Saint Æthelflæd of Romsey (also Ælflæd and Æthelflæda) was a late tenth-century abbess of Romsey Abbey. She is recognized as the patron saint of the Abbey Church of St Mary and St Ethelflaeda (fmr. Romsey Abbey) in Romsey, England.

There is a doubtful record of a sainted daughter of King Edward the Elder (reigned 899-924) called Ælflæda of Romsey, but this is probably a confusion with Æthelflæd of Romsey.

Life Her identity is obscure, though in later stories she was said to be the daughter of a tenth-century nobleman or King Edgar of England. According to the Women in World History Encyclopedia, Æthelflæd's mother was a woman named Elfthrith (945–1002).

Æthelflæd became abbess of Romsey Abbey in c. 1003 after St. Mærwynn and Elwina according to Reverend H.G.D. Liveing's “Records of Romsey Abbey.”Perkins, Thomas (October 3, 2007). Bell's Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey. E-book edited by Jonathan Ingram, Anne Storer, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team. Project Gutenberg. She was known for "chanting psalms whilst standing naked in the River Test at night."

Her feast day is 23 October.

Æthelflæd appears in a small number of eleventh- and twelfth-century monastic calendars.

A 14th-century life of her and a predecessor as abbess, Merewenna, amongst a collection of saints lives once belonging to Romsey Abbey, is held in the British Library's Lansdowne manuscripts, MS Lansdowne 436, fols. 43v-45v. It was printed by C. Horstmann, Nova Legenda Angliae, 1901, vol I, pp. 379–381; and translated by H. Liveing, Records of Romsey, 1912, pp. 19–26.

Legacy St Ethelflaeda's tomb is in the Abbey Church's St. Ethelflaeda Chapel. The "abbess’s crozier... [is] down the side of the tombstone." The chapel also contains a late 15th century "painted panel of a kneeling priest," a statue of St Benedict, and a "list of vicars of Romsey."

The Ethelflaeda festival is held at Abbey Church in her honor. A controversial diptych of her life created in 2016 by Christopher Gollon was added to the Abbey Church in 2018.

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See also