Mary of Egypt, a penitent prostitute and figure of female autonomy and authority, is a disconcerting and unconventional saint, especially in an Anglo-Saxon context. She is not the kind of model of idealized female virtue normally favoured by leading churchmen in Anglo-Saxon England, and yet
her life occurs in the manuscript of lfric's Lives of Saints, probably the most influential vernacular collection of saints' lives of its period. The story...