Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England

CHAP. X. How a blind woman, praying in the burial-place of that monastery, was restored
to her sight. [675 A.D.?]
HILDILID, a devout handmaid of God, succeeded Ethelburg in the office of abbess and presided
over that monastery with great vigour many years, till she was of an extreme old age,in the
observance of regular discipline, and carefully providing all things for the common use. The
narrowness of the space where the monastery is built, led her to determine that the bones of the
servants and handmaidens of Christ, who had been there buried, should be taken up, and should
all be translated into the church of the Blessed Mother of God, and interred in one place. How often
a brightness of heavenly light was seen there, when this was done, and a fragrancy of wonderful
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The Venerable Bede
Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England

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sweetness arose, and what other signs were revealed, whosoever reads will find in the book from
which we have taken these tales.
But in truth, I think it by no means fit to pass over the miracle of healing, which the same book
informs us was wrought in the cemetery of that community dedicated to God. There lived in that
neighbourhood a certain thegn, whose wife was seized with a sudden dimness in her eyes, and as
the malady increased daily, it became so burdensome to her, that she could not see the least glimpse
of light. Having continued some time wrapped in the night of this blindness, on a sudden she
bethought herself that she might recover her lost sight, if she were carried to the monastery of the
nuns, and there prayed at the relics of the saints. Nor did she lose any time in fulfilling that which
she had conceived in her mind: for being conducted by her maids to the monastery, which was very
near, and professing that she had perfect faith that she should be there healed, she was led into the
cemetery, and having long prayed there on her knees, she did not fail to be heard, for as she rose
from prayer, before she went out of the place, she received the gift of sight which she had desired;
and whereas she had been led thither by the hands of her maids, she now returned home joyfully
without help: as if she had lost the light of this world to no other end than that she might show by
her recovery how great a light is vouchsafed to the saints of Christ in Heaven, and how great a
grace of healing power.