Tancred, Torthred, and Tova

Saints Tancred, Torthred, and Tova were three Anglo-Saxon siblings who were saints, hermits and martyrs of the ninth century.[1] Their feast day was celebrated on 30 September at Thorney and Deeping.[2][3]

Saints Tancred, Torthred, & Tova
Hermits, Martyrs
Diedcirca 869 or 870
England
Venerated inCatholic Church
Anglican Communion
Western Orthodoxy
CanonizedPre-Congregation
Major shrineThorney Abbey (destroyed)
Feast30 September
9 or 10 April
Thorney Abbey Church.

Lives

The brothers Tancred and Torthred, with their sister Tova, lived at Thorney, Cambridgeshire,[4] at the time little more than a collection of hermit cells in the Fens, rather than a monastic institution.[5] They, like many hermits at Thorney,[6] were killed by the Danes in 870.[7]
Nothing other than their martyrdom is known of them.

Provenance

The story of their martyrdom rests on the chronicle of Pseudo-Ingulf,[8] an often unreliable document which includes sources older than the 12th century. They were, however, venerated in Thorney Abbey by the year 1000, as witnessed by R.P.S.,[9] C.S.P.[10] and William of Malmesbury,[11] and were among the many saints whose bodies were translated by Ethelwold. The first record of their existence dates from 973, when they were installed in the abbey at Thorney.[12]

Torthred of Thorney

Saint Torthred of Thorney was a saint and hermit of the ninth century in Anglo-Saxon England.[13] According to Pseudo-Ingulf he was martyred with many of his brother monks by pagan Danish raiders in 869.[14] His feast day is sometimes celebrated on 9 April[15] or 10 April,[16] and there is some conjecture that Torthred (and possibly Tova) did not die in the 869 raids but instead lived his last years at Cerne in Dorset,[17] in a similar way to Eadwold of Cerne.

References
  1. David Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Fifth Edition Revised(Oxford University Press, 2011)page 409
  2. "Tancred, Torthred, and Tova".
  3. "Celtic and Old English Saints - 30 September".
  4. Tancred, Torthred and tova.at Answers.com.
  5. Samuel Lysons, Magna Britannia: Being a Concise Topographical Account of the Several Counties of Great Britain, Volume 2, Part 1 (Google eBook) (T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1808)page 266.
  6. Michelle P. Brown, Carol A. Farr, Mercia: An Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in Europe (Continuum International Publishing Group, Limited, 2005).
  7. Saint Torthred of Thorney at SQPN.com.
  8. Pseudo-Ingulf, Croyland Chronicle
  9. F. Liebermann, On the Resting-Places of the Saints’, (Hanover, 1889)
  10. Catalogus Sanctorum Pausantium in Anglia, Lambeth Palace MS. 99
  11. William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum, ed. N.E.S.A. Hamilton (R.S., 1870), pp. 327–9 G.P., pp. 327–9; E.B.K. after 1100, i. 129–44.
  12. Saints Tancredi, Torthred and Tova Hermits in England.
  13. Saint Torthred of Thorney at SQPN.com.
  14. Pseudo-Ingulf Croyland Chronicle
  15. "Saint Torthred of Thorney". 10 April 2010.
  16. Matthew Bunson, Stephen Bunson, Our Sunday Visitor's Encyclopedia of Saints (Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, 2003)page 160
  17. Richard Challoner, A Memorial of Ancient British Piety: a British Martyrology.(W. Needham, 1761)page 132
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