St Æthelthryth was an early medieval English saint whose shrine at Ely was the subject of veneration from when her tomb was opened in 695, whereupon her body was found to be incorrupt and a tumour on her neck had miraculously healed, until her relics were removed over eight centuries later during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. During this time, the fortunes of the monastic community at Ely were inextricably linked to those of its saint and her influence formed an integral part of how it dealt with events that impacted it. Evidence of her influence occurs in a variety of forms: textual, archaeological, material, documentary, and cartographic, and when considered together they paint a picture of the foundation’s fluctuating fortunes throughout the Middle Ages. GIS techniques have been employed within my PhD research on the range of source types to illustrate the extent of Æthelthryth’s cult’s influence, both geographically and chronologically, across its eight-hundred-year existence, and to determine the extent of her shrine’s popularity as a pilgrimage destination. This paper will demonstrate how the GIS has been used within my research to store, visualise, and analyse the plethora of data I collected relating to Æthelthryth. The application of the GIS enabled me to identify hitherto unrecognised patterns in and links between the sources that revealed insights into how Æthelthryth’s cult spread geographically from its epicentre at Ely and how its spheres of influence were defined and evolved across the cult’s lifetime. Finally, I will demonstrate how the GIS was used to identify a number of possible routes which pilgrims would have used to travel to sites where veneration of Æthelthryth would have taken place.
Keywords: Cults of Saints, Medieval Pilgrimage, GIS