Observations placeholder

A Virtuous Virgin is taken to Heaven

"In the year of our Lord 640, Eadbald, king of Kent, departed this life, and left his kingdom to his son Earconbert, who governed it most nobly 24 years and some months. His daughter Earcongota, as became the offspring of such a parent, was a most virtuous virgin, serving God in a monastery in the country of the Franks, built by a most noble abbess, named Fara, at a place called Brie. Many wonderful works and miracles of this virgin, dedicated to God, are to this day related by the inhabitants of that place; but for us it shall suffice to say something briefly of her departure out of this world to the heavenly kingdom. The day of her summoning drawing near, (...) she let (others) know that her death was at hand, as she had learnt by revelation, which she said she had received in this manner:

"She had seen a band of men, clothed in white, come into the monastery, and being asked by her what they wanted, and what they did there, they answered they had been sent thither to carry away with them the gold coin that had been brought thither from Kent. Towards the close of that same night, as morning began to dawn, leaving the darkness of this world, she departed to the light of heaven. Many of the brethren of that monastery who were in other houses, declared they had then plainly heard choirs of singing angels, and, as it were, the sound of a multitude entering the monastery. Whereupon going out immediately to see what it might be, they beheld a great light coming down from heaven, which bore that holy soul, set loose from the bonds of the flesh, to the eternal joys of the celestial country. They also tell of other miracles that were wrought that night in the same monastery by the power of God."

Source: Bede the Venerable, Ecclesiastical History of England, trans. A. M. Sellar (London: George Bell & Sons, 1907).