When was saint hilda born

Bede describes Hilda as a woman of great energy, who was a skilled administrator and teacher. She gained such a reputation for wisdom that even kings and princes sought her advice, but she also had a concern for ordinary folk like Caedmon. He was a cowherd at the monastery, who was inspired in a dream to sing verses in praise of God. Hilda recognised his gift and encouraged him to develop it. Although Hilda must have had a strong character, she inspired affection. As Bede writes, "All who knew her, called her mother, because of her outstanding devotion and grace.

Often, there are ammonites at her feet. Legend tells of a plague of snakes which St. Hilda turned to stone supposedly explaining the presence of ammonite fossils on the shore at Whitby.

It is not known where Hilda was born, but we learn from Bede that her birth took place in the year She was the second daughter of Hereric, great nephew of King Edwin of Northumbria, and his wife Breguswith. Hilda is derived from the pages of Bede. She was the daughter of Hereric, the nephew of King Edwin of Northumbria , and she seems like her great-uncle to have become a Christian through the preaching of St. Paulinus about the year , when she was thirteen years old.

Moved by the example of her sister Hereswith , who, after marrying Ethelhere of East Anglia, became a nun at Chelles in Gaul , Hilda also journeyed to East Anglia, intending to follow her sister abroad. But St. Aidan recalled her to her own country, and after leading a monastic life for a while on the north bank of the Wear and afterwards at Hartlepool, where she ruled a double monastery of monks and nuns with great success, Hilda eventually undertook to set in order a monastery at Streaneshalch, a place to which the Danes a century or two later gave the name of Whitby.

Under the rule of St. Hilda the monastery at Whitby became very famous. The Sacred Scriptures were specially studied there, and no less than five of the inmates became bishops , St. John , Bishop of Hexham , and still more St. Wilfrid , Bishop of York , rendering untold service to the Anglo-Saxon Church at this critical period of the struggle with paganism. Here, in , was held the important synod at which King Oswy, convinced by the arguments of St.

Wilfrid , decided the observance of Easter and other moot points. Hilda herself later on seems to have sided with Theodore against Wilfrid. The fame of St. Hilda's wisdom was so great that from far and near monks and even royal personages came to consult her. Seven years before her death the saint was stricken down with a grievous fever which never left her till she breathed her last, but, in spite of this, she neglected none of her duties to God or to her subjects.

She was baptised by St Paulinus in and became Abbess at Hartlepool Abbey before moving to Whitby to found the new abbey here in AD as a double monastery, for both monks and nuns. Local folklore says that St Hilda got rid of all the evil snakes and serpents in Whitby by throwing them off the top of the Abbey Cliff and that they turned to stone in the heat of her anger.

This was a medieval explaination of the spiral fossil Ammonites found in the rocks below the cliffs.