Remains of the deified
Bones in church wall are 1,300-year-old saint
THEY survived the defeat of the Saxons by the Normans, the tumult of the Reformation and centuries of being lost to history.
But it looks like the bones of one of England’s earliest saints may have been under divine protection all the time.
For the remains found hidden in a wall of a church in Kent have finally been identified as those of St Eanswythe, daughter of an Anglo-Saxon king.
She is believed to have founded the first nunnery in England in around 660 and made a saint soon after her death, supposedly in her teens or early 20s.
Now, around 1,300 years after her burial, a team of Kent archaeologists and experts from Queen’s University Belfast has managed to carbon date the tooth and bone samples – and confirm a high probability of a mid-seventh century death date.
The bones were first discovered in 1885, squirreled away in the Church of St Mary in Folkestone, which sits near the original site of St Eanswythe’s nunnery.
But it’s only now that historians can say with near certainty that they belonged to St Eanswythe.
The discovery, revealed at the church yesterday, was hailed as a ‘ stunning result of national importance’.
Dr Andrew Richardson, from the Canterbury Archaeological Trust, said: ‘It now looks highly probable that we have the only surviving remains of a member of the Kentish royal house, and of one of the earliest Anglo-Saxon saints.’
St Eanswythe’s grandfather, King Ethelbert, was the first English king to convert to Christianity under St Augustine. Her remains might well have been destroyed during the upheavals of the Reformation had they not been hidden in the hole in the north wall of the church.
The Rev Dr Lesley Hardy, who directed the Finding Eanswythe project, said: ‘As you walk through the streets of Folkestone, you are walking, layer upon layer, over ancient history that is now largely hidden from view.
‘Finding Eanswythe was about bringing that forgotten history back to the surface.’
The project, funded by the National Lottery, now needs to raise money for the next stage of work, which will reveal more about St Eanswythe and ensure her remains are housed properly and can be securely displayed for research and tourism purposes.
Dr Richardson added: ‘There is more work to be done to realise the full potential of this discovery.’