Holy wells & saints · Royal legends · Oxfordshire

St Frideswide and the Blinded King

Binsey, beside Port Meadow, and Christ Church, Oxford

Family-friendly

Long ago, before there was any university in Oxford, there lived a king's daughter called Frideswide. When she was only five years old she was sent to a wise and holy woman to learn her letters, and in a few months, so the old Life says, she knew all hundred and fifty of the Psalms by heart.

When she grew up, she wanted nothing but a life of prayer. Her father built a church in Oxford, and she begged him to give it to her. There she took the veil, and twelve noble girls with her, and they all became nuns.

But a king called Algar had set his heart on marrying her. He sent messengers with sweet words, and when sweet words failed, he told them to use threats, and then force. As soon as they laid hands on her, the messengers were struck blind. All the people were amazed. The messengers begged Frideswide for mercy, she prayed for them, and their sight came back. They went home and told the king.

Algar was furious. That night an angel came to Frideswide in a dream and told her to flee to the river. There she found a boat waiting, with a young man sitting in it, and he carried her and her nuns away up the Thames. When they stepped ashore he vanished. They hid in the woods, in an old hut so thick with ivy that nobody could see the door.

Meanwhile the king rode to Oxford to seize her. But as he came up to the gate of the town, he too was struck blind, and blind he stayed. From that day, people said, the kings of England dreaded to enter Oxford at all.

In the woods Frideswide worked wonders. A little blind girl was cured with the water Frideswide had washed her hands in. A young man who had been chopping wood on a Sunday found his hand stuck fast to his axe handle until Frideswide set it free. At last she came to Binsey, a tangle of thorns the English called Thornbury, near Oxford, and built a little chapel there. It was a long walk to the river for water, so she prayed, and a spring burst out of the ground. The old writer adds that it is still there.

When she felt that she was dying, she went home to her nunnery in Oxford. On the way a leper begged her to kiss him. She made the sign of the cross and kissed him, and he was cured. She was buried in her own church.

No plate yet. We are still looking for an old picture of this place.

What people said

  • Kings beware. William of Malmesbury, writing in about 1125, says that since the blinding of the king, every king of England had feared to enter Oxford or stay there, and none of them dared to put it to the test.
  • The healing water. In the old Lives, water Frideswide had washed her hands in cured a blind girl. The spring at Binsey, which came at her prayer, was “still there” when the Life was written in the 1100s.

Other tellings

  • The earliest telling. William of Malmesbury (about 1125) gives no names at all. A king's daughter flees into a wood, then by night into Oxford, and it is the king himself who is struck blind at the gates, and who gets his sight back when his messengers beg her to pray for him.
  • The two Lives. Two 12th-century Lives of the saint add the names: her father Didan, her mother Safrida, her teacher Algiva, and the wicked King Algar. They also have the messengers struck blind first, and the king blinded for the rest of his life. James Parker thought the name Algar may have been borrowed from Earl Algar, who held Oxford before the Norman Conquest.
  • Benson or Binsey? In the Lives, the boat lands at a place called Bentona, which some have taken to be Benson. Only one of the Lives takes Frideswide on to Binsey, but Parker thought Binsey was probably meant all along.
  • In Herbert Evans's 1905 telling, Frideswide simply flees from Oxford to Binsey, where “the well which burst forth in answer to her prayers may be seen to this day.”

What the history says

Frideswide is thought to have been a real woman who founded a nunnery in Oxford in about the 8th century. The church that grew from it became St Frideswide's Priory, and later Christ Church Cathedral, where her shrine is. But the stories of her life were written down about four hundred years after her time, and Parker shows how the writers added names and details as they went. Kings certainly did enter Oxford: Parker lists several who did, long before William of Malmesbury wrote. [TODO: confirm the date of the nunnery and the shrine's present state from Christ Church Cathedral]

The well in Binsey churchyard is now known as St Margaret's Well, after the church. [TODO: its history and its nickname, the treacle well]

Go and See

Where
St Margaret's Church, Binsey, at the end of Binsey Lane, west of the Thames and Port Meadow. The well is in the churchyard. Frideswide's shrine is in Christ Church Cathedral in the city centre.
Access
[TODO: Binsey church and churchyard opening, and Christ Church Cathedral's visiting hours and tickets]
Allow
An hour for a walk across Port Meadow to Binsey and back.
Families
A gentle tale for young children, with a happy ending for everyone but the king.

51.7691° N, 1.2978° W · Open in OpenStreetMap

Make a day of it

From our sister sites

Haunted Hotels UKThe Perch, BinseyFor grown-ups: the thatched riverside pub at Binsey, with a ghost story of its own.Acorn & InkPrint a day-out prep sheetGet children ready for a walk across Port Meadow to a saint's well.Acorn & InkWrite your own legendStory planners to print. Where would your hero hide from a wicked king?

Sources

  1. James Parker, The Early History of Oxford, 727–1100 (Oxford Historical Society, 1885), chapter 4, pp. 93–101, which compares William of Malmesbury's account (translated there) with the two 12th-century Lives. Our main source. Internet Archive.
  2. William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum, book IV, § 178 (about 1125), in Parker's translation. The earliest telling we have found.
  3. Herbert A. Evans, Highways and Byways in Oxford and the Cotswolds (1905), chapter 1. Internet Archive.

This is a legend, told as people told it. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.