Osana

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Saint Osana
Born 698, Deira, Northumbria
Died 750, Howden, Yorkshire
Venerated in Roman Catholicism
Eastern Orthodoxy
Feast 18 June
Saints Portal

Osana (698–750) was a Northumbrian princess, whose local following as a saint developed informally after her death, though she was never officially canonised. Centuries after her death, she was described by the Norman-Welsh chronicler Geraldus Cambrensis (died 1223)[1] as the sister of King Osred I of Northumbria, which would make her the daughter of King Aldfrith of Northumbria. Osana was depicted by Geraldus as inflicting a miraculous flagellation from her grave in Howden, Yorkshire, upon a concubine of the priest[2] of the collegiate church there, a moral tale intended to inculcate clerical celibacy. Celibacy of the Anglo-Saxon clergy was not expected in Osana's time;[3] when it began to be enforced from the top at even the higher levels, with Archbishop Anselm's council of London, 1102,[4] it continued to be resisted in Britain,[5] though it was a central objective of Gregorian reform.

Geraldus records

"In the north of England beyond the Humber, in the church of Hovedene, the concubine of the rector incautiously sat down on the tomb of St. Osana, sister of king Osred, which projected like a wooden seat; on wishing to retire, she could not be removed, until the people came to her assistance; her clothes were rent, her body was laid bare, and severely afflicted with many strokes of discipline, even till the blood flowed; nor did she regain her liberty, until by many tears and sincere repentance she had showed evident signs of compunction."[6]

There had been no previous record of Osana. Geraldus' report played a part of the Church's long drive to enforce clerical celibacy. The episode took place in a collegiate church

On the authority of Geraldus Cambrensis, the Bollandists named 18 June a feast for Osana. Relics of Osana are known to be preserved in a church in the Netherlands.[7]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Geraldus, The Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales II.2
  2. ^ For the history of canon law regarding clerical concubines, see E. Jombart, Dictionnaire du Droit Canonique, vol. III;1513-34, s.v. "Concubinage"
  3. ^ E. Deanealy, Sidelights on the Anglo-Saxon Church (1962:134-36) gives evidence for the respectability of married clergy in the Anglo-Saxon church; a concubine did not have the status of a wife, needless to say.
  4. ^ Henry of Huntington's Historia Anglorum perhaps disingenuously reports the prohibition of 1102 as a novelty, "something formerly not prohibited"; see Nancy Partner, "Henry of Huntingdon: Clerical Celibacy and the Writing of History" Church History 42.4 (December 1973:467-475).
  5. ^ C.N.L. Brooke, "Gregorian reform in action: clerical marriage in England, 1050-1200," Cambridge Historical Journal 12.1 (1956:1-21).
  6. ^ Gerandlus, on-line text.
  7. ^ (Cambrensis 1978)
  • Cambrensis, Giraldus (1978), The Journey Through Wales and the Description of Wales, Penguin Classics, ISBN 9780140443394