Osburh of Coventry

Osburh (or Osburga) was a Saint in Coventry, probably Anglo-Saxon but see below. Nothing about her life has survived to the present day. Her mortal remains were enshrined at Coventry.^[1] Close to the Forest of Arden, Coventry was at that time a tiny settlement.

There are two versions of when Osburh lived. From Butler's Lives of the Saints,^[2] and the nineteenth century book by Stanton,^[3] David Farmer^[4] suggests that Osburh died around 1018 CE, having been, from its inception, abbess of a convent founded by King Cnut two years earlier.

However, it is nowadays suspected that Osburh's cult predates the Viking Age.^[1] A Saxon nunnery was founded around 700 CE by Osburh,^[5] destroyed by King Cnut in 1016. This stood in the vicinity of St. Mary's Priory. Around the Saxon nunnery, Coventry gradually developed as a town, though settlement in the area dates back to the Iron Age.^[6] A 14th-century note in MS Bodley 438 mentions an early nunnery at Coventry.^[7] The 15th-century writer John Rous related that Cnut the Great destroyed the old Coventry minster, and referred to the "holy virgin Osburga now laid there in a noble shrine".^[8] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the devastation of neighbouring Warwickshire in 1016, so Cnut's having attacked a convent at Coventry is credible.^[7]

The Earl Leofric's 1043 Coventry charter relates that the abbey in those days was already dedicated to Osburh (as well as St Mary, St Peter and All Saints), though the addition of Osburh could conceivably have been at some point in the previous 27 years, after 1016.^[7] According to Stanton's listing for 30 March, the nuns were expelled in 1045. Later, a new foundation for men was established on the site by Leofric and his wife Godiva.

Osburh's shrine became the place of many miracles. In 1410 the clergy and people addressed a petition to Bishop Leterich, to ask that her festival might be observed. The Bishop assembied his synod and decreed that the festival of St. Osburh should be observed throughout the archdeaconry of Coventry.

Osburh is mentioned in the 13th-century Scandinavian Ribe Martyrology, which gives 21 January as her feast-day, but nowadays it is 30 March.^[1]

The remains of Osburh were said to rest at Coventry in the 12th-century resting-place list of Hugh Candidus.^[7] Initially the location was the south transept of the post-Conquest monastery church of Coventry. Within the monastery, her relics were translated in 1482. Destroyed during the sixteenth-century Reformation, when the monastery was dissolved,^[9] was a splendid shrine with relics, along with Osburh's head enclosed in copper and gold (description in 1539).^[10]

Coventry's devotion to St Osburh endured well beyond the Reformation. In the archdiocese of Birmingham on 30 March, the feast of St Osburh is still retained.

Dedicated to St Osburh is St Osburg's Church^[11] in Coventry.

In the south aisle of St Osburg's Church^[12] is a stained-glass window^[13] in honour of St Osburh. She is also commemorated in the 'West Screen' window^[14] engraved by the New Zealand-born artist John Hutton at Coventry Cathedral.^[15]

Named after St Osburh is Saint Osburg's Catholic Primary School in Coventry.^[16]

• St Osburg's Church, Coventry