Church of St Frideswide, Oxford

Frideswide founded Oxford's first church c. 680 CE. Her shrine became a medieval pilgrimage destination. Destroyed in 1538, reconstructed in 2002 after fragments were discovered.

Frideswide was born around 650 CE, daughter of Dida, a sub-king under the Mercian kings. According to her hagiography, she founded a monastery in Oxford around 680, in the place where the Thames and Cherwell rivers meet. A prince named Algar—some versions name him the king of Leicester—sought to marry her. She refused, having dedicated herself to religious life. When he pursued her, she fled, hiding in woods near Binsey. As Algar approached Oxford's gates, he was struck blind. Only after his repentance and Frideswide's prayers was his sight restored. She died on October 19, 727, and was buried in her monastery. Her cult grew slowly until 1180, when her remains were translated to a new shrine. The elaborately carved shrine of 1289—limestone and Purbeck marble with a canopy—drew pilgrims seeking healing. In 1518, Catherine of Aragon prayed at the shrine for a son. Twenty years later, the commissioners of Henry VIII's new Church of England destroyed it. The fragments were used as rubble in a well. Frideswide's bones were scattered, possibly mixed with those of Katherine Dammartin, a former nun who had married a reformer. The cathedral itself survived, absorbed into Henry VIII's new Christ Church foundation. The fragments discovered in the 1870s and more found in 1985 allowed the reconstruction unveiled in 2002.