intervals, and was unendowed. The bishop at once sent for his friend and patron, Grimo, and exposed to him the spiritual and temporal distress; and by the intercession of Grimo with Dagobert, the king, Paul was provided with land, by means of which he could support a staff of clergy. By his diligence and zeal he was enabled, before he died, to organise the diocese, and to provide for its spiritual supervision.
In Art, he is represented, for some unknown reason, with a taper in his hand, also with an oven, for he is said to have been baker at Tholey for the community, and to have, on one occasion, gone into the oven to place the loaves, when the shovel was lost.
S. ELFLEDA, V. ABSS. OF WHITBY.
(A.D. 716.)
[Inserted in Anglican Martyrology by J. Wilson, and in the Benedictine by Hugh Menard; and Ferrarius in his Gen. Catalogue. Authorities:—Bede and Malmesbury.]
Throughout his life, Penda, the fierce heathen king of Mercia, or the midland counties of England, waged war with the kingdom of Northumbria, which included Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland. But this bloodthirsty and stubborn hatred led him to his destruction. Oswy, son of Ethelfrid, the ravager, and grandson of Ida, the Man of Fire, was king of Northumbria, which had been so wasted and exhausted by the former ravages of Penda, that it could ill withstand another attack. It was only at the last extremity, that king Oswy resolved to engage in a final conflict with the terrible enemy who had conquered and slain his two predecessors, Edwin and the saintly Oswald. He had married his son and his daughter to children of Penda; and he gave him another of his sons as a hostage. But Penda would not consent to any durable peace. During the thirteen years that had elapsed since the overthrow of Oswald, and the accession of Oswy, he had periodically subjected Northumberland to frightful devastations. In vain Oswy, driven to desperation, offered him all his jewels, ornaments, and treasures, of which he could dispose, as a ransom for his desolated and hopeless provinces. The arrogant and fierce octogenarian refused everything, being resolute, as he said, to exterminate the whole Northumbrian race, from first to last. "Well, then," said Oswy, "since this heathen despises our gifts, let us offer them to one who will accept them—to the Lord our God." He then made a vow to devote to God a daughter who had just been born to him, and at the same time to give twelve estates for the foundation of as many monasteries. After this he marched at the head of a small army against Penda, whose troops were, according to a Northumbrian tradition, thirty times more numerous, and a battle was fought near the site of the present town of Leeds, in which Penda was defeated and slain. Thus perished, at the age of eighty, after a reign of thirty years, the conqueror and murderer of five Anglo-Saxon kings, and the last and indefatigable champion of paganism among the Anglo-Saxons.
Oswy faithfully kept his word. He set apart twelve estates to be thenceforward monastic property—six in the north, and six in the south of his double kingdom. He then took his daughter Elfleda, who was but yet a year old, and consecrated her to God by the vow of perpetual virginity. Her mother, the daughter of Edwin, first Christian king of Northumbria, had been also dedicated to God from her birth, but only by baptism, and as a token of the gratitude of a still pagan father for the protection of the Christian's God. The daughter of Oswy was to be the price of a yet higher gift of heaven—the conclusive victory of his race, and of the Christian faith in his country; the sacrifice reminds us of that of Jepthah's daughter; but she, far from desiring to escape her vow, showed herself, during a long life, always worthy of her heavenly Bridegroom. The king took her from the caresses of her mother, to intrust her to the abbess Hilda of Hartlepool, who nearly ten years before had been initiated into the monastic life by S. Aidan.
In 658, when Elfleda was three years old, S. Hilda founded her monastery of Streaneshalch, now called Whitby, and moved thither with her little spiritual daughter.
Elfleda was scarcely twenty-five years of age, when S. Hilda died, and she was called to succeed her as abbess of Whitby. She is described by Bede as a most pious mistress of spiritual life. But like all the Anglo-Saxon princesses whom we meet within the cloister at this epoch, she did not cease to take a passionate interest in the affairs of her race and her country, and to exercise that extraordinary and salutary influence which was so willingly yielded by the Anglo-Saxon kings and people to those princesses of their sovereign races who became the brides of Christ.
She maintained that reverent and affectionate relation with S. Cuthbert which had been maintained by S. Hilda.