Above: Click on the image to enlarge it and read more about St Elfleda (it says no reproduction without permission, but this is a screenprint of a webpage, so it is not as if I am passing the photographs off as my own work - the webpage is on http://www.wilfrid.com/saints/search_of_hilda06.htm).
Today is St Elfleda's Day. I am interested in St Elfleda because she is at the centre of an early medieval literary culture that is of great importance. Not only did she know the poet Caedmon (a cowherd who became England's first poet) but she is also associated with the production of the earliest Life of Pope Gregory the Great (which was written in Whitby, not Rome as you might expect http://www.ccel.org/ccel/pearse/morefathers/files/gregory_whitby_life.htm).
Above: Elfleda is associated with a monastery in the centre of the county. Only the church remains (this is a picture of the chancel, note the images of saints on the walls). The building was a mausolum for several of her relatives (from the Northumbrian royal house), so it is reasonable to assume she was often here.
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