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Disputed episcopacy: Bede, Acca, and the relationship between Stephen's Life of St Wilfrid and the early prose Lives of St Cuthbert

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2013

Clare Stancliffe
Clare Stancliffe*
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Abstract

This article investigates the relationship of the Wilfrid and Cuthbert Lives, confirming that Bede re-presented the life of Cuthbert in response to Wilfridian criticism. It then examines why that was necessary c. 720, arguing that it fits not just with a probable episcopal interregnum at Lindisfarne after Eadfrith's death, as suggested by Kirby, but also with Acca's promotion of St Oswald and Heavenfield, which undercut Lindisfarne's cult of St Cuthbert and status as the mother church of Bernicia. At stake were both Lindisfarne's survival as an episcopal see and its distinctive type of monkbishops. These represented a different model of episcopacy, championed by Bede, from that espoused by the Wilfridians.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 41 , December 2012 , pp. 7 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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