Arilda

Infobox Saint
name=Saint Arilda
birth_date=unknown
death_date=probably 5th century
feast_day=20 July
venerated_in=Roman Catholic Church; Anglican Communion


birth_place=possibly Gloucestershire or Wales
death_place=Oldbury-on-Severn, Gloucestershire
titles=Martyr
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patronage=Oldbury-on-Severn and Oldbury-on-the-Hill, Gloucestershire
major_shrine=St Peter's Abbey, Gloucester (destroyed)
suppressed_date=
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Saint Arilda a little-known female saint from Oldbury-on-Severn in the English county of Gloucestershire. She probably lived in the 5th or 6th century and may have been of either Anglo-Saxon or Welsh origin.

Arilda was a virgin martyr who, according to John Leland, was slain by a tyrant named Municus when she refused to lie with him. David Nash Ford suggests that she be identified with Afrella, the aunt of Saint Samson of Dol. [http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/bios/afrellgt.html]

Two churches in Gloucestershire are dedicated to Arilda, one at Oldbury-on-Severn near her traditional home, a second at Oldbury-on-the-Hill. Both places were called 'Aldberie' at the time of the Domesday Book, suggesting that their names may be derived from the saint.

There was a shrine to Arilda at St Peter's Abbey, Gloucester, which is now Gloucester Cathedral, but it was destroyed after the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

External links

* [http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/bios/afrellgt.html Early British Kingdoms: St. Afrella alias Arilda]