Quickly a little wooden chapel was built on the spot where now stands the great minster of York, and within its walls Edwin and many others were taught the Christian faith. On Easter Eve, in the year 627, he was baptized. Many of his nobles as well as members of his family were baptized with him. Amongst them was a young girl, his great-niece, the Princess Hilda, then fourteen years old. We do not know anything about Hilda’s life as a child nor for some years after her baptism. Her mother and her sister were also early converts to Christianity. In some way Hilda must have continued her Christian education, most probably she lived at a religious settlement in the north, and was busy in some sort of work for the Church. In those days all girls either married or entered a convent of some kind. Hilda, a member of a royal family, would certainly have been sought in marriage had it not been known that she had in some way given herself to a religious life. Many royal ladies were founders of convents. They received grants of land from their fathers or brothers and gathered round them those who wished to live in peace, away from all the fighting and disturbance of the world. Many royal ladies retired into convents after their husband’s death, or sometimes even during their husband’s lifetime. In the convents they could study, or do beautiful embroidery for the churches, care for the sick and aged, or teach the children. It was considered the holiest life that a woman could lead: those men, too, who wished to lead quiet lives and to spend their days in study rather than in fighting could only do so by retiring into a convent. If it had not been for the convents in early times there would have been no books, no learning, no art or industry. It was by the people who lived in the convents that the land was drained and cultivated, and that sheep and oxen were reared. France had become Christian earlier than England, so there were more famous convents there, and ladies belonging to the English royal families used to go over to the French convents to be educated, and often retired to them to end their days.