Today's saintAll livesDecember saints
EO

Devotional card

St. Edburga of Winchester

Saint-specific image not yet available.

This devotional card is shown because a saint-specific image is not yet available.

Saints and feasts

St. Edburga of Winchester

Virgin

Edburga was a daughter of Edward the Elder who became a nun at Winchester. Butler remembers her religious vocation and the later veneration of her relics at Winchester and Pershore.

Sources

The life below remains the existing Butler-based reading, with its edition citation. The profile preserves the feast date and source title already listed in the library. Additional personal dates and historical details are shown only when separately documented.

Religious house: St Mary’s at Winchester
Butler identifies the daughter of Edward the Elder with this community and records relics later shared with Pershore.

Butler sourceAlban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XII (December), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; December 21, “St Edburge, Virgin,” pp. 335-336.

Butler’s Lives of the Saints (1846)Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XII (December), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; December 21, “St Edburge, Virgin,” pp. 335-336.

The reading

ⓘ Butler source

Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XII (December), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; December 21, “St Edburge, Virgin,” pp. 335-336.

Edburga, called Edburge in Butler’s heading, was a daughter of King Edward the Elder. Butler’s account places her upbringing in the religious house of St. Mary at Winchester under the abbess Etheldreda.

The traditional life relates that her father offered her a choice between royal ornaments and a religious habit, and that she chose the habit. She later became a nun in the community where she had been educated. Butler remembers her fervour in the service of God and says that she died of a fever.

Her relics were honoured at Winchester, and part of them was later given to the restored monastery of Pershore. The notice preserves those connections without fixing an exact death year. This royal nun of Winchester is distinct from Eadburga, the abbess of Minster in Thanet remembered elsewhere in December.

Historical note

An original Novena Regina reading adapted and summarized from the cited pre-1962 source. This is not a transcription of Butler’s words.

The childhood choice follows the traditional narrative cited by Butler. This reading follows his December 21 entry and does not assert that date as her only observance. Edburga of Winchester is distinct from Eadburga of Minster in Thanet.

Carry this reading into prayer

Act of Charity

Ask God for love of Him and your neighbor, and carry this reading into your own life.

Pray now →

Keep reading

Nearby saint lives

Move through the calendar without leaving the saint library. These nearby feast-day lives help keep the reading trail connected.

Previous feast

St. Thomas the Apostle

December 21

Next feast

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini

December 22

Browse December saintsBrowse all saint livesGo to today's feast
More prayers, novenas and litanies

More devotions

Continue in prayer

Choose a connected devotion or a clearly labeled general prayer.

Choose a novena

Find a novena for your intention

Browse existing novenas by the need you want to bring to prayer.

Choose a novena

Pray with all the saints

Litaniae Sanctorum

Invoke the communion of saints with the traditional Latin Litany of the Saints.

Pray the Latin litany

Keep learning

What is prayer?

Read question 1099 and its complete answer in the Baltimore Catechism.

Read the Beatitudes in Matthew 5