Excerpt from The Life of Saint Wenburge of Clester The Life of St. Werbnrge is the work of Bradshaw's life, finished only shortly before his death. This saint was called the Patroness of Chester1 (ii. She was the patroness of Bradshaw's abbey, where her bones rested. Local saints at that time were the chief glory of their respective places, their legend a subject of the deepest local interest; to have their legend in Latin, or in the vernacular tongue, was the chief object of local ambition.2 Most of the Latin Vitae are due to this local interest. The original Life was often subsequently enlarged by the history of the translation, by additions and appendices containing more recent local miracles. English literature abounds not only in legends, but in local legends in prose and verse, written in the ah sence of a Latin life, or when that was deemed insufficient, as being intelligible to the clergy alone, or deficient and inadequate in style. Lydgate's Edmund and Fremund, and Albon and Amphabell, were the standard works of this kind in the preceding century. There were others which com binod the legend of the saint with the history of the town or monastery where he rested.3 So Bradshaw undertook to write the life of his local saint, a task for which he was eminently qualified, both by inclination, parts, and studies. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.