d's daughter, Werburh (the
famous S. Werburh of Chester), also became abbess of Sheppey and Ely in
succession.

In the same way, Minster in Thanet remained in the family of its
foundress, Eormenburg or Domneva, as she is sometimes called, the wife
of the Mercian prince Merewald. According to tradition she received the
land from Egbert of Kent, as wergild for the murder of her two brothers.
She asked for as much land as her tame deer could cover in one course,
and she thus obtained about ten thousand acres, on which she built her
monastery. Her daughter, Mildred, who succeeded her as abbess, acquired
greater fame. She was educated at Chelles, and was there cruelly
ill-treated by the abbess, who was inappropriately named Wilcona, or
Welcome. She wished to marry Mildred to one of her relatives, and when
the girl refused, she put her into a furnace. When that punishment
failed, she pulled her hair out. Mildred adorned her psalter with the
ravished hair and sent it to her mother. Finally she escaped and
returned home. Her name is among the five abbesses who signed a charter
granting church privileges at a Kentish Witanagemot.[27] Her successor,
Eadburg, or Bugga, built a splendid new church in the monastery, which
is described in a poem attributed to Aldhelm.[28] The high altar was
hung with tapestries of cloth of gold, and ornamented with silver and
precious stones. The chalice, too, was of gold, and set with jewels;
there were glass windows, and from the roof there hung a silver censer.
Mention is made of the united singing of the monks and nuns in the
church.

Eadburg and her mother, a certain Abbess Eangyth, were both friends of
Boniface, the great English missionary bishop of Mainz, the "Apostle of
Germany." Eangyth writes to him of her troubles as abbess of a double
monastery, of the quarrels among the monks, the poverty of the house,
and the excessive dues which had to be paid to the king and his
officials. In one letter Boniface thanks Eadburg for books and clothes,
and asks if she will write out for him in gold letters the Epistles of
S. Peter, that he may have the words of the Apostle before his eyes when
he preaches.

Repton was another double monastery under an abbess, though nothing is
known of its foundation. Some information about it is gained from the
Life of S. Guthlac by Felix. Guthlac was a noble of Mercia, and in his
youth a great warrior; but at the age of twenty-four, he went to Repton
and received