Wihtburh

Saint Wihtburh
St. Wihtburh, depicted in St Nicholas's Church, Dereham, Norfolk
Died	17 March 743 Dereham
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church Anglican Communion, Eastern Orthodox Church
Major shrine	Ely Cathedral
Feast	8 July (translation of relics) , March 17 (repose)
Attributes	A pair of does; church
Catholic cult suppressed	1540s[1]

Wihtburh (also Withburga or Withburge; died 743) was an East Anglian saint, princess and abbess. According to tradition, she was the youngest daughter of Anna, king of the East Angles, but Virginia Blanton has suggested that the royal connection was probably a fabrication. One story says that the Virgin Mary sent a pair of female deer to provide milk for Wihtburh's workers during the construction of 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 her sister Æthelthryth. It was suppressed during the Reformation in the 1540s, and her relics were all destroyed.