Page:The Saxon Cathedral at Canterbury and The Saxon Saints Buried Therein.djvu/115

ST. DUNSTAN charter dated that year and the nunnery moved to the parish of St. Mildred in that city.

The last notice of these Saxon Abbesses is to be found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under date 1011, when in the attack on Canterbury Archbishop Alphage was taken prisoner, a certain Abbess Leofruna was also taken. Both Harpsfield and Lambard describe her as of St. Mildred's, Canterbury. I have never come across a life of Siburgis, until I accidentally noticed in a detached MS. handed to me by the Rev. C. E. Woodruff for examination the "item, Vita sancte Siberge cum aliis" amongst the list of books, etc., in an inventory of the fifteenth century of Contenta in cubiculo fratris Ricardi Stone, a monk of Christ Church Cathedral, who was professed about 1485. This interesting find is amongst the "Inventories" belonging to the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury with the Press mark: Inventory Box. A. 3. XYZ. What became of Brother Richard Stone's books and other possessions which he kept in his cubicle in the dormitory, it is quite impossible now to say, but if the "life" is extant and could be discovered what an immense amount of light it might throw upon the events which took place in Minster-in-Thanet during the last half of the eighth century. 77