d to the
festivals of these four sainted abbesses than elsewhere. But we find no
churches dedicated to any of the four in the isle except those
previously named as dedicated to S. Etheldreda, the cathedral, Histon,
and a chapel at Swaffham Prior. Minster Church, in Kent, is dedicated to
Saints Mary and Sexburga. In a tenth-century will of the widowed queen
of Edmund I. we read: "I give to S. Peter's, and to S. AEtheldryth, and
to S. Wihtburh, and to S. Sexburh, and to S. Eormenhild at Ely where my
lord's body rests, the three lands which we both promised to God and His
saint."[4] There were no doubt side-altars erected in honour of one or
more of the four. At Wisbech, for instance, there was a "light" of S.
Etheldreda, to which we find persons bequeathing small sums.

Of the monastery of S. Etheldreda and that of Bishop Ethelwold,
Professor Freeman writes that there is "no continuity between the
two."[5] By this we must probably understand that he considered the
original monastery absolutely at an end after its destruction by the
Danes; and that the monastery founded in its place a century later was
something quite new, that had no claim to be regarded as the
continuation of the former one. But the history of the place during the
interval was not an absolute blank.

The Danish destruction took place in 870. The reconstruction by King
Edgar and Bishop Ethelwold took place in 970. In the monastery so
founded, or, as most would prefer to say, resuscitated, there were no
nuns. It has been pointed out that at Ely, unlike other religious houses
in the district, there was not complete desolation during the century
intervening between the destruction of the former and the construction
of the latter house. Some clergy banded themselves together and formed a
religious community, of what precise character is not known, but
apparently it was something in the nature of a college of secular
priests. When the second monastery arose, these clergy were either
absorbed or evicted.

#Brithnoth# (970-981) was the first abbot. He had been Prior of
Winchester. He devoted his energies to the consolidation of the new
house, securing many fresh endowments, settling the boundaries of the
Isle of Ely, and laying out the grounds of the abbey in beautiful order.
The church possessed only the bodies of three of the four saints
connected with the original foundation. There being no hope of
recovering the fourth, Bishop Ethelwold and the abbot reso