Wihtburh

Wihtburh (also Withburga or Withburge; died 743) was an East Anglian saint and abbess. She was renowned for founding and governing a convent at Dereham in Norfolk. The Dereham convent no longer exists except for St Nicholas Church.

According to folk tradition, Wihtburh was the youngest daughter of King Anna, king of the East Angles, but academics such as Virginia Blanton and Barbara Yorke have suggested that this is unlikely.

Withburh is traditionally linked to an account in which two does provided milk for Wihtburh's builders for her convent at Dereham, in Norfolk. When a local official attempted to hunt down the does, he was thrown from his horse and killed.

Withburh died in 743 and was buried at Dereham. Her body was said to be uncorrupted by age or decay when her tomb was opened half a century after her death, and the church and the tomb subsequently became a place of pilgrimage. When her relics were stolen on the orders of the abbot of Ely Abbey, the remains were re-interred at Ely next to her sisters Æthelthryth and Seaxburh. In 1106, Withburh's body was again examined and found to be intact.

Wihtburh's cult in Eastern England, which was never large, was closely linked with that of Æthelthryth, her supposed sister. As Æthelthryth is known to have been a daughter of King Anna of East Anglia, Wihtburh would have been her sister, if it is true that Wihtburh was a daughter of King Anna. Her veneration was suppressed during the Reformation in the 1540s, and her relics were all destroyed.