Converting One Lusty Priest After Another
More details of St. Christina of Markyate
by Sandra Miesel
Remains of the Cloister at St. Albans Abbey in England1
Sexual harassment is hardly a modern invention. And like so many of life’s problems, there’s a saint who suffered it. The saint in question is the colorful but obscure Christina of Markyate (1098-1157) who defended her virginity with courage and resourcefulness. Providence rewarded her patience.
Christina was the daughter of a wealthy Anglo-Saxon couple in Huntingdonshire, England. She’d originally been named Theodora (“Gift of God”) because an omen involving a dove had led her mother to anticipate a specially blessed child. With her spiritual adviser’s permission, pretty and pious Christina took a private vow of virginity at age 16.
But shortly thereafter, Christina unwittingly caught the eye of the lecherous bishop of Durham, Ralph Flambard. He’d previously kept Christina’s aunt as his concubine and had two children by her. When seduction failed, he tried to rape Christina but she escaped by a ruse. She rejected his attempt to sweeten her response with gifts.
Out of malice, Flambard arranged an unwelcome marriage for Christina with a nobleman named Burthred. After a year of heavy family pressure, Christina was forced to sign a betrothal agreement. Escaping the marriage meant escaping consummation. In those days no special wedding ceremony was required, just a promise to marry followed by intercourse established a valid marriage.
Christina’s family stopped at nothing to push the advantageous match to conclusion. For more than a year, they confined Christina, dosed her with drink and magic potions, and even encouraged Burthred to rape her. But Christina managed to wiggle away each time. She even won an annulment from her bishop but it was reversed through bribery.
Finally, after a savage beating by her mother, Christina escaped home disguised as a man. The pageboy who helped her deception was killed. Christina hid with a nun for two years and then for another four with a holy hermit. To preserve secrecy at the hermitage, she was shut up in a tiny cupboard during the day, which she spent in prayer.
Burthred eventually released Christina from the betrothal with an apology. The Archbishop of York confirmed her freedom but put her under the protection of a prominent cleric. Unfortunately, the new protector made sexual advances at Christina, too. She subdued her own temptation to respond through prayer and penance. The abashed priest withdrew his attentions.
Now Christina was free to take public religious vows, first as a hermit, then as prioress of a new convent at Markyate. She was a wise superior for her own nuns, rallying them through two disastrous fires. She embroidered vestments for the English Pope Adrian IV and struck up a warm spiritual friendship with Abbot Geoffrey of St. Albans. She turned him from worldliness to piety and kept him safe through her prayers. Here at last was a man whom Christina could cherish with “a wonderful but pure love,” holding to him in the face of slander. Geoffrey died in 1147, Christina a decade later.
Photo credit: By Przemysław Sakrajda - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,