Saint Etheldreda

Etheldreda (Aethelthryth (OE), later Audrey), foundress and abbess of Ely, was the most important native female saint of medieval England. These panels depict her life, and it is very likely that they once belonged to Ely cathedral, given that Etheldreda is the cathedral’s patronal saint. The panels are attributed to Robert Pygott who is known to have worked on the new canopy for the shrine to Etheldreda at Ely Cathedral in 1455. An inscription consisting of four couplets, painted in black letters on a white ground, one beneath each of the scenes, the two on the left-hand panel half erased, no textual source accounting for all eight lines has come to light.

The medieval panels were given to Thomas Kerrich in 1792 by the antiquary Rev James Bentham (1708–94), who had discovered them many years earlier in Ely. They were found in a house being reused as cupboard doors, hence preserving them from complete destruction during the English Reformation; a remarkable and rare survival. Kerrich’s own record states: “Three very ancient tables, each containing two pictures of the life of St Etheldreda. On board. Mr James Bentham author of the History of Ely, found these pictures many years ago in a cottage at Ely, split and much damaged. One of them was cut in pieces to eke out the other two, to fit them for doors to a cupboard, and of course is the most mutilated of them all. He gave them to me Augt. 5, 1792 and I have set them together and mended them as well as I can.”

All four of the episodes depicted on the Society’s panels are mentioned by Bede. The sequence of events runs from left to right:

1. The Marriage of Etheldreda to Ecgfrith
2. Etheldreda takes leave of her husband before retiring to the abbey of Coldingham
3. Etheldreda building her convent
4. The translation of the saint’s uncorrupted remains to a marble coffin.

Detail from panel 4: the translation of Etheldreda’s uncorrupted remains to a marble coffin