aint Hilda, or Hild, to give her the correct Anglo Saxon name, meaning                     battle, was born in 614 AD into the Royal House of Northumbria. Hilda                      herself became a ruler of both men and women in the monastery she                           founded at Whitby, which became a great centre of English learning

                           and literature.               

            Caedmon, the first English poet, was a labourer there.No fewer than five of her monks became bishops. The Church in England was at that time torn by division over the differences between the traditions of the Celts whose missionaries had brought the gospel to the North and West of England, and the Roman practices introduced in the South and East by missionaries from continental Europe.

                 One particular problem was the inconsistency of the two traditions over determining the date of Easter. A special Synod was held at Whitby in 664 to settle the matter. The supporters of the newer Roman custom eventually won. Hilda herself, who personally much preferred the Celtic tradition, in which she had grown up, nevertheless used her moderating influence to persuade those who had lost the argument, to accept their defeat gracefully and to live peaceably with those from whom they had differed. Her role as peacemaker at a pivotal time in the history of the Church in England has a lot to teach us today.

                   Hilda died in 680 AD and it is thought she was buried in Whitby. A 12th century chronicle tells us that Edmund 1st in 944, had the bones of Hilda, together with those of Bishop Aidan, taken to Glastonbury, where he himself was to be buried. Is this is where they are now?