Page:A Dictionary of Saintly Women Volume 1.djvu/476

462 462 ST. LIOBA aged slaye was sot free on the falfilment of her welcome prophecy. The child was called Trnthgeba and afterwards sur- named Leobgytha or Lioba (greatly be- loyed). She became a nun under Tbtta, who ruled over a doable community in the monastery of Wimbrun (now Wimbome). While Lioba was there she had a dream. A purple thread came out of her mouth. She put up her hand to remove it, but the more she pulled the more there was to pull, until at last her hand was full ; then she began to wind it into a ball, and she wound and wound, and still there was more and more coming until she awoke. She told the dream to a young girl, who was under her care, and bade her go and tell it as her own dream, to an old nun who was skilled in interpre- tation and prophecy. The old woman detected the ruse and instantly pro- nounced the dream to be Lioba's, and said it indicated her wisdom and useful- ness, and portended that she should go and do good to many souls in a distant land. While very young, Lioba wrote in Latin, from Wimborne, to her kinsman Boniface, the apostle of Germany. "To the very reverend Lord and Bishop Boniface, beloved in Christ, his kinswoman Leobgytha the last of the servants of God, health and eternal sal- vation. I pray your clemency to deign to rocolloct the friendship which united you to my father Tinna, an inhabitant of Wessex, who departed from this world eight years ago, that you may pray for the repose of his soul. I also recommend . . . my mother Ebba, your kinswoman, . . . who still lives in great suffering and infirmity. I am their only daughter and God grant, unworthy as I am, that I might have the honour of having you for my brother, for no man of our kindred inspires me with the same confidence as you do. ' I send you this little present not that ... it is in any degree worthy of your attention . . . but that you may remember my humility and that notwith- standing the distance . . . the tie of true love may unite us for the rest of our days." She asks his prayers and apolo- gizes for some lines of poetry which she has composed and ventures to send him. She adds, " I have learnt all I know from Eadburga, my mistress, who gives her- self to profound study of the divine law. . . ." (Mabillon. Montalembert). Boniface's answer is lost. But some of his letters to Lioba and the other nuns are extant. In 7148, St. Boniface wrote and asked Tetta to send him Lioba and some other nuns, to supply a want in the in&nt Church of Germany, by training and settling the religious communities of women. Tetta was unwilling to part with her best nun, whose sanctity was an honour to her abbey and who was be- loved by the whole sisterhood ; but she saw the need for her in Bonifiioe's newly planted vineyard, so she let her go. She was accompanied by Thegla (10). St. Boniface placed Lioba over a large community at Bischofisheim, and gave her authority over all his other nunneries that she might perfect them in the strict observance of the Benedictine Bnle. She understood her business so well that very soon the nuns of Bischofsheim were able to teach others, and many of them were sent to preside over other convents in Germany. She was very fond of reading and was careful to take the mid- day sleep enjoined by the Benedictine Bule and to prescribe it to others, saying that want of sleep destroyed the intellect and particularly the power of reading. She liked to be read to while she slept The river Tauber ran through their grounds, so they could draw water and turn their mill without going out of the gate. One drawback against this advan- tage was that a wretched woman who begged at the gate, threw her new-bom infant into the river. The crime gave rise to a cruel scandal implicating one of Lioba's nuns, who, however, through the wisdom and saintHness of the abbem, was completely cleared of all suspicion. St. Lullus, bishop of Mayence and friend of Charlemagne, was also the friend of Lioba. The monks of Fulda (that famous seat of German learning and language), with whom Lullus had a long-stinding dispute, were also friendly to Lioba, and she seems to have been the only woman to whom they granted the privilege of admission to their churcL