Hild was a royal lady, niece of King Edwin of Northumbria and was baptised with him by Paulinus in 627 AD. The first half of her life was spent in travelling between the North and East Anglia, where her sister was Queen for a time; the second half was spent as a nun. Hild wanted to go to France with her sister but Aidan gave her some land for a monastery by the River Wear. She then went to Hartlepool and set up the first house for nuns in England. This, as all these foundations became, was a double house with monks in separate accommodation and ruled by an abbess. In 657 AD she founded Whitby Abbey, a double monastery following the rules of Benedict and the Irish Saint, Columbanus
The abbey would have had lots of small buildings round much larger buildings and the church, and there was communal living. The abbess was called 'mother' . The monastery had a large number of tenants because religious land was given tax relief. Monasteries in early Saxon times were like towns. Whitby was a centre of great learning. Hild encouraged education and the production of books and she insisted that priests, including five bishops were taught Latin and literature there. She encouraged Caedmon the first English poet to produce poems in his own language. Her prestige was so great that kings, rulers and ordinary people consulted her.
The Synod of Whitby (664 AD) was held under her aegis. This decided that the date of Easter should be the Roman one, not that of the Celts. Although Hild preferred the Celtic way, she realised the future lay with Rome. The dates are still the same - the Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring equinox.
Hild suffered years of illness at the end of her life. The Venerable Bede was very enthusiastic about her - "all who knew her called her Mother, such were her wonderful godliness and grace".
Fifteen northern churches were dedicated to her. Whitby was destroyed by the Danes in 800 AD but was rebuilt for monks in the 11th century. Hilda is a German name and means 'battle-maid'.