Baring-Gould’s sources: Wilson’s Anglican Martyrology. Whitford and Greven, and other modern Martyrologists. Some confusion has arisen from there having been two S. Ebbas, both Abbesses of Coldingham, one commemorated at Coldingham on April 2, the other on Aug. 25. In Dempster’s Scottish Menology on Aug. 22, but then he confounds the two Ebbas:■ he says S. Ebba, Virgin and Martyr, at Coldingham. Authorities: — Mention by Bede in his Ecc. Hist., and the Acts in Capgrave.] At the northern extremity of Northumberland, beyond Lindisfarne, on what is now the frontier of Scotland, at Coldingham, rose two monasteries, one for men, the other for women — both founded and governed by one abbess. Whilst S. Hilda, the Deirian Princess, ruled her double monastery on the headland of Whitby, in her father’s kingdom, Ebba, a princess of the rival dynasty, granddaughter of Ida the Burner, daughter of Ethelfrid the Ravager, but sister to S. Oswald and Oswy the reigning King of Ber* nicia, formed on the seacoast another monastic centre, which was yet to hold an important position, and to work out a stormy history.

It had been the intention of her brother to give her in marriage to the King of the Scots, but Ebba obstinately opposed the marriage. She received the veil from the hands of S. Finan, successor of the great Aidan at Lindisfarne; Oswy left her at liberty to devote herself to God, and gave her a piece of land on the banks of the Derwent, where she might found her first monastery, which received the name of Ebbchester — or Ebba’s Castle. But the principal scene of her activities was Coldingham, in a situation which she seems to have chosen in emulation of that of Whitby. Hither, says tradition, she fled from the pursuit of her royal Scottish lover„ and the sea at her bidding rolled along the valley between the headland and the mainland, and for S. Ebba.

three days checked the advance of the prince. She elicited also by her prayers two fountains of limpid water, one at the top of the hill, the other, which is perennial, at its base. S. Ebba’s great and famous monastery was built on this promontory, now called after her S. \bb’s Head, which abruptly terminates the range of the Lammermoors, thrusting itself out into the German ocean. From this headland, or rather precipice, which rises perpendicularly for more than 500 feet from the level of the sea, the view embraces on the north the Scottish coast to the farther side of the Forth, and, J on the south, the English coast as far as the holy isle of Lindisfarne, and the royal acropolis of Bamborough. A small ruined chapel is all that remains to mark the site of the great sanctuary of Ebba, who was, like Hilda, placed at the head of a double community of men and women, and presided over the religious life of Northern Northumbria [the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of northern England and south-east Scotland] with no less success, and for an equal length of time, taking her part also, during nearly thirty years, with no less authority in the affairs of her country.

She did not always succeed, however, in maintaining amongst her daughters the fervour and gravity of which she herself gave an example. S. Etheldred of Ely was, for a while, her disciple; S. Cuthbert [bishop of Lindisfarne (d. 687)] also learned there the danger of too close a proximity to women.1 It was a blunder to combine under one roof monks and nuns. “ The beauty of the virgins allured the men, and a restless desire to be after the men possessed the virgins,”2 is the candid confession of the biographer of S. Ebba. No wonder then that after a brief sojourn at Coldingham, S. Cuthbert went off fully resolved “ to avoid the society of women as a pest.” 1 “ Beatus Cuthbertus intellecta confusion e in domo Domini per feminas facta, creditur, etsi non legitur, celebre condidisse decretum lege perpetua servis suis observandum, quo non solum eis sui corporis prsesentia, consortia feeminarum inhibuit, verum etiam introitus earum, et accessus ct aspectus abscidit.” Vit. ap. Capgrave.

2 “ Virginum species viros allexit, et inquieta virorum cupido virgines attraxit, et quasi stellse de coelo cadentes in ceno voluptatum involuti sunt.” Vit. ap. Capgrave. The saintly Abbess was warned of the relaxation which had crept into the monastery, by a holy priest of her community named Adamnan.1 This man had been guilty of certain evil acts in his youth, and had gone to an old Irish priest for confession and advice. “ What shall I do to make atonement for the past, and to save my soul in the Day of the Lord ? Shall I spend my nights standing in prayer, and fast all the week save Sunday?” “ It is too much,” answered the Irish missionary; “ fast twice or thrice a week. But I am going away to Ireland. On my return I will tell you my advice, I shall have time to think it over.” He went away and never returned, for he died in Ireland. Adamnan thenceforth lived in great strictness; he fasted every day save Sunday and Thursday, and spent the greater part of his nights in prayer. He afterwards became attached as priest to the establishment at Coldingham. As he went one day with the abbess through the vast and lofty buildings which she had erected on her headland, he said to her with tears, “ All that you see here, so beautiful and so grand, will soon be laid in ashes.” And as the astonished princess exclaimed against this prophecy, “ Yes,” he continued, “A strange man appeared to me in my visions at night, and revealed to me the evil that is done in this house, and the punishment that is prepared for it. He told me that he has visited each cell and each bed, and has found not one save thine as it should be. All, all the men and all the women are either fast asleep, or waking to mischief. Instead of praying and reading in their cells, they are organizing little picnics in them, with food and drink, or assembled for tittle-tattle.2 The maidens, instead of meditating on divine 1 Not Adamnan the historian and successor of S. Columba [Irish abbot of Iona (d. 597), apostle of Scotland] at Iona. 2 <l Omnes prorsus viri et feminse aut somno torpent inerti, aut ad peccata vigilant: nam et domunculae, quas ad orandum vel legendum factae erant, nunc in commessationum, potationum, fabulationum et ceterarum sunt illecehrarum cubilia converse. " Bede [English monk and historian (d. 735)] iv. 23.

S. Ebba. things, are weaving fine garments for their own persons or for their friends. Therefore a heavy vengeance from heaven is prepared against this house and against its inhabitants.” “Why did you not tell me this before?” asked the surprised abbess. “ I feared to do so,” said Adamnan, “ lest it should trouble you. But you have this consolation, that the destruction of the house will not take place in your days.” The vision having been divulged, the inmates of the double monastery were affected with compunction, and for a while1 became demure and orderly in their conduct. But it did not last long. Shortly after S. Ebba died, and then all went on as before, and even worse, so that the burning of the monastery ended a scandal throughout the country. It does not speak much for the common sense of S. Ebba to have founded such an establishment, nor for her capability of governing, that she should have been profoundly ignorant of the disorders which took place under the same roof till enlightened by Adamnan. She was not a Hilda, able to rule and keep in propriety an institution with the elements of mischief existing in its very constitution. There is no report of frolicsomeness in the monks and nuns of Whitby. The scandals of Coldingham indicate the incapacity of the abbess, a worthy, devout woman, but occupying a position of extraordinary difficulty she had created for herself, and which she was utterly incompetent to fill — a feature not exceptional in weak people. On April 2nd is commemorated another S. Ebba of Coldingham, abbess in a.d. 870, when the convent without the adjacent monastery had been re-erected, and a more orderly sisterhood filled it. In that year the Danes [Viking raiders from Scandinavia] invaded Northumbria, and would have insulted the virgins of Coldingham and carried them to their homes as slaves and concubines, had not the maidens at the instigation of their 1 “ Aliquantulum!”

abbess cut off their lips and noses. When the barbarians broke into the nunnery they were so infuriated at the disfigurement, that they massacred Ebba and her daughters.