Saints Tancred, Torthred, and Tova were three Anglo-Saxonsiblings who were saints, hermits and martyrs of the Ninth century.[1] Their feast day was celebrated on 30 September at Thorney and Deeping.[2][3]
. . . Tancred, Torthred, and Tova . . .
The brothers Tancred and Torthred, with their sister Tova lived at Thorney, Cambridgeshire,[4] at the time little more than a collection of hermit cells in the Fens, rather than a monastic institution.[5] They, like many hermits at Thorney,[6] were killed by the Danes in 870.[7]
Nothing other than their martyrdom is known of them.
The story of their martyrdom rests on the chronicle of Pseudo-Ingulf,[8] an oft unreliable document which includes sources older than the 12th century. They were, however, venerated in Thorney Abbey by the year 1000AD, as witnessed by R.P.S.,[9] C.S.P.[10] and William of Malmesbury,[11] and were among the many saints whose bodies were translated by Ethelwold. The first record of their existence dates 973AD when they were installed in the abbey at Thorney.[12]
Saint Torthred of Thorney was a saint and Hermit of the ninth century in Anglo-Saxon England.[13] According to Pseudo-Ingulf he was martyred with many of his brother monks by pagan Danish raiders in 869.[14] His feast day is sometimes celebrated on 9 April[15] or 10 April,[16] and there is some conjecture that Torthred (and possibly Tova) did not die in the 869AD raids and instead lived his last years at Cerne in Dorset,[17] in a similar way to Eadwold of Cerne.
. . . Tancred, Torthred, and Tova . . .