Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T13:09:55.108Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The pre-Viking age church in East Anglia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2017

Dorothy Whitelock
Dorothy Whitelock
Affiliation:
Cambridge, England
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is well known that sources for the Anglo-Saxon period are unevenly distributed, and that we are particularly badly off for reliable evidence relating to East Anglia, especially in the period before the Viking raids and settlements. The main reason for this lies in the effects of those raids and settlements, for not only were the monasteries destroyed, but the two East Anglian sees of Dommoc and Elmham ceased to exist, and only Elmham was restored, and not, as far as our evidence goes, much before 955. Henceforward there was only one bishop for the whole of East Anglia, though at times it appears to have had a centre for Suffolk at Hoxne as well as one at Elmham. The East Anglian see was transferred to Thetford in 1071–2, and eventually about 1095 to Norwich. With such breaks in continuity it is not to be wondered that no pre-Viking age manuscripts or charters have come down by preservation in East Anglian churches, and it is doubtful how far any information in post-Conquest writers is likely to go back on genuine tradition. What we know about the early church in East Anglia comes from evidence preserved elsewhere, except in as far as the finds at Sutton Hoo have implications concerning the conversion of this kingdom. Our main source is Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica, but this can be supplemented by some pieces of evidence from other sources, and it may be worth while to assemble these and study their implications.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 1 , January 1972 , pp. 1 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Page 1 note 1 The profession of Athulf, bishop of Elmham, to Oda, archbishop of Canterbury from 941 to 958, is extant, though the name is wrongly given as Eadulf (BCS 918). His first recorded attestation is in 955 (BCS 917). Previously part, at least, of East Anglia had been administered by Theodred, bishop of London, whose signatures occur from 926 to 951. See Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. D. Whitelock (Cambridge, 1930), p. 99.Google Scholar

Page 1 note 2 Ibid. p. 102.

Page 1 note 3 See Dodwell, B., ‘The Foundation of Norwich Cathedral’, TRHS 5th ser. 7 (1957), 1–18.Google Scholar

Page 1 note 4 On the unreliability of post-Conquest writers about East Anglia, see below, p. 11, n. 1, and Whitelock, D., ‘Fact and Fiction in the Legend of St Edmund’, Proc. of the Suffolk Inst. of Archaeology 31 (1969), 217–33Google Scholar. It is possible that the twelfth-century Liber Eliensis may occasionally preserve a correct tradition, but one cannot be certain, and some of its information is contrary to earlier sources. Seeing that some reliable early documents were available at Peterborough after the Conquest (see below, p. 15) one cannot pronounce it impossible for any to have survived at other destroyed houses, such as Ely; but nothing is quoted with the detail which allowed the Peterborough information to be accepted as genuine. Hence it seems best to use only pre-Conquest evidence in the body of this article, and to relegate to footnotes later claims. These have too often been repeated without indication of their sources as if they were established fact.

Page 1 note 5 Since numismatists no longer maintain that this richly furnished heathen burial must be dated after the middle of the seventh century, but allow a date much earlier, perhaps in the time of Rædwald, the presence of some Christian objects in heathen surroundings presents no great difficulty.

Architectural remains tell us practically nothing about early East Anglia. It is suggested that the ruins of South Elmham may be a little before the Danish Conquest, and that there may be evidence that those at North Elmham were of a church rebuilt on one dating from the seventh century (see Taylor, H. M. and Taylor, Joan, Anglo-Saxon Architecture (Cambridge, 1965), pp. 228–33)Google Scholar. But excavation is in progress at North Elmham, and an interim report by Wade-Martins, P. is published in Norfolk Archaeology 34 (1969), 352–97.Google Scholar

Page 2 note 1 The following abbreviations are used: BCS = Cartularium Saxonicum, ed. W. de G. Birch (London, 1885–1893)Google Scholar; Councils = Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland, ed. A. W. Haddan and W. Stubbs (Oxford, 1869–1878)Google Scholar; EHD = English Historical Documents c. 500–1042, ed. D. Whitelock (London, 1955)Google Scholar; FW = Florentii Wigorniensis Monachi Chronicon ex Chronicis, ed. B. Thorpe (London, 1848–1849)Google Scholar; HE = Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, quoted by book and chapter; LE = Liber Eliensis, ed. E. O. Blake (London, 1962)Google Scholar; MGH = Monumenta Germaniae Historica; WM = William of Malmesbury: GP = De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum, ed. N. E. S. A. Hamilton, Rolls Series (1870)Google Scholar; GR = De Gestis Regum Anglorum, ed. W. Stubbs, RS (1887–1889).Google Scholar

Page 2 note 2 Below, pp. 10–11.

Page 2 note 3 HE 111. 19.

Page 2 note 4 Below, p. 9.

Page 2 note 5 HE iv. 23. On her husband's name, see Stenton, F.M., ‘The East Anglian Kings of the Seventh Century’, The Anglo-Saxons: Studies in some Aspects of their History and Culture presented to Bruce Dickins, ed. Clemoes, P. (London, 1959), pp. 48–9Google Scholar; repr. Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon England, ed. D. M. Stenton (Oxford, 1970), pp. 398–9.Google Scholar

Page 3 note 1 HE 11. 15.

Page 3 note 2 HE iv. 23.

Page 3 note 3 HE iv. 19.

Page 3 note 4 HE iv. 3. But Imma, a thegn of Ælfwine, King Ecgfrith's brother, who had previously been a thegn of Æthelthryth, could not have come with her from East Anglia, for he was a youth at the time of his capture at the battle of the Trent in 678 (HE iv. 22).

Page 3 note 5 HE 11. 15.

Page 3 note 6 The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great, ed. B. Colgrave (Lawrence, 1968), p. 100.Google Scholar

Page 3 note 7 LE (p. 4) even brings Augustine himself into these regions. It repeats a tradition that there had been a villa at Cratendun about a mile from Ely, where utensils of iron and coins of kings were often found. It says that Æthelthryth first chose a dwelling there, but moved to a higher site, and that there was a monastery, founded by St Augustine and dedicated to St Mary, which was destroyed by Penda's army. On p. 33 it says that Æthelthryth laboured to restore it, adorning it with monastic buildings.

Page 3 note 8 HE 11. 15.

Page 3 note 9 FW (1, 260) and WM (GR 1, 97) make Sigeberht Earpwald's half-brother, on the mother's side, but this is not in Bede.

Page 4 note 1 HE 11. 15 and 111. 18.

Page 4 note 2 Dommoc, as in the Leningrad and Tiberius C. ii manuscripts of Bede, and in the Old English version, is the best recorded form. It used confidently to be identified as Dunwich, but Rigold, S. E., in ‘The Supposed See of Dunwich’, JBAA 3rd ser. 14 (1961), 55–9Google Scholar, makes a case for Felixstowe, with which it was identified in 1298 by Bartholomew Cotton, a Suffolk man. Since in Bede and the record of the synod of Clofeshob of 803 (BCS 312) it is called a civitas, it must have been on a Roman site, and Rigold suggests that this was Walton Castle, a Saxon Shore fort about half a mile from Felixstowe, destroyed by the sea in the eighteenth century. Dommoc does not easily become Dun. Rigold says that, apart from one twelfth-century manuscript of William of Malmesbury's Gesta Pontificum, Thomas of Elmham in the fifteenth century is the first to equate it with Dunwich. But one should also pay attention to the tradition preserved at the priory of Eye. This was founded in the reign of William I, and its foundation charter gives it ‘all the churches which then existed or might subsequently be erected in the town of Donevic … and also the schools there’ (Dugdale, Monasticon 111, 404–6). The priory established a cell at Dunwich, which was destroyed by the sea. Leland, who equates Dunwich with Felix's see at Dunmoc, says that in his day the priory of Eye had a gospel book, known as the Red Book of Eye, on which people took oaths, and that the monks affirmed that it had belonged to Felix, which suggests that they connected the cell they had had in Dunwich with Felix's see. Leland thinks the claim probable: ‘Nam præterquam quod sit scriptus litteris majusculis Longobardicis, refert vetustatem mire venerandum’ (De Rebus Britannicis Collectanea, ed. T. Hearne (London, 1770) iv, 26–7)Google Scholar. The identification of this manuscript with fragmentary gospels in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 197, based on a statement by Bishop Tanner in Bibliotheca Britannica, s.v. Faelix, has been shown improbable by James, M. R., The Sources of Archbishop Parker's Collection of Manuscripts at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Cambridge, 1899), pp. 6–9Google Scholar. The seal of Æthelwald, bishop of Dommoc (see below, p. 18) was found near the priory of Eye. Another argument in favour of Dunwich, which I owe to Mr D. Charman, is the fact that the Quo Warranto Inquest Roll speaks of carrying services owed by sokemen of South Elmham, which was a manor of the bishops of East Anglia from pre-Conquest times, to Dunwich.

Page 4 note 3 WM (GP, p. 147) says that Felix founded schools. He says that he died at Dommoc and was translated to Seham, where there were in William's day traces of a church burnt by the Danes, and later (p. 15 3) he calls it an episcopal see. LE (p. 17) agrees in the place of burial, saying that there was a great and famous monastery there, founded by a venerable clito called Lutting, under Abbot Wereferd. The author claims an English source, which has not come down, when he says that Felix founded a monastery at Seham and a church at Redham (probably Reedham, Norfolk); Seham was destroyed by the Danes along with Ely after the martyrdom of King Edmund. Their description shows that both WM and LE mean by Seham the Cambridgeshire Soham; A. Jessopp (‘Norwich’, Diocesan Histories (London, 1884), p. 11, n. 1Google Scholar) mentions ‘traditions of a later age’ that Felix established a school at Norfolk, Saham Tony. Chronicon Abbatiæ Rameseiensis (ed. Macray, W. D., RS (1886), p. 127Google Scholar) describes the translation of the bones of St Felix from Soham to Ramsey.

Page 4 note 4 LE (p. 11), in an entry interlined in the oldest manuscript, says this monastery was at Betrichesworde (later Bury St Edmund's). This, if true, would help to explain the choice of this place for the translation of St Edmund's body later on.

Page 4 note 5 HE 111. 18.

Page 5 note 1 ‘The First Century of Christianity in England’, Ampleforth Jnl 76 (1971), 16–29.Google Scholar

Page 5 note 2 FW 1, 17; WM, GP, p. 147.

Page 5 note 3 HE 111. 25.

Page 5 note 4 Excavations at Burgh Castle have revealed a Christian cemetery and some early plaster and postholes of a wooden building; see Taylor and Taylor, Anglo-Saxon Architecture, p. 118.

Page 5 note 5 An apocryphal story in an Irish source, probably of the ninth century, The Monastery of Tallaght (ed. Gwynn, E. J. and Purton, W. J., Proc. of the R. Irish Acad. 29 (1911–1912), 134)Google Scholar, says that Fursa was given land by the daughter of ‘the king of the eastern country’. She asked him: ‘What manner of man art thou?’ ‘Like an old smith’, he said, ‘with his anvil on his shoulder.’ ‘The anvil of devotion’, said she. ‘Perseverance in holiness’, said he. ‘A question’, said she: ‘if God should give thee a block where thine anvil might be planted, wouldst thou abide there?’ ‘It would be likely indeed’, said he. Then she bestowed on him the spot where he was.

Page 5 note 6 HE 111. 19. The version of the Vita Fursei used by Bede was very similar to that edited by B. Krusch, MGH, Script. Rer. Merov. 4, 434–40.

Page 5 note 7 A ninth-century work, Virtutes Fursei (ed. B. Krusch, Ibid. p. 441) makes the claim that Fursa constructed monasteries and churches and established monks and virgins for the service of the Lord.

Page 6 note 1 According to the Virtutes Fursei (p. 445) Fursa died at Mézerolles in Ponthieu, on his way to revisit his brothers Foillan and Ultan in England.

Page 6 note 2 Additamentuni Nivialense de Foillano, discussed by Grosjean, P. in AB 78 (1960), 365–9.Google Scholar

Page 6 note 3 HE 111. 18.

Page 6 note 4 The date 637 given by LE (p. 11) is certainly too early.

Page 7 note 1 HE 111. 20.

Page 7 note 2 HE iv. 6.

Page 7 note 3 F. Liebermann, Die Heiligen Englands (Hannover, 1889), p. 11. This tract seems first to have been compiled in the late tenth century.

Page 7 note 4 BCS 297, 297A and 297B. This list was drawn up in the time of one of the Mercian overlords, Wulfhere, Æthelbald or Offa, and survives in Old English in BM Harley 3271, of the first half of the eleventh century, and in Latin in some post-Conquest manuscripts. Many of the names are corrupt. See Stenton, F. M., Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1971), p. 296Google Scholar, and Hart, C., ‘The Tribal Hidage’, TRHS 5th ser. 21 (1971), 133–57.Google Scholar

Page 7 note 5 HE iv. 19.

Page 7 note 6 LE, pp. 4, 15 and 32.

Page 7 note 7 HE iv. 19.

Page 7 note 8 See the discussion by Chadwick, H. M., The Origin of the English Nation (Cambridge, 1907), pp. 7–8Google Scholar and by Miller, E., The Abbey and Bisbopric of Ely (Cambridge, 1951), p. 11.Google ScholarLE(p. 3) says: ‘Girvii sunt omnes Australes Angli in magna palude habitantes, in qua est insula de Ely, sed verius secundum Bede attestationem de provincia est Orientalium Anglorum in eiusdem ingressu provincie sita.’

Page 7 note 9 The South and North Gyrwe are mentioned after the people of Lindsey, with Hatfield Chase. They are followed by the East and West Wixna, whom Hart would identify with the provincia Wissa mentioned in the Life of Guthlac by Felix, a name which can be connected with Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, and the river names Wissey and Ouse. Next come the Spalda, normally connected with Spalding, Lincolnshire, the Wigesta, the Herefinna and the Sweord ora, of whom the last two were tentatively connected by Stenton with the later Hurstingstone hundred in Huntingdonshire and Sword Point on the edge of Whittlesey Mere. Then, with the Gifle and the Hicce, the area near the River Ivel and Hitchin is reached.

Page 7 note 10 Felix's Life of St Guthlac (ed. B. Colgrave (Cambridge, 1956), pp. 142–7)Google Scholar depicts Headda, bishop of Mercia and Middle Anglia, coming on an episcopal visitation, and ordaining Guthlac priest and consecrating his church. In later times, Ely also was in the Middle Anglian diocese, with its see at Dorchester on Thames and later at Lincoln. The abbey of Ely, which claimed independence of diocesan control, used to invite the bishops of East Anglia to perform episcopal functions for them, rather than the bishop of the diocese.

Page 7 note 11 Certainly they would be part of the imperium exercised by Rædwald. Presumably Penda absorbed them before he attacked East Anglia, but after his death in 654 Wulfhere may not have at once recovered all that his father had held.

Page 8 note 1 If one could accept the stories in LE of Augustine's monastery at Cratendun (see above, p. 3, n. 7), and Felix's activity at Soham (see above, p. 4, n. 3), we should have evidence for activity in the Cambridge area before the conversion of the midlands by the Celtic missionaries was begun.

Page 8 note 2 HE 111. 20.

Page 8 note 3 HE iv. 5.

Page 8 note 4 Ibid.

Page 8 note 5 It is now generally accepted that this is North Elmham, Norfolk, not South Elmham, Suffolk. It was normal for Anglo-Saxon sees to follow tribal divisions, and Theodore would be likely to wish to give a see to each of the East Anglian ‘folks’. Both North Elmham and South Elmham became important manors of the bishops of East Anglia. See Dodwell, B., ‘The Honour of the Bishop of Thetford/Norwich in the Later Eleventh and Early Twelfth Centuries’, Norfolk Archaeology 33 (1963–1965), 185–99Google Scholar and Charman, Derek, South Elmham in the Thirteenth Century (Suffolk Records Society, 1971).Google Scholar

Page 8 note 6 HE v. 23.

Page 8 note 7 HE 111. 8 and iv. 19.

Page 8 note 8 Bede does not mention Wihtburg, claimed as a daughter of Anna in The Resting-Places of the English Saints (Liebermann, , Die Heiligen Englands, p. 5)Google Scholar. Her body was then at Ely, to which it had been translated in Edgar's reign from Dereham, where, according to LE (pp. 13 and 120–3), sne had been a solitary.

Page 8 note 9 Above, p. 3.

Page 8 note 10 HE 111. 19.

Page 9 note 1 LE (p. 18) adds that he was baptized by Felix, Anna standing as sponsor, and that he recovered his kingdom with Anna's help.

LE gives extra information on Anna: it mentions (pp. 281–2) a church built by him on the borders of the Britons and the English (see below, p. 12, n. 3) and it says (p. 18) that he was buried at Blythburgh and venerated there ‘until this day’, and that his son lurminus was also buried there, but afterwards translated to Betricheswrde. There is no early evidence for the existence of this son. WM (GP, p. 156) calls him Germamts and says he was buried at Bury St Edmund's. On his translation in 1095, see below.p. 10, n. 3. LE(p. 13) mistakenly makes Anna the husband of Hereswith and hence the father of King Aldwulf.

Page 9 note 2 HE 111. 22. LE (p. 19) attributes Swithhelm's conversion to the persuasion of Æthelwald, whom he often visited.

Page 9 note 3 ‘Wert und Echtheit einer Beda abgesprochenen Schrift’, Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenscbaften (München, ), Philos.-philol. und hist. Klasse, 1919, Abhandlung 4.Google Scholar

Page 9 note 4 Museum Plantin-Moretus no. 126. See Levison, W., England and the Continent in the Eighth Century (Oxford, 1946), pp. 133–4.Google Scholar

Page 10 note 1 On an ancient text of the gospels which survived until the sixteenth century and was held to have belonged to Bishop Felix, see above, p. 4, n. 2.

Page 10 note 2 Venerabilis Baedae Opera Historica, ed. C. Plummer (Oxford, 1896) 1, 389Google Scholar; trans. EHD, p. 698.

Page 10 note 3 Iken, Suffolk, has been suggested, e.g. by J. C. Cox, in Victoria County History of Suffolk 11, 7, by Stevenson, F. S., ‘St Botolph (Botwulf) and Iken’, Proc. of the Suffolk Inst. of Archaeology 18 (1924), 29–52Google Scholar, and by Whitley, W. T., ‘Ycean-ho’, JBAA n.s. 36 (1931), 233–8Google Scholar, but these use uncritically the late Lives of St Botulf. A twelfth-century charter of Nigel, bishop of Ely (LE, p. 336), granting Hadstock to Ely, says: ‘locus ille antique religioni sub beato Botulfo abbate Ibidem quiescente fuerat consecratus.’ Hadstock is in Essex, but near the boundaries of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. Its older name was Cadenho, and it is dedicated to St Botulf. It looks as if Nigel thought that Botulf had had a monastery there, but whether rightly or not cannot be ascertained. Other places were claiming his relics long before this time: The Resting-P laces of the English Saints says in one place that he ‘rests in Thorney’, and in another that he is buried in Medeshamstede (Liebermann, , Die Heiligen Englands, pp. 11 and 15)Google Scholar; the version of this tract in The Chronicle of Hugh Candidus (ed. W. T. Mellows (London, 1949), p. 63Google Scholar) includes ‘St Botulf the abbot’ among saints at Thorney, but on p. 60 puts ‘St Botulf the bishop’ at Bury St Edmunds; WM (GP, p. 15 6) says he is buried at Bury, along with St Germanus, and that nothing is known about him except that he is said to have been a bishop. His remains and those of St Jurmin are said to have been translated at Bury in 1095 (Memorials of St Edmund's Abbey, ed. T. Arnold, RS (1890), 1, 352)Google Scholar. It may be these conflicting claims that gave rise to the story that St Æthelwold asked for the bodies of saints lying in destroyed places, and that the king had the relics of Botulf from Icanho divided into three, giving the head to Ely, the middle parts to Thorney, and keeping the rest in the royal shrine. These were eventually given to Westminster (Acta Sanctorum, 3rd ed. (1867), June, iv, 324 and 330). LE (p. 222) claims that Ely had the head and larger bones but that these were robbed and taken to Winchester soon after 1093. This is hard to reconcile with Bishop Nigel's charter on Hadstock. Botulf became a very popular saint, and dedications to him are wide-spread; his name occurs, besides in Boston, first recorded in 1130, in Botesdale, Suffolk, recorded in 1275.

Page 11 note 1 The printed versions of the Life, Acta Sanctorum ordinis S. Benedicti, ed. J. Mabillon (Paris, 1668–1701) 111, 1–7Google Scholar, and Acta Sanctorum, 3rd ed., June, iv, 326–9, do not include the preface which shows the author to be Folcard; this is given in Hardy, T. D., Descriptive Catalogue of Materials relating to the History of Great Britain and Ireland, RS (1862), 1, 373–4Google Scholar. Folcard makes Botulf meet at a continental house the sisters of a king of the ‘South Angles’, Edelmund, who, with his mother, Sywara, is unknown to history. Folcard may have had in mind Bede's mention of English royal ladies at continental houses. Nor does it inspire confidence that he sends Botulf with his brother Adulph to the ancient Saxon stock in Saxonia (as yet unconverted) to learn further about the Christian faith, and makes Adulph become bishop of Utrecht in the days before the mission to Frisia. The kings Adelherus and Adelwoldus, whom he calls kinsmen of Edelmund, are willing to give estates to Botulf, but he will only accept waste or ownerless lands, not wishing anyone to be expelled by royal violence. After founding Ykanno in a desert spot, he (like St Guthlac) is troubled by demons. He was loved by all, including the Scots, the neighbours of his country. The one correct thing in this account is that Æthel here and Æthelwald were kings of East Anglia at the required time; but Folcard could have seen from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that Anna was killed in the year in which Botulf began to build Icanho, and Æthelhere in the next year. He could have got the name of Æthelwald from Bede or some regnal list. Further absurdities occur in the Slesvig Breviary (Acta Sanctorum, 3rd ed., June, iv, 329): Botulf is of the line of the kings of the Scots, and comes to England from the Scots, to be received by Edmund, king of England; after seven years he receives a beautiful spot and builds a church, but is troubled by unclean spirits, and leaves to found a church dedicated to St Martin by the Thames. Thirteen years later he asks for another place, and builds in a solitude far from the sea two churches in honour of St Peter and St Paul. Then he goes to Rome, returning with many relics.

Page 12 note 1 ‘The Liber Confortatorius of Goscelin of St Bertin’, Studio Anselmiana 37 (1955), p. 8, n. 42Google Scholar and p. 18, n. 89, where attention is called to the BM Additional MS 34633.

Page 12 note 2 The Early Charters of the West Midlands (Leicester, 1961), pp. 197–216Google Scholar. lam not convinced that the narrative embodying the charters is authentic.

Page 12 note 3 In a letter to the monks of Ely (LE, pp. 281–2; The Letters of Osbert of Clare, ed. E. W. Williamson (Oxford, 1929), no. 33)Google Scholar Osbert of Clare relates a vision of St Æthelthryth seen at a church dedicated to her on the borders of the Britons and the English. He claims that a little wooden church was built there, in the province of the Mercians, by Anna, king of the East Angles. He tells the story on the authority of Osbert, prior of Daventry, a monk of Cluny, who had then become a canon of Brommiensis campi ecclesia, and who was wont to relate it when he was distributing alms in the congregation of clerics of St Mildburg, as he had learnt it from those who witnessed it. As an Osbert attests a document of 1115 as prior of Bromfield, Shropshire (Eyton, R. W., Antiquities of Shropshire (London, 1854–1860) v, 210)Google Scholar, and there is evidence that Wenlock Priory had rights to a share of the income of Bromfield church (Ibid, v, 216), it is clear that Brommiensis campi is Bromfield, not Bromholm, Norfolk, as hitherto supposed. While it is impossible that Anna should found a church on the far side of heathen Mercia, it is of interest that there was a belief in the neighbourhood of Wenlock in the early twelfth century that East Anglia had played a part in the early history of the church in this area. It shows also that a dedication to St Æthelthryth on the Welsh borders was at least as early as this account. Williamson notes that Hyssington, Shropshire, has a dedication to her.

Page 13 note 1 ‘Medeshamstede and its Colonies’, Historical Essays in Honour of James Tait (Manchester, 1933), pp. 313–26Google Scholar; repr. Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon England, ed. D. M. Stenton, pp. 179–92.Google Scholar

Page 13 note 2 HE v. 23.

Page 13 note 3 Ed. Wright, Thomas, Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets and Epigrammatists of the Twelfth Century, RS (1872), 11, 525–34.Google Scholar

Page 13 note 4 See Clapham, A. W., ‘The Carved Stones at Breedon-on-the-Hill’, Archaeologia 77 (1928), 219–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Kendrick, T. D., Anglo-Saxon Art (London, 1938), pp. 171–8.Google Scholar

Page 13 note 5 Ed. W. T. Mellows, p. 15. There is no need to suppose that this Cuthbald is the same as the Cuthbald (HE v. 19, where the Moore manuscript reads Cudualdi and Leningrad and Tiberius C. ii read Cudbaldi) who was abbot of Wilfrid's monastery in Oundle in 709. The name is not uncommon. Mellows's suggestion (p. 22 n.) that Wilfrid's monastery in the province of Oundle was actually Peterborough is very improbable.

Page 13 note 6 Stenton, F. M., Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed., pp. 111–12.Google Scholar

Page 13 note 7 Another important influence was that of Wilfrid, who, though a Northumbrian, was a passionate opponent of Celtic practices. He founded several monasteries in Mercian territory about 665, and he administered the diocese of Middle Anglia from 691 to 702. We know the names of four of his abbots in 709, but the name of only one foundation, Oundle. He had much influence over Æthelthryth. LE (p. 37) claims that he stayed with her before going to Rome in 677, and Bede (HE iv. 19) implies that he was at Ely some time after 695. The influence of Ely must have spread into the midlands if the Ely tradition (LE, pp. 32, 35, 42 and 52) is correct in making Werburg, daughter of Wulfhere of Mercia and Eormenhild, become a nun at Ely. She left to rule many monasteries, including Hanbury in Staffordshire and Threckingham in Kesteven. LE (p. 52) says she returned to succeed her mother as abbess of Ely.

Page 14 note 1 Ed. W. T. Mellows, p. 9.

Page 14 note 2 HE iv. 6.

Page 14 note 3 On the spurious accounts of the foundation of Peterborough, see Hugh Candidus, ed. W. T. Mellows, pp. 7–22, and the twelfth-century additions to the Peterborough manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Laud Misc. 636) s.aa. 654, 656 and 675.

Page 14 note 4 Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed., p. 125.

Page note 5 HE iv. 19.

Page 14 note 6 LE, pp. 14–15.

Page 14 note 7 HE iv. 19.

Page 15 note 1 If the papal letter given by WM (GP, pp. 52–3) can be accepted, it shows an East Anglian king, Aldwulf, being addressed along with Æthelred (of Mercia) and Aldfrith (of Northumbria) by Pope Sergius in about 693, asking them to receive Berhtwald as primate. Stubbs regarded it as questionable; see Councils 111, 229–31. The absence of any king of Kent might show uncertainty as to who was effective king, for after a period of ‘doubtful or foreign kings’, Wihtred and Swæfheard were sharing the rule (HE iv. 26 and v. 8); Ine of Wessex may have been excluded because he was at war with Kent about that time.

Page 15 note 2 See below, pp. 19–20.

Page 15 note 3 Symeoni Monachi Opera Omnia, ed. T. Arnold, RS (1882–1885), 11, 31–2.Google Scholar

Page 15 note 4 See below, p. 18.

Page 15 note 5 Guthlac's cult spread rapidly. One of the two Old English poems on him, Guthlac A, Assigned to the eighth century, seems the work of a poet unfamiliar with fenland scenery.

Page 15 note 6 The best edition is that of Colgrave, B., Felix's Life of St Guthlac (Cambridge, 1956)Google Scholar, whose work on the sources has been drawn on in what follows.

Page 15 note 7 The date 747, sometimes given for his accession, comes from a mistake in the Chronicle of Melrose, which calls Selred, whom the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records as killed in 746, estanglorum rex. He was a king of the East Saxons.

Page 15 note 8 Ed. B. Colgrave, pp. 70, 146 and 156. LE (p. 19) calls her abbess of Repton, possibly from a memory that an abbess of this house is mentioned by Felix. It is sometimes stated, without any reference given, that she had two sisters, Æthelburg and Hwætburg, who became abbesses of Hackness, Yorkshire. This goes no further back than 1875, when D. H. Haigh published in the Yorkshire Archaeol. Jnl 3, 349–91, a theory based partly on his own highly conjectural interpretation of an inscription at Hackness and partly on a series of improbable identifications.

Page 16 note 1 See above, p. 7, n. 10.

Page 16 note 2 Die Briefe des heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, ed. M. Tangl, MGH, Epist. Sel. 1, 181–2. Tangl notes two quotations from Latin poems sent to Aldhelm. See Aldelmi Opera, ed. R. Ehwald, MGH, Auct. Ant. 15, p. 524, line 3 and p. 535, lines 183–4.

Page 16 note 3 Ely preserved no memory of abbesses after Werburg (see above, p. 13, n. 7). Possibly it was Ecgburg‘s nunnery, for if so, this would continue the practice of keeping it in the family; she was daughter of Æthelthryth's cousin, King Aldwulf, who helped in the foundation.

Page 16 note 4 BCS 312.

Page 17 note 1 See Appendix, below, pp. 19–22.

Page 17 note 2 Councils 111, 362–76.

Page 17 note 3 Councils 111, 447–62; there is a better edition by E. Dümmler, MGH, Epist. 4, no. 3; trans. EHD, no. 191.

Page 17 note 4 BCS 312.

Page 17 note 5 BCS 358; Councils 111, 579–85.

Page 17 note 6 Ed. E. Dümmler, no. 301.

Page 17 note 7 Ibid. no. 302.

Page 17 note 8 BCS 379.

Page 17 note 9 BCS 384 and 386.

Page 18 note 1 At first sight, two charters in the name of Beorhtwulf of Mercia appear to contradict this; BCS 450, issued at Tamworth on Christmas Day 845 (by which 844 is intended, the year beginning at Christmas), is attested by Hunberht episcopus, and Wibtred episcopus; but Hunberht is probably an error for Tunberht of Lichfield, which see would otherwise be unrepresented, and Wihtred, the last of the episcopal attestations, is far more probably an error for Wibtred abbas than for Willred episcopus. Abbot Wihtred attests frequently Mercian charters from 816 on, and in several texts, including three of 841, he heads the list of abbots. BCS 428 is an undated charter almost identical with BCS 450, and shares these errors in the witness-list. Both texts are from the same cartulary.

Page 18 note 2 BCS 421.

Page 18 note 3 BCS 448.

Page 18 note 4 BCS 286.

Page 18 note 5 BCS 375.

Page 18 note 6 BCS 528.

Page 18 note 7 See below, p. 21, n. 6.

Page 18 note 8 See Wilson, D. M., Anglo-Saxon Ornamental Metalwork 700–1100 in the British Museum (London, 1964), pl. xvii and pp. 79–81 and 131.Google Scholar

Page 18 note 9 See Asser'sLife of King Alfred, ed. W. H. Stevenson (Oxford, 1904; repr. 1959 with contr. by D. Whitelock), p. 131.Google Scholar

Page 18 note 10 E.g. Rogeri de Wendover Chronica, ed. H. O. Coxe (London, 1841) 1, 308.Google Scholar

Page 18 note 11 Passio Sancti Eadmundi, in Memorials of St Edmund's Abbey 1, 11.

Page 18 note 12 Symeoni Monachi Opera Omnia 1, 55 and 11, 107.

Page 19 note 1 GP, p. 148.

Page 19 note 2 To those already mentioned one can add the story in John of Brompton that before the Danes came a chapel in honour of St Benedict had been built by a hermit called Suneman, on the site of the later abbey of Holme, Norfolk, and had attracted other persons to it (Dugdale, Monasticon 111, 61); or the claim that Seaxwulf founded a community of hermits in Ancarig (later Thorney) (Hugh Candidus, ed. W. T. Mellows, pp. 12 and 42; cf. the spurious Thorney foundation charter, BCS 1297).

Page note 3 FW, 1, 233.

Page 19 note 4 GP, pp. 147–8.

Page 19 note 5 See Sisam, K., ‘Anglo-Saxon Royal Genealogies’, Proc. of the Brit. Acad. 39 (1953), 289, 291, 308–9, 323–4 and 328Google Scholar; and, for the episcopal lists in this manuscript and in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 183 and BM Cotton Tiberius B. v, see Page, R. I., ‘Anglo-Saxon Episcopal Lists’, Nottingham Med. Stud. 9 (1965), 71–95 and 10 (1966), 2–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 20 note 1 A Crowland forgery, BCS 409, allegedly of 833, which calls Hunberht Helm’ episcopus and Wilred Dommoceruis episcopus, may have used FW's lists.

Page 20 note 2 FW agrees with these lists except that in the Elmham list he puts Hunferth instead of Alhheard, thus having two bishops of this name, one before and one after Sibba. WM, who arranges the bishops in contemporary pairs, tries to remedy this error, but it is the second, instead of the first, Hunferth, whom he replaces by Alhheard. He writes Sigga for Sibba and Edredus for Eardred.

Page 20 note 3 An Acca episcopus appears at a synod alleged in BCS 91 to have met at Clofeshoh in 716, but he is probably Acca of Hexham, since in 716 Northumbria was not a separate province. If so, Dommoc may be represented by Hærdred (iot Eardred); Nothberht of Elmham was present. The charter is not free from suspicion, and the list includes two successive bishops of Lichfield, Headda and Wor; yet it is possible that Headda had retired.

Page 20 note 4 See preceding note.

Page 20 note 5 See above, p. 9.

Page 20 note 6 It has too many episcopal signatories, fifteen for eleven sees. If we allot Eanfrith to Elmham and Ecglaf, who follows immediately, to Dommoc, we are left with the following unidentified bishops: Huetlac, whom Stubbs (Councils 111, 342) took as the Heathulac who held Elmham in 731; Eðelfrid, whom he identifies as Heathulac's successor in 736, and Redwulf, which he suggests is meant for Eardwulf (i.e. Heardwulf) of Dommoc, who attended the synod of Clofeshoh in 747. Though most of the signatories are correct for 742, it appears that this list must either have been compiled from lists of different dates, or, if it is genuine, the ninth-century copy in which it survives includes some interpolated names.

Page 21 note 1 Councils 111, 362.

Page 21 note 2 See above, p. 20, n. 6.

Page 21 note 3 Councils 111, 447–61 or MGH, Epist., ed. E. Dümmler, no. 3 (a better text). On the possibility that he appears in BCS 162, see above, p. 20, n. 6.

Page 21 note 4 See above, p. 17.

Page 21 note 5 He appears also in the Crowland forgery, BCS 409, on which see above, p. 20, n. 1. He should not be identified with the Wihtred episcopus in BCS 428 and 450, on which see above, p. 18, n. 1.

Page 21 note 6 BCS 404; Select English Historical Documents of the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, ed. F. E. Harmer (Cambridge, 1914), no. 7.Google Scholar It is strange that this document should be witnessed by a bishop from East Anglia, but no other bishop of this name is recorded. Yet by this date the lists for several sees are incomplete, and there would be room for an Æthelwald at London or Selsey; the only other bishop in this deed is called Whelm (sic), and cannot be identified. As Miss Harmer points out, the transaction is not earlier than 863, if the Seferth presbyter is the Sefreth subdiaconus of BCS 507 of that year.

Page 22 note 1 See above, p. 20, n. 3.

Page 22 note 2 He may be intended by the Huetlac in BCS 162; see above, p. 20, n. 6.

Page 22 note 3 See above, p. 20, n. 6.

Page 22 note 4 This charter is wrongly dated 803 because Cynewulf of Wessex has been confused with Cenwulf of Mercia.

Page 22 note 5 See above, p. 17.

Page 22 note 6 See above, p. 21, n. 3.

Page 22 note 7 On the duplication of his name by FW see above, p. 20, n. 2.

Page 22 note 8 The name Hunberht in BCS 428 and 450 is probably an error for Tunberht (of Lichfield); see above, p. 18, n. 1.

Page 22 note 9 See above, p. 18.