On the Sttccession of the Abbesses of Wilton. 343 



to have been an ancient legend, written some three hundred and 

 forty years before, that is, about A.D. 1080, in the reign of the 

 Conqueror. It is, no doubt, encumbered with a vast deal of legen- 

 dary matter, relating to the alleged miracles of St. Edith, but there 

 is no reason to suppose that the historical notices of the Abbey are 

 otherwise than correct. The metre of the poem is most irregular; 

 in the printed copy each stanza is numbered consecutively. Leland 

 made considerable use of this MS. in his Collectanea, which matter 

 was afterwards copied in Dugdale's Monasticon. Leland's abstract 

 of the chief historical particulars of the poem, however, ends at the 

 two hundred and fifty -seventh stanza.^ 



The first Abbess of Wilton was Eadegunde, A.D. 871. She is 

 mentioned in the Chronicon as having founded the establishment 

 with twelve other " maydones," to which was added the prioress 

 and twelve nuns from the older foundation. The first community 

 thus consisted of twenty-six persons. (See stanzas 155 — 157). 

 ^LFG^TH was Abbess at the time when King Edwy made the large 

 grants of land at Chalk in 955, to " God Almighty, and St. Mary, 

 and the venerable congregation in the Minster at Wilton." 



Wtjlfthryth, W^ulftrude, or Woltkud, was Abbess of Wilton 

 soon after A.D. 968. She was placed in the monastery of Wilton 

 to be educated, and was there seen by King Edgar; the story of 

 her abduction is well known; the holy lives afterwards spent in 

 the monastery of Wilton by herself and her daughter S. Edith, are 

 found abundantly recorded in the Chronicon. S. Dunstan subjected 

 his sovereign to a severe penance for violating the sanctity of the 

 cloister. Edith lived at W^ilton with her mother, the Abbess 

 Wultrud, where she built a chapel in honour of S. Denis, at the 

 consecration of which S. Dunstan foretold her early death and burial 

 in the new church she had founded. Of this chapel — built by S. 

 Edith — we get some particulars from the Chronicon. In stanza 

 44)3 it says that she built " a fulle fayre chapell of Ij/me and stone." 

 How far the chronicler of 1420 in this instance followed his earlier 

 authority it is impossible to say, but we know for certain that the 

 church of the monastery, as it then existed, was built of wood, as it 

 ' Preface to the Chronicon Vilodunense, by W. H. Black, p. x. 



